Over the course of its eight seasons, Game of Thrones has introduced its viewers to a number of truly terrifying villains, but it has saved the most shocking ones for last. As proof that all the talk about him is no joke, the Night King first appears on screen in Season 4 of the series, but over time he remains the main character only in short, albeit rather creepy scenes. The character has subsequently become one of the most recognizable images on modern television, but he does not correspond at all to what George Martin wrote about in his books.
In A Song of Ice and Fire, the Night King is nothing more than a legend
Unlike the series, Martin's novels do not mention a single physical appearance of the Night King, although his name often flashes in conversations among the inhabitants of Westeros and, moreover, no one has any idea what the leader of the White Walkers actually looks like. Yes, everyone imagines him as something truly terrifying, but the image of the Night King itself does not go beyond the usual horror legend, which was used to scare children or naive colleagues during the night shift on the Wall.
Game of Thrones makes the Night King a more than real threat
Not only does the character appear in the series as a real leader of the White Walkers, but even separately from his own army, he poses a considerable threat to the main characters of Game of Thrones. Take, for example, the inhuman abilities that the Night King immediately demonstrates, in addition to the fact that he easily commands a large army of White Walkers without a single word, the Night King skillfully defeats opponents single-handedly, killing Viserion, one of Daenerys's dragons, while he was flying high above him in the sky. The fact that Daenerys herself, along with her entire army and two remaining dragons, retreated already suggests that the "series" Night King is not to be trifled with, although in A Song of Ice and Fire, the character is essentially not guilty of anything at all.
