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20th May 2019

The reason Game of Thrones didn’t reveal the motives of the White Walkers

Wayne Farry

white walkers

If there was one thing missing from the final season of Game of Thrones, this was it

The White Walkers were introduced to Game of Thrones extremely early on in the series, and from the first moment they appeared on screen, we were all absolutely intrigued by them.

These weird beings, all icy, remorseless and seemingly – at the time at least – unstoppable, added an interesting third element to a show that was, for much of its time, a political period drama.

The dynamics of the big families in Westeros, their dealings and disagreements, were all beautifully made redundant by this threat, bigger than them all and the one true threat to their horrific way of life.

As time went on in this story though, and as the White Walkers and their leader The Night King became a bigger part of the story, many fans were disappointed that we did not learn more about their motives for moving south.

There were lots of theories online about some broken agreement, the lack of Starks at Winterfell for a while, and numerous other things that may have made sense had they come to fruition.

They didn’t though, and when The Night King and his army were killed we were no closer to figuring out what they wanted,

It was disappointing to say the least, and left many viewers feeling that the entire saga surrounding their march and their army pretty much pointless, and little more than a distraction.

A statement released by HBO revealed that the prequel would deal with the origins and potentially the motives of these mythical beings, finally giving us a recent for the lack of detail about their motives in Thrones:

“Taking place thousands of years before the events of Game of Thrones, the series chronicles the world’s descent from the golden Age of Heroes into its darkest hour. From the horrifying secrets of Westeros’s history to the true origin of the White Walkers, the mysteries of the East to the Starks of legend, only one thing is for sure: It’s not the story we think we know.”

Is this enough to appease fans annoyed at the lack of further information given about one of the show’s main threats? It’s hard to say. Will it be enough to get them to watch the prequel? Almost definitely.