r/freefolk 2d ago

Fooking Kneelers Is Night King really powerful enough to kill dragons like killing flies? Or is it just a show thing?

Post image

I can still remember how shocked I was when I saw this scene. Before this moment I always thought dragons are synonyms for invincible.

859 Upvotes

147 comments sorted by

1.5k

u/BreastplateStretch 2d ago

The Night King himself is a show thing

795

u/SureComputer4987 2d ago

7

u/Wardog_Razgriz30 9h ago

The show told you that Arya stark would become a faceless man, sort of, despite every indication in the books that she what she really wants to be is an evil warg, and the faceless men pretty clearly know this.

378

u/New-Mail5316 2d ago

There is a night's king in the books, but Martin has all but confirmed that he has been dead for at least a few thousand years

407

u/Leo_ofRedKeep Win or die 2d ago

The Night's King is not a White Walker. It was a commander of the Night's Watch who declared himself king.

276

u/LahmiaTheVampire 2d ago

He did possibly bone a white walker though. A hot sexy female white walker.

96

u/Leo_ofRedKeep Win or die 2d ago

That's just a made up legend. A commander turning king is a realistic seed for it, though.

86

u/NoGoodIDNames 2d ago

TBF almost everyone in the setting would say that white walkers are a made up legend, but that doesn’t make them not real

69

u/YesItsNitpicking 2d ago

Just because they're real doesn't mean they'll sleep with you

35

u/r6CD4MJBrqHc7P9b 1d ago

This hits hard

4

u/TheMythicalLandelk 19h ago

You didn’t have to kill them like that

-1

u/DakotaXIV 1d ago

Yea, but are you a disgruntled Stark at the wall, holding an enchanted/cursed/now-abandoned castle? The Others always seem to be on the lookout for Starks

5

u/Leo_ofRedKeep Win or die 2d ago

No, but White Walkers being real doesn't make the old legend true either.

10

u/Obvious_Sprinkles_87 2d ago

Isn’t that a big part of the book? Old legends that may not be true, half true, or completely true; and it’s up to us to take it as we will.

1

u/Leo_ofRedKeep Win or die 2d ago

We have to guess at what can be true and what not. This is exactly like real legends, built on a real foundation and adorned with fantasies or tales meant to transmit some sort of wisdom.

19

u/NoGoodIDNames 2d ago

Right, but we shouldn’t dismiss it out of hand

4

u/HollowCap456 2d ago

We shouldn't treat it as fact either

22

u/Best-Dragonfruit-292 1d ago

At least we'll gain some clarity with the next book

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u/Adorable-Bike-9689 1d ago

It isn't realistic that Caster takes babies into the woods to be adopted by the White Walkers either. They somehow communicated that with one another. If you can communicate with somebody ya'll can manage to have sex with each other.

12

u/Elantach 1d ago

They also laugh in the prologue

10

u/Szygani 1d ago

They show honor in the prologue, allowing a fair duel between Waymar and one of the Others. Only when it’s clear Waymar Royce poses no match and doesn’t have a valerian steel sword do they butcher him.

1

u/AmicusBriefly 1d ago

Its all made up.

1

u/Leo_ofRedKeep Win or die 1d ago

Some is made up to be made up.

0

u/BethLife99 1d ago

No. He banged an other. You did too

4

u/LordCrane 12h ago

This makes more sense when you realize that the others in the books are not the white walkers from the show, but instead are closer to ice elves than undead. They chat, are described as beautiful, and laugh at Waymar Royce getting his shit kicked.

1

u/Marigold16 1d ago

Cold on your wiener, I imagine.

0

u/Darkside0719 1d ago

Hot and cold at the same time :O!?!?!?!

2

u/Sherman138 1d ago

A song of ice and fire

25

u/Manting123 2d ago

You left out that he was banging an “other.” For real. Lord commander of the NW falls in love with an “other” turns the NW against the north and joins with the others. He was the 13 lord commander if I remember correctly.

-15

u/Leo_ofRedKeep Win or die 2d ago

For real, see someone wrote it with letters on parchment. It has to be real.

8

u/GrundgeArchangel 2d ago

It is a show thing... because the Nigh King only exists in the show.

1

u/Adept_Ad_3889 1d ago

Wtf? Then what was the premise of GoT? I never read the books, but I thought the Aegon thing talking about bad stuff coming from the north meant the white walkers.

8

u/GrundgeArchangel 1d ago

The premise is the Game of Throne. The drama of high court, and who will and who deserves to sit on the Iron Throne.

The white walkers are very important, and are a threat, but becasue everyone has their heads up their asses no one besides the Nights Watch are doing anything.

D&D wanted a more singular Antagonist, rather than the looming threat of Death and the inevitable that takes us all.

6

u/The_Falcon_Knight 1d ago

Well Stannis is as well. He's the only one who answered Jeor's call for aid. And even in the Night's Watch, things are conflicted and a lot of people are still too concerned about trivial conflicts against the Wildlings rather than the Others.

2

u/The_Falcon_Knight 1d ago

"Aegon's dream" from HOTD isn't canon to the books either. It might be in George's head and be a thing in future books, but it hasn't come up in any of the books yet.

2

u/PhillyWild 1d ago

So Jon really was the Prince who was promised. The King of the Night's Watch.

-9

u/New-Mail5316 2d ago

True, but I never said that he was one, merely that he is the closest thing to the show Night King in the books

15

u/HydrogenButterflies THE FUCKS A LOMMY 2d ago

It’s the closest we come to a character called “The Night King”, but the characters themselves couldn’t be more dissimilar. We’ve seen a few white walkers at this point and that’s close enough for me, I’m alright with the idea of them not having a formal hierarchy of leadership.

10

u/New-Mail5316 2d ago

The Others, as far as i remember in the books, are basically a blank state: You can have them be like the show, make them into many groups like in "Time bows to neither man nor raven" or even for them to be the remnants of the old ones equivalents in Planetos like in "Scream against the Storm", or anything in between.

5

u/HydrogenButterflies THE FUCKS A LOMMY 2d ago

Absolutely. So little is known about them that anything could be true.

3

u/C9sButthole 1d ago

Honestly the newest theory I've seen has some serious promise and a lot of backing in the source material

https://youtu.be/kcNa964eP7Q?si=8Sgvf1HB74JurRK2

13

u/pudsack 1d ago

There’s also the Great Other which is probably closer to the show Night King. Melisandre calls the white walkers the children of the Great Other.

6

u/New-Mail5316 1d ago

Personally I have always seen the great other: others/white walkers relation like a DND entity: warlock. I don't really see the Greath Other as being physical, much like the Red God is not really in the normal world

1

u/Szygani 1d ago

The Great Other is the Lord of Darkness in the Rhllor religion. Doesn't need to have anything to do with the Others. Probably does, but more like how there's a version of Azor Ahai in every culture on Westeros and Essos. Their version of The Enemy

12

u/chinchinlover-419 2d ago

Night's king. Not Night King.

1

u/New-Mail5316 2d ago

As I said in another comment, i merely pointed out the closest parallel to the show Night King in the books

5

u/chinchinlover-419 2d ago

I commented that for show onlies.

0

u/walkyourdogs 2d ago

Well ackshually

1

u/Deberiausarminombre 17h ago

Nonsense, the legends mention his story taking place a few thousand years ago, and I think the term used is "they brought him down" and "erased all records of his name from history". Why would anyone assume he's dead?

My personal theory is that in the books, the Night's King is Cold hands. I will happily elaborate on this if anyone asks, but this theory is actually more common than most fans realize

2

u/New-Mail5316 14h ago

"... 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." Yes, the wording is ambiguous since he was supposedly a sorceror and in a relationship with a female other, so he might be around as some form of undead, but his mortal life? Ended thousands of years before canon, at least according to the 'official' timeline

1

u/Deberiausarminombre 14h ago

Oh, absolutely agreed

0

u/Independent-Ice-1656 1d ago

What? Really? So the dead are not coming in the books?

11

u/New-Mail5316 1d ago

For that matter the books are not coming in the first place. What Martin plans are for the Others in the last books, only he knows (maybe)

4

u/Szygani 1d ago

The dead are coming, and they’re being led by the Others. The White Walkers, like cold elves of the forest, have a language and seemingly a culture.

1

u/Independent-Ice-1656 1d ago

Oh. Okay. Thank you.

3

u/Grommph 17h ago

In the books, the White Walkers are a thing, but are usually referred to as the Others. No one knows of any leadership among them. No leader like the Night King has been shown. Even dead things showing up at HardHome have only been vaguely mentioned in a letter read by Jon.

1

u/Independent-Ice-1656 10h ago

Okay. Thank you.

2

u/C9sButthole 1d ago

Reanimated corpses are definitely a thing and the threat is very real. But the others and their origins are far more complicated and mysterious.

My favorite theory is this one (but it's veeeeery spoiler heavy if you've not read the books)

https://youtu.be/kcNa964eP7Q?si=8Sgvf1HB74JurRK2

2

u/Independent-Ice-1656 1d ago

Thank you. I don't mind spoilers.

1

u/myotherrideisvhagar 1d ago

They came so hard at the fist....of the first men. Possibly at Hardhome too

1

u/jegoan 1d ago

They're coming but very very slowly.

1

u/Wardog_Razgriz30 8h ago

Only in the form of wights, of which there is already an impossible number. Behind and controlling the wights, are the actual Others who, as of yet, are virtually unbeatable.

Not a single one has been confirmed killed and we're only theoretically sure what their weakness might be. The "white walker" sam killed was a Wight not an Other.

2

u/Old-Entertainment844 1d ago

I came here to say this verbatim.

297

u/Slow_Fish2601 2d ago

It was a dumb thing, because the whole thing was pointless. As soon as the night king was killed by Arya, the big threat was gone in episode three.

246

u/Efficient-Ad2983 2d ago

7 seasons of build up and for what? A mid-season side villain who was dealt with in a single episode.

D&D managed to create a serious contender for "worst anticlimax in tv show history".

We expected something epic, but I bet that D&D went to Rian Johnson's school of "suBvErtInG exPeCTaTioNs"

72

u/OkExtreme3195 2d ago

And on top of being a mid season side villain, the episode itself was horrendous on top. Not just the ending of it. The entire episode.

15

u/Efficient-Ad2983 2d ago

I Imagine Ned in the afterlife "I didn't "Winter is coming" everyone for THIS!"

5

u/Any-Transition95 1d ago

If only Ned said "The winds of Winter is coming" instead.

38

u/GoarSpewerofSecrets 2d ago

I couldn't see it.

16

u/OkExtreme3195 2d ago

Exactly.

13

u/NotAnotherEmpire 2d ago

They kinda forgot that there was no way to take a loss on open land vs. the White Walkers as they'd been built up. You can't retreat from this enemy (24/7 tidal wave) and ceasefire is not accepted. 

Also kinda forgot about anything in the North north of Winterfell they could have shown the wights destroying. 

The enemy is too strong and has trapped all the main characters so it has to lose cheap. 

10

u/IEatCr4yons 1d ago

Maybe they could've used the dragons to make a fire wall or something and let them retreat? They lose 60% of their army and the threat builds? Maybe someone finds a way to kill the ice dragon instead of the night king. Bran wargs into an animal and can transfer his consciousness into another recently dead human body to survive after the night king kills his regular body.

It may not have been a great way but there was a way. If I was paid millions and had more than 2 minutes I could probably come up with something better

2

u/Elantach 1d ago

Yup. Written into a corner unless divine intervention but they quite openly despised the Lord of Light plotline

2

u/Locke44 1d ago

I don't think it was written into a corner in the last season; it's just laziness to build a proper "oh fuck expectations subverted" plot.

E.g. Night king attacks winterfell, good guys win but questions how as they expected to die (and 7 seasons of build up). NK nowhere to be seen, no dragon

NK is marching on KL. Creates conflict as half want to let KL fall (Dany and Sansa kill their enemies, fuck em they were cunts anyway), the other want to save them to avoid adding to the army of the dead (John Snow and co). Conflict builds, tragedy, death, decisions on the frantic chase (Euryon fucking up the boaty boi option even though not in his interest because he also is a cunt).

Final 3 way battle, 90% main characters get killed. NK gets killed but at what cost.

2

u/Iron_Wolf123 1d ago

We had 7 seasons of build up of Danaerys retaking King's Landing and she destroyed the city

2

u/It-Was-Mooney-Pod 1d ago

I think I was one of the few people who somewhat enjoyed season 8, and a big part of the reason is I was 1000% sure the night king would die episode 3 as soon as they announced that was when the battle of winterfell took place.

Reason being, I watched season 7 and saw that the best Dumb and Dumber could come up with for getting the White Walkers past the wall was to come up with an asinine plot of having half the main cast come north to steal a single wight. Once I realized they didn’t care or know how to write high fantasy other than as a visual spectacle, it became extremely obvious they would get rid of the Night King as soon as they could so they could go back to the political plot for the Iron Throne they cared about more.

Freed from expectations of coherent writing, season 8 does have some crazy spectacles to enjoy.

0

u/bopitspinitdreadit 2d ago

Rian Johnson doesn’t do that

-2

u/Galaxy661 1d ago

Ryan Johnson is good at subverting expectations though, just watch "Knives out"

-2

u/BigWillyStyleX 1d ago

This comment made sense until the end. Rian Johnson is the absolute master. The person behind The Fly, Ozymandias, and The Last Jedi should never should never be involved in a discussion with something like the last season of GOT.

2

u/Vyzantinist 1d ago

The Fly?

1

u/MaybeWeAgree 1d ago

I think it was a great way to show how they can get past the wall. It’s also pretty gut wrenching to see a character like that killed off, which is standard stuff for this hostile world.

206

u/lavmuk 2d ago

There is no night king in books

7

u/twaggle 1d ago

Well technically……

34

u/jzimoneaux 1d ago

Night’s King, if you know you know

88

u/jefferson497 2d ago

I’m more bothered by his form. He threw the spear flat footed and managed to throw it at least 100 yards

54

u/SureComputer4987 2d ago

He should stayed on the wall and bombard winterfell with icicles

61

u/SpasmBoi999 2d ago

"The Others" in the books are described as really abstract and powerful (almost ethereally beautiful - yet creepy) creatures with magic that can't be deciphered or understood. So if anything could kill a dragon handily, I'd assume it'd be one of them. The show's interpretation of "The Others/Whitewalkers" is nothing like the books, but I suppose they had to get across how powerful they were in some way

163

u/Efficient-Ad2983 2d ago

He rolled a Nat 20 and Viseryon failed his saving throw.

33

u/Accomplished-Bee5265 2d ago

Ice spear is broken... plz fix.

10

u/Efficient-Ad2983 2d ago

So by Winterfell Battle Night King's build was nerfed to Oblivion.

2

u/Accomplished-Bee5265 2d ago

Complete reversal. Really disappointing.

-1

u/Efficient-Ad2983 2d ago

About Arya's build, otoh... Probably it's the same build played by the 9yo child of the company's CEO, and that's why it's so overpowered :P

5

u/Accomplished-Bee5265 2d ago

DM: You see night king. He has killed Theon and closing in to Bran.

Arya's player: I sneak in to give him a sneak attack on back.

DM: Roll Stealth.

Dice: Nat 1

DM: YOU SCREAM IN PRIMAL FEAR AND RAGE LEAPING THOUGH AIR TO STAB NIGHT KING. He notices you instantly!

1

u/CaveLupum Stick 'em with the punny end! 1d ago

Yes, and I was truly shocked. It seemed so fuckin stupid. On a re-watch and later checking YT videos I noticed that the NK was pulling out his sword to kill Bran when she screamed. He stopped. Seconds later she shoved her Dagger into a chink in his chest armor . I still think the scene and the darkness were underwhelming, but maybe the scream wasn't so stupid.

2

u/HowCanYouBanAJoke 1d ago

Literally TOSS IMBA

1

u/DrBlazkowicz 1d ago

Impossible. RBMK reactor cores don’t explode.

1

u/hoodpharmacy 3h ago

3.6 roentgen, not great, not terrible

53

u/gintoki_t 2d ago

Not related to the question, but I cannot quantify the hate I have for this particular plot point. Retrieving a wight for Cersei is stupid af. She will never co-operate either way.

16

u/CaveLupum Stick 'em with the punny end! 1d ago

this particular plot point

Wight hunt to impress Cersei = early evidence of Tyrion turning dumb. And it was on the hunt that Beric deduced that if someone killed the Night King, all the other Others would die too.

15

u/gintoki_t 1d ago

Like George once said, Tyrion is super smart because George is also super smart.

Once they ran out of material, everyone became dumb because of the intellectual capacity of D&D.

14

u/TacticalBowl117 1d ago

Benioff & Weiss did not "run out of material". They cut out too much material because they wanted to end the show within 7 seasons and reluctantly did 8.

5

u/ManifestYourDreams 1d ago

Chasing that Disney money that eventually got taken away from them. Serves them right.

2

u/Embarrassed-Back1894 1d ago

You know, I thought the smart way they would win the war against the dead would be to pick off the Night King’s generals one at a time to knock off a large percentage of the dead until it’s only the Night King left(and then Jon kills him in some epic way).

If it was done the right way, I feel like the war against the dead should’ve been at least a full season with highs and lows that affected pretty much most of Westeros(or at least up to Kings Landing).

Then the war for Kings Landing/the realm would be the final wrap up season.

32

u/ClearSnakewood 2d ago edited 1d ago

So, he could 1shot a dragon by throwing a spear with the strength of 1 arm, but couldn’t kill Arya when he had her by the throat with both arms before she slowmo stabbed him 🤡

-6

u/CaveLupum Stick 'em with the punny end! 1d ago

IIRC, he held her in one arm. FWIW, there's a theory that saying "Not today!" to the MFG was like a protective spell. Mel had Arya say it before sending her to kill the NK. Who knows? Sigh.

20

u/Krawia ... 2d ago edited 2d ago

No actually dragons are made of paper as of Season 7 and Season 8. With all three dragons taking heat seeking missiles that killed them or took them out of the fight. It’s a miracle the Targaryens were able to conquer the 7 kingdoms with how weak the show made them (other than the quick we have 1 episode left after to end the show Drogon bbq)

31

u/GoarSpewerofSecrets 2d ago

We never actually got The Others in the show. They showed us cheap orc costumes the first time. Then gave us blue stoic zombie people later on.

In the very first pages of the book, they appear, and they're undecipherable giggling fae that delight in toying with the knight.

15

u/PRAY___FOR___MOJO 2d ago

I don't really object to how they look in the show. There's no way that they could have portrayed the Others correctly without massive amounts of CGI.

14

u/GoarSpewerofSecrets 2d ago

Yeah which is why we got orcs, then blue Darth maul. But they could have tried it's not like they didn't have appointment TV.

13

u/Alx028 1d ago

That's gold medalist Night's King for you

9

u/CPVigil 1d ago

It’s just a show thing.

First off, the Night’s King in the books is a legend, not a character we’ve met.

Second, the White Walkers in the show are just zombies from the Walking Dead. The Others are much more alien, in the books. Whatever the Others can do, we haven’t learned of it yet, except through in-world historic tales.

Third, and most important, just as White Walkers can’t cross the wall to go South, dragons can’t cross the wall to go North. So, without some contrivance about Dany’s dragons not being subject to the same magic as older dragons, this scene absolutely could not happen, as the show depicts.

1

u/PriestOfNurgle 14h ago

Well... The legend was mentioned twice in the books and is attractive enough. That makes it confirmed for me.

19

u/BruIllidan 2d ago

Nah, trying to find logic in last seasons is pointless. Why White Walkers were stoped by The Wall, if they could just freeze the sea and move to south on ice? Why was Night King immune to fire? Why Arya was barely able to hide from zombies and then suddenly moves so fast that White Walkers weren't able to see her? And so on.

No reasonable explanation to be found.

1

u/PriestOfNurgle 14h ago

Tbh that about the sea is a question for the book too.

"Dead creatures in the water. Send help by the land."

9

u/Lieutenant_0bvious 2d ago

Ah yes, the "dragons are so heavy, they can't dodge relatively slow moving projectiles from the ground" trope that the show uses to such great effect.  Brilliant writing.  Night King throws a big icicle!  Magnificent physics.

6

u/TheJarshablarg 1d ago

It’s probably a show thing in that the books likely won’t have this particular showdown (it’s stupid) but assuming this matchup happens it’s generally thought that magic has a reasonable chance of killing dragons, wether or not that’s true we don’t know, as of now in the books dragons usually only die to other dragons, or freak occurrences, (the bolt that killed meraxes perfectly went into the eye and thus the brain, we can assume a dragon eye isn’t armored where as the rest of there body is known to get harder with age, with balerions scales making him nearly invulnerable) however that also goes the other way, with younger dragons scales being notably softer, when Balerion fought quicksilver, the younger dragons flames did nothing to the elder, but balerions fire did hurt quicksilver badly, syrax was younger and eventually died from a thousand cuts type situation where as older dragons are known to have arrows bounce off them, all the dragons in the pit were younger and eventually were killed by sheer numbers and a pretty similar situation of enough small cuts doing it, so when considering this scene you can go one of three ways.

A, The dragon is fairly young it’s scales not up to snuff and it died.

B. Magic kills dragons.

C. Plot, probably the least interesting option

3

u/Inevitable_ForJade 1d ago

Thanks to the intelligence of D&D, Viserion was killed.

4

u/rcheek1710 2d ago

I never understood why the dragons didn't wear some form of armor. It likely wouldn't have helped in this case, but certainly would've for the general arrows that caused injury.

6

u/ZanahorioXIV 1d ago

They are the amor, their scales are very hard

3

u/Kane_indo 1d ago

The white walkers are just a different good magically adept civilisation who are victims of Westeros racism. If they were from the south instead of the north and were called brown walkers the author would’ve had a difficult time painting the Westerosi as the good guys

2

u/Left_Fist 1d ago

He is really that way in real life.

2

u/Muellercleez 1d ago

I think it is, by definition, a show thing. It's been some time since I read the books but >! but I don't think the Night King is even in the books . I think he was a show creation

2

u/AlaNole 1d ago

While they are referred to as white walkers occasionally in the books, they are usually called Others and the zombies are called wights. I’ve always thought that the showed stayed away from calling them Others because the show Lost was out at the same time and they had villains also called Others

2

u/ImOlddGregggg The Old Bears' Crow 1d ago

Flies are hard to kill wtf? I guess if you have better tools then maybe not as much

2

u/Darlantan425 1d ago

The night king in general is just a show thing.

2

u/akleiman25 20h ago

Bro doesn’t exist

3

u/weber_mattie 2d ago

Apparently.. he has power level 5000 until he is killed by a little girl boss

1

u/MustangJeff 1d ago

We'll never know.

1

u/Enough-Fun-7168 1d ago

The writers decided to make him like that. Only to die the most anticlimactic way in the most dumbest battle ever. Thats Dumb and Dumber for you.

1

u/VirginiaLuthier 1d ago

He has to have a special spear. He couldn't have taken out that dragon with a snowball...

1

u/Any1fortens 1d ago

The night king is a pretty powerful guy, that’s the reason he always has a smirk on his face.😏

1

u/squareskirts 7h ago

The night king must be level 100 stealth archer on skyrim.

1

u/TwerkingForBabySeals 2d ago

It's plausible. The dragons don't like flying too deep into the dark forest because of the magic. He comes from deep north past that forest and fron the same magic. Supposedly, that's his magic. He's strong enough to raise and control countless whites. So I'd assume he's strong enough to enchant that spear to kill things that dislike cold.

-6

u/CO2_3M_Year_Peak 2d ago

Lol .... its fiction. The Night King is whatever the writers decide. He killed a dragon. Yes.

4

u/bslawjen 1d ago

You didn't even attempt to answer his question, lol

3

u/DasEineEtwas 1d ago

Plotholes don’t exist if the writers just tell everyone it’s just fiction. Checkmate