NOTE: This article focuses on the TV series adaptation's leader of the White Walkers. For the novels' legendary figure from the Night's Watch, see Night's King.
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“ | The True Enemy won't wait out the storm. He brings the storm. | „ |
~ Jon Snow, regarding the Night King. |
The Night King is the overarching antagonist of the HBO TV series Game of Thrones, an adaption of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novel series. Having existed since the Dawn Age, the Night King is the leader of the White Walkers, being the first and most dangerous of his kind. By extension, he is also the master of all the wights.
As he is an original character of the television series, he is not expected to appear in the A Song of Ice and Fire novel series. In the TV series adaptation, he is the apparent mastermind behind the coming invasion of the White Walkers and the wights, and as such, he is the most dangerous threat to the Seven Kingdoms. He is also the archenemy of both Jon Snow, Bran Stark, and House Stark as a whole.
The religion of R'hllor claims that the Night King and the White Walkers are servants of an evil god of ice known as the Great Other, the archenemy of R'hllor, the Lord of Light. Red Priests claim that only the hero Azor Ahai reborn can stop them and the Long Night that Never Ends. It is revealed that the Children of the Forest, during their war with the First Men, had created the Night King as the first and original White Walker to defeat their enemies. The Night King himself was one of the First Men.
In Seasons 4 to 5, he was portrayed by Richard Brake, who also played Joe Chill in Batman Begins, Enrikas Dortlich in Hannibal Rising, Valin Hess in The Mandalorian, Frank in Barbarian and Otis Clairborne in R.I.P.D. 2: Rise of the Damned. From Seasons 6 to 8, he was portrayed by Vladimir Furdik. In Space Jam: A New Legacy, the Night King was played by an unknown actor.
Biography[]
Game of Thrones[]
“ | Bran Stark: It was you! You made the White Walkers! Leaf: We were at war. We were being slaughtered. Our sacred trees cut down. We needed to defend ourselves. Bran Stark: From whom? Leaf: From you. From men. |
„ |
~ Bran Stark confronting Leaf after seeing the creation of the Night King. |
Season 4[]
The episode "Oathkeeper" reveals the fate of the infant sons of Craster. In addition, this also marks the Night King's debut; A lone White Walker finds Craster's last son in the Haunted Forest and takes him to the Lands of Always Winter before laying the baby on what appears to be an altar where the Night King himself greets the infant. With a poke to his cheek with his finger, turns the son into a White Walker.
Season 5[]
In Hardhome, in which Jon Snow, now Lord Commander of the Night's Watch himself, goes to the titular village of Hardhome on a mission with Tormund Giantsbane to make peace with the remaining wildlings from the army of Mance Rayder, who fled during the attack of King Stannis Baratheon and get them to the Wall. While the village is being evacuated, an army of wight's attack, and a massacre ensues while the Night King and his fellow White Walkers oversee the attack. During the fight, Jon Snow kills as White Walker, which the Night King finds intriguing by this resistance. After Hardhome's walls have fallen to the army of the dead Jon, his men and their allies were forced to flee with the last of the evacuates. Jon and the Night King make eye contact, before the latter has him watch as he revives the dead into new wights.
Season 6[]
In the fifth episode of the sixth season, The Door, it is revealed that the Night King was originally a normal human being and was one of the First Men, but was captured by the Children of the Forest. Leaf, one of the Children, forcibly transforms him as the first and original White Walker with a dagger made from dragonglass/obsidian. Witnessing this in a vision, Bran Stark confronts Leaf over her actions of creating the White Walkers and she explains that they were at war with the First Men (which was during the Dawn Age), in which the Children of the Forest were slaughtered while their sacred weirwood trees were being cut down.
During one of his greendreams, where he is not accompanied by the Three-Eyed-Raven, Bran Stark sees the undead forces of the White Walkers. Walking through the army of wights, he stands before the Night King and his fellow White Walkers. When Bran comes closer, the Night King immediately sees him, and he grabs Bran by the arm which leaves a lasting mark, even after Bran has awoken. This mark allows the Night King to penetrate the security spells around the cave. Though the remaining Children of the Forest tried to hold off the White Walkers but were overwhelmed. During an attack on the cave of the Three-Eyed-Raven, most of the Children of the Forest were killed, along with Bran's direwolf Summer. While the Three-eyed Raven is sharing a vision together with Bran, he was slain by the Night King, causing his figure in the vision to disintegrate and blow away like rags and ashes in front of Bran.
Season 7[]
In the episode Eastwatch, Bran, through the eyes of a flock of ravens, spots the Night King and the White Walkers leading the army of the dead as they traveled southward towards Eatwatch-by-the-sea. At severing his connection with the ravens, Bran tells Maester Wolkan that they need to send ravens at once.
In Beyond the Wall, while Jon, Sandor Clegane, Tormund Giantsbane, Beric Dondarrion, Thoros of Myr, and their allies are north of Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, on a wight hunt to capture a wight to show proof of the White Walkers' existence, the Night King was present while on horseback as his wights attack the group. During the attack, he kept his gaze on Jon for some time, as he remembered their previous encounter at Hardhome. Beric makes the suggestion to his allies of trying to kill the Night King, as they know that killing a White Walker will cause any and all wights it raised to be destroyed. That way, with the Night King dead, every monster under his command would be destroyed, which would put an end to the Great War before it could even begin. Jon Snow rejects Beric plan's, however, and argued that fighting to reach the Night King is suicidal.
As Daenerys Targaryen and her three dragons, Drogon, Viserion and Rhaegal, burned many wights to save the group, Jon and his allies tried to evacuate on Drogon with their captured wight. During that time, the Night King takes an ice javelin and throws it at Viserion, successfully killing the dragon, to Daenerys horror while her other dragons helplessly cried out for their fallen brother. Enraged at the loss of Viserion, Jon is on the verge of calling the Night King to come down and fight, but the Night King is given another ice lance by one of his White Walker lieutenants. Though he attempted to kill Drogon, which could have brought down not only the dragon but also Daenerys, the dragon was able to narrowly dodge the attack. After Daenerys and her surviving dragons escaped, the Night King and his army departed afterwards. Later, after the wights hauled Viserion's corpse from a frozen lake, the Night King proceeded to resurrect him as an undead dragon.
Later, in The Dragon and the Wolf, when the White Walkers and their massive army of wights arrived at the Wall, the Night King, while riding Viserion, has him destroy the eastern part of the Wall at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, breaking the spell of the Children of the Forest and making a passageway for his army to invade the Seven Kingdoms. During the attack, Tormund, Beric Dondarrion, and the brothers of the Night's Watch were forced to flee, though many of the Night's Watch men suffered heavy losses, as many of them were crushed by falling debris while the rest fell to their deaths. Tormund and Beric were able to survive the breaching, however. With the eastern part of the Wall now destroyed, the White Walkers and the army of the dead began marching south to invade all of Westeros.
Season 8[]
In the first episode of the eighth and final season Winterfell, the dead, under the Night King's leadership, successfully sack Last Hearth and killed off House Umber and its last lord Ned Umber. The Night King then leaves a message for the living before proceeding to march on Winterfell.
In the episode The Long Night, during the Battle of Winterfell, the Night King leads the army of the dead while astride on the undead Viserion. Though he stayed out of the battle, he appears from the clouds of a huge snowstorm to pursue Daenerys and Drogon while Jon is knocked out of the way, but Daenerys managed to evade the Night King. Having separated the two, the Night King and Viserion proceeded to Winterfell. When Bran Stark used his greensight to warg into a flock of ravens, he managed to locate the Night King, who was busy ordering the army of the dead to press their attack on Winterfell and has them smother the burning trench, allowing the wights to swarm Winterfell engages in an epic aerial battle with Jon, who is astride on the dragon Rhaegal, and Daenaerys, on Drogon.
When the Night King attempts to reach the castle's godswood to get to Bran, who is the new Three-Eyed-Raven, he was spotted and pursued by Jon Snow and Rhaegal, who attacks him before he could strafe Winterfell. The Night King, Jon and their respective dragons began an aerial battle in the skies above the castle. As the Night King readies an ice javelin, he was unable to get a clear shot, as Viserion and Rhaegal were chaotically whirling around in mid-air as they clashed with each other. While the Night King was distracted by Jon and Rhaegal, Daenerys and Drogon ambushed him by colliding into Viserion, causing the Night King to fall from his mount. Despite this, he heads into the breached walls of Winterfell and into the Godswood while on foot with the intention of killing Bran.
The Night King was then found by Daenerys, who has Drogon burn him with his dragonfire. Unfortunately for Daenerys, Drogon's flames proved to be useless against the Night King, who appears intact, horrifying Daenerys. He attempts to kill Drogon with his last ice javelin but the dragon and Daenerys fled while again narrowly missing the attack. Before Jon Snow could reach the Night King, the latter revives the corpses of Winterfell's defenders to protect himself. This forced Jon to fight them off, allowing the Night King continue to the Weirwood forest. When he arrived, the wights made way for him.
Theon Greyjoy makes a brave, but vain, attempt to protect Bran by charging at the Night King with a spear, but the Night King easily blocks the blow before snapping the spear in half and killing Theon. With Theon out of the way, the Night King proceeds towards Bran. Finally reaching Bran Stark, the Night King, looking at him in silence, reaches for his sword and is on the verge of being triumphant. Just as it seems that all hope is lost, Arya Stark lunges at the Night King from behind only to be grabbed by the throat. Before the Night King can finish her off, Arya drops her Valyrian steel dagger (originally owned by House Targaryen and Littlefinger) before using her free hand to catch it in midair. She then drives it into the Night King's chest, destroying him. With the Night King dead, the White Walkers, and all the wights, including Viserion, were killed once and for all after thousands of years of spreading terror and bringing a complete end to the Battle of Winterfell.
Legacy[]
Despite the extinction of the White Walkers and the wights, the Night King's attack on Winterfell had a great impact upon the living, as it is a great cost to be paid by both the Targaryen, Northern, and Vale forces, due to their numbers being heavily decimated to the point that it is questionable for them to resume their war with Queen Cersei Lannister and Euron Greyjoy. It is estimated that half of the Northern, Unsullied and Dorthraki forces perished in the battle. Much later, during the Battle of King's Landing, after losing so much in the wars of late, Daenerys Targaryen, the leader of the Unsullied and Dothraki, succumbs to the infamous "Targaryen Madness" that her father, brother and several of their ancestors had before her. She would soon grow to become a threat to the Known World as the Night King was. Ironically, both Daenerys and the Night King died in the same manner; a dagger to the heart.
A Song of Ice and Fire[]
As the Night King is an original character in Game of Thrones, he has no counterpart in the novels. However, it is not yet known if the Others have their own hierarchy or even a leader. There is only a legend about a legendary figure known as the Night's King. George R.R. Martin stated that Night's King is a legendary figure who's most likely to be dead. The Night King from the show has been added only for the TV version of the events.
There are different rumors and theories about possible candidates for a new leader of the Others who will lead them during the Long Night that Never Ends; a possible candidate for the "next Night's King" is Stannis Baratheon, due to his similarities with Night's King and the fact he took the Nightfort as his seat in the North. Stannis is also said that he will break before he bends. In the House of the Undying, Daenerys Targaryen sees in a vision a blue-eyed king with a red sword, who casts no shadow. This description matches with Stannis, who's said to have deep blue eyes, has a glowing red sword, and created two Shadow Assassins with Melisandre. Voices of the Undying Ones call Daenerys "slayer of lies".
In the book version, the situation with the wildlings is more complicated and the events at Hardhome happened "off-screen" as Jon Snow, who is the POV character of this storyline, stays at Castle Black while Cotter Pyke and Tormund are sent there.
Other media[]
Teen Titans Go![]
While the Night King did not appear in the episode Where Exactly on the Globe is Carl Sanpedro - Part 4, Mr. Freeze is seen dressed up as the character, and like the Night King, he leads an army of ice zombies (wights). He was killed after Starfire (dressed up as Daenerys) summoned a big Croatian bird to defeat him. This resulted in the deaths of all the ice zombies and White Walkers.
Space Jam: A New legacy[]
The Night King is present amongst all the Warner Bros. characters during the basketball match between LeBron James, the Toon Squad, the Goon Squad, and Dominic LeBron (later replaced by Al-G Rhythm, after Dom decides to defect to the Toon Squad). After LeBron wins against AI-G, the Night King and the White Walkers are sent back to the Game of Thrones world (which is part of the Warner Bros. Serververse).
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Trivia[]
- The Night King's first appearance on the show was controversial to the fans of A Song of Ice and Fire novels, of which Game of Thrones is based off, because there was no implication of his presence in the books.
- When asked about this, George R.R. Martin claimed: "As for the Night's King (the form I prefer), in the books he is a legendary figure, akin to Lann the Clever and Brandon the Builder, and no more likely to have survived to the present day than they have."
- Furthermore, George R.R. Martin has stated that A Song of Ice and Fire does not need an evil Dark Lord, in contrast to the Game of Thrones showrunners saying that the Night King is the incarnation of all evil. So far in the books there are implications and theories about Stannis Baratheon becoming a "King of Ice" or Night's King's successor. Stannis has various parallels with Night's King's character and actions, and during the narrative with Stannis, the words "cold" and "night" appear a lot, including the description of Stannis' eyes as "deep blue as night", just like the White Walkers' eyes are described. If the theory is true, then Stannis in the TV show was no longer needed, as his role in season 6 was given to Jon Snow and his possible future villainous role replaced by the Night King. Apparently Jon and Daenerys are the chosen ones to save the world, while Melisandre's visions of Stannis as a king was actually Stannis breaking after losing everything and join the Others to destroy Westeros.