Or perhaps like ice wights with the cold, fire wights could prove more impervious to fire.
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He's basically swiping at wights and running away from an angry Viserion, who is burning down soldiers and wights and walls and whatever else is in his way.
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Drogon suffered a hell of an attack from the wights during the battle, and retreated in order to literally shake off a cadre of wights and perhaps heal his wounds.
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Wights, their pseudo-offspring of corpse soldiers, are also vulnerable to fire, and a battle with Jon Snow last season showed that it's possible neither wights nor White Walkers are able to swim.
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It's Daenerys to the rescue, her dragons cooking the wights.
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So if the killing of a White Walker dispels its magic over wights, might the killing of the Night King dispel his magic over all the other White Walkers (and therefore all their own wights)?
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He was mounted, against his consent, by a swarm of wights.
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Beyond the Wall: Jon Snow runs like mad from the wights.
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Is Cersei going to kill everyone after they defeat the wights?
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To clarify, White Walkers are a different species than the wights.
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Did they need winter to come to slow the wights' decomposition?
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But maybe wights just aren't really interested in killing anything but humans?
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Tormund's 50 points for killing all those wights helped a little, too.
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He puts Jon on his horse and then gets swamped by wights.
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Despite being mobbed by wights, there's a lot to suggest otherwise, actually.
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For clarification purposes, there are White Walkers and then there are wights.
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In "Beyond the Wall," the threat of the wights was less impressive.
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" The wights descend upon a Karstark soldier, and Alys "turns and runs.
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It's too bad, then, that any close-up shots of men fighting White Walkers and wights are jerky and scattered, especially when the wights start to close in and Taylor loses sight of where all his lead actors are.
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In the same episode, "Beyond the Wall," we learned that White Walkers and wights seem to operate under a classic rule from vampire lore: If you kill a White Walker, you also kill all the undead wights he resurrected.
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Even Podrick was able to take down two wights (+20) by our calculations.
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Elsewhere in Winterfell, the battle against the wights is only getting more intense.
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While she's on her way, The Hound throws a rock at some wights.
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The wights start to converge on their position but fall through the ice.
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The wights burrow through the ground and into the hollow under the tree.
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On the TV show, dragonglass also has a special power to destroy wights.
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And then Dany's dragons came along and torched the wights in great numbers.
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And Winterfell would probably fall victim to floods of Wildlings, wights, and water.
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Hodor: Killed by wights while Bran and Meera escaped a White Walker attack.
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And thus she took out the entire army of White Walkers and wights.
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Will Winterfell's vulnerable population, hiding out in the Crypts, also be turned into wights?
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On one side, the Night King and his army of White Walkers and wights.
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Arya, Brienne, and Samwell all go down under a wave of wights, but survive.
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The folks at Fantasizr have decided that wights will count as ordinary redshirt kills.
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Two wights identified in the script as "DEAD STARKS" stop and turn towards them.
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The script says Arya "vaults off a pile of wights" to kill the Night King.
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Gendry was seen fighting the wights, but wasn't the focus of many scenes later on.
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Multiple wights are referred to as the army of the dead or just the dead.
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The summoned army of wights and Walkers announces its arrival with a booming winter stormcloud.
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As they continue their quest, they're attacked by wights, and one stabs Jojen to death.
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He does this to make it scream and lure the wights across the thin ice.
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Millions of wights are pouring through; everyone they kill will be added to their numbers.
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There are some who say they should've been used a lot more to burn wights.
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They witness the Night King reanimating all the wildlings who just died, making them into wights.
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Jorah Mormont Jorah dies while fending off a pack of wights coming for him and Danaerys.
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As the podcasters point out though we've already seen wights beyond the wall in Season 1.
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It may even be powerful enough to cancel out Westeros' one defense against Wights, the Wall.
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Further — and I can't believe I'm saying this — zombie polar bears will be scored as wights.
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But Jorah has noticed something peculiar: when Jon killed the Whitewalker, all his wights died too.
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And, hey, Jon proves to be a wise choice when he saves Jeor from the wights!
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Wights are dead beings brought back to life by White Walkers and are susceptible to fire.
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He lived and died for Dany, defending her against multiple wights during the Battle of Winterfell.
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She just sat there on a grounded Drogon until the wights swarmed him like undead fleas.
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She did, after all, take down a hoard of wights with nothing but a dragon glass javelin.
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We tried to count how many wights, White Walkers, Dothraki, other humans, and other mythical creatures died.
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Moments later, Viserion's once kind eyes opened and revealed the same piercing blue belonging to the wights.
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I'm itching to play as Beric with his flaming sword, and totally X+Square+RT these wights.
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Second, wights are the zombie reanimated corpses that populate the vast majority of the White Walkers' army.
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Tyrion and Sansa killing wights in the crypts of Winterfell to save Missandei, Gilly, and Baby Sam
|
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The wights with the blue eyes have been reanimated by a dark force, the Night King. Ice.
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And in the center of the storm was the Night King, White Walkers, and thousands of wights.
|
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All that careful planning to have them guard Bran and set fire to wights was all for naught.
|
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After the battling wights at Wintefell and dodging dragon fire at King's Landing, Arya has seen a lot.
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It's fire that kills wights, and fire that could destroy the Grand Weirwood responsible for the kingdom's magic.
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When it comes to killing wights, it's not about quantity so much as… no, it is about quantity.
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In a universe filled with wights, dragons, and giants, it wouldn't be the most outrageous thing to happen.
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Meera and Hodor manage to drag Bran through right before closing the door on a flood of wights.
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Is this like a Frankenstein's monster thing, where all the wights and walkers really want is human affection?
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He's boring and he looks ridiculous, like one of the weightless horned wights from a fantasy video game.
|
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Logically, then, the Night King and his army of Walkers and wights could be Great Other's champions on Earth.
|
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Even now, they are still living men (they never died, unlike the wights they resurrect) trapped in monsters' bodies.
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He turned all the wights by proxy, so it stands to reason that if he dies, they all die.
|
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Davos though, is thinking all the thoughts, mainly obvious ones like the fact that dragon fire can kill wights.
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Another relevant note is that, in the books, the White Walkers and wights also don't come out during sunlight.
|
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The Others are closely associated with, but different from, wights — reanimated corpses of people or animals killed by Others.
|
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But a White Walker's control over its resurrected wights is beyond telepathic — it's a puppet master controlling a puppet.
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It was filled with large timber spikes and kindling to be lit so that wights could not cross it.
|
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Dragons breathe fire, and fire is the only reliable way to kill the White Walkers' undead minions, the wights.
|
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In those same previews, we can see Drogon, who was swarmed by wights, flying with gigantic holes in his wings.
|
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It's implied, like in most vampire lore, killing one White Walker also kills all of the wights he has sired.
|
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But there is no rest for the weary, and soon enough the group comes across a small gang of wights.
|
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Longclaw proves its worth by destroying a Whitewalker, decimating his wights, and conveniently only leaving one for them to capture.
|
|
The weight of an individual isn't enough to break the ice, but the weight of a group of wights is.
|
|
We already knew that if you kill a White Walker, all of the wights that White Walker "sired" would die.
|
|
Why did the Hound arbitrarily start throwing rocks at the wights after they'd been at a stalemate for a day?
|
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This tendency toward incomprehensibility extended even to sequences that I mostly enjoyed, like Arya evading the wights in the library.
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The Night King and his ice cronies walked right through the line of fire that was holding back the wights.
|
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This speculation derives from the fact that if you kill a White Walker, all of the wights they "sired" die.
|
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Given the fact that the White Walkers' primary army recruitment method is turning the dead into wights, the answer is no.
|
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If the wights lay siege to the Iron Islands, a living army can't survive there long, given the lack of resources.
|
|
Theon jumps back and forth between firing arrows and swinging a spear to defeat any wights that come toward Bran's body.
|
|
A skinny soldier, haggard from taking on a small army of wights, standing between the Night King and a strange teenager?
|
|
He is also inhabiting Hodor in the present, and Meera shouts at Hodor to "Hold the door!" to stop the wights.
|
|
In the podcast's latest episode, "Eastwatch— SpoiLore Editon" — hosts Jim and A.Ron chat about how the wights could cross the wall.
|
|
If you're playing with special teams, the White Walkers and the wights pick up +20 each for city-sacking as well.
|
|
There wasn't much on his side that would have helped him if the wights started to attack — other than those dragons.
|
|
Thoros of Myr died north of the Wall, dying in the cold after he was wounded by the White Walkers' wights.
|
|
First, his group just happen to stumble across a small group of Wights plus one Walker, casually strolling through the tundra.
|
|
Say what you will about the White Walkers and their army of wights, but they can't be accused of rushing things.
|
|
Their nature as fire wights might even make Jon and Beric the only ones immune to the White Walkers' ice magic.
|
|
What we do know is he has an ice dragon and a lot of wights so everyone should be afraid, very afraid.
|
|
Wights: a reanimated corpse of a recently deceased human or animal that has been brought back to life by a White Walker.
|
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It's also surrounded by water, and it has an active volcano that could presumably melt down some wights if the timing's right.
|
|
Their flank is unprotected and we see that there are wights coming towards them, so he had to battle those guys back.
|
|
Benjen was finally killed when the wights descended on him, and didn't explain how he ended up there in the first place.
|
|
Drogon blasts the Whitewalkers into oblivion, proving that dragon fire can kill them and their wights as easily as blowing one's nose.
|
|
Once all of humanity has been converted to wights, as is the Night King's dream, humans will live without hardship or inequality.
|
|
It has a massive number of wights, powerful magic that can turn every enemy casualty into a recruit, and an ice dragon.
|
|
Also, in the scene, there doesn't seem to be a big pile of dead wights in the godswood off which to vault.
|
|
Earlier, after Jon had killed a White Walker, a large group of wights that the White Walker had apparently reanimated suddenly collapsed.
|
|
And I love the idea that Qyburn will study the wights and come up with his own death-defeating synth-zombie formula.
|
|
Back in the present, Hodor held the door, keeping the Wights at bay long enough for Bran and Meera (Ellie Kendric) to escape.
|
|
Dondarrion's death was a true sacrifice because he protected the eventual Night King slayer, Arya, from getting slaughtered by a group of wights.
|
|
Lord of the Rings fans can think of these wights as the Uruk-hai versions of the undead race — bigger, stronger, and meaner.
|
|
As he and Meera flee the wights, they are rescued by Bran's long-lost uncle, Benjen Stark, who disappeared early in Season 1.
|
|
The barrow wights and dear Tom Bombadill were left out, and a much more traditional love story between Aaragorn and Arwan was inserted.
|
|
After tricking a substantial number of wights into falling through some thin ice, our team settles down for a campfire and a nap.
|
|
The semi-undead Benjen Stark rescues Jon, puts him on a horse, fights off a bunch of wights (+270) and dies (+250), finally.
|
|
We can see from the schematics that part of the weapon is made of dragonglass, a material that kills White Walkers and wights.
|
|
But we're not so sure about that because Qyburn confirmed that the Mountain's undead-ness doesn't mean he's mindless, like the wights are.
|
|
At some point, Jon and Dany realize that dragons are a much more efficient way of taking out maximum wights with minimum effort.
|
|
It obliterates the other walkers and wights but that's because they were turned by the Night King and not made specifically like him.
|
|
Alternatively, she can be a leader at Pyke and provide shelter to the non-soldiers because we've established that the wights can't swim.
|
|
But no: Old arguments, like the wights in "Game of Thrones," would just keep rising up after you thought you had killed them.
|
|
Hodor, the big lumbering giant whom we last saw holding the door so Bran and Meera could escape from wights, is NOT dead.
|
|
A rewatch of the scene does seem to show piles of dead wights lying around, which Arya leapt off of to save them all.
|
|
He returned to that role several times over, each episode more visually astonishing than the last, punctuated by stampeding wights and fire-breathing dragons.
|
|
Now, Team Ice And Fire has given the Night King a way to fill King's Landing with more wights than anyone could imagine. Why?
|
|
Jaime then set off to the North to join the others in fighting the wights, leaving his sister behind to potentially become dragon bait.
|
|
And while no one knows if White Walkers like the Night King are susceptible to dragonfire, we do know wights (like Viserion) certainly are.
|
|
As Beric later asks: Does this mean that if you kill the Night King, then you eliminate all the other White Walkers and wights?
|
|
But there certainly are a lot of dead Greyjoy men, and with the Night King around, dead people are just wights waiting to happen.
|
|
Fire can kill wights, as we saw in grand fashion this week when Dany unleashed her dragons, and they apparently won't touch water, either.
|
|
But much as he did as Bran fled the wights last season, Uncle Benjen swooped in with his flaming flail to help Jon escape.
|
|
Ser Jorah surely died living out his dearest fantasy: protecting his queen and the love of his life, Daenerys Targaryen, from a horde of wights.
|
|
We saw what was apparently all of the Dothraki extinguished by wights, and we know that the Unsullied and Jon's forces also suffered heavy casualties.
|
|
Unlike the resurrected wights or even champion of the living Jon Snow, however, the White Walkers remain living men who never asked to become monsters.
|
|
Game of Thrones fans might remember Hodor's heartbreaking demise, in which he valiantly sacrificed himself for Bran Stark by blocking a door from vicious wights.
|
|
Behind the wights and White Walkers is the blowing winds of winter, swirling in wait to bring a deadly chill to the realms of men.
|
|
And maybe the commoners have the right idea here, as Bran's epic escape from the White Walkers and their hordes of zombie wights reminded us.
|
|
As scores and scores of men fell around him in battle, Ghost raged on, tearing wights limb from limb with his gnashing, CGI-enhanced jaws.
|
|
"Strangely enough, one wight is way more complicated than ten thousand wights because you're dealing with a wight with a lot of detail," he explains.
|
|
Also who could forgot that tender kiss on the hand later in the battle, as they both decide to go out fighting against the wights.
|
|
Leaf, one of the Children of the Forest, sacrificed herself to delay the army of wights chasing Bran, Meera (Ellie Kendrick), and Hodor (Kristian Nairn).
|
|
When Jon shatters the White Walker leading a gang of wights, all but one (a stray they took on, no doubt), fall lifeless to the ground.
|
|
The White Walker immediately dies, shattering into countless pieces of ice, as do the wights fighting with him, who in turn break down into black brittle.
|
|
Appropriately, it is during this conversation that Jon uses Jorah's dad's sword to kill a White Walker (+15), which causes five wights to spontaneously explode (+50).
|
|
For Jon, this means continuing to hack at wights while his only chance at escape flies away, along with his only chance at a new girlfriend.
|
|
While the White Walkers and wights remain offscreen in the trailer, the threat of them bringing eternal winter to all of Westeros is realer than ever.
|
|
During their southern march, the White Walkers killed everything in their path without mercy or reason, reanimating human corpses as wights to join their frozen army.
|
|
He raised wights after the battle of Hardhome without touching them in season five and changed a live baby into a White Walker in season four.
|
|
A dragon-led deus ex machina might feel a little cheap, but there's no denying it would be exhilarating to see a recuperated Drogon roasting wights.
|
|
And when the Dothraki finally met the wall of wights, he cut back to Winterfell to watch as the fiery swords were all too quickly extinguished.
|
|
Once the army of wights advanced upon the Unsullied and others, it became all but impossible to tell who was doing what and when and where.
|
|
He's the number one good boy, going as far as to charge straight into the sea of wights despite the fact the he can't hold a sword.
|
|
Here is a list of characters who will receive points (+50 each, the per-episode max) for killing a wave of wights during the Battle of Winterfell.
|
|
While it is unknown if the zombie dragon's breath could kill the wights the way we know dragon fire can, we definitely saw it destroy the Wall.
|
|
Jon Snow was saved in the nick of time twice in one episode when battling thousands of wights, and survived falling into a lake of freezing water.
|
|
Untold millions of wights are massing North of the Wall — But they've barely moved any closer to Eastwatch than they were at the start of the season.
|
|
The panic intensifies at 47 minutes in, when the wights start to break through the gate, and by 50 minutes in, it turns into a horror show.
|
|
Benjen lives in an in-between state — mostly dead, but still less dead than the reanimated Mountain, who himself is less dead than the White Walkers' wights.
|
|
There's a lengthy sequence where she recreates the "velociraptors in the kitchen" sequence from Jurassic Park in what appears to be the Winterfell library, with some wights.
|
|
But as many fans on Reddit are asking, what does the existence of fire wights mean for the soul of those resurrected by the Red God's magic?
|
|
But far from sinking quietly into the frozen lake, the dragon was pulled out by a horde of wights, given the magic White Walker touch, and turned zombie.
|
|
While Drogon's dragonfire later vaporized quite a few wights, that appeared to have as much to do with the force and extreme heat of the blast as anything.
|
|
But the actual scene in which he died — with Wights everywhere and Bran, Hodor, and Meera struggling to escape into the Three-Eyed Raven's cave — was pretty good.
|
|
Reddit user rsh7 believes Arya will use the face of one of the dead wights or White Walkers in order to get in close proximity with their leader.
|
|
Now the Night King's forces are streaming into Westeros proper, where they have access to huge human population centers that they can kill and then raise as wights.
|
|
Granted, with a horde of White Walkers and wights walking southward, does anyone in Westeros have time to care about bloodlines and rightful heirs to the Iron Throne?
|
|
But while on their mission, the band of brave men found themselves surrounded by hundreds of wights from the army of the dead without any clear escape route.
|
|
Setting aside the Walking Dead-esque makeup and wardrobe done for the wights up North, this behind-the-scenes featurette has several highlights that make it worth watching.
|
|
What if the Iron Throne is melted down to make weapons for the impending battle against wights and White Walkers, where humanity will fight the Night King's army?
|
|
But here are the basic bullet points: There is also circumstantial evidence — at least on the TV show — that perhaps neither the White Walkers nor wights can swim.
|
|
Or he might be defeated in single combat by Jon or someone else carrying dragonglass, which might (we think) destroy all the wights he turned at a stroke.
|
|
Jon Snow, Tormund Giantsbane, Jorah Mormont, Beric Dondarrion, Thoros of Myr, Gendry, and the Hound are heading into a battle against an army of wights and White Walkers.
|
|
None of those guys had to go up North in the first place, and the Dany-Night King encounter, across a writhing sea of undead wights, was rushed.
|
|
They showed up as a few of the reanimated wights in the White Walker army near the episode's close (picture above, spoilerrific video of the relevant scene here).
|
|
Fire is the only thing that can kill wights, so perhaps this was done on purpose by the Starks to save the family — but that's probably an optimistic guess.
|
|
After all, the Night King has been running around the north of Westeros murdering people, making ice zombie wights, raising dragons from the dead, and bringing down The Wall.
|
|
With the great war against the undead over, there are more major survivors than expected, but the heroes' numbers have been significantly reduced by the incredible onslaught of wights.
|
|
Now we know an important new law of physics: if you kill a White Walker, you also kill any wights it "turned" from normal dead bodies into militant zombies.
|
|
Bran and Meera make it to The Wall shortly after Bran has a gross vision (+20) of an army of wights crawling southward with some new additions — wight horses.
|
|
The episode also provided some vital revelations about the vulnerabilities of the wights, who can apparently be destroyed, vampire style, if you kill the White Walker who made them.
|
|
Why did Jon turn away from Dany (during her very Terminator entrance) to keep fighting the wights when Drogon could've easily batted them away with fire or his tail?
|
|
As the actors react, he says Arya "vaults off a pile of dead wights," thus giving us the shot of her descending, cat-like, from behind the Night King.
|
|
Later in the episode, she sets the trench around Winterfell ablaze with her magic, helping hold back the hordes of wights and White Walkers and aiding the living's retreat.
|
|
Beric Dondarrion (Richard Dormer) is the first person to realize this kind of plan might work, coming to the realization while the "Suicide Squad" is surrounded by thousands of wights.
|
|
That one awful Child of the Forest suicide bombs a bunch of wights with her magic blue fireball (+50 for Children of the Forest; my god, what is this show?).
|
|
As Meera drags Bran off, she tells Hodor to stay where he is and get eaten by wights while she puts 20 or so more feet between her and them.
|
|
On last week's Game Of Thrones, Arya Stark killed the Night King, blasting all the White Walkers and wights to smithereens and ridding Westeros of this supernatural plague forever more, right?
|
|
The majority of the battle between good and evil, living and dead, zombies with obscenely cool blue eyes and those with regular sad eyes, took place between wights and Winterfell's army.
|
|
The theory that if the Night King could be killed, all the White Walkers and wights he created would also subsequently all die was a popular one going into the episode.
|
|
Dragonglass might not be effective against the zombie-like wights (who can still be taken out with good old-fashioned fire), but it may well be essential in defeating their leaders.
|
|
The logical end for all of this would be for humans to play the game of thrones right up until the very end, when they're overrun by White Walkers and wights.
|
|
Indeed, the siege of the wights at the center of this episode was a cold echo of last season's pitch-perfect war for Winterfell, right down to the cavalry-like rescue.
|
|
The Night King & White Walkers & The Wights Having gained control of one of Dany's dragons, The Night King uses him to burn down The Wall and leads his massive armies into Westeros.
|
|
This week, we found out what that was: Beric managed to save Arya's life against a group of wights, keeping her fighting so she could kill the Night King, seemingly for good.
|
|
Top scorer: Arya Stark, 25 Special team: The Royal Army, 0 Top scorer: The Night King, 2003 Special team: The Wights, 25 Note: Chaim dropped Randyll Tarly and picked up Alys Karstark.
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|
The disadvantage to this is that it seems that a Walker and its wights are linked: kill the White Walker who resurrected the dead, and you kill the corpses it raised, too.
|
|
Beric Dondarrion (Richard Dormer) came to a similar conclusion in season 7 of Game Of Thrones after realizing that killing a White Walker led to the death of all of his wights.
|
|
" That's right: our boy Jon, savior of the living fighting the White Walkers and their undead wights, is actually in essence a lot like them as a reanimated corpse or "fire wight.
|
|
Her ominous delivery in the second trailer that "the lone wolf dies but the pack survives" as Jon fights the wights alone certainly seems to signal that Jon's in danger in Season 7.
|
|
The warrior has been Daenerys' (Emilia Clarke) mostly-trusted companion since pretty much day one, and his devotion was evident by the fact that he died for her at the hands of wights.
|
|
After Bran traveled back in time to when Hodor was a boy, and Hodor was ordered to "hold the door" as an army of Wights attempted to break through in the present day.
|
|
The entire run of Game of Thrones has been alluding to some greater power in the weirwood, including the popular theory that Bran could somehow use them to burn the wights to death.
|
|
And any "dead" characters who unexpectedly show up again, either as wights or because Game of Thrones is full of death-fakeouts, may become available in the draft later, to replace dead characters.
|
|
If you'll recall, in Season 6, he appears in the woods to help Bran (Isaac Hempstead Wright) and Meera (Ellie Kendrick) escape a group of wights, who had just killed Hodor and Summer.
|
|
The Hound also nets some eating points (+173) and, impressively, some vision points (+20) for staring into the flames at Thoros' request and seeing an army of wights at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea.
|
|
The fear of Daenerys even extends to what she might do to Tyrion Lannister after he mistakenly advises her to trust that Cersei will send her armies north to help fight off the wights.
|
|
Between the dragons and the terrifying wights, it's easy to focus on the fantastical parts of Game of Thrones and forget that much of the human-on-human violence portrayed actually happened throughout history.
|
|
White Walkers, wights, and the blue-eyed beasts who bear them — we probably learned more about these mysterious undead creatures in Sunday night's episode of Game of Thrones than the rest of the series combined.
|
|
Arya hands her a dagger (maybe one Gendry made?) and tells her sister to "stick them with the pointy end" (+5 for a witty one-liner) if she comes across any wights in the crypts.
|
|
He told Bran that after being killed by wights he was brought back by the Children of the Forest, who pierced his heart with dragonglass (similar to how they created the first White Walker ever).
|
|
Should Jon die, it'll be a serious blow to the war against the undead (since, remember, Jon is one of the only people in Seven Kingdoms who's even aware of the White Walkers and wights).
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Just as all looked lost for Bran and Meera Reed, the two were dramatically saved from attacking wights by a mysterious figure — and that figure turned out to be Bran's long-lost uncle, Benjen Stark.
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Back in Martin's third book, A Storm of Swords, when Sam and Gilly were fleeing from wights, a mysterious character allied with the Three-Eyed Raven showed up to rescue them at the last minute.
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Once the action moved inside, the episode turned into a horror movie, with Arya dodging the more bookish wights in the library before joining Beric and the Hound in the zombie-plagued hallways of Winterfell.
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Despite there being numerous combatants, he does a great job of laying out where Benjen is in relation to the wights, and in how he dispatches each of them one by one with his flaming mace.
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When Meera and Bran looked just as doomed as Jon, with a swarm of wights gaining on them after their attack on the cave, Benjen rode in with his ball of fire to save the day.
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"The Long Night," in which the Night King and his White Walkers and wights carved their way through the Jon/Dany alliance's forces like soft butter, made very clear just how massive a threat he posed.
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Maybe he's helping Jon to convince the other lords of the North that the White Walkers are a serious threat, since he was with Jon at Hardhome and saw just how dangerous the Wights can be.
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On Sunday night's Game of Thrones episode, we were reintroduced to a long-lost character by the name of Benjen Stark, who sweeps in on horseback to save Bran and Meera from a pack of wights.
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Please give a silent internet welcome to the Brotherhood Without Banners, the Night's Watch, the Dothraki, the Royal Army, and the Wights (differentiated from White Walkers this year to avoid giving a ridiculous advantage for one team).
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Inarguably, it proved their goal isn't just the destruction of all humans because, actually, they seem to need humans (alive humans, since the zombie-like wights are different) in order to create more of their own kind.
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One theory claims Benjen could be Coldhands, a dead, sentient being (from the books) who first helps Sam and Gilly escape from wights and then leads Bran, Hodor, and the Reed siblings to the three-eyed crow.
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Some fans likely already knew that their attack on wights was cut from the script because an HBO behind-the-scenes video (as seen above) showed actors Sophie Turner (Sansa) and Peter Dinklage (Tyrion) filming that scene.
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Like the Battle of the Bastards, the dead became part of the battle's topography, in this case taking the form of a literal avalanche of corpses as the wights plunged over a cliff to enter the fray.
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So I would have liked at least one to stay alive to tell Bran a little of the series' deepest, darkest past, but having the wights kill them all off preserves that mystery, which is probably best.
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He flies around on his dragon, doing nothing of value — no strafing runs on wights, no attempts to attack the line of commanding White Walkers waiting in the rearguard, or even any fiery attacks from Rhaegal at all.
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The Iron Throne isn't good to anybody if Westeros is a wasteland roamed by wights and White Walkers, so ensuring everybody plays on the same side — even if only briefly — is pretty essential to survival on the continent.
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One of the most characteristic abilities of the wights is manipulating ice (duh), so whenever a red priest asks someone about what they see in the flames, there's a good chance they can actually manipulate what they see.
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But after all of the foreshadowing and flaming spirals, after the revelation that the weirwoods can destroy wights, after the setups connecting them both to Westerosi religion and pre-human magic… those clues seem to have gone exactly nowhere.
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Because just when all hope seems lost, and Jon Snow is about to be eaten by ice zombies, Daenerys swoops in with her dragons, triumphant music blaring, guns blazing to incinerate the host of wights and save the day.
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Then they'll have air superiority plus a strong defensive position, and the greater numbers of the Dead will be somewhat counteracted by the fact that every dragon-fire blast that kills a White Walker brings down all his wights.
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The episode's early images of a wave of wights crashing toward the forces of the living were properly terrifying, and the Night King proved himself to be a better tactician than Jon and Dany in just about every way.
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He was an infantryman in the episode, knocking wights off walls, but not as necessary to the building plot about injured dragons, the Night King's arrival, the crypts opening up, Jon and Dany's attempt at survival, and Bran's potential death.
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Despite having a bafflingly terrible battle plan and winding up separated from her dragon and fighting for her life amid a crowd of wights, Dany made it out alive thanks to the bravery and sacrifice of her pal Ser Jorah.
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For some reason, Daenerys and Tyrion found it hard to believe the Night King and his army of wights are a real threat — even though Daenerys is literally immune to fire and hatched dragons when everyone told her that was impossible.
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He doesn't have to; he just stands there, waiting to charge at Jon Snow and his merry band of thieves, until the Hound messes up and accidentally reveals that it's safe for the wights to walk on the ice again.
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It's unclear if Arya knows exactly how she could kill the Night King, which is just as well, since we have no idea how she gets herself past the White Walkers and the army of wights in order to do it.
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In that vision, Bran sees a man stabbed in the chest by a dragonglass dagger right next to a weirwood tree, creating the Night King, the original White Walker who would birth all of the other White Walkers and wights.
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He also killed a bunch of wights with a mace made of fire, and gave some hot cocoa to Bran Stark, who is still a bit shook up from his vision of the entire Wiki of Ice and Fire (+20).
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He might mean the Night King, the Army of the Dead, the White Walkers, the Wights – or he might mean Cersei Lannister, who we see moments later, sipping wine upon the Iron Throne as if nothing has changed since Season 1.
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That made him sometimes hard to relate to (to say nothing of all his Lord of Light proselytizing), but Beric sacrificed his life in the end to save Arya, allowing himself to be mauled by wights in the halls of Winterfell.
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So unless someone can find a cure to bring Viserion (and all the other wights) back from the undead, Viserion is likely going to have to die for good in the final season, so start preparing yourselves for that tragic moment now.
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By stabbing the Night King (Vladimír Furdík) in the gut, Arya ended the Walkers and the Wights entirely, which was probably very confusing for the fighters who didn't know about that the army of the dead's survival completely depended on the Night King.
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Given that the Night King and his army of wights later killed the last of the Children of the Forest when attacking the Three-Eyed Raven's refuge, it seems that the Walkers have no particular affection toward the beings that created them.
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In the same way Arya drops Needle and must rely on her dagger, she loses her Gendry-forged custom dragonglass weapon while on the run from wights, and she goes head-to-head with the Night King using only the Valyrian dagger.
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Not only did the tiny search party stumble upon a separated group of wights sooner rather than later, but they discovered that killing one White Walker probably kills every wight that it turned — in a moment that fortuitously still left them a single wight to capture.
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The White Walkers were conspicuous by their absence in the first Season 7 trailer, but they're back with a vengeance in the new promo, which sees Jon Snow and his wrecking crew battling the wights, while the rest of Westeros' inhabitants glower ominously at each other.
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And given what we now know about the linked nature of the White Walkers and their wight army, it would seem that if the Night King, as the original progenitor of all the other White Walkers and wights, could be killed, it would swiftly end the conflict.
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The area around one weirwood was also shown to have the power to destroy wights, and while the way that magic works is unclear, it's possible the trees could come in handy in the upcoming battle, as the Army of the Dead continues to march south.
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He then throws rocks at the wights, which is a rather dumb idea — by having that heavy rock hit the ice in front of the wight, the zombie realizes the ice isn't that thin after all, or perhaps it has frozen further, and starts a procession across.
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Then there's a popular fan theory going around that the Night King isn't even at Winterfell -- that he's split his massive army in two and is heading for King's Landing with his zombie dragon, where a million unsuspecting city dwellers are waiting to be turned into wights.
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Additionally, after Benjen Stark saved Bran and Meera Reed from a horde of wights with a badass flaming ball and chain, it was revealed that the Children stopped the Walkers from turning him into one of their own by stabbing him in the heart with dragonglass.
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Of course, that heroic act of rebellion also puts him in the oncoming path of the Night King and his undead army, who are currently marching towards Winterfell with a hundred thousand wights and an ice dragon — a fact that isn't lost on star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.
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Blue-eyed wights awoke from the bodies of dead men in the forests of the North; living dragons hatched from stone eggs in the heart of a funeral pyre, and the glass candles of lost Valyria burned with magic for the first time in a hundred years.
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Stepping outside the text, the logic of the narrative seems to be that Dany is a hero not because she sets tribal leaders on fire, but because she will use magical fire powers to save the world from the White Walkers and their army of undead wights.
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After enjoying a few pleasant reunions before the battle, Beric, who once led the Brotherhood Without Banners and also wound up on Arya's kill list for a stint, fought alongside Arya and the Hound until the bitter end, ultimately sacrificing himself to rescue Arya from a band of wights.
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At this point, we have two positive developments that I initially took at face-value like a total rube: Euron says he's too scared of the wights to stay in mainland Westeros anymore, and declares that he's going back to the Iron Islands to wait out the whole situation.
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By extension, it was natural to assume — as voiced by Beric Dondarrion during season seven's big White Walker confrontation in "Beyond the Wall" — that if you kill the Night King, all the White Walkers he sired would also die, causing all the wights they sired to die too.
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And by extension, it is natural to assume — as voiced by Beric Dondarrion during season seven's big White Walker confrontation scene in "Beyond the Wall" — that if you kill the Night King, all the White Walkers he sired will also die, causing all the wights they sired to die.
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Obviously, there were some huge character losses when the wights and White Walkers attacked the Stark home, but if everything went down as it seems, then Arya (Maisie Williams) killed the Night King (Vladimir Furdik) and the White Walkers' thousand-year-long reign of terror has come to an end.
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For instance, I think Jorah's death is supposed to be part of this arc, because he was Dany's wise counsel or whatever, but it simply didn't play that way at all, because Game of Thrones lost track of their relationship until they were fighting together against a bunch of wights.
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Only one person in that castle had the fighting skills to fend off over six wights at once, plus the supernatural ability to creep through a whole hoard of them to surprise the Night King from behind, and the quick thinking to switch hands when the Night King had her by the throat.
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Even discounting that some of the more ancient bones are probably dust by now and that some of the more recently dead Starks aren't down there — like Catelyn and Robb, whose corpses never made their way back to Winterfell after the Red Wedding — there are still plenty of potential wights down there.
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This episode is a perfect demonstration of the Night King's power: Jon and his allies barely escape with their lives after a brutal battle with the wights, and they realize just how dire their situation is when they witness the Night King reanimating the dead to add them to his growing army.
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But while we're likely to spend most of Game of Thrones season 8 clutching our own faces and hoping our faves don't end up dead (or worse, wights!), and rooting for a few of them to end up on the all might Iron Throne, we're also allowed to take a moment to feel a little sentimental.
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Benjen shows up in the first scene, bumping off the wights who are pursuing Meera and Bran, while Bran is floating through all of space and time, watching the past unfold in what amount to Clockwork Orange–style monologues of footage from the series so far, mixed in with events we've always wanted to see but haven't gotten to yet.
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The past season or so had been leading up to the moment when presumably Jon Snow (Kit Harington) would be the one to end the White Walkers and their undead army for good, but as he found himself trapped between Viserion and a bunch of wights, it was Arya-goddamn-Stark who leapt through the White Walkers and plunged her Valyrian knife into the Night King's chest.
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Top scorer: Jaime Lannister, 130 Special team: The White Walkers, 0 Top scorer: Cersei Lannister, 115 Special team: The Wights, 0 Top scorer: Sansa Stark / Davos Seaworth, 10 Special team: The Lord of Light, 0 Top scorer: N/A Special team: Dragons, 0 Top scorer: Tyrion Lannister, 5 Special team: Brotherhood without Banners, 0 Top scorer: N/A Special team: The Night's Watch, 0
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Death count Let's make some generous assumptions: 10,000 Dothraki (the full army) + 8,000 Unsullied (more than half their full number) + 7,000 Westerosi knights and infantry (more than half their full number) + 73 assorted other unfortunate people in the crypts and in battle + 1 Edd Tollett + 1 Lyanna Mormont + 1 Beric Dondarrion + 1 Jorah Mormont + 1 Theon Greyjoy + 1 Melisandre of Asshai + 0 wights (what's dead may never die, remember?) = _________ 25,206 dearly departed souls. RIP.
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The battle episode, "The Long Night," was shot in such a dark, confusing way that it's hard to take a final count of the survivors, but we know at least these people survived: Jaime, Brienne, Daenerys and both her living dragons, Arya, Gendry, the Hound, Jon Snow and his direwolf Ghost, Podrick, Samwell Tarly, Tyrion, Tormund, Sansa, Grey Worm and what's left of the Unsullied, Missandei, Varys, and presumably any Dothraki who managed to survive the first wave of wights.
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Top scorer: Jon Snow, 5 Special team: The Unsullied, 0 Top scorer: N/A Special team: Wildlings, 0 Top scorer: Jaime Lannister, 103 Special team: The White Walkers, 0 Top scorer: N/A Special team: Dragons, 110 Top scorer: Cersei Lannister, 5 Special team: The Wights, 0 Top scorer: Davos Seaworth, 10 Special team: The Lord of Light, 0 Top scorer: Bran Stark, 60 Special team: Brotherhood without Banners, 0 Top scorer: N/A Special team: The Night's Watch, 0 Bryan still has Ellaria Sand on his team.
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Top scorer: Daenerys Targaryen, 40 Special team: The Dothraki, 0 Top scorer: The Night King, 110 Special team: The Wights, 60 Top scorer: Arya Stark, 03 Special team: The Royal Army, 0 Top scorer: Jon Snow, 55 Special team: The Unsullied, 0 Top scorer: Bran Stark, 80 Special team: Brotherhood without Banners, 0 Top scorer: Littlefinger, 50 Special team: Dragons, 0 Top scorer: Jaime Lannister, 15 Special team: The White Walkers, 60 Top scorer: N/A Special team: The Night's Watch, 0 Top scorer: Sansa Stark, 20 Special team: The Lord of Light, 0 Top scorer: N/A Special team: Wildlings, 0
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Top scorer: Arya, 20 Special team: The Royal Army, 0 Top scorer: Daenerys Targaryen, 10 Special team: The Dothraki, 03 Top scorer: N/A Special team: The Unsullied, 0 Top scorer: Jaime Lannister, 15 Special team: The White Walkers, 0 Top scorer: Varys, 10 Special team: Dragons, 50 Top scorer: Randyll Tarly, 50 Special team: The Wights, 0 Top scorer: N/A Special team: Wildlings, 0 Top scorer: Bran Stark, 50 Special team: Brotherhood without Banners, 0 Top scorer: Davos Seaworth, 20 Special team: The Lord of Light, 0 Top scorer: N/A Special team: The Night's Watch, 0
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Top scorer: Arya Stark, 29 Special team: The Royal Army, 200 Top scorer: The Hound, 20173 Special team: Dragons, 22017 Top scorer: Tormund Giantsbane, 29 Special team: The Dothraki, 209 Top scorer: Euron Greyjoy, 15 Special team: The Unsullied, 0 Top scorer: N/A Special team: Wildlings, 25 Top scorer: Sansa Stark, 20 Special team: The Old Gods, 0 Top scorer: Lyanna Mormont, 10 Special team: The Night's Watch, 93 Top scorer: Jaime Lannister, 5 Special team: White Walkers, 0 Top scorer: Cersei Lannister, 5 Special team: Wights, 0 Top scorer: Bran Stark, 20 Special team: Brotherhood without Banners, 0 Update July 17th 9:00PM ET: This article was originally published on Jul 17, 2017, 9:09am and has been updated to include video.
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