*bill Wurtz esque jingle* molotov cocktails

"what could be more predictable than the good guys defeating the evil ice monsters in a big epic battle". oh, you sweet summer child...

"Things really won't be that simple..." Greetings from season 8.

“Except things probably won’t be that simple” Well, they will.

David Benioff in Season 3: "It's not going to be your classic good-versus-evil conflict". Season 8 trailer hype: The Battle of Winterfell: Good-Versus-Evil.

All the book theories have aged like a fine wine. All the show theories have aged like a glass of milk

Maybe the reason the Night's Watch is prohibited from having children is to avoid another Night's King sacrificing those children to the Others.

"Its not gonna be that simple" They certainly subverted your expectations by making it simpler than that.

Lmao, when the sarcastic rant about the ending is 90% accurate though

"An uncomfortable marriage".. ...3 years after The Great Compromise, Jon nags the Night King about how he doesn't care about his feelings and instead just watches TV.

"sir shia of house labeouf" too perfect.

Lol, your sarcastic prediction of what you thought was going to happen in the war against the Others is exactly whats happening in the show.

14:30 a little note about something that everyone keeps forgetting. They didn't built the wall all in one sitting, but little by little. Jeor Mormont says that since the beggining, in the ages of splendor of the night's watch, one of the Lord Comander's duties were to "passing the torch" with the wall taller than they recieved it, and that was the principal function of the order of the Builders, but with the Night's Watch declination, they endup only fixing the cracks and keeping the buildings of Castle Black from falling apart.

I like how the war with others in the past lasted for a generation while the war in season 8 lasted for one night

Night's King: "We're gonna build a wall and make humans pay for it"

"Season 8 sends its regards."

"Except things probably won't be that simple" *deep, pained sigh*

Let's be honest, we'd all like to see Rickon riding a unicorn into battle against the Others.

Watching this now, can we all agree that Alt Shift X should have written the last two seasons?

Oof this didn’t age well. Your videos are amazing so no criticism towards you. Rather the show runners

Man watching this 8 years later is so sad. All the potential they had to work with and how excited we all were to see what was going to happen in the show. Everything that was going to happen with Jon becoming Azor Ahai and figuring out the mystery with the Archmaesters on what the Long Night really was. So depressing. They had so much to work with and all we got was SHE IS MUH QUEEN I DON'T WANT IT SHE IS OUR QUEEEEN

"I am going to build a big wall to keep the Others out, and I'm going to make them build it." Donald Trump was Azor Ahai confirmed.

50 cal sniper rifle with obsidian-tipped bullets.

Not sure how I feel about the fact that he just literally predicted season 8 of the show at 8:45...

8:43 - 9:09 you just predicted season 7 from the show

These are the highest quality GoT videos on youtube. I can see the work you put into these and how you make them entertaining, objective and backed up by facts. Also your voice is very pleasant. You rock

the dothraki sort of have a tale of the long night. the dothraki think the world will end by ghost grass a grass as pale as milk. the dothraki probably have never seen snow so this might be there interpretation of snow.

Yeah so much for that big threat they been beating us over the head with for 8 seasons. Turns out the white walkers suck and get beat overnight in their very first big battle. What a complete waste of time this whole storyline has been.

Personally I like the Lich King theory. Jon Snow, like the old Azor Ahai, realizes that there must always be a Night King, and so replaces him. Every ten thousand years or so a great hero must sacrifice themselves for humanity and replace the Night King, whose humanity has by then completely eroded through the ages. Then he goes up North and remains inactive for millennia.

Your videos are the most comprehensive and well made. congratulations. And many thanks. Keep working

Fun fact; at -50 C ice is harder than steel. Also most medieval fortifications had secret door on the wall for various purposes. And the Wall wasn't always this tall, it grows every year by the stewards constantly sprinkling gravel on the top

That quote about the war vs White Walkers not being traditional good and evil war has to be one the biggest pieces of evidence that they had greater plans and just gave up and hastily rewrote everything so that they could be done with the show. It's popular to meme on them for not being able to do anything on their own but they did understand the lore to the extent that they figured out the whole RLJ theory on their own. They knew what they were writing is bullshit and in a way that's even sadder.

My personal favourite theory from reddit is that the others are a civilisation much like the men, but dwelling only in the far north, probably farther into the Land of Always Winter, and the ones we've seen so far are the blood-thirsty ones (for comparison, like the ice-version of Ser Gregor Clegane), while the rest are only minding their business. And these others are not really the villains, the dragons are. These ice-creatures are only misunderstood for millenias. Goddamit, I really can't wait for Twow.

The Huns began their assault on the Roman Empire when the Romans ceased trading with them. They invaded partially to reestablish the original terms of their deals and get reparations for their lost income, which was particularly important to them because they were living on the inhospitable steppes of Eastern Europe. Perhaps the Others have a similar motivation? The Wall and the Night's Watch had fallen into disrepair long ago and no one really cares about it anymore. If the Others were expecting payment in the form of regular sacrifice, and it stopped coming, they might want to invade Westeros to get it going again.

the others built the wall to keep the humans out

oof wish the show writers watched this

D&D After season 5 : Crap, we're out of book material. Now we'll have to write the rest of the seasons, what do we do? 8:36 - 9:10 D&D: write that down!, WRITE THAT DOWN!!

Huh, one guy negotiating a peace deal _does_ sound more likely than one guy fighting back the hordes of evil single-handedly with a flaming sword.

Jon Snow making a pact with the white walkers seems like the perfect candidate for the most "bittersweet" ending that GRRM mentioned.

From the books, I always pictured the Others as made of shimmering glass-like ice and darkness. Creatures that are ethereal. Definitely not wrinkly old men. The show failed in the character design. Anyway, you have great content.

If there's one thing I know about Jesus, it's that he has killer abs.

5:22 "Their women lay with the Others in the Long Night to sire terrible half human children" Remember Craster's wives? All of them decided to stay North of the wall after they got rescued by Jon and the night's watch and they worshipped the Others as Gods... it could be possible that...? :O

huh... looks like the ending you predicted so tongue-in-cheek is actually how the show is going to end

Looks like they changed their minds and did all of the things they said they wouldn't do?

What if the ''Others'' are running from something ? Mind blown

Your commentary is intelligent, carefully thought out, well supported, insightful, and just all around fantastic. Cheers

I love how in the show, the skeleton wights are super fast and all that, but the fresh made wights, you know, the ones that still have muscle and tendons and stuff, are just Walking Dead zombies

08:42 LMAO that's exactly how it went. "Things could be that simple?" --> YES

8:59 In the books Rickon actually could get a unicorn. He's on Skagos at the moment and there are unicorns there. I think Jon had a wolf dream of Shaggydog fighting a wild unicorn on Skagos. So, Rickong riding into battle on a unicorn isn't all that implausible.

I 100% agree with Alicia Guzzy - among the most intelligent, coherent, and well constructed ideas on the series. The quality of your videos are superb! Cheers and thank you!

8:43 Watching this after S8 Ep3 was hard.

"Except things probably won't be that simple" - 4 years on, thats pretty much exactly what is happening. I guess you didn't predict just how much the showrunners would start pandering to the audience lol

"Maybe an uncomfortable marriage" You just gave the Night's King "Come at me, bro" a whole different meaning xD

amazing video! thank you so much for your hard work on this one. really amazing stuff

Welp. i just watched Ep3 S8 and it turns out theyre just generic bad guys lmao.

A concept: What if it was humans that, thousands of years ago, encroached on the land of the others? Maybe when long nights come, food and resources become scarce, and humanity pushed further into the cold out of desperation and slaughtered the others. The others built the wall themselves to keep humanity away from them while they rebuilt their society, but always planned revenge. It would certainly fit with the theme of the good guys realizing they're not really the good guys and the muddling of good/bad in war.

just made popcorn and poured myself a glass of mountain dew to watch this video hahahaha!!

You should do a PhD in Fantasy History!

I've always thought of the Others as being ASoIaF's equivalent to elves and faeries, even moreso than the children of the forest. Their children stealing tendencies, ethereal beauty and otherworldliness, and weakness to steel and obsidian (could be interpreted as analogous to weakness to iron) just match up very well with old stories and myths about elves and faeries from ancient myths. In regards to your theory, it rings true. If it is, I wonder if the Others are now on aggressive footing with humans due to some breaking of the pact that had been made millenia prior. Perhaps they are no longer getting the required sacrifice of human children or there are too many wildlings and night's watch north of the wall to their liking. Regardless of the theory's validity, it brings to mind Tad William's Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy. GRRM has acknowledged those books as both favorites of his as well as inspiration for ASoIaF. When you read Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, the similarities, both thematic/general and specific, are fairly apparent. In Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, the elves (sithi) were wiped out in centuries past by humans, and in the time of the books an irredentist faction of sithi known as the norns, pallidly beautiful creatures from the distant north, enact a ritual to wipe humanity out of existence in revenge for past faithlessness. The similarities between the norns and the others might become more apparently in future books, particularly if this theory holds true.

"it's not gonna be your classic good-versus-evil conflict" GoT season 8: yeah, the white walkers are just your regular dark lords that just want to see the whole world dead and erased from memory. I wonder how he feel about the show, i mean really. he would say one things in interviews for several different reasons, like not wanting to put them on a bad spot, or being paid to speak only neutral and good things, or whatever else. but i highly doubt that was his intention for the white walkers.

What i find puzzling is why the wildlings were beyond the wall in the first place, imagine, the war for the dawn just ended, the white walkers that remained fled north, why would anyone follow them? Also, if it took centuries to build, why didn't the wildlings north of the wall just come back south before construction ended instead of just whining that the night's watch are horrible for keeping them out?

You sounded just like Preston Jacobs when you were sarcastically talking about Jon being reborn, Dany flying in and marrying him, Rickon riding a unicorn, etc. haha I'm pretty sure he had a similar line in one of his Jon videos. But anyone great work! :D

What are white walkers, and what are wights? D&D: Doesn't matter.

There's a tiny detail that I came across re-reading the books: Remember the wight's hand Alliser Thorne takes along to King's Landing? And how *it rotted away* while he was waiting to be admitted to the king/Hand? Far away from the Wall? Hmmmm.....

The grey waste is a dessert not a cold area. I for one wish we knew more about the far eastern land. Especially because its history seems to be so interesting.

The question of whether the Others have control over the cold makes me wonder that if there was a deal between humans and the Others, then maybe the Others were supposed to keep the cold away and make the winters shorter. So they actually need the Others to keep the world from freezing and the reason why the winters have been getting longer is because the humans haven't been keeping up their end of the bargain.

You see what happens when a fanbase is given a decade to theorise?

"And Rickon could ride in on a unicorn," That sounds freaking majestic.

Why does the tunnel at the Night Fort have to be intrinsically nefarious? It honestly seems far more likely that it's just what Sam says it is, a secret sally port to emerge behind an attacking host and trap them in an envelopement.

"is not going to be a classic good be evil conflict" Yeah D&D kinda forgot about that.

predicted like 80% of the battle that just happened...(minus the unicorn) hope there is more to the story.

"it's not going to be your classic good vs evil conflict" Benioff today: it wasn't me, it was my alter ego, here, take this Battle of Winterfell and go

The show is steering exactly towards the "cheesy ending" you talked about at 8:45. sad to see

I really wish Rickon won't be killed off and he will ride a unicorn!

*Can be killed with obsidian* Me and the boys in Tenochititlan: Quetzalcoatl sends his regards, white eye

The Dothraki DO have tales of the long night. I believe their tale of the ghost grass that will consume all other grass is a reference to it.

At Shift X is the best GoT content provider because of the details he brings. Cheers mate

I think White Walkers are also not as straight evil as they seem. I think they felt the return of the dragons and Azor Ahai, and considering their small numbers felt threatened to go extinct, decided to fix the problem the way they understand. With Cold Logic, pretty much like other cold minded beings like SkyNet from Terminator or any other. So far in the movie we ve seen characters doing horrible things or just being hostile to their assumed threats like Cercei and Margary. This could also be the case. White Walkers also could long erase the remains of the children of the forest but didn't do it, because they are not a threat for them.

10:37 , this episode has aged well lol

"the world is round " George R.Martin Ta da it's confirmed

why is castle black called a castle? Looks like some planks stacked together in the show and seems pretty weak compared to the nightfort.

This is the coolest theory on the end of ASOIAF i've heard so far, and backed up by facts too

Things were that simple

13:30 might be why crows are not allowed to have babies. So the Others can't take them.

You litteraly predicted everything that happened in season 7. WOW!

BRILLIANT MATE!!!

Damn, you know, it IS a little funny. Martin is quoted many places saying he thinks Tolkien shouldn't have resurrected Gandalf. That he should've stayed dead. Well, George, how's Jon Snow doing? Lol

I think I’m as excited to read Winds of Winter as I am to hear Alt Shift X talk about it

ive watched couple of ur videos and the ones ive seen were really good, keep up the good work very good analysis

Excellent video as always. Just subscribed, can't wait for the S6E9 explained :)

A surprisingly high amount of that ramble starting at 8:50 has actually come to pass

Here for the future to tell everyone the show did, in fact, end in a generic good guys vs bad guys war… and it all ended in seemingly a half an hour

If you watch this now you really realize that D&D have no clue what they've been writing for the last 3 seasons...

Omg a new alt shift X video keep up the great work

I listen to these because the fan theories and analysis are so much more interesting than what we actually ended up with.

7 years later and I'm still getting enjoyment out of these videos. Currently reading A Storm of Swords, can't wait to catch up and still be waiting for Winds of Winter! Thanks Alt Shift X!

Eight "good guys could come together", six left now and they're all together, and jon and dany made out

As usual, a complex analysis explained with clear editing. Great job.

White walkers remind me of the frost giants of norse mythology. In Norse mythology the frost giants are roughly the size of people with the same pale white-blue skin that appears to be stretched over their musculature and also appears wrinkly. In norse myth they are said to be made of ice or shatter like ice when killed and speak a language that sounds like cracking ice.

Well, this theory is certainly more interesting than the show's conclusion...