The TV series Game Of Thrones achieved a worldwide audience like no other show has ever done. The story and characters from A Song of Ice and Fire novel series by George R. R. Martin expanded an intricate world through its battles between royal houses, political conspiracies, and supernatural adversaries.
The Night King stands as one of the most renowned threats within the show as the silent blue-eyed leader of White Walkers, who is also the primary antagonist. Perhaps what many fans do not realize is that the Night King, as shown in the series, is nothing like the one in Martin’s original books.
How the creative team adapted this character for TV shows us both what happened in Martin’s Westeros world and how they handled literature transformations for television. Let’s take a look at the complete historical development of the Night King.
The Night King’s origin in Game of Thrones
The Night King’s story in Game of Thrones dates back thousands of years from the main events of the series to the earliest known history of Westeros. During these primitive times, the First Men, who were the first human settlers on the continent, were at war with the indigenous people called the Children of the Forest. As these small mystical creatures were about to go extinct due to invading men, they made a desperate choice.
During a flashback in Season Six, the Children of the Forest are shown to capture a man and conduct some dark ritual against him. They tied him to a weirwood tree and shoved a shard of dragonglass into his heart, creating the first White Walker-the Night King.
This was a desperate measure as he was created as a weapon against the First Men who were clearing out the Children from their land and destroying their sacred trees.
The irony is that the Night King broke free from their control and proclaimed himself the king of the White Walkers while slowly raising his Army of the Dead. This betrayal became the cause of the Long Night, which is a time when the world was covered in darkness, and the White Walkers dominated Westeros and destroyed almost all life.
What made the Night King more terrifying was that he worked in silence. He could turn the dead into an army of threats with a mere flick of his hand, raising every fallen soldier and growing stronger at every single battle fought against him.
Beyond controlling the Army of the Dead, the Night King possesses other magical powers. Throughout the series, he showed magical strength, immunity to fire, the ability to create new White Walkers from human babies, and even the power to claim and raise one of Daenerys Targaryen’s dragons.
The Night’s King in George R. R. Martin’s books
George R. R. Martin‘s novels provide a completely different version of this character. There is no Night King as such in A Song of Ice and Fire. Instead, there is a legendary character, the Night’s King, who has little or no role in the newer narrative of the books.
As per legends in Martin’s world, the Night’s King once was the 13th Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, who lived during the Age of Heroes. He had fallen in love with a woman “with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars.”
Together, they ruled for 13 years, committing sacrifices and other horrible deeds, until they were ultimately defeated by an alliance between the King of Winter (a Stark) and the King-Beyond-the-Wall.
This book version is fundamentally different from that of the show’s Night King. First, he was not the creator or leader of the White Walkers. Rather, he was a man who perhaps came to an alliance with them. Secondly, his story is described as a legend, not an established history.
According to the written materials, the Night’s King functions primarily as a story of respecting vows over being a potential threat to humanity.
While the show’s Night King became the main antagonist, driving the story toward its conclusion, the book Night’s King is a mere footnote in history, important to the myths of the world but not affecting the present conflict.
How Game of Thrones showrunners created the Night King
David Benioff and Dan Weiss, the Game of Thrones showrunners, were asked why they created the Night King for the show, prompting them to share some insights into their creative process. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Weiss explained,
It was almost logical as you went back in time, as you create the prehistory for all this… We’ve seen what the White Walkers do, we’ve seen how they perpetuate themselves and created the wights. If you’re going backwards, well, they made these things… so what made them?
Rather than presenting the White Walkers as a “cosmic evil” that had “existed since the beginning of time,” the showrunners wanted to show the understandable history behind them. By creating the Night King and showing his origin, they grounded such a supernatural threat in the historical context of Westeros.
Benioff also explained the motivation behind the Night King, saying,
I don’t think of him as evil, I think of him as Death. And that’s what he wants – for all of us. It’s why he was created and that’s what he’s after.
The decision to keep the Night King silent was a potent artistic choice. The show was already filled with villains explaining their actions. The Night King’s silent terror set him apart, and his very nature appeared to be an elemental force, not just another actor in the Game of Thrones.
Throughout its development, the Night King went through a complete transformation from a book story to his position as the show’s main villain. However, through all opinions regarding its creation, the Night King solidified himself as an all-time great TV villain without staying true to Martin’s original storytelling.
Game of Thrones is available to stream on Max.
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