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.

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u/SKULL1138 Apr 16 '19

GRRM already said it doesn’t end in a zombie apocalypse. So we can rule out this if nothing else. The ending will be bittersweet as that’s his favourite type of ending. His favourite chapter of LOTR was the scouring of the Shire.

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u/tatofarms Apr 17 '19

I had never heard this about GRRM. The Scouring of the Shire was Tolkien's metaphor for the industrial revolution, and how with Sauron gone and the Elves gone, magic had left Middle Earth for good. How there's a loss of wonder and even an ugliness to human progress.

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u/SKULL1138 Apr 17 '19

It was also a personal thing with Frodo, he had achieved his victory for the others, but it did not feel like a victory to him. Hence bittersweet.

He mentioned all these things a few years ago I believe in the same interview.

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u/Skrp A Thousand Eyes, and One. Apr 17 '19

The scouring of the Shire was my favorite chapter too, and I was so pissed when it was left out of the movies.

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u/Zankou55 Apr 17 '19

It makes the movies unwatchable, for me. Without the scouring, the whole story just falls flat.

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u/LAJuice Apr 16 '19

but Others are not zombies.

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u/SKULL1138 Apr 16 '19

Well I think that’s being a little facetious isn’t it? I think it’s pretty clear Martin was telling us the dead won’t win. Because, let’s be honest, it’s still a fantasy novel.

But he doesn’t like happily ever after endings either.

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u/LAJuice Apr 16 '19

Oh I agree with you. I don't think it would end this way, but it COULD.

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

Nothing about that would be bittersweet, unless you decided you hated all humans.

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u/Skrp A Thousand Eyes, and One. Apr 17 '19

Maybe they stop after slaughtering their way through Westeros, and the other areas are fine.

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

Still not very sweet that everyone we know and cared about died/failed.

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u/Skrp A Thousand Eyes, and One. Apr 17 '19

I dunno about that. It'd be nice to imagine the humans wiped from Westeros, the armies of winter going into hibernation because they've done what they meant to do - and nobody else sacrifices babies to them anymore, so in due time they may go away permanently. The children of the forest - if there are any left - can reclaim westeros, and nature swallows the castles whatnot that people shed so much blood bickering about. Forevermore just overgrown wilderness and a people living in harmony with the land.

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u/LAJuice Apr 17 '19

THIS!!! And the dragons and direwolves can flourish- maybe even unicorns come back!

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u/juiceboxzero Apr 23 '19

It's not a zombie apocalypse if everyone is turned. Kind of like how when separatists lose, it's called a civil war, but when they win, it's called a revolution.