The Night King became a legendary figure in Game of Thrones, but still completely ruined the ending of the series

Few would consider it an exaggeration to say that the release of ‘Game of Thrones’ in 2011 divided the history of modern television into ‘before’ and ‘after’, adding to the collection of excellent television images of already legendary characters.

This is not only true for beloved protagonists like Ned Stark or Daenerys Targaryen, but also for the one whose story remains untold: the Night King. And while the character eventually became one of the symbols of the entire series, his presence in it was a questionable idea from the start, and the chilling image of the leader of the White Walkers was partly responsible for the failure of the final season. of Game of Thrones.

The Night King first appears in the series in Season 4 and periodically interjects himself into the main action in subsequent seasons, but few fans know that in the original book series by George R. R. Martin, the Night King is not mentioned at all.

However, not everything in this regard was the imagination of the writers – White Walkers also appear in books, but they have neither a king nor a leader in general, at least until the events of the last published part of “A Song of Ice and Fire”, “A Dance with Dragons”

While the fictional Night King provided the show with some iconic moments, his presence paradoxically contributed to the critically panned eighth season of Game of Thrones . While the White Walkers were seen as a mysterious people whose motivation to kill humanity was a result of their nature, the Night King clearly had a very different origin — meaning that his own desire to start a large-scale war with humans without any form of violence remained unexplained.