Game of Thrones Season 5 (TV ONLY)

[Simon_Jester]

Given how ruthless the White Walkers appear to be about attacking the Night's Watch, and that they do kill off enough wildlings that the wildling leadership fears extermination if they don't retreat south through the Wall...

I have to say that this theory at least underestimates the aggressiveness of the White Walkers' response.

It may well be that the White Walkers are in fact 'reasonable' in their eyes, or that men are in fact in violation of some longstanding and now forgotten agreement. But I don't think you can say the White Walkers are using anything like the minimum of force that would be necessary to enforce the agreement. If nothing else you'd think they would at least send an emissary to TALK to the Night's Watch about all this.

But I guess Cersei's ego sucked up all the intrigue that used to envelope KL.

In the books, Cersei manages to systematically throw away everyone with a position of real power and replace them with nonentities, or with people who are so busy doing their own thing (Qyburn and his experiments) that they pretty much leave her alone otherwise. That might partially explain it.

I think it was less magical blizzard killing and turning all the people beyond the gate than the army of freaking zombies quickly turning a huge mass of unarmed people into wights/zombies and really boosting their manpower.

Ok, so Blizzard brings in the zombies, they eat everyone outside, turn them into more zombies? That should have taken a bit longer to kill everyone. People weren't bashing into the gate and screaming in pain, they were screaming in fear and I didn't hear any hacking or eating of flesh. It was just screaming, then quiet, then ZOMBIES! I assumed the blizzard killed then made them into zombies outright.

This is essentially how White Walkers operate, so yeah.

[Mr Bean]

It may well be that the White Walkers are in fact 'reasonable' in their eyes, or that men are in fact in violation of some longstanding and now forgotten agreement. But I don't think you can say the White Walkers are using anything like the minimum of force that would be necessary to enforce the agreement. If nothing else you'd think they would at least send an emissary to TALK to the Night's Watch about all this.

We also had to realize that defending the homeland would require going on the offense. Relying only on defense was insufficient. The humans had to break through our defenses only one time to have devastating consequences. We needed to go after them where they lived in order to prevent attacks before they were launched.

“If there’s a 1% chance that the Targaryen scion are breeding or training any Dragons, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response. It’s not about our analysis … It’s about our response

-Night King Cheney

Frankly I give it 50/50 odds that RR Martin would have way back in 1996 come up with the idea of a race of Ice creatures that we would call monsters yet have beliefs, goals and intents not to far from us. They are not heros they might be just as much of an asshole as Tywin but the fact that they can be negotiated with or dealt with may come as the surprise. That they are not defeated or destroyed but instead a second peace is achieved.

[Crown]

He gives a lot more supporting details but it's a theory that makes sense given the context of the work (No Koch funded studies required).

No, it doesn't make sense; for starters the Night's King was the 13th Lord Commander ... so what were his 12 predecessors commanding if not the wall? For how long did they rule before he was ready to take command and 'seal the pact'? What fire magic in the south? This predates the Valyrian expansion by a few millenia etc, etc.

Hardhome is the change, if this is what the White Walkers can do why are the Wildings alive at this point, how have they live so long when the Whites can simply walk through every conventional weapon and slay and turn people at whim? Why are they alive unless... the White Walkers have been sleeping OR they simply left them alone... until something changed. Something like the return of Fire and Dragons into the world.

I've already speculated that magic is returning into the world as being a reason the White Walkers are back (they don't come every winter), but you're linking the White Walkers to the Dragons now and presuming that it was Dragons in the past as well, but there is a 2000 to 3000 gap between the Age of Heroes and the Wall being built and the rise of the Dragonlords in Valyria...

[Imperial Overlord]

This predates the Valyrian expansion by a few millenia etc, etc.

Not necessarily. It's been confirmed that the history timeline is very unreliable.

[Crown]

This predates the Valyrian expansion by a few millenia etc, etc.

Not necessarily. It's been confirmed that the history timeline is very unreliable.

If the stories of the Children + First Men vs the White Walkers survives for all this millennia, I'm having trouble understanding how we managed to forget the fire breathing winged creatures of doom ...

[Simon_Jester]

Hm.

There's no evidence that dragons didn't exist before the Valyrian dragonlords; we only know that the dragonlords were the ones that worked out how to tame them, not that they somehow brought them into being. So it is reasonable to assume that dragons existed somewhere in the Age of Heroes, even if not in Westeros.

On the other hand, dragons were an active and significant part of Westerosi affairs as recently as two hundred years ago. If the White Walkers had been active that recently, and if they really considered the wildings' presence offensive, they would have done something about the wildlings in the time of the Andals, or of the Targaryen kings. They wouldn't have waited this long.

So one possibility is that the White Walkers went... dormant... long ago, in the semi-mythological past. Long enough for legendary wildling figures like Bael the Bard to have arisen after their disappearance. In which case their disappearance is clearly not correlated with the disappearance of the dragons, and probably not with the Doom of Valyria. In which case there's no reason to suppose that their reappearance has anything to do with the reappearance of the dragons either.

The other possibility is that the White Walkers always hated the wildlings but were somehow powerless to do anything about them until the last decade or so (i.e. with the return of magic). This strikes me as rather less likely. The most plausible explanation would be that the White Walkers are only able to act effectively now that magic has returned to the world AND dragons (especially human-controlled dragons) are no longer a factor in the affairs of Westeros. 300 years ago they could have acted but Aegon I would have crushed them; 1000 years ago they could have acted but the Valyrian freeholders might have crushed them.

[Crown]

I think my point is this; we know about the war between the Children and the First Men vs the White Walkers, we also know a lot about the Children, the Old Gods and the Weirwood trees. The only context we ever hear about dragons is in relation to Old Valyria or Aegon's conquest. It seems inconceivable to me that the dragons were involved in the war against the White Walkers and somehow everyone forgot about it.

It's like talking about the end of WWII and not mentioning Hiroshima and Nagasaki; how can that possibly happen?

[Elfdart]

Is it me or does this guy look like the love child of Darth Maul and Smurfette?

[Sinewmire]

Is his pendant thingy a crow skull?

[Elfdart]

Awfully big crow.

The episodes with the wights and white walkers remind me of the Seventh Seal and Masque of the Red Death, as well as Breugel's "Triumph of Death"



All the fighting and skulduggery between the different houses and cults adds up to zilch when the Ice Grim Reaper shows up with a horde of undead multitudes. Except of course as a handy explanation for why they can't be dealt with.

[Vympel]

For the second time (the first time being the Season 2 finale) we saw a wight who was clearly a House Stark soldier in life during the battle - its a cool detail, you have to wonder where he came from / how he died.

Fucking awesome episode of course. Been waiting to see the White Walkers and their army properly for ages. And its great to confirm that Valyrian Steel = dragonsteel that Sam read about.

[Imperial Overlord]

If the stories of the Children + First Men vs the White Walkers survives for all this millennia, I'm having trouble understanding how we managed to forget the fire breathing winged creatures of doom ...

The dragons can be half the world away. The existence of dragons makes magic stronger and that applies to the Warlocks of Quorth, the Pyromancers in Kingslanding, the Red Priests, and any sorcery the Andals or the First Men might have had to contain or repel the White Walkers. Rituals with the Weirwood Trees might have had real juice and something other than medieval technology built the giant continent spanning icewall.

[LaCroix]

Maybe it was like for the Warlocks - without Magic, the Walkers would have been unable to raise wights. Some tricks still work - for Magic never went all the way away (Blood magic, Faceless men, Red Priests, etc.) So maybe their turn baby into walker thing still worked, since its a ritual with a lot of participants.

While the Targaryans and their dragons were still around, they had their magic, butwere unable to attack, for dragons would roast their wight armies and them with ease. So they held back, getting more and more pissed off.

Then the dragons were gone, and magic as well, so they had no armies, and were few. They probably had a few deals like with craster, and were slowly replenishing their lost numbers. But they would only be able to fight themselves, and their numbers were too low (Valyrian blades and dragon glass are handy insta-kills against them, and they don't know that this has been forgotten).

When Magic returned, they realized the old trick works again, and went for a crusade.

[Pelranius]

Is it me or does this guy look like the love child of Darth Maul and Smurfette?

Richard Brake played Darth Maul and Joe Chill (Batman Begins).

Speaking off GoT actors in other series, Ripper Street is quite a hoot for that.

[Balrog]

"Come at me Crow"

[Simon_Jester]

I think my point is this; we know about the war between the Children and the First Men vs the White Walkers, we also know a lot about the Children, the Old Gods and the Weirwood trees. The only context we ever hear about dragons is in relation to Old Valyria or Aegon's conquest. It seems inconceivable to me that the dragons were involved in the war against the White Walkers and somehow everyone forgot about it.

It's like talking about the end of WWII and not mentioning Hiroshima and Nagasaki; how can that possibly happen?

This is true.

However, the existence of dragons might have somehow been a factor in the White Walkers' calculations. For example, perhaps there was some more ancient pact (or an aspect of the natural order that transcends the concept of 'pact') in which dragons kept to Essos and the White Walkers kept to Westeros... but then the White Walkers somehow learn that on the other side of the world, men have learned to control dragons. Especially if one does not differentiate between one group of men and another, one might reasonably think "We should partition our territory with men, and agree to do that, so as not to be in danger if the dragon-commanding men come here."

BUT that is a long way from positing that the White Walkers are responsible for the creation of the Wall or that they are only now attacking Westerosi humans because they see the humans as violating some compact.

Maybe it was like for the Warlocks - without Magic, the Walkers would have been unable to raise wights. Some tricks still work - for Magic never went all the way away (Blood magic, Faceless men, Red Priests, etc.) So maybe their turn baby into walker thing still worked, since its a ritual with a lot of participants.

While the Targaryans and their dragons were still around, they had their magic, butwere unable to attack, for dragons would roast their wight armies and them with ease. So they held back, getting more and more pissed off.

Then the dragons were gone, and magic as well, so they had no armies, and were few. They probably had a few deals like with craster, and were slowly replenishing their lost numbers. But they would only be able to fight themselves, and their numbers were too low (Valyrian blades and dragon glass are handy insta-kills against them, and they don't know that this has been forgotten).

When Magic returned, they realized the old trick works again, and went for a crusade.

This is actually very credible... although one wonders where the cutoff line is, at what point we can talk about "magic returning."

[Kingmaker]

The Others were raising wights before Dany's dragons hatched. I don't think it's necessarily a given that dragons boost magic rather than the other way around.

[Pelranius]

The Others were raising wights before Dany's dragons hatched. I don't think it's necessarily a given that dragons boost magic rather than the other way around.

What about the Red Comet (I think there was one around the time of Rhaegar, or Dany's birth)?

[Kingmaker]

The Others were raising wights before Dany's dragons hatched. I don't think it's necessarily a given that dragons boost magic rather than the other way around.

What about the Red Comet (I think there was one around the time of Rhaegar, or Dany's birth)?

Was that actually in the show? I don't remember it being shown or mentioned, but it's been several years since I watched season one. Regardless, I don't think the comet was at either of those events. It appears at the end of A Game of Thrones when the dragons are born.

[JLTucker]

What about the Red Comet (I think there was one around the time of Rhaegar, or Dany's birth)?

Was that actually in the show? I don't remember it being shown or mentioned, but it's been several years since I watched season one. Regardless, I don't think the comet was at either of those events. It appears at the end of A Game of Thrones when the dragons are born.

It was in the season two premiere, I believe.

[Terralthra]

Richard Brake played Darth Maul and Joe Chill (Batman Begins).

Speaking off GoT actors in other series, Ripper Street is quite a hoot for that.

In what universe do you live? Darth Maul was played by Ray Park.

[Sinewmire]

Wait wait, the lord of the white walkers... is played by the guy who also played Joe Chill? That pun is too amazing to be accidental.

[Thanas]

Great episode but honestly, with the tactics the white walkers use - and with how they expose themselves - a few well-trained ballista crews should sort that problem out. If necessary, use obsidian bolts. I mean, Roman ballistae were accurate enough to pick off men who had cover of walls.

[Balrog]

Great episode but honestly, with the tactics the white walkers use - and with how they expose themselves - a few well-trained ballista crews should sort that problem out. If necessary, use obsidian bolts. I mean, Roman ballistae were accurate enough to pick off men who had cover of walls.

I'm guessing the threat of the Wildlings having ballistae to begin with, much less ones with dragonglass bolts, was deemed so low as to not be worth consideration as they stared menacingly from the lip of the cliff.

[RogueIce]

Yeah, I mean if you're some kind of undead/immortal magic wizard necromancer dude who, far as you know, cannot be killed by anything those mere humans have (do they know Sam offed one of them with dragonglass?) you probably don't care if you're heavily exposed during a battle.