One of the most fun things that came with being a fan of Game of Thrones, and George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novel series as a whole, was getting involved in all the wild theories that fans come up with. Some of these ideas had validity to them, like the famous “R+L=J” theory that was proven true when the show revealed that Jon Snow was indeed the child of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark. Other Game of Thrones theories involved secret Targaryens or that Bran’s actions while exploring the past would lead to him accidentally becoming the Night King. Some are downright outlandish, like the idea that Jon Snow and Meera Reed were twins or that Brienne was related to the Clegane. Recently, someone put out a wild theory about how the Night King could’ve defeated everyone easily and in almost no time at all.
The theory comes from Reddit user RockyRob97, and it was posted on the main Game of Thrones Reddit page. The user points out something that makes logical sense, yet would’ve been odd to see actually play out in the TV series or in the pages of the books.
According to Redditor RockyRob97, the Night King could’ve won his war handily if he were actually raising everything he possibly could from the dead. In Season 5’s “Hardhome“, we get an actual look at the Night King bringing back Wildlings from the dead and having them join his army as Wights. It showed his immense power and, when combined with the White Walkers that he seemed to be making from the male babies Craster sacrificed to them, made him seem nearly unstoppable.
That became even truer in Season 7 when the Night King killed one of Daenerys’ dragons and then brought it back to life under his control. Since he was able to do it to a dragon, RockyRob97 suggested that the Night King could do it to all dead creatures. Theoretically, that would give him access to control millions of rats, birds, insects, livestock, wolves, fish, and more. Seeing armies of undead mosquitoes and mice might not sound intimidating at first but a closer look reveals how harrowing it would’ve been.
With the likes of mosquitoes, flies, and wasps, he could command thousands of them to swarm entire cities. It would overwhelm anyone in their path, including complete armies. Birds could attack from above, while predators like wolves and bears would be deadly against almost any opponent. The insects or birds could bypass castle defenses, attack someone’s mouth and stop them from breathing, or even contaminate food.
This would make conventional warfare obsolete. It wouldn’t matter how many members of the Night’s Watch were there to defend the wall, how much gold Tywin Lannister had, how big any army was, or who sat on the Iron Throne. Not even Daenerys and her dragons would’ve been able to match what the Night King put together. He would be able to take out basically everyone without much effort.
While it would’ve been wild to see this in practice, several comments have pointed out that it wouldn’t actually work. For starters, the Night King lives beyond the Wall, where it’s simply too cold for bugs, livestock, and fish to live. Realism isn’t always considered during a fantasy show, but the series never showed any animals beyond the Wall outside of predators like wolves. The Night King would have to get past the Wall and into the south to amass the proper numbers for this concept to actually work.
The problem there is that the Night King never actually got that far. Even if he had picked up wolves and such to add to his army, they likely wouldn’t have made too much of a difference during the fight. The Night King still gets defeated by Arya Stark, and once he went down, the entire army crumbled. Others in the comments noted how some Wights were extremely withered, and something as small as a rat or bug wouldn’t have been able to last as a Wight, likely decaying to the point of permanent death. Some pointed out that the Night King was created by the Children of the Forest to win the war against the First Men. Their purpose was to defeat men and to help return Westeros to nature, so entire populations of dead animals roaming wouldn’t benefit them.
RockyRob97 had an interesting and fun theory that certainly would’ve made for a unique version of Game of Thrones had it happened. Instead, you can watch what actually happened in Game of Thrones on HBO Max.
