Game of Thrones Showrunners on How the Deathly Night King Is Different From Other Villains

With Ramsay Bolton’s gruesome demise at the hands of Sansa Stark and Jon Snow in season six’s “Battle of the Bastards,” Game of Thrones killed off one of the series’ only remaining true villains. However, with the Night King still lurking beyond the Wall, the people of Westeros definitely aren’t in the clear yet.

In a recent email interview with Deadline, showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss spoke about the nature of the White Walker leader, explaining that he is a different kind of threat than previously seen. “We don’t think of The Night King as a villain as much as Death,” they wrote. “He is not someone who’s like Joffrey or Ramsay. He’s not really human anymore. Evil comes when you have a choice between that and good, and you choose the wrong way. The Night King doesn’t have a choice; he was created in that way, and that’s what he is. In some ways, he’s just Death, coming for everyone in the story, and for all of us.”

Benioff and Weiss also revealed the simple reason the King of the Dead has never uttered a word. “In some ways, it’s appropriate he doesn’t speak,” they said. “What’s Death going to say? Anything would diminish him. He’s just a force of destruction. I don’t think we’ve ever been tempted to write dialogue for The Night King. Anything he said would be anticlimactic.”

Read more at Deadline.com.