Does Westeros require a balance between good and evil?
The Night King is dead. So long buddy, it’s been a wild ride. But now everything can go back to being rosy in Westeros, right? Wrong. Dead wrong. Things are never rosy in Westeros, and a theory posited recently has suggested that the death of the cold man with the spear may well not bring about the end of evil in the Seven Kingdoms.
The Night King was killed by Arya Stark at the end of the Battle of Winterfell, leaving all of his minions dead also.
In an interview with Time magazine last year, George R.R. Martin said of Beric Dondarrion, saying that “he’s not a living human being anymore. His heart isn’t beating, his blood isn’t flowing in his veins, he’s a wight, but a wight animated by fire instead of by ice, now we’re getting back to the whole fire and ice thing”.
That idea, that Beric is a “fire wight” is interesting in isolation, but also begs the question: who creates the fire wights?
The Night King creates wights, that much we know, using the power of ice. Given the fact that the Night King came to Winterfell specifically to kill Bran in the Battle of Winterfell, we can safely assume that it is he that has the power to use fire to create wights.
A very detailed thread on Reddit cuts through the weeds on the subject, so we’ll trim it down even more for easier consumption.
Essentially, Bran is a powerful warg. He can see the past, present and future and can change the past to protect himself in the future (remember the whole “Hold the door” situation with Hodor).
In Season 8 Episode 3 we learn that the Night King doesn’t only reanimate the dead, but can also control the weather, bringing blizzards down upon areas when he wants.
In Game of Thrones lore, followers of the Lord of Light believe that the Lord is always at war with his evil counterpart. This idea suggests that there must always be a dichotomy of light vs dark, good vs evil and fire vs ice. Every reaction has an equal and opposite reaction.
The Night King’s counterpart appears to be the Three-Eyed Raven. He killed the first one, and has had his eyes on Bran ever since he left his mark on him.
Another feature of Thrones lore is that the Lord of Light has a purpose for everyone, and everyone who was supposedly brought back by the Lord of Light aided Arya in defeating the Night King, including Beric, Jon and Melisandre.
Remember too that it was Bran who gave Arya the dagger that killed the Night King, the very same dagger that was used by the assassin who tried to kill Bran in early Thrones as he was recuperating from the fall he sustained when Jaime pushed him.
He also used himself as bait while sitting out in the Godswood of Winterfell.
All of these pieces of information have understandably led people to believe that if the Night King is evil incarnate, if he is the Lord of Darkness, then it makes sense that Bran, or the Three-Eyed Raven specifically, is the Lord of Light.
Why else would the Night King come after Bran so vociferously if he was not his nemesis?
This theory also leaves a question: if there always needs to be a balance in the Seven Kingdoms, if there must be good and evil, then what will happen now that the Night King is no more?
Will someone take his place or, perhaps, will we finally see what has been alluded to in the books as The Great Other?
Some have speculated that the Night King is the TV show’s version of The Great Other, while others have theorised that he is a separate entity, who may even be trapped in the bowels of Winterfell.
Only time will tell.
