The Truth About The Night King's Story

Game of Thrones fans have a rough understanding of the Night King's origins and mission, there's still so much to dig into as to why he did what he did, whether he might rise again, and just how he planned to take over the world beyond Winterfell.

The Night King's story begins with the story of Westeros. Before the First Men came, the Children of the Forest lived in harmony with the giants. Though they forged no metal, they developed dragonglass — or as we know it, obsidian — into useful tools and arrowheads, and developed their unique magic. Unfortunately for them, the First Men invaded the Children's land across a then-intact land bridge from Essos. They brought bronze, masses of people, and a thirst for conquest.

Though the Children's magic was strong enough to shatter the land bridge and separate the two continents, it proved no match for the sheer numbers and sturdy metal weaponry brought by the First Men. In a last-ditch attempt to save their way of life, the Children drove a dragonglass dagger into a captured First Man, and used their magic to transform him into an undead being of ice. The Night King, first of his kind, had been born into a world utterly unprepared for his bottomless bloodlust.

Though the Children and the First Men did ultimately end their hostilities, the Night King and his undead disciples, known as White Walkers, had become creatures of entirely alien purpose. Game of Thrones never supplied any specifics as to when the Night King turned his forces against warm-blooded life, nor even how long, precisely, their icy reign lasted. What is known is that the Night King and his army of undead invaded northern Westeros, and an entire generation suffered and died within the seemingly endless winter they brought. This became known as the Long Night, marked by the failure of crops, massive casualties by the sword, starvation, and sickness alike, complete darkness, and the destruction of organized settlements. It was, in the end, the closest the Night King ever came to succeeding in his goal of wiping out all life — and, as Bran Stark later pointed out, all memory of life as well.

Though the Night King and the White Walkers never advanced beyond Westeros, their terror became legendary. They were ultimately pushed back to the polar wasteland through an enormous, conjoined effort of magic, luck, and engineering referred to as The War for the Dawn. Bran the Builder, an ancestor of House Stark, erected a 700 foot-tall barrier known as the Wall through a powerful blend of magic and science so that the blue-eyed menace might never return. Keep watching the video to see the truth about the Night King's story!

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Dark birth | 0:14
The Long Night | 1:19
War for the Dawn | 2:14
Sacrifices | 3:04
The Night King advances | 3:49
Hardhome | 4:55
Rise of the Three-Eyed Raven | 6:01
The resurrection of Viserion | 6:47
Fall of the wall | 7:50
Massacre at Last Hearth | 8:43
Arya brings the dawn | 9:39
A world without a Night King | 10:51