Warning: Spoilers ahead for "Game of Thrones" season six.
Season six episode five of "Game of Thrones" was a gut-wrenching game changer for a few reasons: Not only did we finally learn why Hodor only says Hodor but we also discovered alongside Bran that the Children of the Forest created the White Walkers.
Viewers watched as Bran and Bloodraven traveled back to an unknown time when a group of Children of the Forest were standing around an old Weirwood tree with a man tied to it. Leaf, one of the Children of the Forest who was still alive and with Bran and Bloodraven in present day, takes a mysterious piece of rock and inserts it slowly into the man's chest. His eyes turn icy blue, and the Night's King is born.
It was a big surprise for show watchers and book readers alike. As far as we knew, the Children had nothing to do with the White Walkers, who possess the horrific ability to raise the dead and are coming to invade Westeros.
Bran confronts Leaf after his vision about the White Walkers. "It was you," he says. "You made the White Walkers."
"We were at war. We were being slaughtered, our sacred trees cut down," Leaf says. "We needed to defend ourselves."
"From who?" Bran asks.
"From you," Leaf says. "From man."
So the Children created the White Walkers to fight against humans, but now the White Walkers have become a powerful force capable of destroying their own creators and mankind alike. They're approaching Westeros and slaughtering everything in their path, the Children included. But some may be wondering who the Children of the Forest are?
The Children — or as they call themselves in their language the True Tongue, "those who sing the song of the earth" — are a non-human race that once populated Westeros. About the size of a human child with huge eyes, the Children were one of the first races to populate Westeros along with the Giants before the First Men and the Andals migrated from Essos.
It was the Children who carved faces into the Weirwood trees, which they worshipped as the Old Gods — a tradition still carried on by many northern houses in Westeros, including the Starks. It’s said that the Children could warg into the trees as well as animals, and some of them were Greenseers with the ability to see past, future, or present events, just like Bran and Bloodraven.
Until the finale of the fourth season, they were mere legends told by the maesters and Old Nan, Hodor's great-grandmother. According to the stories, the Children lived somewhat peacefully, sometimes warring with the Giants, until the First Men came from Essos.
While the First Men had weapons and size on their side, the Children had magic. In the book "A Clash of Kings," Maester Luwin describes how the Children tried to "send the hammer of the waters to smash the Neck," the swampy area that divides the North from the rest of the Seven Kingdoms, in order to defeat the men. Though they were able to flood the land, which remains a dangerous swamp to this day, it didn't stop the First Men.
Eventually, we know from the "World of Ice and Fire" book that the Children and the First Men signed a peace pact. Humanity lived on the open lands while the Children lived in the forest. We also know from George R.R. Martin's books that the Children were said to have fought alongside the First Men when the Others invaded during the period known as "the Long Night." Together, the Children and First Men drove the White Walkers beyond the Wall.
After that, the Children started to retreat further and further into the forest as well as farther north away from mankind. At the time of the events in "Game of Thrones," they are considered a mere legend in Westeros.
Of course, now we know what remained of their people living beyond the Wall in the cave where Bran trained with Bloodraven. Or at least they did — after the wights attacked the cave, it's likely their population may have been entirely wiped out.
At least Bran now understands where the White Walkers come from and may be able to know from their origin how to stop them.
"His storyline is pretty damn important," Isaac Hempstead Wright, who plays Bran, told Entertainment Weekly in a recent interview. "Now he’s realized he’s been having his dreams because he’s got to save Westeros. It’s such a cool storyline now."
Perhaps in future visions Bran will learn just what Leaf inserted into the Night's King and will be able to save Westeros.
