Game of Thrones fans surely remember the scene in season 6 in which we saw the creation of the first White Walker in the Seven Kingdoms' history. The Children of the forest created the White Walkers in the hope of using them against the First Men, who were killing them and cutting down their weirwood trees, but who was the first man to be turned into an "ice demon"?
The first White Walker according to the TV show.
In Game of Thrones season 6 episode 5 ("The Door") Bran saw in one of his vision Leaf creating the first White Walker. Who was the actor playing the role of the human in that scene?
His name is Vladimir Furdik and you saw him severaltimes in Game of Thrones: he's the one who plays the Night's King, the dreadful leader of the White Walkers.
According to the show, the Night's King is the first White Walker, while in the books the situation is different.
The Night's King inGeorge R.R. Martin's books.
According to a legend recounted in A Song of Ice and Fire book series, the Night's King was a Lord Commander of the Night's Watch lived during the Age of Heroes (which means that he lived when the war between the First Men and the Children of the Forest was long over). Old Nan tells Bran that she thinks he was a Stark, but according to other stories he was a Bolton or a member of another Northern family.
The Night's King was a warrior who fell in love with a woman encountered beyond the Wall, a woman with pale skin, bright blue eyes and cold skin: in other words, a White Walker. He lived with his lover in the Nightfort for 13 years declaring himself king and committing many atrocities until he was defeated (but probably not killed) by Bran the Breaker and Joramun.
Since the Night's King encountered a White Walker while he was still human, he wasn't the first White Walker in the books. We don't know who the firstwas and (in our opinion) we will never know.
The Night's King is the show's super-villain.
It's safe to say that Game of Thrones reinvented the Night's King's character. Even if only a very small part of the fans knows who the man strapped to the tree was, there isno doubt: he was the Night's King before the transformation.
GOT showrunners confirmed that after season 6 episode 5 was aired. In the books, on the other hand, we don't know who the first White Walker was, and the Night's King, according to Martin, is just a legendary figure "akin to Lann the Clever and Brandon the Builder, and no more likely to have survived to the present day than they have”.
