Ever since the cold open of its very first episode of Game Of Thrones, you might have been wondering “How many White Walkers are there?” The show has never actually revealed how many there are, though we might be able to figure it out. Their failure to give us exact numbers is somewhat understandable when you consider that its army grows every time they finish a battle.
But on Sunday we got our biggest indication yet of the size of the White Walker infantry, as Jaime Lannister flat out asked Daenerys Targaryen exactly how many of the undead there were during their Dragonpit stand-off:
Daenerys: I didn’t believe it until I saw them. I saw them all.
Jaime: How many?
Daenerys: 100,000. At least.
Daenerys’s revelation immediately unsettled Jaime Lannister, as he quickly realized that the Lannisters, Starks and Targaryens were in for a mighty battle to keep the White Walker army at bay from Westeros. This was before The Wall had come tumbling down at the end of The Dragon And The Wolf, while they don’t even know that the Night King now has his hands on a dragon, too.
But how many white walkers are there, really? Most of their army is actually made up of wights, which is the reanimated corpse of either a human or an animal that was raised from the dead by a White Walker. Throughout the show we have seen that one White Walker is usually surrounded by hundreds of wights.
According to Daenerys’ estimate there are probably around 1,000 White Walkers, who in turn have around 100 wights each that then make up the army. One saving grace for Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen and their combined posse is that in the penultimate episode of Game of Thrones season 7 we learnt that when a White Walker is killed their wights fall down dead, too, which makes their quest a tiny bit easier.
There’s also a good chance that we haven’t actually seen the full extent of the White Walker army, as a huge portion of them is believed to exist out deep beyond the wall. However, in the final shot of The Dragon And The Wolf it certainly looked as though their numbers had grown exponentially.
How does the 100,000 strong White Walker army measure up against the others on Game Of Thrones, though?
House Targaryen’s numbers have depleted quite a lot over the last few episodes. Not only did one of Daenerys’ dragons die, but they also lost over 103,000 men following the defeat of House Tyrell (80,000), House Martell (20,000) and the Greyjoy Rebels (3,000). That leaves Daenerys with around 80,000 Dothraki and 8,000 Unsullied, but most of the latter are stuck at Casterly Rock. Meanwhile, Jon Snow probably only has around 26,500 men, which is made up of House Stark’s 5,000, the Knight Of The Vale’s 20,000 and then around 1,500 of the Free Folk. This means they have a combined total of 115,000, give or take.
All of which means that Daenerys and Jon could really benefit from the addition of the sneaky House Lannister’s army. At the start of Game of Thrones season 7 it consisted of 60,000 men, but the addition of the Iron Fleet’s 30,000 men and Cersei’s decision to bring the Golden Company’s 20,000 strong infantry over from Essos means that she has a rather impressive army herself now. Plus she has a Mountain, too.
It’s likely that Daenerys has miscalculated the size of The White Walker army, which could conceivably consist of everyone who has ever died, and is only likely to grow once they start stumbling upon cemeteries, as well as killing and then resurrecting Jon and Daenerys’ combined forces in Game of Thrones season 8.
[Source: Zimbio]
