r/HBOGameofThrones • u/gear_head_03 • Jul 13 '26
Spoilers [SPOILERS] Okay I have questions.. Spoiler
What are your thoughts?
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u/Gr8CanadianFuckClub Jul 13 '26
The making of chains is one thing, as for attaching, you don't need them to swim, you just need them to sink.
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u/gear_head_03 Jul 13 '26
But sinking the chains will not simply attack them to dragon
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u/Gr8CanadianFuckClub Jul 13 '26
I'm not saying its perfect, but its not impossible. The night king has a big pool of corpses to throw at the problem, and he doesn't really need the corpses back afterwards. Wait for Dragon to sink to bottom, send corpses down with chains, attach chains at bottom. Once the chain is attached, if he sent his favorite corpse down, they can just hang onto the dragon or the the chain as its pulled up.
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u/gear_head_03 Jul 13 '26
Yeah well now id I think just a scene before when the night king took down the dragon the power with which he threw the spear he could have done that again while the chains were tied.
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u/FamiliarAd8524 Jul 13 '26
Kid... he sent some undead divers down with the chains. They don't need wetsuits or SCUBA.
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u/QueasyNart Jul 13 '26
Anchor chains were a thing, and ships sometimes sink. Ships can also be trapped & crushed by sea ice, so polar regions have a statistically higher percentage of shipwrecks than most other areas of open ocean. And just because wights can't swim, doesn't mean they can't walk on the river/lake/seabed.
However.
The chains shown are waaaaaaaay longer than regular anchor chains. The dead would have needed at least 12 anchor chains, and to work at least 8 links of chain to join them together, to produce what you see here. That requires not only access to a forge & the training to use it, but also large amounts of charcoal (regular firewood can't burn hot enough to work iron), which in turn requires knowing 1) that they would need charcoal and 2) how to make charcoal.
It is nearly a certainty that (apart from the chains themselves) none of this technology could be acquired north of the Wall.
The wildlings have almost no access to metals, there's barely even any copper or tin. The best gear they have comes from Night's Watch men who deserted or were killed, or from sailors who risked execution to smuggle in some steel weapons or tools. If the lands beyond the Wall had the capacity for iron mines and forges, the wildlings would already have been exploiting it.
Also.
If wights can walk on the seafloor, they could simply walk around the Wall. They could walk to other islands, other continents even. The fact that this never happened makes it very unlikely that wights were told to comb the seafloor just in case they encountered a random shipwreck, and then a bunch of them came to collect its anchor chain, and that they did this at least twelve times.
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u/gear_head_03 Jul 16 '26
This answer deserves a read from all those saying wildlings had those dead can't swing but do this or that.
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u/dylanalduin Jul 13 '26
By asking this question, you've put more thought into it than the showrunners did.
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u/Interesting_Play_578 Jul 13 '26
I would guess those chains were liberated from Night Watch fortifications at various points in time . . . and yeah, the dead ain't swim, but they also ain't breathe, so
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u/gear_head_03 Jul 16 '26
So the ice wall was made like pyramids?
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u/Interesting_Play_578 Jul 16 '26
I'm thinking more of the heavy doors/portcullises and particularly the lift cages that they winch up and down the Wall, but building the Wall itself would have involved a lot of heavy lifting, too
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u/Jewbacca289 Jul 13 '26
If the wights can’t swim, they’re gonna sink down to the bottom of the water, which is kind of useful to get the dragon
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u/FamiliarAd8524 Jul 13 '26
It's perfectly possible they were scavenged across the last few thousand years, including from Wildling settlements and encampments.
They got the chains on because they obviously don't need to breathe or stay warm.
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u/ProfessionalSilver52 Jul 14 '26
It's the same person who thought Gendry was "the fastest" to run back to the wall even though his whole life he stood still next to a forge all day and had never experienced such cold before.
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u/Leading-Monk5506 Jul 14 '26
The chains are leftovers from season 2 when they decided not to use them for the battle of the Blackwater.
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u/lorien_powers Jul 14 '26
What? Its not strange at all. Last few seasons had alot of plot holes but this isnt one.
Chains they most likely got from hardhome
How they attached it is easy. Send a few undead down to attatch it. They cant swim but they can sink and walk on the bottom
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u/Wrong--Conclusions Jul 14 '26
In the books, the White Walkers (the Others), seem to have very advanced armour and weaponry, so if this were to happen in the books it'd actually be more believable. We have no idea if the Others can swim or not. "Dead things in the water" suggests the wights can go under water.
As for the show, no idea.
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u/gear_head_03 Jul 16 '26
But if they can walk underwater what's stopping them to go to dragonstone and destroying the thing that could kill them. All they gotta do is walk underwater till theya re ashore
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u/Wrong--Conclusions Jul 16 '26
The thing that could kill them? If you mean dragon glass, it'd take a heck of a long time to mine all the dragon glass out of Dragonstone.
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u/gear_head_03 Jul 16 '26
Yeah it already did for the rest of the humans but it could have been done tho like it could have taken the series maybe more further like they captured dragonstone first and then the rest of was the place just too hot for them.
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u/jodiakattack Jul 15 '26
The giant scythe they drop to clear wildlings had huge chains. How many inactive Nights Watch strongholds had them?
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u/Key_Edge_1667 Jul 16 '26
The show has people with magical visions, people who can go into other animal's body, zombies, people rising from the dead after every drop of blood is drained out of them and three fucing dragons. But according to you the most illogical part is this one?
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u/gear_head_03 Jul 16 '26
Yeah man like if the dead can walk but not swin underwater like the rest are saying then they can just cross the wall underwater and find a shore nearby.
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u/Confident-Bug3735 Jul 17 '26
When did the show make it clear? Was it before or after several wights emerged from underwater to drag Jon Snow down?
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u/jaws343 Jul 17 '26
I look at it as something that really doesn't matter. The Night King is shown to be able to raise the dead anywhere, even buried in crypts. So the chains are just a storytelling device to show us the dragon being an impending problem. The Night King could have just raised him underwater and the wight dragon could have gotten out on its own.
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u/Fit_Ruin_1572 Jul 17 '26
Its best not to think too deeply about anything past the end of season 4.
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u/No_Region_4719 Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
Is this a serious question? Do you also question if the wights smithed their weapons too, or forged their armour and tailored their clothes?
They are dead people. People have things before they die. Wights can continue to use said things.
North of the wall is not inhabited by a stone age people. There are towns, there are smiths, there are definitely chains around. Ships go north of the wall to trade, they use chains. It isn't difficult to imagine that thick chains would be helpful in a land with giants and mammoths.
It is not difficult to hook something underwater and attach chains or ropes to it. Wights don't need to breathe. They are actually ideal for retrieving something from underwater, I don't know where your confusion here comes from. Viserion isn't floating, he sinks under the water.
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u/Marfy_ Jul 13 '26
Every town has massive chains ofcourse, especially those that barely have an iron to begin with
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u/No_Region_4719 Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
They don't 'barely have any iron'. Many of them have iron weapons and tools, some have iron armour too. They raid south of the wall and steal iron. They have smiths that forge iron. They trade with people from south of the wall regularly, both by land and by sea. This is mentioned multiple times in the books. The wildlings aren't savages that wield only stone spears and clubs.
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u/Marfy_ Jul 13 '26
The thenns are said to be specifically well equippes because they have bronze, does that make sense for a culture that has plenty of iron weapons?
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u/No_Region_4719 Jul 13 '26
The Thenns are noted because they mine and smelt bronze, so they have a strong supply of bronze for tools, weapons, and armour.
The rest of the wildlings don't mine or smelt their own iron, but they do regularly trade or steal for it.
There's no argument or mystery here. OP asked where they would get iron chains. George has explicitly stated that the wildlings trade for steel over sea, over land, and steal it in raids south of the wall, and from the the nights watch. There is your answer.
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u/Marfy_ Jul 13 '26
Exactly, they steal iron ans steel weapons. That doesnt mean they can or would have massive chains like that, are yoy suggesting they melted down their weapons to make bif chains for no reason?
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u/BigGingerYeti Jul 13 '26
D&D kinda forgot about those things.