Do we know why this is happening now...

Do we know why this is happening now? I don't remember there being an inciting incident that made the White Walkers begin marching south. They've obviously existed for a long time, so why now? If we don't know already (from something I'm forgetting from the show, or book lore) is there a reasonable expectation that we might find out? The only thing that I can think it would be is the change in season.

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

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

daenerys did it by bringing the dragons back

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

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

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

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

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.

>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

>Bloodraven

Who?

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?

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.

>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.

Old man tree

Mance woke them up when digging for the horn

>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...

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

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

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

>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.

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

He got burned by stannis, exactly like the books!

>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.

>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

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

>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.

Because winter finally came

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?

So did I, user. So did I.

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

Forgot your image.

just sink the boats

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

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

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

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

What's the next step in his master plan?

They're cousins tho.

weak bait

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

>Wow genuinely hownew.ru

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

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

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 (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?

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

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.

desu he told her not to take the dragons there

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

>NK confirmed Dragonball character

>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.

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

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

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.

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.

Could say the same thing about blue whales.

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

WINTER
I
N
T
E
R

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

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

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

communism

Boaaaaaars

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

slow metabolism

It hunted whales and mammoths

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."

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?

>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"

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

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

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.

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.

Aurochs too

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.

its farts alone would destroy entire cities.

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

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.

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.

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

Magic

aaaaaaargh

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

>muh wights

Don't pot unrelated pictures then.

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?

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.

Moonboy for all i know

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

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.

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.

We animu now

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
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
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

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