Meta, outside-the-show explanation: one of the spinoff series will probably cover The Long Night (the first time the Walkers came around), so HBO might not want to spoil that before the new series airs.Chris_H_2 wrote:I still don't understand why Bran just doesn't pull his three-eyed raven trick of looking into the past to see how the white walkers were defeated the first go around.
also, i missed it (and it's probably been explained before), but did the walkers just hibernate for 1000 years? how did they come back? were they buried in ice (I think I remember reading this somewhere)? were they really defeated the first time if they were able to resurrect themselves?
All we really know from the world of the show/books (more the books) is that a figure known as The Last Hero ventured into the deep north to get help from the Children of the Forest in order to defeat the Others the first time around. During the promotional run for Season 7, lots of people saw parallels with Jon venturing north with his merry band for some reason (this was before we knew it was to capture a wight), but all of the Last Hero's companions died in that effort, while Jon only lost Thoros. We don't really have an explanation for why they're back at this particular moment in history, but there's evidence in both the show and the books that there's an "awakening" of magic around this time (the birth of Dany's dragons, an increased interest in the Red God, glass candles gaining power again [those are from the books and never mentioned in the show, but they're important]), and perhaps the Walkers are drawn down because of it. Given what was revealed in the most recent episode--that the Night King is specifically after Bran because he wants to kill the Three-Eyed Raven--there's a chance, too, I suppose, that the re-emergence of the Walkers has to do with Bran's development as a warg/greenseer.
