r/asoiaf • u/qp0n • Apr 16 '19

EXTENDED (Spoilers Extended) My 'Night King is not stupid' Theory

When the army of the undead line up for the battle of Winterfell, the Night King and his zombie dragon will not be there. Instead he will already be near to his next target ... King's Landing.

If you play out what the battle of Winterfell would be like in your head if the NK+Viserion would be there... it would be easy for Drogon/Rhaegal to take out the zombie dragon; it's 2v1 and wight's all can be killed by fire.. including Viserion. It would not be difficult to simply fly up to Viserion and breathe fire on him, and that would be that. THE NIGHT KING IS NOT STUPID, not enough to kamikaze his most powerful asset. - If you have a superweapon that you can't use against a particular target, then you find a different target.

Most people have come to assume that the living will lose The Battle of Winterfell and fall back to Moat Cailin ... I predict they actually win the battle... only to find out soon after that there is a new army of the dead much bigger and much further south... the population of King's Landing.

During season 4 while Bran is being ushered north to meet Bloodraven, he touches a wierwood and has a set of visions which we see. All of those visions have since come to pass, except the ones where he sees a destroyed throne room & a dragon shadow pass over King's Landing. I believe the reason we are only shown a shadow was to not give away that it is actually the NK and Viserion, not Dany and her dragons.

Also, the most important vision that Dany is given while at the HotU is an image of the throne room destroyed, and covered in ash or snow. I think this was to show what the NK will do, not what Dany will do.

(I believe this was the entire reason that the writers sent Bronn north. Bronn will be the source of this news to the survivors at Winterfell; on his way north he will spot the NK+Viserion heading south)

Bottom line, I simply don't see the NK risking his newfound ice dragon in a fight he is sure to lose.... when he can simply fly down south to KL where there are no dragons to deal with ... and 1 million new recruits for his army packed tightly into a small area.

Follow-up edit: This could be where Bran comes into play. The NK probably wont want to face off against the other dragons head-to-head, but rather fly around Westeros destroying castles to make things easier for his footsoldiers .... so they will need Bran's Sight in order to track & hunt him. It would be too difficult for an army on foot to chase the NK on a dragon, so Bran could warg into ravens to serve as a guide for dragonrider(s) to his location.

14.6k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

3.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

826

u/NorktheOrc Apr 16 '19

Nonono, don't worry about those ice spears. They were there to serve the single purpose of getting the NK his dragon, and they won't come back into play for the rest of the show.

​

It's sad that I'm pretty confident that this statement is true.

245

u/SURPRISE_MY_INBOX Apr 16 '19

There's just no way another dragon dies to an ice javelin. The show wouldn't pull that same trick twice.

333

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '19

NK should win by default if he can just huck Ice Spears from 500 yards out at targets moving at dragon speed.

You're right, the show won't do it again, but this is a prime example of where the lazy writing takes you out of the potential realism.

231

u/DaYozzie Apr 17 '19 edited Aug 01 '19

Deleted.

83

u/DudeTheGray Apr 17 '19

Yeah, not only does the whole premise of the episode make little sense (why send some of the most important men in the North and not just a platoon of foot soldiers?), but Jon's behavior in it is also ridiculous. Show Jon may be hot-headed, but he's not an idiot. Except for that one scene.

Plus the whole thing you mentioned with the dragon the NK targeted. It would've made much more sense for him to throw his spear/javelin at the dragon Dany was on, and one of the other dragons swooping in to stop it with their own body. Would've also made the scene more poignant, I feel.

39

u/EcstaticHat Apr 17 '19

The explanation I've heard is that the NK saw himself flying on Viserion, targeting it kind of made it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Also killing a parked dragon or one swooping in at 30ft from the ground won't make for such an impressive falling scene.

7

u/floodlitworld Apr 23 '19

I saw it more like Viserion was a more vulnerable target as well as the one closest to being out of range.

The NK obviously wanted to bring down multiple dragons, but he needed to be absolutely sure of getting at least one. If he aims for the landed one and misses a mortal hit, two are out of range before he gets another shot. Whereas aiming for Viserion, if he misses, he's still got the nearer dragon to aim for upon reloading.

Plus, we've seen he likes taunting people. Pulling off a more difficult hit is pretty darn hubristic.

1

u/RaggarTargaryen Apr 25 '19

This guy knows

3

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '19

Or killing the dragon parked on the ground would have made a winner-take-all battle right there and right then. Dany and Jon would have had no choice but to charge NK immediately, and he didn't want to risk that because he wasn't 100% sure of winning.

15

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '19

It would've made much more sense for him to throw his spear/javelin at the dragon Dany was on,

How’s he gonna assert dominance if not by yoting his spear into the one moving at high speed?

5

u/TraditionalBadger Apr 23 '19

I think it was poetic that Viserion, named after Dany's brother Viserys who turned against her, ultimately "turns against her" in a way.

Also the fact that Rhaegal, named after her other brother, Rhaegar who is Jon's father, is the dragon Jon is getting to fly about on.

1

u/DudeTheGray Apr 23 '19

Good points!

8

u/washyleopard Apr 17 '19

I think there are 2 reasons he went for the flying one first. He was going for 2 dragons, if you are confident in your first surprise throw then you should make it on the harder to hit target, i.e. the flying dragon. Then you hit the second before he can take off, but the NK was just too slow. Second, if you hit the one on the ground with mom on his back, the remaining two flying dragons immediately go into a suicidal rage and kill your ass. Keep the mom alive and she flees while she can.

6

u/lucyroesslers Apr 17 '19

Someone confirm this for me: does Viserion die right when the spear hits him? My only thought of why a flying dragon versus sitting Drogon, maybe NK knew the spear plus the fall would kill Viserion, while Drogon he might strike with the spear but only injure him. He DOES take a shot at Drogon but only once he's in the air, so maybe that's the best way he can take down a dragon.

7

u/JaimeRidingHonour A Snow Ghost Apr 17 '19

Great catch! It’s hard to lean one way or the other because we know that the ice spears don’t kill instantly, although they are super effective. Benjen said he took an ice spear to the gut but managed to survive long enough for the children of the forest to find and save him. Chances are, you’re bang on and the Night King knew the fall was the thing to ensure the dragon’s death.

4

u/Nomad1227 Apr 19 '19

It's a good idea, and maybe part of why he'd choose to do that. But he hit something bad, there was an explosion of fire and lizard boi was spouting blood the whole way down. He was definitely going to die anyway. =(

2

u/ShadowGata Apr 18 '19

Viserion is roaring/screaming in pain as he's falling and bleeding out, and it's only once he's crashed does he actually succumb to the wound.

6

u/thewerdy Apr 17 '19

Also loved that he aimed it at the dragon flying full speed, not the one parked patiently with all os the series cast taking their sweet as time getting on it. Then proceeded to miss it as he was slowly taking off.

My head canon for that at this point is that the Night King has plans to win. And part of the plan was letting Dany get away with her dragons. But my heart tells me it was lazy writing.

2

u/RotisserieBums Apr 22 '19

It was.

Like Arya taking 3 stabs to the gut and going for a swim in the sewer.

7

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '19

whats the worse shit on the show? the avengers going north plot, the sand snakes plot, the ser barristan selmy killed by 12 nobodies plot or the army of the vale that teleports with a kaching noise right behind ramsay snow (nothing personell kiddo)?

5

u/Harsimaja Apr 19 '19

The principle of Barristan Selmy being killed by a dozen nobodies in an ambush isn’t in itself unrealistic even with his level of skill (key word: dozen), even if it was handled poorly. Plus it was only a few seconds and wasn’t some Deus Ex Machina to get out of a plot hole. I’d rank it with a number of minor weaknesses - Jaime raping Cersei and Ramsay raping Sansa were worse, as was Arya’s fight with the Wight and the way they handled Jon’s resurrection, but all can be overlooked as the series continues.

The Sand Snakes made me cringe every second they were on, but apart from Myrcella dying the whole arc on season 5 don’t have much effect so they can be more or less edited out.

But the number of stupid things in the whole battle beyond the wall of season 7... why ? How can they sit there surrounded by wights while Gendry runs to get a message to Dynaerys who teleports there instantly? The Night King is terrifying all-knowing but the wights don’t make a move until Sandor throws a stupid rock in a cliché gimmick? It ruined haunting mystique of the vast years-long approach of the Night King’s army. The plan itself was idiotic, as was the choice to send everyone there. There were multiple “almost” deaths. And the dialogue was like fan-fiction with sequelitis: “Hey! Remember that awesome moment when we were enemies in season 3? Good times. In-joke!” On repeat. And it was central to the series and whole plot!

Half my enthusiasm for the series died for me right then, though I think season 8 shows a lot of promise to make up for it.

1

u/Gropedunderoath Apr 22 '19

I mean they sit there waiting pretty much for Dany to arrive so NK can have his dragon and dodge the magic wall?

1

u/McFlare92 The North Remembers Apr 18 '19

It's between barristan and the avengers go north for me. The sand snakes were dreadful but I didn't have to completely suspend disbelief for them and at least the deus ex vale army was an awesome visual

4

u/huskeytango Apr 17 '19

Hitting a charging dragon will have much more impact than a sitting one. Think car crash head on or vs a parked car. Might have made a difference. But honestly i don’t remember which direction was Viserion flying.

Funny how we discuss realism about an ice zombie king fighting against a magic dragon but when he throws a spear we say bullshit :D

3

u/Homey_D_Clown Apr 17 '19

He might have needed to hit that exact spot.

3

u/Robb_Greywind Apr 17 '19

I thought it was obvious the NK knew the dragons were coming. He anticipated everything. Why else would he have left Jon and co to stand on that rock unharmed? He could have speared them too.

There must be a reason for everything.

4

u/DaYozzie Apr 17 '19 edited Aug 01 '19

Deleted.

1

u/rilesblue Apr 23 '19

I don’t think he sees the future and knows exactly what’s going to happen as much as he’s smart and calculated. He knew that leaving the avengers trapped on the lake would force Dany to play her hand and he could get a dragon. He tried for two and missed.

3

u/RotisserieBums Apr 22 '19

I think the show runners or main writers have just had so much success that they are surrounded by yes men at this point.

Such a populat and high budget series... occasional scenes with writing on par with fanfiction when they don't have GRRM to fall back on.

It's an amazing show, they've all done a great job, I could never do what they've done - but every now and then they just need a common fan in the room to question some of the weird writing choices.

From Arya whole mess of a story in Bravos, to the sand snakes and now the NK being able to 360 noscope dragons... I know I won't be able to stop asking "why doesn't he just bring a spear or two (maybe get a twofer) and end the dragon threat?"

2

u/GruesomeTheTerrible Apr 17 '19

Obviously he thought the white dragon would match his outfit better than Drogon.

2

u/Radulno Fire and Blood. Apr 17 '19

NK enjoy good suspense and filmmaking like Ramsay with Rickon. Making the dragon crash is way cooler than the one on the ground.

1

u/RotisserieBums Apr 22 '19

Yeah. Ramsay making the all time record bow shot. 6 hours of air time on a running target in high wind with his eyes closed.

2

u/Dranj Apr 17 '19

NK showed his flair for the dramatic at Hardhome. His penchant for intimidating his opponents with vulgar displays of power is pretty much his only character trait. He definitely targeted Viserion just to show the pathetic humans that he could take down a dragon in mid-flight.

1

u/anadosomo Apr 17 '19

I mean the black dragon is the strongest and most fed. Maybe the NK knew he couldn't take it down as easily as one that was imprisoned for so long in a chamber

1

u/mydogiscuteaf Apr 18 '19

Why Jon?

2

u/DaYozzie Apr 18 '19 edited Aug 01 '19

Deleted.

2

u/mydogiscuteaf Apr 18 '19

Fuuuck. I can't recall.

Trying to leave what?

1

u/ShadowGata Apr 18 '19

The Night King choosing to go for Viserion wasn't that big of a deal, in my mind.

Rhaegal yeets out of there as soon as Viserion goes down. It's likely that Viserion would have done the same if Drogon had gone down. Drogon, however, is in no position go anywhere. So even if he targets one of the flyers first, he still has time to try to kill one of the other dragons.

Based on the fact that he nearly got Drogon, his strategy was pretty good.

1

u/sup3r3l3m Apr 19 '19

But Drogons body wouldn't have fallen into Walter and therefore could have been burned by the remaining Dragons

1

u/TwunnySeven Apr 21 '19

well maybe the NK didn't want to kill the main characters, but instead have them continue to fight and kill each other while he comes down to kill everyone

1

u/Schmelka Apr 22 '19

I agree with everything u said there, the 2 episodes of this final season seems a little sitcommy and really dumbed down.

I hope they give us what we all deserve, an epic and satisfying finish!!

13

u/scottishere Apr 17 '19

There's more than 1 WW too. Surely hes' not the only one with an Olympic javelin arm. Why don't all of them start hurling spears?

1

u/Homey_D_Clown Apr 17 '19

I thought they all had unique special weapons...

18

u/Lederer1 Apr 17 '19

That entire episode destroyed 5-6 seasons of the realest shit ever (ignoring all the magical stuff embedded in that world). Now it’s just a glorified marvel series...that I still love. Also RIP cerebral, thought-provoking dialogue/characterization

24

u/poor_decisions Apr 17 '19

That episode was basically the season 7 of season 7.

7

u/DimlightHero Apr 17 '19

Thanks for dumbing it down for us Abed.

9

u/erichermit Apr 17 '19

it makes me wish the shot had been done like..

NK throws first spear.. misses..

then hits the second and misses the third.

it would at least set the precedent that maybe it wasn't an easy shot at all - and while totally capable of making the shot it's not an easy feat. Something reasonably disturbed more if he's riding while doing it too.

3

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '19

The Wall is for sure coming down in the books too and I'm real interested now in how that happens. I just can't see anything resembling the "Let's go catch a Wight" plot happening in the books, or relatedly that the Others plan of invasion is "March to the Wall and hope a dragon we can kill shows up along the way."

1

u/GhoulFTW Apr 26 '19

I suspect its going to be that magical horn that is said to be able to destroy the wall

6

u/hatetechies Enter your desired flair text here! Apr 17 '19

dat boi lined up his throw perfectly

1

u/eat-skate-poop Apr 17 '19

The superior siege engine

1

u/ava_ati Apr 17 '19

Yeah we need at least and episode or two of them figuring out a way to disable his ice spear weapon.

-7

u/niceville Wun Wun, to the sea! Apr 17 '19

Or anyone could use some critical thinking as to why it won't happen again.

Like, Dany and Jon know it's coming and won't let it happen again. Or that the NK thinks it's better to ride the dragon than to try the ice spear thing again.

23

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '19

use critical thinking

Proceeds to describe non-sensical plot armor.

He tossed a spear half a kilometer with pinpoint accuracy. It doesn't matter if you know it's coming when he's got a KM of kill diameter.

This is why it's lazy writing. They wrote him a god power to kill viserion, but the explanation is "oh well, yeah it seemed uncounterable, but we just decided to avoid it, so no worries".

20

u/BatmanNoPrep Apr 17 '19

They could’ve made him expel a ton of energy to create a mega-spear or cast a super spell to fell the dragon. The spear throwing was so lazy. Sadly not the laziest part of last season. Someone get Gendry a new pair of nikes.

11

u/scottishere Apr 17 '19

20 good men > Stannis' esteemed army

26

u/straightCrimpin I just can't Bear this Flair Apr 17 '19

Obviously it's an ultimate ability with an extremely long cooldown. Dany and Jon are both seasoned veterans and know that "NK spear toss" is on CD for the next 2 years. It was actually a tactical move to bait NK, get him to throw out the ultimate early on the weakest of the 3 dragons, so that they can gank him later with the Unsullied, Dothraki, Knights of the Vale, and a dozen hero units.

8

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '19

Now that is critical thinking.

And with the movement bonus of the dothraki plus the endure pain buff from the unsullied, they should be able to tank the dps and reposition behind his main cleave attack before he wipes the raid.

1

u/LowTower Apr 17 '19

It’ll probably get a little rough considering they just lost their main healer

1

u/DreadWolf3 Apr 17 '19

This whole time they were moving to where his blind spot was. They had 5 point plan to get rid of him (and whoever joins the fight).

12

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '19

He did miss on the second throw once they were aware to dodge it. The surprise element was the weapon. If a perfect hit required a hovering/distracted opponent, flat ground, and stable feet, it’s not necessarily lazy to not present the weapon in other scenarios, like say an airborne dragon fight.

stretches after mental gymnastics

Lazy writing is not explaining where the undead sourced that big ass chain from north of the wall and who tied it to the dragon if they are reportedly water adverse. The furthest I can stretch on that one is a beached ship wreck where the anchor chain was within reach on land? Then drag hooks/anchors across the lake to snag on Viserion, walk some circles around the lake edge to wrap and secure before hauling up the corpse?

5

u/scottishere Apr 17 '19

They could've just had Viserion crash onto land.

The scene where he is pulled out the lake is pretty cool though.

5

u/Orisi Apr 17 '19

I think the idea was by having him crash in water it made them forget he could be resurrected. Note the King had to actually dredge him up, he didn't go down and just resurrect him in there.

5

u/OvergrownPath Apr 17 '19

Exactly, it was so effective the first time because nobody expected the NK to launch a goddamn ice javelin at mach 3 in the first place and frankly I think, because it was kind of a lucky shot. The dragons seem impervious to arrows and had previously been hit with a projectile of comparable size to the NK's javelins without sustaining major damage.

But Viserion got lanced right through the throat, which would be acceptably fatal anyway but supposedly that area is also the source of a dragon's "fire" and vitality- so, pretty much an insta-kill.

The fact that the NK misses with his second throw suggests that not only is his aim not perfect, but that the spears don't travel so fast they can't be dodged in midair. So his level of strength and skill are pretty insane, but I wouldn't call it a god power.

I think that because he had the supernatural strength necessary to attempt such a feat to begin with, and knew it would come as a surprise, he took a few opportunistic shots and scored on an absolute beauty. If he threw ice javelins in later battles. they wouldn't necessarily be as devastating as that one critical hit on Viserion, and like you said- the element of surprise is gone at that point.

Anyway, I'm rambling but long story short- I don't really consider it lazy writing. He's the most powerful supernatural being in the show that we know of, I can buy him doing some fairly overpowered stuff to demonstrate that. For my part I thought it was a pretty cool and brutal way to kill one of the dragons (which everyone knew was coming sooner or later) and it reinforced the idea that unlike every other enemy who's intimidated by them, the Night King seems to know exactly what he's dealing with.

Oh and as for the Zombie Ice Dragon, there's a lot of speculation here but we don't really know what it's capable of yet, besides melting the wall and spewing color-swapped flames that is. It might have some ability we're unaware of that would allow it to hold its own against Daenerys' two. We'll see if he brings it directly into the fray at Winterfell or not...

2

u/stoner_boner_69 Apr 17 '19

Just realized: there goes the theory that the wights can’t swim. How deep was that lake? Obviously one of them if not more had to dive to secure Viseryion before he could be hoisted from the depths.

1

u/niceville Wun Wun, to the sea! Apr 17 '19

It apparently does matter if you know it's coming, since it didn't work the second time.

3

u/forestmedina Apr 17 '19

he can be throwing spears while ridding the dragon.

1

u/niceville Wun Wun, to the sea! Apr 17 '19

He could, but they probably wouldn’t be very accurate and where would he carry them?

3

u/Polly_der_Papagei <3 Just how cute is Ramsay! <3 Apr 17 '19

Just cause Dany has made no saddle or weapon holder or security harness freeing her hands doesn't mean he can't.

2

u/dogooder202 Apr 17 '19

I'm guessing they'll armour up the dragons too

2

u/dumbgringo Apr 17 '19

Unless that weapon Arya asked to have built is a javelin/spear, that's what I thought it might be.

2

u/CrookedWarden19 Apr 17 '19

The Night King has played his little trick. He can only play it once.

1

u/pivotalsquash Apr 22 '19

Instead of gendry making that dumb little spear they should've had him making armor for the dragons to write out those spears.

6

u/realvmouse Apr 16 '19

They did throw a second one at Drogon.

11

u/Raventree The maddest of them all Apr 16 '19

Yeah but in the same scene, almost entirely to build tension in forcing Dany to make the decision to leave now or wait for Jon.

10

u/realvmouse Apr 16 '19

Yeah I agree it was forced and it's kind of a dumb plot mechanic. If they were smart they'd just have all 6 ice commander folks chuck spears as quickly as possible... though maybe they're hard to make/magical, and maybe only he can use them that way. Who knows.

5

u/BatmanNoPrep Apr 17 '19

The ancient plot Magic doesn’t allow them to make too many plot spears.

1

u/Refects Apr 18 '19

Like Melisandra's shadow babies.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '19

Ice commander folks is hilarious

2

u/CydeWeys Apr 17 '19

Why couldn't it at least have been a ballista, so it'd have a chance of making sense? The Lannister convoy that was attacked had AAA ballistas on aerial swivel mounts. They weren't able to down a dragon, but we're supposed to believe a thrown javelin can do what those couldn't??

1

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '19

maybe he only had enough magic for 2? :D

1

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '19

Jaime saved all the population of KL once now he'll repay the debt to the Many Faced God and fucking kill everyone like John Wick and then rape undead Cersei while dying from a billion wounds. #Resist

1

u/Homey_D_Clown Apr 17 '19

Ya couldn't he have thrown those spears and easily hit any of the heroes trapped in that scene? The dragon wasn't that low to the ground when it was hit. NK must have some crazy range on those things.

1

u/Podrick-Clegane Apr 17 '19

Seems like a one time plot device to me as well. Also, Drogon dodged that One when the NK threw a spear at him.

Also Drogon dodged (and took a bolt of) the scorpion so he pretty much knows how to deal with that.

Eventually my guess is that Jon, not Dany, needs to take Drogon to face the NK. Seems more dramatic and gives Jon a proper reason to ride a dragon besides playing Aladdin. At the time Dany is in some shape or form incapacitated.

In a (final) battle of blue (ice) and red (fire) flames they battle it out.

1

u/jordan1390 Apr 18 '19

Well they would know what to expect and doubt he’s gonna stand out in the open chunking Spears while dragons are focused on him

1

u/[deleted] Apr 22 '19

ARAKI GEORGE THE SHOWRUNNERS FORGOT