When it comes to characters that deserved a better ending in Game of Thrones, the list of names is long. Opinions vary from person to person, but the biggest arguments can be made for Daenerys Targaryen, Jaime Lannister, and even Jon Snow. But if there’s one thing worse than a hero getting robbed of an ending they deserve, it is probably a villain’s story not getting a well-earned conclusion.
From the show's very first scene, the White Walkers loomed like the storm on the horizon, an impending terror that made all the plotting, betrayals, and political scheming look trivial. Everything about them screamed Big Bad. Yet, when the time finally came, the show treated them like an obstacle to clear rather than a story to tell. Fans waited seven seasons and eight years to get closure on the menacing, blue-eyed, icy villains, but it never came.
It is easy to assume that the final stretch of the White Walkers’ arc fell victim to the same issue as the other characters. Season 8 happened to them, don’t get me wrong. “The Long Night” was pretty spectacular as a battle, or however much we could see of it (the episode’s cinematographer Fabian Wagner says we, the “don't-know-how-to-tune-their-TV” lot, are to be blamed). The scale, the tension, the stakes—all of it was pretty lovely. But narratively, the White Walkers went from a pan-Westeros threat to zombies defeated by a knife trick.
Arguments can be made, and have been made, that the Night King meeting his end the way he did was not abrupt or unsatisfactory—that stabbing him was the purpose of Arya Stark’s Faceless Men training—and such arguments would have convinced me, had this been just another medieval fantasy drama on an overpriced OTT platform.
But this is Game of Thrones, and no one ever needed to argue whether or not this show delivered on its biggest moments. From quieter moments like Olenna Tyrell’s dying message to Cersei Lannister, to big bangs like the explosion of the Sept of Baelor, Game of Thrones made us care simply with what was happening on the screen, whether it was a good guy dying or a bad one. The Red Wedding practically changed television forever.
For me and many others, it was hard to care about the Night King's death and, subsequently, the eradication of the White Walkers (as well as most of season 8), and there are three pivotal reasons behind this.
1. The White Walkers' origin is never explored
In the show, we learn that the Children of the Forest created the first White Walker to protect themselves from the First Men who came to the shores of Westeros and endangered their livelihood. They pierced the heart of a captured First Man, which transformed him into the Night King. The plan backfired as he raised an army and laid waste to Westeros, and the Children and the First Men had to join forces to drive him back.
This origin story had tremendous potential and deserved further explanation. That single scene hinted at an entire mythology worth exploring. What if Bran Stark found out during his time-traveling shenanigans that the real history was not exactly what was being told? What if killing the Night King had catastrophic consequences? How about a legend passed down through the generations of Starks about the Night King (just like ‘The Price That Was Promised' of the Targaryens), given how Bran the Builder allegedly built The Wall to keep the White Walkers out?
The possibilities were endless. The canceled TV show that we know as Bloodmoon would've explored the White Walkers' origin story. "It got into the whole history of the White Walkers," George R.R. Martin told The Hollywood Reporter after the show was nixed.
2. Their activities are not explained
Why did the White Walkers arrange dead bodies in cryptic patterns similar to ritualistic symbols used by the Children of the Forest, instead of using the corpses to raise more wights? Why did the Night King use Craster’s newborn sons to make new White Walkers, and not any of the grown-up wildlings and Night's Watch members he was killing? Why only male humans? Why did they let Samwell Tarly go? Were they aware of a future where Sam would play a crucial role, possibly involving Jon, given their close friendship?
These loose ends deserved to be tied up.
3. We never find out their end goal
The Night King wants to kill the Three-Eyed Raven and take over Westeros, fair enough. But how come in a show where everything else is grey and complex, the mysterious villain’s ultimate goal is just a power grab? Throughout the first seven seasons, you simply cannot shake the feeling that the White Walkers are after something else.
Several theories were circulating on the internet when the show was airing. Some claimed that the Night King was created to kill humans, so he was fulfilling his purpose. It would have certainly hit the nail on the head for the idea of creating a weapon that gets out of the creator’s hand. But the Night King was not mindlessly killing humans. He was quite cunning and seemed like he had a plan throughout. He even smirked when Daenerys could not burn him with dragon fire.
A satisfying ending
Many fans hoped that the battle with the Night King would be the final climax of the show, with humanity forming a united front to fight evil Avengers-style. Some say that Winterfell should have fallen, with Jon and Dany retreating to King’s Landing with whatever remained of their armies, and Cersei having to face the White Walkers after denying help earlier.
I like both of those ideas.
My personal (probably not original) alternative theory is that the Night King wanted to undo the magic that turned him into the Night King to do someone else’s bidding. He was looking for Bran not just to murder him, but to use his omniscience to find a way to turn back into a human, or use his time-traveling skills to stop the Children from creating him in the first place. To achieve that, he is willing to sacrifice any number of lives, including those of his icy lieutenants. This would have required a slightly different portrayal of the character.
Yes, it does follow the template of a villain having a sympathetic reason for their violence, but it probably would not have been a cliché if done correctly. If you were captured and turned into a violent popsicle against your will, and could not die or partake in any human activities for 8000-plus years, you would also do everything in your power to fix the situation.
Ultimately, as someone living and breathing stories, Game of Thrones dropping the ball remains one of my biggest sorrows when it comes to television. For years, we threw around the phrase “winter is coming” among friends and family out of a collective love and excitement for the show.
Winter came. It was awesome. But it deserved to mean something more.