The differences between the Book Series; A Song of Ice and Fire, and the TV Series; A Game of Thrones, is astronomical, in fact it is so great (especially since the series has gone past the books and are now going a cappella) that we may as well regard them both as two different entities entirely. It is not to say that one is better than the other, far from in. The books give us more details and a richer history, where as the show is able to really give us fantastic visuals that would never be possible through descriptive words. Some character changes from one format to the other are bad, while some are brilliant, and I think that there is no better person to discuss than the show’s primary antagonist (no… not Cersei); the Night King.

In the books, the White Walkers are not lead by any single entity, that we know of, instead they are just the army of the dead. There appears to be no single ruling power over them, and they are very much just a menacing horror that is slowly making it’s way south to the Wall.
While there is a person in history called The Night’s King, the character is dramatically different, but it is interesting to wonder if he is the same character as the one in the TV Show, but for now, we have no idea.

The character in the books was once the thirteenth Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. Not long after the Wall was constructed, he fell in love with a mysterious woman who is described “with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars” and that “her skin was cold as ice”, so pretty much a White Walker then?
He gave her his soul and took her back to the Nightfort (one of the Night’s Watches’ castles and the one with the most horrific history behind it). There they formed an unholy union and he declared himself as King, and this woman as his Queen. Together they ruled that small part of Westeros for thirteen years. During these years, dark things occurred; Horrific atrocities and things that the North still tell tall tales about took place. He made sacrifices to the Others (the White Walkers as they are called in the Books).
Eventually the King in the North; Brandon the Breaker, and the King beyond the Wall; Joramun, joined forces brought down the Night’s King and the Night’s Watchmen who had followed him.
All records of the man the Night’s King was before were destroyed and his name was forbidden before finally being forgotten. It is unknown who he truly was, some people believe he was a Stark and a brother of the King of Winter.
It is because of this that the Night’s Watch were not allowed to build walls to defend the southern sections of their forts, which was why it was so easy for the Wildlings to attack back in Season 4 (book 3).

So that is what the book describes him as, and as such, he is just that; a legendary tall tale. He does not raise the fallen Wildlings, nor does he touch babies and turn their eyes blue, like he does in the show, so it is safe to say that the character is a completely different person entirely, and with that in mind, let’s talk about what we know of the Night’s King from the TV series.


We know that he was once one of the First Men. The First Men where those who invaded Westeros thousands of years ago and fought with the Children of the Forest, who were the original inhabitants of the land. The Stark’s linage is traced back to the First Men.
A war was fought between them and the Children of the Forest. Their sacred Weirwood Trees were being destroyed, their lands laid in ruins, and they were being pushed further and further North. So they needed to do something. Drastic times call for drastic measures, and the Children’s plan was to create a powerful force to use to fight the First Men.
They captured one, tied him to a Weirwood tree and stabbed him in his chest with a dragonglass dagger. In fact it was Leaf; the Child of the Forest who Bran meets near the cave of the Three Eyed Raven, who was the person who stabbed him. Ancient magic was used at the point and the man’s eyes turned blue, effectively creating the first White Walker; the Night King.
It was clear that they had made a terrible mistake, but it was already too late and a great horror was unleashed upon the land.

Thousands of years later is where our story picks up. The Children of the Forest are now the stuff of old tales, and are living in caves beyond the Wall. The Night King himself has been slowly building up his forces, and with the thanks of Craster and his inbred wives, he has been giving his sons as offerings to help the Night’s King create more White Walkers, who in turn are able to create Wights (Zombies) from the dead.
The last of Craster’s son being turned into a White Walker is the first time we catch a glimpse of our enemy. Before then we had seen White Walkers and Wights, but only in short moments. The show did an excellent job of building the true enemy of the world up throughout the course of the show. Even the first shot of the TV series (and the first book) is a small group of Night’s Watchmen who are killed by the Undead, and that is before we are introduced to Ned Stark or anyone. So it goes to show that George RR Martin has had this in mind since the beginning.

Anyway, the next time we see them, the White Walkers attack Hardhome. We have previously seen just how many Wights they have on their side in previous seasons, but this is the first time we saw the army of the dead attack. Within moments they had ran over the Wildling settlement and Jon Snow was barely able to escape.
Jon, whilst leaving on boat, stares into the Night King’s eyes as he shows off his power. He raises his arms and in a horrifying moment, every single person who had died at Hardhome gets to their feet. He clearly did this to show the escaping prey just how powerful and unstoppable he truly is.


It is interesting as recently there has been a lot of images online of the route Jon Snow has taken after his encounter with the Undead at Hardhome, and what the Night King has done since then, and comically the Undead seem to have been taking a leisurely stroll downward, but we must remember that Bran and his crew were attacked in the cave of the Three-eyed Raven, which is more North than Hardhome, so clearly the Night King and his forces went back up to deal with this new threat.
Bran, unknowing how to exactly use his new Greenseer powers, was touched by the Night King and marked, which meant that the magic the Children of the Forest, or the Three-Eyed Raven himself, had put onto the cave was no more and the Wights and White Walkers could enter. Good one Bran. This resulted in the deaths of the Dire Wolf; Summer, the Child of the Forest; Leaf (who is partly to blame for this), the remaining Children of the Forest, the Three-Eyed Raven himself, and of course… Hodor (and we learnt the true meaning of his name). Thankfully Bran was able to escape with Meera Reed, but now that the original Three-Eyed Raven and the Children of the Forest have been killed (who have been fighting against the White Walkers since they first created them thousands of years ago beyond the Wall), it seemed that anyone who might be able to stop the Whites was now dead, allowing them to unleash their impending devastation upon the world.

In Season 7, the Undead are moving South towards the Wall. Bran, using his Warging abilities, spots them in full force, before the Night King himself scared them away.
On Monday (or earlier if you watched the leaked episode) we saw the Wights attack Jon Snow and his crew, which resulted in the death of Daenerys’ Dragon; Viserion. The Night King himself easily took down the beast with an ice spear of precision. We can see here that the Night King is a bit of a show off as he decided to go for the far away flying target, instead of the closer stationary one (but let’s not nitpick, shall we?). After that he commanded his Undead forces to pull out the Dragon’s corpse of the ice and with a simple touch, re-awoken him to do his bidding.


As you can see the Night King is a dangerous foe. He is not only that, he is surprisingly cocky and arrogant for someone who does not speak. He reanimated the dead at Hardhome and picked Viserion (the hardest target) just to show off his power and skill. He is always the first into battle, happily walking through fire with his hockey stick and ice javelins, despite the fact that a lot of characters are now carrying Dragonglass weapons and he must know that recently he has lost about five or six of his loyal White Walkers (Quick thought: are these suppose to be Craster’s children grown up?).

It looks as if the forces of good have a danger coming for them, which has always been present, but is now making itself truly known. I can’t see the Wall staying up for much longer, personally, especially now that he has a Dragon to reign hellfire (or ice) upon the remaining Night’s Watchmen or whomever else decides to stand against the Master of the Wights, Lord of the Dead, the supreme leader and the first of the White Walkers; The Night King.

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