Let’s assume that Game of Thrones’s Night’s King is the same person who is referenced in the books (which seems a solid bet at this point). The origins of the Night’s King are shrouded in mystery and shame and stretch back 8,000 years to the fabled Age of Heroes, not long after the Wall was raised by Bran “the Builder” Stark. Some tales say the Night’s King was a Bolton, others say he was a Stark. Or he could’ve been a Skagosi or a Norrey or maybe a member of some forgotten house. Whoever he was, the folktales are specific about a few points. All agree that the Night’s King was once the 13th Lord Commander of the Watch, and that one day, while standing guard atop the Wall, he glimpsed a woman — with skin “white as the moon” and eyes a ghostly blue — in the woods on the far side. Later histories describe her explicitly as being a sorceress. And certainly there must’ve been something enchanting about her, because the Lord Commander’s thirst was such that he came down off the Wall, chased her through the woods, and joined her in an unholy union.
Now, in those days, the Watch was headquartered out of the Nightfort, the oldest and largest of the Watch’s castles. Today, as a result of institutional decay, the Nightfort and all of the Watch’s castles — except for Eastwatch, the Shadow Tower, and Castle Black — are abandoned. We actually saw the Nightfort in Season 3, when Sam and Gilly ran into Bran, Hodor, and the Wonder Twins there after the former group traversed the secret passageway that leads under the Wall and to the well inside the castle. Perhaps that’s how our 13th Lord Commander brought his pale bride back to the Nightfort. Whatever the case, the couple made themselves at home by enslaving the sworn brothers using dark magic. The Lord Commander then declared himself the Night’s King, and with Pale Woman as his queen, they carved out an evil kingdom for themselves, with the Nightfort at its center, and reigned unchecked for 13 terrible years. The North, y’all! Come visit! Foreshadowing the fight to come, it took an alliance between King Brandon “the Breaker” Stark, and the (possible first) King-beyond-the-Wall Joramun to finally break the Night’s King’s power.
Now, here’s where the theory that the Night’s King was/is an ancient member of House Stark gains some credence for me. After the Night’s King’s overthrow, it was discovered that, among other atrocities, he had been making sacrifices to the White Walkers. If the Night’s King were one of the Boltons, the Starks’ ancient enemies, or a member of any other house, great or small, you’d think the Kings in the North would be happy to trumpet that fact far and wide. That didn’t happen. Instead, all the Watch’s records pertaining to the time of the 13th Lord Commander were destroyed. Even speaking his name was forbidden, Voldemort-style. Who else would have the motivation AND the power to suppress the Night’s Watch’s records except the Stark Kings in the North?
All of the above seems to fit the profile of the “Evil King Edgar Winter” we first saw last season taking one of Craster’s infant sons to the heart of winter to turn him, we think, into a baby White Walker. Still, there’s a lot that’s unclear about the Night’s King’s relationship to the White Walkers and the Long Night. As you may remember, the original Long Night was the legendary generations-long winter that fell on the world like a headsman’s ax, under cover of which the White Walkers first appeared on their dead horses to lay waste to Westeros and who knows where else. It was the appearance of the White Walkers that spurred the formation of the Night’s Watch and necessitated the raising of the Wall, meaning the Walkers existed before the Night’s King. Perhaps, as with any other kingdom, there have been numerous Night’s Kings. Perhaps the victory of humanity that ended the Long Night so diminished the White Walkers’ strength that it took the Night’s King sacrificing children for some 8,000 years for them to build up their numbers again. Or perhaps there’s some deeper, natural cycle going on that we don’t understand. Do the Walkers cause the Long Night or vice versa? We don’t know. For me, though, the most interesting question regarding the Night’s King is this: Where’s the Pale Queen?
