HBO Game of Thrones- Discussion Thread

In the very first episode of the show the white walkers arrange body parts into spiral and circular patterns, the same patterns as the ones Jon finds in the cave left by the children of the forest in this episode. So the walkers remember their creators and sort of honour them, which is weird because they turned on the children. And maybe these patterns signify something magical? I doubt they're just pointless decorations, the walkers put effort into recreating them.   

Mostly because of how GRRM described them in his pitch. “…half-forgotten demons out of legend, the inhuman Others, raise cold legions of the undead and the neverborn and prepare to ride down on the winds of winter to extinguish everything we would consider life. The only thing that stands between the Seven Kingdoms and an endless night is the Wall and a handful of men in black called the Night’s Watch.” He referred to them as the main villains in the final part of his trilogy. Obviously a lot of things have changed since then but I don't think this has. 

Their goal to 'extinguish everything we would consider life' has not changed in the show or in the books. Especially in the books considering we've only seen them like twice. In the Prologue of AGOT where they killed wildlings and Waymar Royce, and in Sam I of ASOS where he retells the Battle at the Fist of the First Men and kills an Other who killed Small Paul. In the show Sam kills a white walker who comes for Gilly's baby, but that didn't happen in ASOS instead it was Small Paul as wight who he killed to protect Gilly. Basically every time they've been shown they've been terrorising and murdering people , as well as taking babies, there hasn't been an attempt to hint at anything beyond that.

A Tumblr post summed up the Others perfectly. 'a fully sentient people deciding to murder a bunch of people they know to be no threat to them, given the wide disparity between their fighting ability. Indeed, when you look at Ser Waymar’s duel, it becomes pretty clear that the Others are getting a sadistic kick out of toying with a clearly outmatched teenager by setting up a fight he can’t win; at one point they’re literally laughing at him.'

Alongside this stuff the head of the white walkers in the show is the Night King, who I think is supposed to be a show version of the Night's king if he became a white walker or something. I don't feel like this is all that important because I doubt he'll be a book character, I feel as though the others will just remain as a nameless horde of ethereal ice people. When talking about the Night King, D.B Weiss one of the creators/screen writers of the show said:

'I don’t think of the Night King as a villain as much as, Death. He is not like Joffrey, or Ramsey. He’s not really human anymore. To me, evil comes when you have a choice between that and good, and you choose the wrong way. The Night King doesn’t have a choice; he was created that way, and that’s what he is. In some ways, he’s just death, coming for everyone in the story, coming for all of us.'

And I think the most damning thing is this part:

'It’s appropriate he doesn’t speak. What’s death going to say? Anything would diminish him. He’s just a force of destruction. I don’t think we’ve ever been tempted to write dialogue for the Night King. Anything he said would be anticlimactic.'

I believe he's also played by a stunt man rather than an actual actor.

I know some people suggested that the Others/Walkers had a pact with humanity, I also don't think thats true. 

There is minimal evidence in the text to support it and while that doesn't mean it didn't happen its interesting to note that their is a ton of evidence that suggests a pact between the Children of the Forest and the First Men. We actually know it was called The Pact of the Isle of Faces and it ended the war between them. Theres actually a lot of textual evidence of this pact existing and being enforced with the intention to combat the Others. “The children of the forest used to give the Night’s Watch a hundred obsidian daggers every year, during the Age of Heroes.” which is from A Feast for Crows. This plus the fact that the only existing Children of the Forest in the book and the show are actively opposed by wights suggests there was never a pact between humans and Others. Especially considering how old Leaf is, she'd know about it. The one bit of evidence that suggests a pact is the actual story of the Night's King, and thats not a very positive story. 

However the thing I believe points to the others being utterly destroyed at the end is Daenerys' dream. Its fairly established that like most characters in the books Daenerys has prophetic dreams and has seen visions of the future. Her birthing a dragon, right before she marries Khal Drogo...  Her general dreams of the 'Black Dragon' who we now know is Drogon. Her seeing Robb dead with his wolf's head on him long before the red wedding and her visions of Jon Snow's real heritage and of Fake Aegon. 

She also sees herself as Rhaegar but instead of fighting Robert shes fighting a 'host across the river they were armored all in ice, but she bathed them in dragonfire and they melted away like dew and turned the Trident into a torrent.'

We all know GRRM loves his foreshadowing and my interpretation of this is that she is going to succeed where Rhaegar failed. She is the Dragon, Azor Ahai and the prince who was promised just like Jon Snow. Another person whom I assume will be Tyrion will tag along because 'The Dragon always has three heads'.

This is when they'll utterly annihilate the others, with one or perhaps even all three of them dying in the process because this is GRRM. 

This could be all wrong but its just my thoughts on it. It may also be full of typos because its very late.