Tony Black on the identity of the Night King…
Well now. Who saw this coming? This weeks Game of Thrones, in the middle of a season now definitively outpacing George R.R. Martin’s books, raced thick and fast toward not only some serious character development but equally some enormous revelations about the dense, fascinating mythology underpinning Westeros and the wider world in A Song of Ice and Fire. Almost out of nowhere, through the time travelling sojourns of Bran Stark, one of the most stunning revelations thundered down upon us – the White Walkers, those undead creatures of myth from The Land of Always Winter in the unknown lands beyond the Wall, were *created* by the Children of the Forest, the impish, mythical race of tree-dwellers long also considered consigned to myth and legend. It’s a stunning fact about the ancient history of the show which calls into question how accurate the stories and prophecies of ages past are, principally the primary prophecy about the winds of Winter and the coming second Long Night, of the undead invading the realms of men. Amidst these game changing revelations came some juicy hints about the main face of the White Walkers, a man famous for a thousand GIF’s since Season Five’s epic ‘Hardhome’, the Night’s King – but just who is this mysterious, silent leader of Game of Thrones‘ most terrifying foes?
It’s pretty clear the Night’s King of the TV show is a different animal to the figure of Martin’s books, a figure on the page we’ve only ever heard about and never seen. For a while it wasn’t clear we’d seen him on the show either; when he and his three other ‘horsemen’ appeared at the end of Season Four’s ‘Oathkeeper’, when we saw him appear in the Land of Always Winter and creepily turn one of Craster’s bastard babies into a White Walker, his name was only credited in a HBO viewers guide (later removed). No direct confirmation they were one and the same came until we next saw him, overseeing the carnage in Season Five’s ‘Hardhome’ and giving the ‘come at me, bro’ challenge to Jon Snow which triggered a thousand GIF’s, thanks to an ‘Inside the Episode’ segment with the writers. Actor Richard Brake (who previously played the character before Season Six) was credited there as the ‘Night’s King’, leading fans to speculate if he is indeed the figure mentioned in Martin’s books. ‘The Door’ gave us the answer to that question, and it’s a definitive NO.
We see him again, now played by actor Vladimir Furdik, at the head of his undead army and subsequently ‘marking’ Bran which allows him to storm the Weirwood cave and destroy the Three Eyed-Raven, and he is definitively named the Night’s King in dialogue. We too, almost certainly, see his origin and it’s directly connected to how the White Walkers came to be in the first place – what looks like Yulich, sans make up, plays an Andal presumably millennia in the past who Bran on one of his trips through time sees tied to the Raven’s Weirwood tree, as seeming good guys the Children of the Forest stab him horrifically through the chest with dragon glass, ‘infecting’ him almost with ice and turning him into the first White Walker. It appears therefore the Night’s King was one of the captured First Men, who the Children attempted to make an undead warrior to fight against the Andal invaders to Westeros threatening their way of life, only to have no idea what they were creating or unleashing on them or the realms of men. This hasn’t been directly 100% confirmed on screen but it’s extremely likely the Andal and the Night’s King are one and the same, and it would explain why he slaughtered the Children and the Three-Eyed Raven using his ‘greenseeing’ to help them. However this is all markedly different from Martin’s books, where the Night’s King is referenced in stories from ages past.
Here’s the gist of it – the man we know as the Night’s King lived in the so-called ‘Age of Heroes’, the era of peace which followed the pact between the First Men and the Children of the Forest after their long and bloody war. It’s an era that defined Westeros and gave rise to the semi-legendary figures who essentially created the main houses of the Seven Kingdoms today – Bran the Builder who built the Wall and Winterfell, Lann the Clever who swindled Casterly Rock from the Casterleys, and so forth. He was a ‘fearless’ warrior who became the thirteenth Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, not long after the Wall was built – and given Jon Snow was the 998th Lord Commander, this goes some way to explaining just how far back in history this dude lived!
Anyway, the story goes he fell madly in love with a woman who appeared from beyond the Wall, “with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars” (sound familiar?), and followed her beyond the Wall where he gave her not just his seed but his soul. He brought her back to the Nightfort–the oldest castle on the Wall, older even than Castle Black–and declared himself King of the North with the mysterious woman as his Queen; there they ruled the Nightfort for thirteen years, committing horrendous atrocities until legendary figures Brandon the Breaker, the King of Winter, and Joramun, the King-Beyond-the-Wall, joined forces to bring the Night’s King down, restore the Night’s Watch, and upon learning he was making human sacrifices to the Others, they sought to expunge all records of his existence and ensured his very name was forbidden and forgotten throughout time. It’s never been confirmed his Queen was one of the Others, but it’s likely, and it took a historical alliance between the Watch and the Wildlings to destroy him.
As you can see, this is a very different legend to the one we’ve begun to see in Game of Thrones, and Martin has since suggested the Night’s King is no more likely to have survived from antiquity as people like Bran the Breaker or Lann the Clever have. In the books, he appears to be a semi-legendary representation of man’s corruption by the White Walkers, and perhaps an early example of how men can be transformed into the soulless, blue-eyed creatures. In the show, however, the Night’s King is very real. It’s likely David Benioff & DB Weiss have simply appropriated the cool as heck name Martin gave to this figure from Westerosi legend and are now weaving him into their own mythos concerning the origin of the White Walkers.
Whether this origin is the same as in Martin’s books, we do not yet know. All we know for certain is that the Night’s King of the TV show is a seemingly ruthless, terrifying, silent antagonist waiting in the wings to strike fear into the realms of men once they are done fighting their own petty wars. We should be afraid. We should be very afraid.
Tony Black is a freelance film/TV writer & podcaster & would love you to follow him on Twitter.
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