Do we know why this is happening now? I don't remember there

>>86998564
You obviously missed the whole magic returning to the world part. You know the fire gods, dragons and all that.

>>86998738

Well no, but that's what I'm saying... is this supposed to be at random, or what?

>>86999051
daenerys did it by bringing the dragons back

>>86999223
But the white walkers are in the first scene of the show, well before the dragons are born

>>86999223

We've seen weights acting up since S1 E1. She didn't have dragons back then.

>>86999223

Dude, White Walkers seemed to be making moves long before that.

>>86998564
The Night King literally could not get his army past the wall before Dany came to Westeros with her dragons.

>>86999407

Are you talking about the most recent episode? Because with or without a resurrected dragon to blow the fucking shit up, the White Walkers were marching. They would've just struggled a bit more.

>>86999223
>being this dumb of a showfag
Bloodraven should/will have an explanation, and is probably involved. Also the blue eyed giant could be the final twist

>>86999601
>Bloodraven

Who?

>>86998564
come home wight men

there aren't any convincing explanations for why the white walkers are back now. maybe it just takes them a long time to build an army of the dead?

>>86999341
Craster's been making sacrifices for decades and the people beyond the wall knew that they were out there, with some worshipping them as gods.

They just hadn't mobilized until now. They've probably always been out there, ever since the Wall went up.

>>86999601
>>86999776
>there aren't any convincing explanations for why the white walkers are back now
>should/will have an explanation

Okay, this is interesting. I'd thought it was simply me not picking up on something or neglecting to put together certain things, but it seems it is an actual mystery. I'm happy to accept it as that, but it's a bit weird if they are just going to be an unmotivated force of nature. Even avalanches happen for a reason.

>>86999678
Old man tree

Mance woke them up when digging for the horn

>>86999818
>They just hadn't mobilized until now.

This is what I'm powerfully curious about. Something made them go, "right, let's do this". It's not like anyone is sending them ravens to know the state of the kingdoms. I guess they get knowledge from the newly dead...

>>86999951
Well in the books they are much much more in theme with an alien invasion than intelligent magic zombies

>>86999513
the nights king is a greenseer on a superior level to the raven... he was behind everything!
he was even behind dany birthing the dragons...

its all his masterplan.

According to Sam's book the white walkers sleep beneath the ice for thousands of years so they probably just happened to wake up from their nap. Or if you are into the Bran time traveler theories then they might have been waiting for him to be born

>>86999997

whatever happened to show mance. guess he died some shitty death that I don't remember

nightking was probably waiting for westeros to weaken itself with all the wars then sweep in

>>87000082
>greenseer

I forget that's a thing, that it's not just Three Eyed-Ravens like Bran keeps repeating, but that there are greenseers (I guess a bit like people who see visions in the fire?) that can do what Three Eyed Ravens do. Someone else described it as a "floral internet" once.

>>87000136
evil stannis burned him alive and jon shot arrow through his heart

>>87000136
He got burned by stannis, exactly like the books!

>>86999776
>there aren't any convincing explanations for why the white walkers are back now

usually you get "men are encroaching on their lands when the Wall was built to solidify a border between Man and Other." The only other good one is that they're having problems because Good Queen Alysanne closed the Snowgate, which is believed to have been where Northern bastards were offered to the Others to help them reproduce. Afterwards they resorted to Craster and his inbred as fuck kids and that isn't really working out.

>>87000118
>the white walkers sleep beneath the ice for thousands of years so they probably just happened to wake up from their nap

A satisfying if unexciting explanation.

>if you are into the Bran time traveler theories then they might have been waiting for him to be born

TELL ME MORE

>>86998564
>why now?
they were building their army, and now its finally time to attack

>>87000044
>Well in the books they are much much more in theme with an alien invasion than intelligent magic zombies

Martin likes to write about really alien intelligences in his other works.
There is a nice theory that in the books the "real" Others aren't the White Walkers but actually the Ice Spiders who are an alien race trying to exterminate humanity.

>>86998564
Because winter finally came

>>86999951
Any reason given is just a theory.. we won't know if/when the books come out

Why doesnt the Night King just buikd boats and go around the wall?

>>87000323

So did I, anon. So did I.

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>>87000404
>Why doesnt the Night King just buikd boats and go around the wall?

Forgot your image.

>>87000404
just sink the boats

>>87000292
theory goes that bran warged into the past and got turned into night king because they look similar and have same magic powers
>no jon, I am your brother

>>87000404

why doesn't he jump on his own spear and sail over the wall

>>87000292
Wow genuinely hownew.ru
Bran is the Night King because dramatic television reveal

>>87000570
>Night King bopping up and down on a dragon with the idgaf look on his face.

>>87000082
What's the next step in his master plan?

>>87000531

They're cousins tho.

>>87000645
weak bait

>>87000570
He could use his chain and put on end on the spear and the other end on his foot and launch himself over.

>>87000592
>Wow genuinely hownew.ru

Sorry, I don't deep dive or lurk much.

>>86998564

The comet. It's a cyclical resurgence of magic. All magic sensitive races (white walkers, dragons) are on the move.

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Preston theorized that 200 years ago, a Targ Queen is responsible.

Alysanne Targaryen went North and to the Wall for various reasons. She did a few things:

>She saw some Northmen carry out the right of the first night, nobles fucking their serfs on their wedding night, and put a stop to it.

>"Queensgate was originally named Snowgate, but was renamed when Queen Alysanne Targaryen visited the castle on her dragon Silverwing."

The theory goes like this: When the first night was banned, there would be a lot less Snows, bastards, being born. The castle Snowgate was being used to get rid of these snows, hence the name.

Since we have never seen and only heard of 1 female White Walker/Other, and because of both hints in the books (Craster's sons) and the stupid as fuck scene in S4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es9Q81MwPkQ), turning babies may be the only way to keep up the Others population. Alysanne ended that. 200 years go by, and the Others are making an reappearance.

And really, this is the only thing in the books that explains well why the Others are moving south. Thousands of years go by since the Long Night, dragons rise and fall, magic rises and falls and rises again, and only now do they start moving South. The Others may be trying to preserve their kind by killing 2 birds with 1 stone: They turn as many people as possible and bring up their numbers, maybe they have a plan to sustain it or it's in desperation, AND they kill off humanity that has threatened them.

Maybe Dany's dragons reawakening magic might also be an explanation, but dragons existed for hundreds of years in Old Valyria and for 100 years in the dozens in Westeros before the Dance. Maybe a hard reboot woke them up?

>>87000675

I'm confused. I'm not baiting? Bran is Ned's son, Jon is Lyanna's, so they're cousins, not brothers.

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>>86998564
i gues cerci have to join and fight death now
also pic related becaouse white walkers armor is basicaly the same as sleeper temple guards from gothic game

there was literally 0 (ZERO) proof that the WW ever planned or could go over the wall as they were. Now that they have a dragon all bets were off. Thanks to Tyrion for another brilliant plan.

>>87000918
desu he told her not to take the dragons there

>>87000779
The wiki doesn't say it has appeared before. Comets do have an orbit and reappear, from time to time. If true, it would be amazing if the last time it showed up, was during the Long Night. But the Others were active BEFORE the comet showed up, in the very first chapter, prologue, in GoT

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>>87000570
>NK confirmed Dragonball character

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>>87000793
>that pic

inB4 Just turn your brain off, bro!!
Everyones got a hard on for the dragons, whether they want to admit it or not, but how the fuck even one dragon grow to that size without laying waste to the entire continent for a single days worth of food.

>>87001023

Did he? He told her not to take the dragons to King's Landing...

>>87001043

Could be actual proximity, rather than when it's visible.

>>86998564
Its because people stopped believing that moon is no egg. Moon is godess, wife of sun. It is known.

Ocean would have frozen eventually and they would have walked around the wall. It's why they were walking that way to begin with. Don't underestimate how cold this winter will get.

Dragon did make all of this much easier.

>>87000698

The theory has been gaining traction as of late. Basically we know they his warg ability can transcend space and time because of the events with hodor. Loosely speaking it's possible for Bran to deside to use his ability to somehow stop the knight king in the past only to get "stuck" there. His humanity already waining he tips over the edge and thinks that what he is doing now is the only way. Alternatively he is stuck and consciously doing this as a means to an inevitable end that he knows can only come to pass by being the knight king the world needed to push events down a certain path.

>>87001213

Could say the same thing about blue whales.

>>87001023
yea but the whole plan to get a wight was his dumb idea.

>>86998564
WINTER
I
N
T
E
R

>>87001247
he tells her not to do anything all the time and then dany goes REEE and does it anyway

>>86998564
>>86998564
the real question is what is the end goal
say everyone`s a wigh and its total winter then what

>>87001213
> you now realize the only animals that are shown in Westeros are deer, ravens, horses, and wolves

>>87001398
communism

>>87001419
Boaaaaaars

>>87001312
I hope youre trolling cus ill gladly take this bait

Blues whales arent anywhere near the size of the portrayed dragon, not to mention they're a dying species

>>87001213
slow metabolism

>>87001213
It hunted whales and mammoths

>>87001281
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."

>>86998564
so do these white walkers have cities where there are white walkers living their daily lives? or is it just a night king and his generals controlling the living dead? are they just bad guys because they're naturally bad?

>>87001398
>the real question is what is the end goal

Not at all.

> everyone`s a wigh and its total winter then what

Then they won. How is it different from any other king wanting to conquer and rule? Because they're undead? That's hardly a problem for them now.

"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"

>>87001687
They are protecting their women and children, who stay north to weave armor and forge dragonchains

>>86998564
They started marching south because Sothoryos refugees started piling in.

>there always must be a stark in winterfell

WW will attack winterfell, something big is hidden in the crypts

>>87001711

That's something to consider, but on the other hand, Meli and her fellow pyromaniacs consider anything that's not on "their side" to be an agent of the Others.

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>>87001213
this is one of the things the show actually does right. the biggest dragon, balerion, is supposed to have been big enough to swallow a mammoth whole. here is his show canon skull next to cersei at a much more reasonable scale.

>>87001419

Aurochs too

>>86998564
http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Horn_of_Winter#cite_note-Rasos30.7B.7B.7B3.7D.7D.7D-4

Mance raider wanted the horn of winter to bring down the wall.
Digs through half a hundred graves and lets the shades loose on the world to find it.
This was of course omitted in the show.

>>87001213
its farts alone would destroy entire cities.

>>87001891

>tfw he raises the bodies of the Stark Kings in the crypts

>>87002049

He wanted it to escape the Others, though.

The "letting shades loose on the world" was probably just Ygritte being superstitious. Graverobbing is generally taboo.

>>86998564
They were always there. The wildlings knew of them for decades. Caster made offerings for decades. The reason they gathered as an army and marching south is because the humans declared war on them. Dragons are born again, magic is back, and a fire god is directly influencing events.

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>tfw a well sourced post gets less replies than a post responding to it about its unrelated picture

>>87001213

Magic

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>>87002098
aaaaaaargh

>>86999223
Also, they had bigger dragons 300 years ago and there wasn't this kind of marching shit going on.

>>87002227

>muh wights

>>87000620
Crashing the wall... with no survivors!

hey bookfags, do the dragons ever breed or are there a finite amount of ancient dragon eggs or something?

>>86999776
It's going to be Bran. Bran is going to warg into the Night's King at some point in the past, and through "muh magic" the Night's King is going to get Bran's memories, effectively being able to see the future. So, the Night's King in the past learns that Dany will be coming to Westeros, and she will bring the means to destroy the wall, and that's why they started marching. Basically, the Night's King has seen the future from sometime before S01E01 up until some episode of season 8.

>>87002015
Moonboy for all i know

>>87000404
Well Euron and the Ironborn built enough ships for tens of thousands of men in a matter of weeks, complete with black and gold dyed sails.
Let the zombies who cant swim but pulled a fucking dragon out of the bottom of a frozen lake be goddamn sailors too

>>86999051
From some theories I've read, it seems like GRRM is hinting at the idea that there are at least 2 ancient Lovecraft-inspired beings who both live underground and are in opposition to each other. While they sleep, they send dreams, visions, and motivations into living beings on earth to fight their proxy-war for domination. I would even go as far as to speculate that one being is "dragon-like" and sleeps deep underground under the ruins of Old Valeria, and the "Other" is underground up in the frozen north. Fire vs. Ice.
I would even venture the guess that the dragons and ice monsters are the direct descendants of these two ancient Gods, and that the Doom of Valeria was caused by the slaves being forced to dig so close to the slumbering god that they woke it up, and it caused the Doom either purposefully or by accident.
This is just what I think might be happening.
If this theory is correct, I think what could end the war and the story is for the two ancient gods to offer each other a peace treaty via their proxies (Jon/Dany and the White Walkers). I think Jon and Dany will have a child, and that child will have to be the sacrifice they make to The Others to stop the war and get them to return home. I don't know if Jon and Dany will both survive to see this agreement made or not.
That would be a bittersweet ending to me: giving up the fated child from two of our protagonists to the monsters of the story in order to secure peace and all humanity to survive.

>>87000404
It's implied that the wall is more than simply a physical barrier - otherwise they would have invaded ages ago. They needed the dragons to destroy the wall and whatever magic prevented them from crossing it.

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>>87002098
We animu now

>>87000793
Do you think they're heading south in general or just to winterfell? i recently saw the Waymar Royce and am pretty convince they're looking for the starks
>>87002902
I like your theory but my main grievance is that it's so unrelated from what the show has shown us that I can't imagine GRRM would allow it to deviate that much
>>87002918
I think Bran crossing the wall with the Night king's mark is what allowed them to enter, since previously the wights couldn't enter the 3 eyed raven lair

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>>87000404
why didnt the nightswatch just plant explosives to let the wall collapse on the zombies?

>>87000259
Except book Mance was still alive and they burned a body double.

>>86998564
Winter is coming. You should know because you and your fat friends have been parroting it for 7 years.

>>87002902
The White Walkers were made by the Children though (which STILL doesn't fit in the timeline considering the WWs had no influence on defeating the First Men, and the Children and First Men became relatively good neighbors after their peace. So the Children had no reason as yet explained for creating the WWs.), so they can't be descendents of some being in the North.

Though this could be explained in the books. The Children may not create them in the books and they may be much more majestic, fantastic creatures than the show displays.

>>87000253
There are supposed to be at least a few on the Isle of Faces. Why they're never brought up in the show, I guess it was too hard for a lot of people to follow.

>>86998564
The dumb excuse for now breaching the wall is presumably because they have their dragon.

>>87001970
Dany's dragons looks just as big as that now. Go watch the scene from the start of the episode when she dismounts.

>>87000270
I think it's something along those lines, too. Since they weren't all killed, there has to be a reason they let the Long Night end in the first place, and that probably has something to do with a truce. The men probably broke the terms by forgetting to sacrifice babies to them after a while, or by doing something else we'll find out about it.

The show will end with Bran figuring how to make peace and Jon coming to a similar truce with them. GRRM is a pacifist and used to be known for writing anti-war stories; this series isn't going to end with a triumphant battle that solves everything.

>>86998564
We don't know why. I don't think it's explained in the books either. Probably no one will know until the end. It's been suggested on the show that the children created the walkers, perhaps as a weapon to use against men but then they grew too powerful for them to control.

Others suggest though that there is going to be some kind of reasoning/logic behind there actions because having them just be "ultimate evil that's evil because it's evil" is not how Martin writes. There's probably something they want/need, maybe men took it from them and now they want it back and there's probably some reason for the timing of their actions as well.

>>87004580
Except DD are writing whatever they want and triumphant battles make for great ratings.

>>86998564
Bran falling from the tower had something to do with it. Screenshot this.

>>87000321
>ice spiders
Tell me more.

Well Night King can see the future. He know when to star build army in the North (killing wildlings, last Craster's sons) and waited for dragon.

Bran will have this power to in the season 8. Or he can fight with NK in the "mind" so to speak.

NK has the hand to kill all. Only Bran can make his power to not be uber killer.

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>>87004774
>Tell me more.
>>>/v/eddit

If Jon and Danny are immune to fire how come they don't just light themselves on fire and run directly to the white walkers and hug them?

>>87002902
nah, it's just the weirwoods manipulating the hominids like that grrm story with the sentient fungus

>>87004980
Fire doesn't kill white walkers so that would just be kinda awkward. Also Jon is not immune

>>86999292

The longest summer in recent memory is coming to a close, forshadowing the return of the long night. The Others are starting to wake up as winter is coming.

>>87002800
>pulled a fucking dragon out of the bottom of a frozen lake

I'm glad I'm not the only one bothered by this.

>>87002800
>Let the zombies who cant swim but pulled a fucking dragon out of the bottom of a frozen lake
How is this a problem? The wights are just mindless, expendable drones. They probably had a few wights go into the water and attach the chains around the dragon from the lake bottom.

>>87000253
>Three-Eyed Ravens
WTF?

>>87005768
Where did they get the chains? Why is the lake not frozen solid? These are ice zombies that are supposed to bring eternal winter yet it looks like it's -2 celsius

>>87000039
it was the fucking meteorite you dumb ass

>>87005311
>jon is not imune

why tho? only pure blood targs are?

>>87006061
it's not targ blood that makes you immune, it's the power of feminism apparently

>>87002384
the book is really vague about how they reproduce. the masters have theories but all we know is that valaryians seem to be able to hatch them but they don't have any control over it.

>>87005984
>Where did they get the chains?
Hardhome, it was a port.

>Why is the lake not frozen solid?
They're not very far north of the wall, and the lake wasn't even frozen solid before the White Walkers showed up. When they were getting the dragon from the bottom, a battle had just happened on the lake that included 3 dragons burning the fuck out of it.

>>86999776
night king was a three eyed raven when the children of the forest turned him to the night king, he still has that ability.

night king was waiting for the dragon to destroy to wall because without it they had not way to cross it

>>87006061
http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Viserys_Targaryen