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In season 7 episode 6, "Beyond the Wall",

Some rangers fight with a small group of wights led by a white walker. When the white walker is killed, all the wights but one are disintegrated.

Obviously, this conveniently serves the scenario.

I found a few interesting justifications on the web, one of the most convincing perhaps being that the Night King would send one of its own wight with wights teams to see through its eyes (or orbits at least…).

But did the showrunners themselves provide an explanation on how this wight could still be animated?

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  • @Paulie_D For the records, I feel your edit worsens the spoiling.
    – Skippy le Grand Gourou
    Sep 6, 2017 at 10:18
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    Your original post hid the information to decide if the post was spoilerfic and showed the spoilers. The edit by Paulie_D rectifies this to some extent.
    – TheLethalCarrot
    Sep 6, 2017 at 10:20
  • @TheLethalCoder I chose the wording so that it could apply to any episode without compromising the storyline. I understand your point, but the title itself (as well as the rest of the question) coupled with the episode identification makes the spoil tags completely useless.
    – Skippy le Grand Gourou
    Sep 6, 2017 at 10:28
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    The title doesn't make the question obvious for the spoilers. And originally the episode number was in a spoiler but the spoiler wasn't so you'd have to view the spoiler, which you won't do if you're concerned, to find out if you could view but you'd read the spoiler in the text before that rendering it useless. And the question is about one particular episode so why try and make it generic?
    – TheLethalCarrot
    Sep 6, 2017 at 10:33
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    I'm curious about the downvotes, feel free to justify…
    – Skippy le Grand Gourou
    Sep 6, 2017 at 13:22

2 Answers 2

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This is answered in the same episode as when the wight is captured. It is just a theory by the merry men but we can assume it to be correct until further information.

When you killed the white walker, almost all the dead that followed it fell. Why?
Maybe he was the one who turned them.
Game of Thrones, S07 E06, "Beyond the Wall"

It would make sense that not every White Walker could keep track of every wight they've turned so maybe his scouting was only meant to be his wights but they took a different one by accident.

As for D&D providing an explanation I haven't seen/found one and I doubt they will until more about the White Walkers is shown.

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    This is the obvious explanation indeed, but from the show perspective it would have been more convincing to have at least a couple of them — given the numbers, killing the other one would have been a piece of cake anyway.
    – Skippy le Grand Gourou
    Sep 6, 2017 at 10:16
  • @SkippyleGrandGourou OOU only one makes it easier time wise and they were very tight on time this season. And there weren't that many wights, though I'd have to re-watch the scene to check, so I wouldn't say it'd be more convincing to have more.
    – TheLethalCarrot
    Sep 6, 2017 at 10:17
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    @TheLethalCoder: This is full-blown speculation, but it may even be intentional to send at least one different wight with a scouting party. If the Walker is killed, then at least one wight can return and inform the others. Just a guess, but given the obvious weakness of "kill the Walker to kill the wights", that's what I would do if I were the Night King. As we see, the remaining wight knew to shout for help.
    – Flater
    Sep 6, 2017 at 14:28
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    @TheLethalCoder: While I'm at it, another slightly more far-fetched theory: what if the Walkers don't intentionally take their own wights with them? Suppose this Walker was sent on a mission to raise more wights (random bodies he comes across in the mountains), and he left on his mission with only a single wight in tow (who could be used as a messenger, like Gendry was). This still boils down to "accidentally" bringing a different wight, but it could allow for the Walkers to not care at all about who owns which wight, which makes it much more likely to bring a wight that's not your own.
    – Flater
    Sep 6, 2017 at 14:34
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    @SkippyleGrandGourou It didn't run because it was surrounded. If you watch it again it actually looks around at all of the group before making one of them attacks it.
    – TheLethalCarrot
    Sep 6, 2017 at 15:02
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When I watched the episode it did seem too good to be true. They went to catch one wight and conveniently they came across small aprty and after killing Walker all fall down except for one. Too convenient and stupid. However...

After seeing the end of the season, different ideas came to mind. It seems Night King needed exactly that kind of scenario to happen in order to pass the wall. So everything could be convenient for kidnapping party in order to surround them and wait for dragons. I simply have to assume that Night King is very powerful greenseer, being able to see Bran and even being able to see Bran while he's warging into ravens. Night King also took a big detour to kill three-eyed raven, although he's just an old man that can't go anywhere. Therefore it is possible he is aware of things south of the Wall. He's WATCHING!!! Beware, southern lords, beware.

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  • This is very speculative, but if it was a trap then this scene makes sense indeed.
    – Skippy le Grand Gourou
    Sep 18, 2017 at 7:26
  • Remember, the Night King was a child of the forest long ago. Sounds reasonable to me that he has a connection to Bran and the Raven.
    – user9311
    Jan 2, 2018 at 22:38

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