The Night King is one of the overarching antagonists of the TV series Game of Thrones. Having existed since the age of the First Men, the Night King is the leader of the White Walkers, the very first of their kind and, by extension, the master of the wights. He was a character created for the television series and is not expected to appear in the A Song of Ice and Fire novel series.
Bad Qualities
Note: A lot of these pointers may apply to the show's final season.
- He's meant to be portrayed as a powerful, dangerous threat for the kingdoms to have to face, but unfortunately, he never says anything and is very emotionless. Sure, there are plenty of villains who managed to pull these traits off and come across as genuine threats, but here, it kind of makes him dull. Heck, even other monsters such as Joffrey Baratheon and Ramsey Bolton for all their loathsomeness manage to have some forms of black comedy.
- He's completely stone-faced (except for a smirk to Daenerys in "The Long Night" after no-selling Drogon's fire) as he has zero personality to speak of.
- His motives are also a complete mystery save for washing away everything in death and ice for some reason, somewhat making him a generic doomsday villain as well. Also, the other White Walkers are pretty much background characters and extensions of his power for some event never properly explained. As a result, he comes across as being less of a true character, and more of a plot device and "overbearing force" for the kingdoms to get their priorities straight and him down.
- After all the serious and intense build-up the past seasons had built up to, he turns out to be some man the Keebler elves stabbed in the heart to a tree. Plus, he's pretty much the textbook definition of an anti-climax boss. He gets a final death that's very unsatisfying, even after being unaffected by a dragon's fire, Arya's able to kill him by stabbing him with a Valyrian steel knife in the same place the Children of the Forest stabbed him to turn him into a monster.
- Idiot Move: In "The Long Night", the Army of the Dead came close to a perfect victory. Even ignoring various other tactical blunders, the Northern forces stand no chance against the wights' sheer numbers, while the Walkers' weather control allows them to nearly No-Sell the North's various incendiary tactics. On top of that, the Night King can just revive any enemy dead at will and turn them to his side. The Night King himself doesn't even make an appearance until it truly seems hopeless for the North when it becomes clear that Dany's dragons can't damage him at all. It certainly seems like the Night King will kill Bran, and then the rest of humanity. He could have just used the wights and Walkers to kill Bran quickly, or just hide in a safe spot and wait for all the Living combatants to die if he wants to do the deed himself. If he dies the entire White Walker army dies with him and he had basically already won, after all—there's no reason to expose himself. Even if he's almost invulnerable there's no reason to risk the enemy possibly taking out his whole forces by only killing him. But instead, he chose to walk into the godswood while plenty of Living combatants are still around to fight so he can kill Bran himself. He is supposed to be a smart opponent, right?
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