Alright guys, the final ever season of Game of Thrones is currently airing - and I don’t
know about you, but I’m counting down the days until Sunday evening rolls around - on
a weekly basis - which, is all the time, really - but on this particular fateful year of 2019,
six of those Sunday’s are showing us the final ever episodes of one of the most incredible
TV series ever created - based upon one of the greatest ever fictional fantasy series
created - A Song Of Ice And Fire.
And just like pretty much everybody else on the planet - we’re going to dive deep into
Planetos - spin some hypothetical weirdwood magic and peek our greenseer heads way up
north, to the Lands of Always Winter - and try and figure out what the hell is going
on up there.
Hello Internet - what’s going on, and once again welcome back to the most inquisitive
channel on YouTube - Life’s Biggest Questions.
As per usual, I’ll be your disembodied floating voice Jack Finch - as today, we curiously
ask the question - What If The Night King Was Real?
Roll the clip.
For the curious amongst you, that clip was of course from Season 5 Episode 8 of Game
of Thrones, aptly titled Hardhome - where the Night King himself first demonstrated
en masse his propensity in resurrecting the dead - and wildlings, thenns, common folk
and even giants alike joined the ranks of the White Walkers Wight Army - much to the
dismay of a particularly perturbed looking Jon Snow.
But it leads us to an interesting opening notion - because you might be thinking, yeah
- if the Night King was real, he’d just be really icy, and really menacing looking
- and he’d raise an army of the dead and destroy the damn planet.
Big Deal.
But whilst you’re predominantly correct - there’s also a little bit more too it,
and we’re talking everyone’s favourite subject - anthropology!
Now, it’s also important to note that we’re going to be using information from both the
books and the TV show - because if some of you haven’t already noticed, the series
has already quickly overtaken the books - and in actual fact, we’d pretty much know nothing
about the Night King and his merry band of Frosty Friends if we were only using A Song
of Ice and Fire as our source material, because our buddy George R.R Martin likes to keep
things mysterious, to say the least.
Although in the series, the Night King is very much a fully-fleshed out character - albeit
one that stares ominously, has zero dialogue - and flies around on an ice dragon - in the
books he is merely a whisper of a legend, a cautionary tale told to sweet summer children
about the dangers of falling madly in love with magic ice ladies.
According to legend, the Night’s King lived during the Age of Heroes - when magic was
much more prevalent, and the First Men were happily living alongside the Children of the
Forest after a long and bloody feud.
The Night’s King was a fearless warrior, who was named the thirteenth Lord Commander
of the Night’s Watch - unlucky for some - but soon after, he fell in love with a woman
with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars.
Interesting.
To cut a long story short, he married her at the cost of his soul - moved out to a keep
on the far reaches of the Wall known as the Nightfort - where he did some really bad stuff,
like sacrificing his men to the mysterious Others AKA The White Walkers.
Also interesting, where have we seen that before?
Well, it took an entire army to tear him down, before a legendary Stark of Winterfell, Brandon
the Breaker - teamed up with Joramun, the then King-Beyond-the-Wall - and put an end
to the Night King’s frozen reign.
But - that was thousands of years ago, wasn’t it?
The Ages of Heroes was a time of pure legend, where just like with other oral traditions
across our planet - several liberties were taken, to say the least.
So how can the Night King have been killed by Bran the Breaker and Joramun thousands
of years before - and then be staring down Jon Snow at Hardhome thousands of years later?
Well - that’s because, as far as we know - the White Walkers are created - and if they’re
created, then hypothetically speaking - anyone can take up the mantle of the Night King.
And that’s also where we get all hypothetical anthropology on this particular question,
and state that if the Night King is real - then lurking somewhere deep within the frozen core
of our planet - the Arctic - is a race of highly advanced ice-cold killers.
That’s never good.
And what’s even worse, they were created by *our* ancestors.
What the hell?
Yeah, let me explain.
In actual fact, the physiology of the races of Planetos are glaringly similar to our own
ancient ancestors.
Excuse the pun, but we can draw stark comparisons between the biological trees our own species
with that of Martin’s fictional ones.
The Children of the Forest could be similar to the Denisovans or Homo Floresiensis, and
the Giants of Old could be direct parallels to an enlarged version of Neanderthals.
And of course, our species - homo-sapiens, are the Andals, the Braavosi, the Dothraki
- yeah, you get the picture - that one’s pretty simple, right?
But in this hypothetical situation, just like how the Children of the Forest created the
White Walkers as some form of weapon of warfare by using the magical properties of Dragonglass
- their real world counterparts, the Denisovans or Homo Floresiensis did the exact same thing
to our ancient homo-sapien ancestors - and just as the timeline of the Others and the
Night King dictates, they’ve been slumbering on our planet for eight thousand years, hidden
deep beneath the ice in the lands of always winter AKA the Arctic Circle - waiting for
their time to emerge in the age of the Long Night.
In 2019.
Talk about bad timing, as if we haven’t already gotten enough on our plate.
And what’s even worse - is that they’re looking for someone to lead them, because
in our hypothetical Long Night - the Night King is yet to be chosen.
Now, bare with me here - because we’re purely crossing into the canon of the TV series now,
as George R.R Martin has been pretty schtum about the mysterious motivations of the Others
- but in our scenario, the white walkers are descending upon our planet with the intention
of claiming their new leader.
Who would it be?
What title would they hold?
I mean, let’s not beat about the bush - our planet isn’t exactly filled with as many
noble leaders and brave warriors as Planetos is - and I’m kind of thinking their list
would be pretty small, actually.
Maybe Keanu Reeves, actually.
He’d be a great candidate for anyone.
But the one thing we do know - is that our civilization would definitely be able to put
up a fight.
Forget about dragons, because we’ve got fleets upon fleets of supersonic jets spitting
napalm - in fact, our planets terrifying propensity to fuel military might would probably be our
saving grace when faced against an empire of White Walkers - but we are forgetting one
thing.
The dead.
Not only would we be facing down an invasion from a mystical army of frozen beings, with
no idea on the scale of their technology - we’d also have a zombie apocalypse on our hands,
and as we know from cinema and fiction - those things never end well.
Granted, if we were prepared enough - we’d more than likely win, we’d just bombard
the Arctic Circle with a bunch of nukes - oh, oh.
Yeah.
Crap.
We can’t do that, can we?
Nuking the arctic would probably go down as the stupidest thing that mankind has ever
done in the history of anything, given the fact that it’s already melting - and it’s,
you know - a magnetic pole.
No, we’d have to be smarter than that.
Plus, if what they say about the white walkers is true, and that wherever they tread they
bring the frozen cold with them - we can only imagine that the further south they marched,
the more that our planet would be submerged in a frozen wasteland.
And I don’t know about you - but our planet isn’t exactly fit for combating any kind
of climate change at the moment, nevermind one brought on by a mythical race of ice beings.
Yeah.
Our options are looking pretty bleak.
Actually, it’d probably be best to let them take their new Night King - and hopefully
- after the frozen apocalypse - there’ll be enough survivors left for us to repopulate
the planet.
Well, in the case.
Any volunteers?
Seriously.
I’m not kidding guys, let me know who you’d think would be the best candidate for the
Night King down in the comment section below.
Yeah, actually - I’ve got a few in mind, but I’m not sure whether they’d take them.
Yeah, that’s gonna be a fun one.
Before we depart, if you’d like to continue on with your hypothetical fictional questioning
binge - make sure to check our our numerous playlists, neatly categorized for your viewing
enjoyment.
Anyway guys - unfortunately that’s all we’ve got time for in today’s video - cheers for
sticking around all the way until the end.
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As per usual, I’ve been your disembodied floating voice Jack Finch, you’ve been watching
Life’s Biggest Questions - and until next time, you take it easy.