'GoT' Just Explained How Wights & White Walkers Connect

This episode of Game Of Thrones, "Beyond The Wall," was already the most anticipated episode of the season. After all, the second-to-last episode is always the most intense, and with Jon Snow and company venturing out north to capture a Wight from an undead army things were bound to get extra intense. And, it wasn't long before the episode revealed a magical connection between White Walkers and wights — and it might be the key to winning the war against these supernatural creatures. Because, if wights can die on Game of Thrones with just the killing of one White Walker, things will get a lot easier for the good guys.

Since last season, fans have known that there are two kinds of evil creatures to be feared beyond the Wall: The White Walkers, supernatural ice beings first created by the Children of the Forest, and wights, the zombie-like dead bodies they control with their potent magic. However, it was always a little unclear how their magic worked, and how much the wights were beholden to their creators; if you kill a White Walker, do all the wights that this particular White Walker has resurrected die along with it?

Now, it’s clear that they totally do. In one important scene during “Beyond The Wall,” Jon Snow and his company ambushed a small group of wights and the White Walker leading them. When Jon Snow struck out at the White Walker with a Dragonglass dagger (the only known substance to kill them aside from Valyrian steel), all but one of the wights around them fell as well. This seems like proof that when you kill a White Walker, the wights it controls fall, too.

This is an extremely good thing for everybody in Westeros who doesn’t want to become a zombie themselves; it means that once the White Walkers are all defeated, the threat is over. Otherwise, even if they were able to defeat the White Walkers, they would still have to kill every single undead being out there to make sure they were safe. And let's be real; wights are cool, but nobody wants to see that. We've already got The Walking Dead, thank you.

Interestingly, this episode also confirmed that although ice wights are beholden to the necromancers who raised them, fire wights — like Beric Dondarrion and Jon Snow, who were both brought back from the dead by red priests — are not. This became clear after Thoros of Myr, who originally brought Beric back, died during their quest to retrieve a wight.

Speaking of which — how did the wight that Snow and his gang captured survive after he killed the White Walker who was traveling with it? Because every single wight around them fell down, it stands to reason that this particular wight was raised from the dead by a different White Walker — maybe even the the Night King, who led the attack against Jon Snow's gang. Beric seems to think that if they kill the Night King, the entire army will die, because "he turned them all."

Easier said than done, of course. The White Walkers are feared for a reason; they are super tough to kill, and as the leader, the Night King is probably the toughest of all. But if Game Of Thrones wants to end with a satisfying battle, stopping one creature is probably easier and more dramatic than stopping all of them, right?