Have we got the Game of Thrones’ Night King all wrong?
Is the Night King misunderstood? Game of Thrones’ alpha ‘bad guy’ is probably just running on basic instinct – and Westeros may not be worth saving anyway, writes Travis M. Andrews
This is a defence of the Night King. This is an article explaining why the Night King not only should win the Iron Throne, but also why he may be morally superior to everyone in Game of Thrones, including your beloved Jon “I brood in the corner at parties” Snow.
That’s right.
Defending the Night King isn’t easy. The central conceit of this entire show is that the Frank Sinatra doppelgänger – can we call him Even Ol’(er) Blue Eyes? – is the “bad guy” simply because he wants to destroy all of humanity and turn them into murderous ice zombies. And, yes, those seem like the traits of a “bad guy”. But before we lump him in with the likes of Hans Gruber, Hannibal Lecter and Wes Mantooth, it’s important to ask two questions – because maybe we have him pegged all wrong.
(Spoilers, of course, abound.)
Do you get angry when a tiger eats an antelope?
There’s an old argument often employed when considering the nature of good and evil that those being true to their nature cannot be evil. It’s why we don’t consider a tiger evil for killing and eating an antelope, and it’s why we don’t consider a fox evil when it kills seemingly without reason. Sad, perhaps, but not evil.
The idea that one can (or should) be true to one’s nature, be it man or beast, is nothing new; it’s just the language that has changed over the years. From Polonius telling Hamlet, “To thine own self be true” to people on Twitter saying things like, “Tigers gonna tiger”, one thing is clear: Nature is not evil; it’s just nature.
Which raises the question: is the Night King following his own primordial nature, or does he have some sense of morality, or at least ethics?
For those who don’t remember, the Night King was once just another dude. Specifically, he was a First Man, which refers to the first humans to set foot on Westeros. They were objectively not good dudes. They slaughtered the Children of the Forest, who were native to the land, in a hungry real estate grab – so the Children of the Forest fought back. They created the Night King by stabbing a captive First Man with dragonglass in hopes of creating a weapon to fight the other First Men.