What Episode Does It Show the Night King Take Babies

The Dark Male monarch and his regular army of White Walkers are coming — but why? In season 7 of Game of Thrones, an impossible predicament with blurry motivation jammed a metal bar between the spokes of Westeros' spinning political cycle, forcing mortal enemies into the arms of their near hated adversaries. The flavor viii premiere, "Winterfell," reminded us that the upcoming battle is not with a wave of dotterel zombies. The Nighttime Rex left a message, and what it means could be life or death for our heroes.

At the cease of "Winterfell," Beric, Tormund, and friends venture out to investigate Last Hearth, only to find Lord Ned of House Umber pinned to a wall, surrounded by severed arms, his firm rendered extinct by the Night King'due south army. A blood-curdling scream from the undead boy prompts Beric to thrust a sword into him, engulfing the display in flames.

Beyond being frightening, the temper of this moment was made more than eerie by the knowledge that the Night Male monarch went out of his mode to create this grisly scene. And information technology's non the showtime time: We've seen this screw motif at multiple points in Game of Thrones, adopted past the Walkers from the rock organisation around the weirwood tree where the Children of the Forest created the Night King. Information technology was later found on the cave walls of Dragonstone.

There's a theory that the White Walker swirl is a mutated version of the Targaryen sigil, an answer-chasing hope that has merely heated upwardly since Beric set the mutilated-body calling carte du jour aglow. The potential connection between the Night Rex and the Targaryen bloodline is even more interesting when you lot consider one of the final shots of season seven, in which we saw the White Walkers caput southward afterwards destroying the Wall, forming the shape of the Stark sigil every bit they marched. Spooky. As is so oft the case with Thrones, information technology's easy to go lost discussing the puzzling symbolism of the choices — especially the White Walker spiral — but the virtually curious office of the big season 8 reveal is what's in the middle of it: a child.

Helen Sloan/HBO

The Night King fabricated a bloody instance out of Ned Umber, but in the past, he has spared plenty of living people across the serial, including Samwell Tarly and Bran. Hell, he could have wiped out both Jon and Dany when they went beyond the Wall, but instead, he chose to bide his time, using his spear to kill Viserion instead and then resurrecting the dragon. Clearly, at that place is some method behind the madness.

And the White Walkers are seemingly open to diplomacy with characters similar Craster, who worshipped the Dark King and his legion as gods, cutting a sinister deal in which he sacrificed his offspring to secure his own safety.

What does the Dark King want? If there'southward any desire seemingly driving his actions, it's children. He can make millions of wights out of corpses, simply he can't simply create new White Walkers. Equally we know from Bran's vision and Leaf's confession, the Walkers are all formerly homo, and the more organized members we've seen clad in black armor seem obsessed with creating new recruits by turning the naive eyes of children icy blueish during infancy.

Perhaps the Nighttime King and his troops aren't so dissimilar from the political form fortifying Winterfell as we speak. Their existence threatened, they want to survive, and this is the only fashion to prolong their species. When Sam and Gilly escaped the mutineers at Craster's Continue in season iii, a Walker followed suit and tried to kidnap her surviving son, forcing Sam to stab the undead beingness (and learn the true power of dragonglass). This was one of the kickoff instances of the Walker's methodic hunt, spurred on past a broken pact with Craster and a missing child, Sam Jr., that was initially promised to be theirs. By using a child's body to transport his gruesome alert to the grouping entering Terminal Hearth, the Night King could be sending an overt message about his mission.

HBO

In the books, Bran is told stories of a "Night'southward Male monarch" by Old Nan. This king, a Stark from the Age of Heroes, vicious in honey with a White Walker "with skin equally white equally the moon and optics like blue stars." Nan notes that "when he gave his seed to her he gave his soul likewise." This fabled rex enacted rule from the decrepit Nightfort, committing all sorts of vile acts with his lover as his queen. Mayhap not a great bedtime story, but helpful for all of united states interested in White Walker history.

According to legend, the Night's King besides sacrificed children to the undead in order to keep them at bay, and that's why his triumphs were stripped from the history books. He was eventually dethroned past a "Stark of Winterfell."

A Song of Ice and Burn down author George R.R. Martin has separated this character from Game of Thrones' Night Male monarch (notice the lack of apostrophe) in interviews, merely it'due south nevertheless very yummy food for thought. The cyclical, historical parallel of a sordid pact with the Walkers has bully potential to announced again. Only this time, information technology could exist a sacrifice that decides the fate of Westeros.

With Dany, Jon, Sansa, and Cersei all dealing with political pressures as the Night King marches s, the remaining question is whether the surviving leaders will condemn their troops to die fighting to break the cycle or succumb to the sacrificial ultimatum, enabling the cycle again to continue the undead at bay.

As well as an army of infants to survive his loyal guard, perhaps the Night King wants the ultimate heir apparent to succeed him. Whose baby? In that location are a few options, just one could be an apocryphal child built-in of water ice and fire, 1 who might be imagined to pb a new unified Westeros. With v episodes to go, the only thing we know for sure is that the White Walkers' mystery leaves enough of room for everything we think we know to exist upended.

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Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer based out of Newcastle, England's equivalent of Winterfell. Y'all tin can find his writing on games and entertainment in Eurogamer, Kotaku, GamesRadar, and more than. Follow him on Twitter @JordanOloman .

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Source: https://www.polygon.com/game-of-thrones/2019/4/18/18485076/game-of-thrones-night-king-spiral-children-white-walkers-theory

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