ASOIAF / Game of Thrones (SPOILERS INSIDE)

[Funkutron5000]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...=Entertainment

So, um, it may have been the Night's King. At least according to the HBO website for a while.

[Pitborn]

These first 4 episodes have enthralled me like no other season thus far.

[Sirken]

Originally Posted by Funkutron5000 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...=Entertainment

So, um, it may have been the Night's King. At least according to the HBO website for a while.

The Night's King is a legendary Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, who lived during the Age of Heroes. According to legend, the Night's King lived during the Age of Heroes, not long after the Wall was complete. He was a fearless warrior, who was named the thirteenth Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. Later he fell in love with a woman "with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars", he chased her and loved her though "her skin was cold as ice", and when he gave his seed to her he gave his soul as well. (Her description matches that of the Others.)

He brought her back to the Nightfort and after the unholy union, he declared himself king and her his queen, and ruled the Nightfort as his own castle for thirteen years. During the dark years of his reign, horrific atrocities were committed, of which tales are still told in the North. It was not until his own brother, the King in the North, and Joramun, the King-Beyond-the-Wall, joined forces that the Night's King was brought down and the Night's Watch freed. After his fall, when it was discovered that he had been sacrificing to the Others (possibly in similar way to Craster), all records of him were destroyed and his very name was forbidden. It is likely this led the lords of the North to forbid the Night's Watch to construct walls at their keeps, ensuring the keeps would always be accessible from the south.

While on his way north, Bran Stark recalls stories told to the Stark children of the Night's King and the Nightfort by Old Nan, servant in Winterfell. She said some people believe the Night's King was a Bolton, a Magnar out of Skagos, an Umber, a Flint, a Norrey, or a Woodfoot, who ruled Bear Island before the ironmen came. However, she identifies the Night's King as a Stark of Winterfell and brother to the King of the North and hints his name too was Bran.


now moving on to the great other, The Great Other is the god of darkness, cold, and death in the faith of R'hllor. His true name is never spoken. He is considered the enemy of R'hllor, the Lord of Light. Followers of R'hllor believe that there are only two gods, R'hllor and the Great Other, who wage an eternal war over the fate of the world. All forces of darkness, cold, and death are believed to be only servants to the Great Other. Melisandre refers to the Others as the "cold children" of the Great Other. The Great Other has never been mentioned by any Westerosi although all know of the Others from legends. According to Melisandre sleep is a little death, dreams and whispering of the Other who would drag everyone into his eternal night. At the Wall, when gazing into the fires, Melisandre sees a wooden face, corpse white, a thousand red eyes, and a boy with a wolf's head beside him. She thinks to herself that they must be the Great Other's champions, as King Stannis is hers.

Further evidence in the text ties the Last Greenseer, Bloodraven, the Old Gods, and Bran Stark to the theme of darkness that draws The Great Other into opposition with R'hllor. The vision of Melisandre pointing towards Bloodraven and Bran as champions of The Great Other is corroborated in this exchange:

There he sat, listening to the hoarse whispers of his teacher. 'Never fear the darkness, Bran.' The lord's words were accompanied by a faint rustling of wood and leaf, a slight twisting of his head. "The strongest trees are rooted in the dark places of the earth. Darkness will be your cloak, your shield, your mother's milk. Darkness will make you strong.

In an apparent paradox, on one hand the attractive Melisandre and her "Lord of Light" R'hllor clearly display "evil" practices such as human sacrifice in their magic. On the other hand, the twisted Bloodraven and broken Bran (a universally sympathetic character) use the darkness as their ally to merge with nature and apparently aid the forces of "good." However, the true motivations of Bloodraven and the children of the forest are not yet apparent.

and then of course u have Melisandre saying:

Beyond the Wall, the enemy grows stronger, and should he win the dawn will never come again.

it is far more likely that someone from the show misspoke imo.

[Kimm Bare|y]

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[Shamalam]

Still been thinking about this. Seems possible to me that "Night's King" might be a title instead of an actual specific individual, similar to "The King in the North" for the northerners. Maybe the Night's King from the myth above (thanks Sirken!) was only the first one, or the first one to call himself that? I feel like they wouldn't have gone back and edited the synopsis on the HBO site if the name "Night's King" wasn't an important detail in the first place. Seems possible that some web intern got a copy of the wrong synopsis and made a mistake posting details he shouldn't have.

There's also the fact that the spikes on his head seem to form a sort of crown: http://i.imgur.com/HMZwi6y.jpg

However, the most interesting thing to me is the fact there are 13 Others in the scene: http://i.imgur.com/ocRIXSl.jpg

Where else have we seen the number 13 recently?

He was a fearless warrior, who was named the thirteenth Lord Commander of the Night's Watch.

We also know the 13th Lord Commander was the brother of The King in the North at the time, so he was most likely a Stark, or closely related to them.

his own brother, the King in the North

Getting really tin-foily here now, but bear with me. We also keep hearing how there "must always be a Stark in Winterfell." Currently, there is no Stark in Winterfell. So maybe... the Other we saw at the end of the episode might be the Night's King, who was also a Stark at one point. Maybe they know that there is no Stark in Winterfell at the moment, and they're moving back south to reclaim it?

... Okay, maybe a little ridiculous. Still fun to think about [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Sirken]

Originally Posted by Shamalam [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Still been thinking about this. Seems possible to me that "Night's King" might be a title instead of an actual specific individual, similar to "The King in the North" for the northerners. Maybe the Night's King from the myth above (thanks Sirken!) was only the first one, or the first one to call himself that? I feel like they wouldn't have gone back and edited the synopsis on the HBO site if the name "Night's King" wasn't an important detail in the first place. Seems possible that some web intern got a copy of the wrong synopsis and made a mistake posting details he shouldn't have.

There's also the fact that the spikes on his head seem to form a sort of crown: http://i.imgur.com/HMZwi6y.jpg

However, the most interesting thing to me is the fact there are 13 Others in the scene: http://i.imgur.com/ocRIXSl.jpg

Where else have we seen the number 13 recently?



We also know the 13th Lord Commander was the brother of The King in the North at the time, so he was most likely a Stark, or closely related to them.



Getting really tin-foily here now, but bear with me. We also keep hearing how there "must always be a Stark in Winterfell." Currently, there is no Stark in Winterfell. So maybe... the Other we saw at the end of the episode might be the Night's King, who was also a Stark at one point. Maybe they know that there is no Stark in Winterfell at the moment, and they're moving back south to reclaim it?

... Okay, maybe a little ridiculous. Still fun to think about [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

the nights king can not be the great other, the timelines just dont match up. the nights watch was created to protect the realms of man from those white walkers (whom were all created by the great other). The Great Other created the Whitewalker that the 13th lord commander of the nights watch fell in love with. the nights king was also slain by the combined forces of the king beyond the wall & the king in the north. White walkers are not dead people or reanimated corpses, those are whigts, they are thralls to the whitewalkers. Wights are dead men or creatures raised up by the whitewalkers, seemingly when touched by the cold that accompanies them. Anyone who falls against the Others must be burned, or else the dead will rise again as their thralls. Fear of their own dead becoming wights leads the free folk to burn them.

i love you sir. the stark in winterfell thing is because if there is not a stark in winterfell, they will lose it and they will lose the north. dat game of thrones (although for a while i had a tin foil theory about this as well, involving the stark family crypt and ghosts).

this entire thing tells the song of ice(whitewalkers, the great other, lyanna stark) and fire(dragons, R'hllor, rhaegar targaryen).

[Zadrian]

This just in, craster's daughters get condemned to death by snoo snoo

[Sirken]

Originally Posted by Zadrian [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This just in, craster's daughters get condemned to death by snoo snoo

wasnt that what melisandre whispered to davos' kid?

death by snoo snoo is the purest death

-Melisandre

[beyondinfin]

The thing I most liked about this episode was finding out this show could actually shock me (much like non book readers and red wedding reaction). I keep thinking...ok that is the end....ok thats it. Once I saw the alter I shouted WTF quite loudly. I never thought about the whitewalkers do with those babies. Makes sense now, but I figured they used them in black magic or some shit. This also tells me that they've been stealing babies for however many thousand of years they have been absent from world affairs.

I also wonder...if a whitewalker can change a human baby into a whitewalker....Could they also change an adult? What if Ramsay Snow makes a deal with the frozen devil? Just a thought.

I also love that the show is changing things to allow for more interactions, its only making the show greater for that freedom, to fill in blanks and take liberties...i dont see it changing much in the end. Id love to see if the show ends one way and GRRM does it differently in his last book.

[Kazi]

I know GRRM has input on the show but I do hope that what is presented as fact in the show does not force his hand in the development of the book. Small things like turning babies into white walkers or Others are one thing that will probably never be explained by the book and that's a cool bit of trivia. But the poisoner's/s' identity is still just a theory in the books and is a pretty big deal. I hope that if that was initially a red herring, GRRM can remain committed to whatever plot he initially intended. Hope that makes sense.