Ck2 Agot Will White Walkers Come Again

"In that darkness the White Walkers came for the offset time. They swept through cities and kingdoms, riding their dead horses, hunting with their packs of pale spiders big as hounds."

―Sometime Nan ^[src]

The White Walkers were an ancient race of formerly-human ice creatures who came from the far n of Westeros. After remaining subconscious for thousands of years, they returned and were sighted past several sworn brothers of the Nighttime's Lookout and countless wildlings. However, almost who live due south of the Wall believed them to exist nothing more creatures of fable.

The White Walkers were thousands of years old, coming from the fourth dimension preceding the Age of Heroes. Born of powerful and untested magic, they were created to protect the Children of the Forest from the Get-go Men, who had waged war on them ever since they had arrived from Essos. However, the White Walkers eventually broke free of the Children's control and became the most feared creatures in Westeros, posing a threat to all life.^[1]

Eight thousand years before Robert's Rebellion, the longest winter in history fell on the entire world and lasted a whole generation. In the darkness and cold of the "Long Night," the White Walkers descended upon Westeros from the Far N, killing all in their path and reanimating the dead as wights to serve as mindless soldiers in their undead army. The people of Westeros soon realized they had to rally together or the White Walkers would kill them all. In a disharmonize known equally the Battle for the Dawn, the living won a decisive victory and pushed the White Walkers far north to the Lands of Ever Winter. With help from giants and the Children of the Woods, the Wall was raised to bar their return. The Night'due south Spotter was founded to guard the Wall and the realms of men should the mysterious threat always rising again.

The White Walkers accept risen again.

Although the White Walkers take faded into legend over the centuries, disturbing reports began to accomplish the Night's Lookout man, just before the outbreak of the War of the Five Kings. The render of the White Walkers was confirmed during the Smashing Ranging undertaken past Lord Commander Jeor Mormont, and past an unprecedented attack by the wight army on the wildling settlement of Hardhome.^[2] Despite repeated pleas for support from the Night's Picket, the residuum of the 7 Kingdoms turned a blind center to the return of the White Walkers as they remained embroiled in their own civil wars, believing the White Walkers to exist purely mythological, much like giants and Children of the Forest, who have also faded into fable.

The ultimate goal of the legendary White Walkers was the finish of every living thing in existence, which they planned to achieve by killing the Three-Eyed Raven and creating an countless winter to eclipse the known world. All the same, their plans were thwarted when Arya Stark killed the Dark Rex at the Battle of Winterfell, resulting in the permanent extinction of the White Walkers and the end of the Great War.

Contents

• 1 Appearance and characteristics
  • i.1 Numbers
• 2 Powers
• 3 Weaknesses
• 4 History
  • 4.one Background
  • iv.2 Flavor 1
  • 4.3 Season 2
  • 4.4 Flavour three
  • 4.5 Flavor 4
  • 4.half-dozen Season five
  • 4.seven Season half-dozen
  • four.8 Season seven
  • 4.9 Flavour viii
• 5 Gallery
• 6 Appearances
• 7 Quotes
• eight Behind the scenes
• 9 In the books
  • 9.i Origins and reproduction
  • nine.2 Naming
• ten See also
• 11 References

Appearance and characteristics

White Walkers have a mummified appearance with long wispy white hair.

White Walkers outwardly resemble humans but differ greatly from them in other aspects. They are every bit tall as most humans and have long wispy white hair, with some also having white facial hair. They have stake grey-white skin which is sinewy and stretched taut across their frames, giving them a somewhat gaunt and mummified appearance despite their overall bulky frame. Their most notable trait however, are their vibrant deep bluish eyes.^{[3] [4]}

White Walkers seem to have divisions, or ranks within their army, with the ones at the height probable having reanimated many wights, while the ones at the bottom seem freshly created. At the end of Oathkeeper, a White Walker donning black armor appears holding Craster's last son, which likely denotes him every bit having a loftier position in the Night Male monarch'southward army. The Night Rex's lieutenants too seem to stay close to him, riding on undead horses.

The Night King is the supreme commander of the White Walkers, possessing the ability to directly command anyone in his army. It is implied that the White Walkers and Wights accept a hive mind, being able to "run into" through each other'southward optics and sensing when someone in their regular army dies.

According to fable, the White Walkers speak a mythical linguistic communication known equally "Skroth", which purportedly sounds like the cracking of ice.

Numbers

The bear witness never stated how many White Walkers existed in total or showed all the White Walkers in 1 onscreen shot. Commonly a single White Walker or small groups were shown at one time, making it difficult to establish how many White Walkers existed. Twelve White Walkers are shown in the background when the Night King turns Craster'southward final son. Nevertheless, it is known that Craster sacraficed 99 sons to the White Walkers. Additionally, four White Walkers were killed on screen at different points in the series: i killed by Sam with a dragonglass dagger, i killed by Meera with a dragonglass spear, and two by Jon with Longclaw. During the Battle of Winterfell, twelve White Walkers enter Winterfell forth with the Dark King to kill Bran Stark. All the White Walkers were destroyed after Arya killed the Dark King.

Powers

White Walkers have a very strong analogousness with water ice magic and coldness. They are physically far stronger than humans, capable of effortlessly tossing people dorsum tens of feet in the air.^[two] Since they are inhuman, White Walkers have no physical restrictions. As such, they do non require food or water and seem to be allowed to disease, fatigue, extreme cold and extreme oestrus. White Walkers are immortal. Their arrival is usually accompanied past blizzards and sudden temperature drops.^[ii] Because of this, they can spread extreme cold wherever they go. The White Walkers wield swords and spears made from unique ice crystals.

However, ane of their near deadly abilities is to reanimate the dead as their servants, known as wights.^[2] They are capable of reviving any dead brute as wights, including horses, giants, and even dragons.^[v] They cannot, however, revive a corpse into servitude if information technology has been burned.^[3] Once a wight has been created, its optics turn an icy blue, similar to the White Walkers' own eyes. Wights serve their masters without question.

The Night King, leader of the White Walkers, possesses the ability to change humans into White Walkers.^[6] He picks up Craster'due south son from an icy altar and places an alphabetize finger on its cheek, causing the baby's eyes to glow blueish and his pare to abound pale, taking on the appearance of the White Walkers. Whether or not this ability extends merely to the Night Rex, all of the White Walkers amid his caste, or all White Walkers in full general is unknown.

During the Massacre at Hardhome, White Walkers are shown to be resistant to fire due to the extreme cold they radiate, which snuffs out any flames in their vicinity.^[2] They can also freeze normal weapons they come into contact with, causing them to shatter and suspension.^[2] White Walkers are invulnerable against fifty-fifty highly concentrated dragonfire.^[7] It is unknown if they are as well allowed to wildfire.

Weaknesses

A White Walker falling apart after being stabbed by Dragonglass.

The only known weaknesses of White Walkers are weapons made of dragonglass^[4] or valyrian steel.^[ii] Upon being stabbed by dragonglass, a White Walker'due south body volition brainstorm to freeze into ice from the point at which it was stabbed, causing the Walker great pain. Finally, information technology will brainstorm to crevice and fall autonomously, eventually shattering into ice. Valyrian steel has the aforementioned event, simply works much more rapidly. These materials are also resistant to being frozen and shattered on contact with White Walkers, unlike regular weapons.

White Walkers are "glass cannons", possessing incredible force and power but being very vulnerable. Any injury, no matter how minor or meaning from weapons made of dragonglass or valyrian steel, will outcome in their death and the deaths of all things they take reanimated. Because of this, White Walkers tend to stay backside their undead wights or far away from conflict.

Since the Night King was the first White Walker ever created, his decease will cause the expiry of all other White Walkers, and later, their wights. As such, he is simultaneously the strongest and weakest function of the undead army.^[7]

History

Background

The White Walkers' origins are a mystery to virtually humans. Merely the ancient Children of the Forest think the truth of how they came to exist.

Over eight thousand years before the State of war of the Five Kings, the Children of the Forest were locked in a state of war with the Beginning Men, who had migrated to Westeros from Essos. Despite resorting to powerful magic, which allowed them to flood the Neck and even destroy the land-span linking the two continents and reducing it to a chain of islands, the Children were losing ground; more and more of them fell to the Outset Men and their precious forests were being cut down.

White Walkers' creation

Out of desperation, a pocket-size group of Greenseers attempted to create a powerful new weapon against the humans. They bound a captive man to a weirwood and pressed a cursed shard of dragonglass into his heart. The unfortunate convict was transformed into a common cold, heartless, deathless creature whose just want was to consume all life. He would go the progenitor of the White Walker race and lead his kind on a campaign of devastation, not only confronting humans, but against his creator's as well.^[i]

Soon the Children saw that their creation had grown across their control, and forged an alliance with the Offset Men to avoid common destruction. In what would become known equally the "Battle for the Dawn", the brotherhood beat the White Walkers back to the far due north, where they vanished. This victory led to a lasting truce betwixt the Children and the Starting time Men; the Children would proceed their forests, and the Men could keep their farms, towns, and cities. The truce also marked the creation of both the Wall and the Night's Watch, the latter having been armed by the Children with dragonglass blades, in case the Walkers should ever return.

Season 1

A White Walker, carrying the severed head of Gared and several more White Walkers behind him

At the start of the series, there take been peculiar rumors from beyond the Wall mentioning the White Walkers. According to Will, a renegade from the Dark's Spotter taken captive virtually Winterfell, his patrol was attacked by the White Walkers and his comrades Gared and Waymar Royce were killed by them. Prior to this incident, the White Walkers had massacred a tribe of wildlings and left the corpses out equally a warning. His story was not believed past Eddard Stark, who executed him as a deserter. The White Walkers showed an ability to animate the corpse of a dead wildling child as a wight.^[8]

Jeor Mormont and Maester Aemon of the Watch enquire Tyrion to persuade his sister to transport them reinforcements. They merits there is something other than the wildlings beyond the Wall and it'south been growing in influence for some time. With winter coming they fear this unseen enemy will brand its move.^[9]

A band of wildlings fleeing south of the Wall passes close to Winterfell. One of them suggests taking a Stark captive for Mance Rayder, the King-Beyond-the-Wall, but the others decline to return north due to the dangers posed by the White Walkers^[10], instead asserting they should caput as far south every bit possible.

Osha, one of the wildlings taken prisoner at Winterfell, reveals to the Stark household that she and her companions were fleeing South to escape the Walkers. She also reveals the Walkers are nocturnal and sleep in the day and chase at nighttime. When her words are dismissed by Maester Luwin due to the belief the Walkers are long dead, she reveals that they were merely sleeping and "they're not sleeping at present."^[eleven]

The bodies of several rangers are discovered a curt distance due north of the wall and are identified every bit Night's Watchmen who accept been missing for weeks. Despite a corpse's prolonged absence, Sam notes that the bodies prove no signs of rot and announced in perfect status. Later that evening one of the bodies reanimates as a wight and attempts to attack the Lord Commander. The creature is stopped when Jon discovers the fauna's weakness is fire.^[12]

After disposing of the remaining bodies, Sam tells Jon that he read that only the bear upon of a White Walker could exercise what they have seen tonight. A worried Sam notes the weakness of the Night's Watch and if the White Walkers decide to come in force so they are in real trouble.^[12]

Afterward recent events Lord Commander Mormont decides to mobilize the Night's Scout to head out beyond the wall to appraise the situation and if necessary make a preemptive strike against their enemies. He explains to Jon that the state of war in the South is of picayune business organization in relation to the threat of the returning White Walkers.^[13]

Season 2

Jon Snow follows Craster into the wood and sees him placing a newborn baby, one of his sons, into the ground and leaves. Moments later on a effigy with glowing blueish eyes appears and takes the baby abroad.^[14]

After Craster discovers Jon, attacks him and orders the Night'southward Lookout man to leave his roof, Mormont confronts Jon, though he also admits he's enlightened that Craster worships the White Walkers and sacrifices his newborn sons to them in exchange for safe for him and his daughter-wives.^[15]

White Walkers lead the army of the dead to the Fist of the Beginning Men.

Sam, Grenn, and Eddison Tollett get together dung effectually the Fist of the Get-go Men when they hear a horn being diddled and believe Jon and Qhorin take returned. They then hear a second accident, the signal for incoming wildlings, and draw their swords for boxing. A third hornblast is heard, the bespeak for White Walkers, which has not been blown in thousands of years. The three run to the Night'due south Watch military camp but Samwell is left behind, while a blizzard envelops the unabridged plateau. He seeks refuge behind a rock while a White Walker leads a vast horde of wights. The White Walker finds Sam but for reasons unknown ignores him, riding by him atop a wight horse and leading the horde for an invasion, emitting a screeching roar with some other White Walker far backside.

Season 3

A White Walker attacks Sam and Gilly when they are seeking refuge in a destroyed cabin. Sam tries to finish the White Walker with his sword, merely the Walker shatters it and throws him bated. The Walker and then approaches Gilly, seeming intent on seizing her baby. Sam, on the ground, grabs one of the dragonglass daggers that he establish at the Fist of the Beginning Men. He attacks the Walker from behind, stabbing it in the shoulder. The Walker screeches in hurting and rapidly begins to freeze, shattering shortly afterwards.^[four]

Flavor iv

The White Walkers receive Craster'southward last son equally a sacrifice.

Rast sets the final son of Craster on the ground in the Haunted Wood. A White Walker, riding a wight horse, takes the baby to a mysterious identify in the far north, to the Lands of Always Winter, and places him on an altar fabricated of ice. Another White Walker with pointed horns on its head approaches, picks up the baby, and touches him on the face below his eye. The baby'due south eyes turn bright blue, similar to that of the White Walkers.^[6]

Season v

The White Walkers witness the massacre at Hardhome from high upward in the cover of a blizzard.

The White Walkers launch an attack on Hardhome as the Free Folk board ships provided past Stannis Baratheon leap for Castle Black. During the set on, Jon fights one of the White Walkers, discovering their vulnerability to Valyrian steel, and kills it with his sword Longclaw, bringing him to the attention of the Night Rex. The wight army overwhelms the defenders and sends a panic through the settlement, and wildlings endeavour to swim to the ships instead of boarding rowboats. Those that die are reanimated as wights past the Dark Male monarch, who looks on intimidatingly as Jon, Eddison Tollett, and Tormund row away.^[2]

Season half dozen

The Iii-Eyed Raven shows Bran a vision of a heart tree amid spirals of continuing stones in lush green valley. He spies Leaf and other Children of the Forest talking amid themselves, then looking eagerly at a convict - a First Human being - bound to the tree. Leaf approaches and slowly forces a dragonglass dagger into the captive'south chest. The convict screams, just does non dice, instead becoming the first White Walker: the Night Male monarch.

The White Walkers arrive at the Weirwood tree.

Bran immediately confronts Foliage about creating the White Walkers in the first place. Leaf tries to explicate that they were at war with the Kickoff Men and were desperate to protect themselves from the invaders of their lands. Later, Bran is the only one in the cavern awake and is anxious to warg back into the Weirwood tree. Unfortunately, the Night Male monarch is able to see him and grabs his arm, branding him with an icy mark. He breaks out of the vision with a scream. The Three-Eyed Raven tells Bran, Meera and Hodor that the Nighttime Rex is at present able to locate Bran and bypass the barrier keeping the White Walkers and wights out of the cave. The Children of the Woods use magic projectiles and incendiaries to fend the Walkers off, but are overwhelmed. They light a fire around the entrance which prevents the wights from entering, but the Walkers extinguish a pathway and walk through. The wights climb on top of the Weirwood, dropping through the pinnacle of the cave. Meera badly tries to get Bran out of the vision and attempts to get the frightened Hodor to carry Bran away to no avail. Meera kills the first White Walker that enters with a dagger of dragonglass, as she fights alongside the remaining Children of the Forest to try to fend off the wights until Bran wakes up. Wights brainstorm to swarm the cave, killing all of the Children of the Woods except for Leaf, as Meera starts yelling at Bran to warg into Hodor. Hodor in the cave puts Bran's body on a sled and starts hauling him towards the get out at the back of the cave with Leaf and Meera, as Summer is killed attacking the wights. As the wights are closing in on them, Foliage sacrifices herself, using magic to cause a huge explosion, buying the other iii a pregnant amount of time. While the Three-Eyed Raven and Bran are still sharing a vision, the Night Rex kills the Three-Eyed Raven, and his effigy within Bran'south vision blows away as ashes and rags.^[1]

Flavour seven

Somewhere across the Wall, the Night Rex and his White Walkers continue their march south through a snowstorm. Every bit a sign of their growing strength, they take added at to the lowest degree three Giants to the ranks of their army of the dead.^[16]

Carvings of the White Walkers are found in the dragonglass mines on Dragonstone.

Jon takes Daenerys down into the caves on Dragonstone later she allows him to mine the dragonglass. However, his ulterior motive is to show her the carvings on the cavern'due south walls, which depict the Children of the Forest and the First Men fighting the White Walkers together. One of these carvings strongly resembles the Night Rex.^[17]

Bran Stark wargs into a flight of ravens that fly over the Wall into the Lands of Always Winter. Through the ravens, he sees the army of the dead led by the White Walkers and the Nighttime Male monarch, traveling south towards Eastwatch-by-the-Ocean. Unfortunately, the Night King spots Bran, causing him to apace disperse the ravens.^[18]

Equally part of their program to capture a wight as proof of existence of the ground forces of the dead, Jon Snow and his men ambush a group of Wights led past a White Walker, lighting a bivouac to get their attention. Jon himself kills the White Walker, at the same time destroying all but i of the wights under his control. While taking refuge from the wights on an island in the middle of a frozen lake, Beric Dondarrion advises Jon to impale the recently arrived Nighttime King, potentially ending the threat of the Walkers and their ground forces. Every bit Daenerys and her dragons arrive to rescue the party, the Night King hurls an ice javelin at Viserion, killing him and sending him crashing into the frozen lake. He throws some other at Drogon, but the dragon narrowly avoids information technology and escapes. Jon stays behind and fights his manner to the Night King, only to fall beneath the ice of the lake. Later, later on wights booty Viserion's corpse out of the lake, the Nighttime Male monarch resurrects him, bringing the beast under his control as an undead ice dragon.^[5]

The White Walkers and the army of the dead finally reach the Wall where Eastwatch-by-the-Sea stands. The Dark King uses Viserion to burn the Wall, nullifying its magic and allowing the White Walkers and their wights to cantankerous into the Vii Kingdoms.^[nineteen]

Season viii

The White Walkers quickly advance south and attack Last Hearth, massacring the population and adding them to the regular army of the dead. Ned Umber is found pinned to a wall in the eye of severed arms arranged in a screw, which Beric Dondarrion deduces is a bulletin from the Night Male monarch.^[20]

The White Walkers and their army quickly move farther south. They go far at Winterfell a half day after Tormund, Edd, and Beric bring word of the Fall of Last Hearth.^[21]

The White Walkers march into Winterfell.

The White Walkers finally arrive at Winterfell for the Battle of Winterfell. As the living assemble for the concluding battle, the White Walkers lead their army on their undead horses. The White Walkers ship out their ground forces to destroy the living and attack the castle while they hang back at the tree line. When Jon and Rhaegal endeavour to attack them, a massive blizzard slams into them, preventing direct engagement with the White Walkers. The Night Male monarch, riding Viserion, commands the wights to calibration the castle walls and pause down the defenses. The Nighttime Male monarch and so battles Jon and Daenerys and their dragons. The ii living dragons manage to overwhelm their dead blood brother and the Night King is thrown from his mountain.

Daenerys finds where the Nighttime Rex landed and commands Drogon to burn him with dragonfire. To her shock and dismay, he emerges from the inferno unharmed and she retreats earlier he can strike her from the sky.

Jon, whose severely injured mount barely manages to state safely, rushes towards the Night King, intent on ending the battle. But before he can get close, the Night King raises all of the corpses around him and walks off to find Bran, the new Three-Eyed Raven.

The destruction of the Nighttime Rex caused the extinction of the White Walkers.

The rest of the White Walkers enter the castle and rendezvous with the Night King before entering the godswood. The Walkers stand bated as the Night Rex kills Theon and walks towards Bran. Before the Nighttime King tin draw his blade and kill Bran, Arya attacks him with her Valyrian steel dagger. He grabs her midair, only through sleight of mitt, Arya stabs the Night Rex in the heart. The Nighttime King explodes into water ice, causing the other White Walkers to explode and their entire wight army to crumple.

With the death of the Night King, the White Walkers are at present extinct and their magic ceased afterward thousands of years.^[7]

Gallery

The revised look for the White Walkers revealed at the end of the second season.

A White Walker shrieking a boxing cry during the Battle of the Fist of the Get-go Men.

A White Walker carrying Craster's son to an altar made of ice in the lair of the White Walkers.

Craster's son being approached by the Night King.

White Walker attacks Hardhome.

The Walker is shocked at Jon's deflection of his Ice bract.

White Walkers massacre the beach at Hardhome.

The Night King reanimates the wildling corpses at Hardhome.

Walkers on horseback.

The Nighttime King puts his mark on Bran through a vision.

The ground forces of the dead arrives at the Weirwood tree.

A Walker breaches the Weirwood tree'southward sanctuary.

Walkers in the sanctuary.

The Night King slays the Three-Eyed Raven.

The Night King and White Walkers on horseback.

The White Walkers pb the army of the dead to Winterfell.

The White Walkers make it at Winterfell.

White Walkers leading wights in Winterfell.

Appearances

Game of Thrones: Flavor ane appearances
Winter Is Coming	The Kingsroad	Lord Snow	Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things	The Wolf and the King of beasts
A Gilded Crown	Yous Win or You Dice	The Pointy End	Baelor	Burn down and Blood

Game of Thrones: Flavour 2 appearances
The North Remembers	The Night Lands	What Is Expressionless May Never Die	Garden of Basic	The Ghost of Harrenhal
The Onetime Gods and the New	A Homo Without Honour	The Prince of Winterfell	Blackwater	Valar Morghulis

Game of Thrones: Flavor three appearances
Valar Dohaeris	Dark Wings, Dark Words	Walk of Penalization	And Now His Watch Is Ended	Kissed by Fire
The Climb	The Bear and the Maiden Fair	2nd Sons	The Rains of Castamere	Mhysa

Game of Thrones: Season four appearances
Two Swords	The King of beasts and the Rose	Breaker of Bondage	Oathkeeper	First of His Proper name
The Laws of Gods and Men	Mockingbird	The Mountain and the Viper	The Watchers on the Wall	The Children

Game of Thrones: Season 5 appearances
The Wars to Come	The House of Black and White	High Sparrow	Sons of the Harpy	Kill the Boy
Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken	The Gift	Hardhome	The Dance of Dragons	Mother's Mercy

Game of Thrones: Flavour half dozen appearances
The Carmine Adult female	Home	Oathbreaker	Book of the Stranger	The Door
Blood of My Blood	The Broken Man	No 1	Battle of the Bastards	The Winds of Winter

Game of Thrones: Season 7 appearances
Dragonstone	Stormborn	The Queen's Justice	The Spoils of War
Eastwatch	Beyond the Wall	The Dragon and the Wolf

Quotes

Osha: "In that location's things that sleep in the twenty-four hours and chase at nighttime."

Luwin: "Owls and shadowcats."

Osha: "I'chiliad not talking about owls and shadowcats."

Luwin: "The "things" you speak of, they've been gone for thousands of years."

Osha: "They wasn't gone, erstwhile human being. They was sleeping. And they own't sleeping no more."

— Osha and Luwin discuss the White Walkers^[src]

"E'er the artists."

―Mance Rayder on White Walkers' habit of arranging the bodies of the dead into special patterns ^[src]

Bran Stark: "It was you. You made the White Walkers."

Leaf: "We were at war. We were beingness slaughtered. Our sacred copse cut downwards. We needed to defend ourselves."

Bran Stark: "From whom?"

Leaf: "From y'all. From men."

— Bran Stark and Leaf, after the former witnesses the Children of the Forest curse the Night King^[src]

Backside the scenes

The original White Walker blueprint, barely glimpsed in "Wintertime Is Coming."

The appearance of the White Walkers in the TV series isn't quite the same equally in the books. They weren't fully revealed until the Season 2 finale, but quick shots mostly in the shadows in the premiere episode of Season 1. Freeze-frame shots of this display an early working-model design for the White Walkers, but given that it only flashed on-screen for a fraction of a second, this may never have been intended every bit their concluding appearance. This early design was almost skeletal, without noses. This original version really appeared besides briefly to be seen without taking screenshots, simply as this was the only glimpse of the White Walkers in the first season, fan sites (and wikis) heavily circulated these screenshots, somewhat obscuring the fact that the White Walkers' "official" design hadn't been firmly established nevertheless.

Co-ordinate to Pixomondo, the Boob tube series's special effects studio, there was indeed a complete redesign of the White Walkers between the barely glimpsed early concepts in Flavour ane, and the fully revealed version introduced in the Season 2 finale: "The producers and creatives were not happy with the White Walker costumes from season one; they wanted to redesign the look and it took a scrap longer than expected." Merely one total version of the redesigned White Walker costume was made by the Season 2 finale, thus the large shot of multiple White Walkers in the shot is just one stunt man doubled up many times. CGI enhancements were used to give the consequence that wisps of cold air are emanating from the White Walkers' bodies, equally well every bit to make their abdomens much more gaunt than human being physiology.^[22]

The final version introduced at the end of Flavor two is closer to how they appear in the books. Some differences remain, in that White Walkers are said to wear much more armor in the books, fabricated out of a strange reflective metal that almost acts like camouflage. Further, the White Walkers in the books are described as "gaunt" only they don't seem to take quite and then much of a mummified appearance. They are actually said to have an otherworldly, icy beauty to them. The White Walkers in Season 4 wear more armor than those glimpsed in Season 2, but generally maintain the established appearance. Their armor is black and dark grey, of some unknown material, as opposed to the reflective metal described in the books. Weiss and Benioff suggested in the "Within the Episode" for "The Door" that the White Walkers began wearing the armor only after Sam killed one of them, and that this incident reminded them that there were things that could still impairment them (in that episode, the armor is shown to be strong enough to repel dragonglass projectiles, "Hardhome", shows information technology is useless against Valyrian steel). Michele Clapton as well operated under this assumption, and told Weiss and Benioff that her thinking was that the armor was actually scavenged bits of fine art and architecture from some long-forgotten civilisation of the far due north.^[23]

Writer George R.R. Martin, when discussing with comic-book artist Tommy Patterson what the White Walkers were supposed to look like in the comic-book adaptation of the story he was cartoon, said that: "They are strange, beautiful...retrieve, oh...the Sidhe made of ice, something like that...a different sort of life...inhuman, elegant, dangerous." Martin also confirmed that the White Walkers are not "dead", just an inhuman kind of life.^[24] The Sidhe are a kind of otherworldly fairy creature from Irish mythology, said to inhabit burial mounds, etc., non different the Barrow-wights of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-world.^[25]

In the books

In the Game of Thrones tv testify, the term "White Walkers" is used as an alternate name for a species called the Others in the A Vocal of Ice and Burn down novels. They are held to be fairy stories by most of the people of Westeros. According to legend, the Others were creatures of ice and common cold who, more than than 8 thousand years ago, came from the uttermost northward during a winter that lasted a generation and a night that covered the world, the Long Night. The Others were defeated in the Battle for the Dawn by a slap-up hero wielding a sword of flame. After the Others' defeat, Bran the Builder constructed the Wall with magic and artifice to ensure they could never return to threaten the people of Westeros and the world beyond. The Battle for the Dawn plain unified the peoples of the North nether the rule of the Starks and saw Winterfell congenital shortly thereafter.

The Night's Picket was founded to guard against the return of the Others, but this task is by and large forgotten today. The Lookout is instead believed to be guarding against the human being wildlings who hold the lands beyond and occasionally endeavor to raid across the Wall into the richer lands to the south.

The White Walkers are always accompanied by cold temperatures, and coming from the Lands of Always Winter, information technology would seem that they prefer cold climates. They might fifty-fifty accept difficulty surviving in warmer climates. Characters inside the narrative contend whether this is because White Walkers actually generate cold and might fifty-fifty cause winters (such equally the Long Night), or considering they simply look for the adjacent winter bike and move due south when the temperature drops (in which case they didn't cause the Long Night, but seized on the opportunity it provided). White Walkers do not leave footprints in snow.

Some of One-time Nan's fairy tales say that wildling women have been known to mate with the Others to produce half-human children, just this is an unsubstantiated rumor.

It is stated in the books that they fear the day and simply come out at night. In "Valar Morghulis", however, they are seen in the twilight hours when the sun (hidden by heavy clouds) hasn't completely fix yet. The reason for this was most likely practical: the White Walkers in the novels have just appeared in near pitch-darkness, and in the visual medium of television it would exist hard to strictly lucifer this (i.e. even night scenes set in a forest seem curiously well-lit by the moon, and then we the audience can see what is happening). The White Walkers again seem to announced during the day, albeit a completely clouded day, in "Hardhome."

There is no mentioning in the books that the Others adjust the bodies of their victims in any blueprint.

When stabbed with a dragonglass bract, an Other will melt into a puddle of cold liquid. In the Idiot box serial, when they are stabbed by dragonglass they painfully freeze into ice, and apace shatter and crumble into pieces.

In the fourth novel, Jon and Sam find literary references to "dragonsteel", which is also lethal to Others, and assume (but have not still confirmed) that it refers to Valyrian steel. In the series, Jon discovers quite by accident that Valyrian steel is indeed deadly to White Walkers.

It is unknown whether Others can be destroyed by fire. In the onetime records Sam finds, it is briefly mentioned that "fire will dismay them."

Origins and reproduction

Goose egg is currently known about the origins of the White Walkers, but that they came from the polar regions of the Lands of Always Wintertime. Nothing is mentioned of them always attempting to directly communicate with humans.

There actually are female White Walkers, if the legends nearly the Night's Queen are true, but whether they actually reproduce with each other biologically, or if there are ever White Walker children is never mentioned any.

Craster's wives do say that they believe that the babe sons that Craster gave the Others every bit sacrifices were turned into new White Walkers - merely information technology wasn't articulate if this is what actually happens, or if it was just the wild suspicion of Craster'due south frightened, isolated wives. When Samwell is told to abscond with Gilly and her newborn son, Gilly urges that if he doesn't "they" will come for him. When he asks who "they" are, another wife says: "The boy'southward brothers...Craster's sons. The white cold'south rising out at that place, crow. I can feel it in my bones. These poor old basic don't lie. They'll be here soon, the sons."

Confirmation of what exactly happens to Craster's sons has not occurred in the books withal, but the Season four episode of the TV series "Oathkeeper" revealed that the White Walkers do turn in fact Craster's baby sons into new White Walkers.

When George R.R. Martin was in the very early on stages of starting piece of work on the novel series, he sent a three page pitch memo to his agent giving a very crude idea of what the overall story would be similar - back when he envisioned it as merely a trilogy of novels (Tywin Lannister's death at the end of book iii/Season 4 is essentially the end of what would have been the original beginning novel out of three). Many ideas from this pitch memo were later heavily revised and comport little resemblance to the terminal version. When Martin briefly described the Others/White Walkers in this memo, he also referred to them using an alternate name never used in the main novels: The Neverborn:

."..half-forgotten demons out of legend, the inhuman Others, raise cold legions of the undead and the neverborn and prepare to ride downward on the winds of winter to extinguish everything we would consider life." ^[26]

While these ideas in the pitch memo were tentative, they do seem to fit with what was revealed in Season 4 of the Idiot box serial - implying that the White Walkers are actually never "born", do not reproduce biologically as their own independent race, only "reproduce" by turning select humans into new White Walkers.

This brings upwards another vague comment made by Martin virtually the White Walkers. Early in production on Season 1, the TV series had to make its ain costumes and weapons for the White Walkers, and Martin was asked if it fit well with his mental vision of what the White Walkers' cloth culture is like. Martin responded that the White Walkers don't actually have what we would call a "culture." What he meant by this is unclear: the novels also say that the White Walkers accept their own linguistic communication, weapons, armor, etc. so they have some vestiges of such things.

Taken together, the fact that the White Walkers don't reproduce naturally, and don't really have their own "culture"/society, seems to bespeak that they were never an independently existing race the way that humans, giants, and Children of the Forest were. It vaguely seems that they are more than like demonic or magical spirits somehow housed within human bodies which they possess and turn into "White Walkers." How the commencement White Walker was created to brainstorm with was later on explained in the show, with a vision of Bran showing the Children of the Forest creating the Night King every bit office of their war efforts confronting the First Men.

Naming

The White Walkers are often known as "the Others" in the novels, and were yet known by this proper noun in the first draft of the pilot script. In the books, "white walkers" is the proper name given to the creatures by wildlings, and with merely a few wildling characters, the term is heard simply seldom. The proper noun is also used in Westeros, though by and large past older characters such equally Old Nan, Maester Aemon, and Lord Commander Jeor Mormont.

Fan speculation was originally that the proper name was changed to avoid confusion with the faction of the same name in the television serial Lost (at a convention panel after Flavor five aired, George R.R. Martin did say that this concern was at least a gene in why the name "Others" was not used).^[27] However, the producers stated in the Season 1 Blu-ray commentary that the principal reason they made the change was more to avoid viewer confusion between the specific name "Others" and the generic use of the term: book-readers tin tell that "Others" is treated as a capitalized proper substantive, but TV-viewers cannot. It sounded similar actors saying, "He says he saw the others" - simply viewers had no way of telling if they simply meant "other soldiers", "other horses", etc. - so the term was only too disruptive in the audio-visual medium of television.

See also

• Others on A Wiki of Ice and Fire

References

1. ↑ ^{one.0 i.one one.2} "The Door"
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.one 2.2 ii.3 ii.four 2.v ii.6 2.vii} "Hardhome"
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1} "Valar Morghulis"
4. ↑ ^{iv.0 four.1 iv.2} "Second Sons"
5. ↑ ^{five.0 5.1} "Beyond the Wall"
6. ↑ ^{6.0 6.1} "Oathkeeper"
7. ↑ ^{7.0 seven.1 vii.2} "The Long Nighttime"
8. ↑ "Wintertime Is Coming"
9. ↑ "Lord Snow"
10. ↑ "A Gilded Crown"
11. ↑ "You Win or Yous Die"
12. ↑ ^{12.0 12.1} "The Pointy Stop"
13. ↑ "Burn and Claret"
14. ↑ "The Night Lands"
15. ↑ "What Is Dead May Never Die"
16. ↑ "Dragonstone"
17. ↑ "The Spoils of War"
18. ↑ "Eastwatch"
19. ↑ "The Dragon and the Wolf"
20. ↑ "Winterfell"
21. ↑ "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms"
22. ↑ Fastcocreate.com "Collaboration Isn't Ever Pretty—Behind The Emmy-Winning VFX For "Game Of Thrones"
23. ↑ [one]
24. ↑ AWOIAF article on The Others
25. ↑ [two]
26. ↑ Race for the Fe Throne
27. ↑ [iii]

five• d •e Cultures and peoples of the known world Westeros Get-go Men Northmen · Crannogmen · Gratuitous Folk (Cave people · Frozen Shore tribes · Hornfoot · Ice-river clans · Thenn) · Hill tribes of the Vale Andals "Southerner": Crownlanders · Reachmen · Rivermen · Stormlanders · Valemen · Westermen Other Ironborn · Dornishmen · Valyrians Essos Gratuitous Cities Braavosi · Lorathi · Norvoshi · Qohorik · Pentoshi · Tyroshi · Myrish · Lysene · Volantene Central & Eastern Essos Rhoynar · Valyrians · Dothraki · Lhazareen · Ghiscari · Mantari · Qartheen · Yi Tish · Asshai'i Sothoryos & isles of the Summer Bounding main Summer Islanders · Naathi Not-Homo Races Children of the Forest · Giants · White Walkers (Wights)

5• d •east Game of Thrones prequel projects Agile prequel projects: House of the Dragon (Trip the light fantastic of the Dragons) Current prequel pitches: The Sea Snake (Young Corlys Velaryon) · Ten Thousand Ships (Nymeria & the Rhoynar) · A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (Douse & Egg) · The Golden Empire (Yi Ti) Canceled and paused prequel pitches: Bloodmoon (Long Night) · Empire of Ash (Doom of Valyria) Source cloth: Fire & Claret · Tales of Douse and Egg

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Source: https://gameofthrones.fandom.com/wiki/White_Walkers

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