Winter has come

By Carolyne Larrington

They appear noiselessly, gliding across snow and ice with ease, their terrible blue gaze transfixing terrified characters and viewers alike. The horror of the White Walkers, the frozen zombies in the HBO television series “Game of Thrones”, lies in their silence, their invulnerability to ordinary weapons, and their savage will, not just to kill men, women and children, but also to recruit them to their swelling ranks, known as the Army of the Dead.

For, as the show’s tagline has long promised, “winter is coming”. Now, with the start of season seven last Sunday, it has finally arrived, and the creatures that slept under the snow for thousands of years are here in force, and armed with the ability to re-animate the dead. If they breach the Wall separating wilderness from civilisation, all humanity will be at hazard. Of all the characters in “Game of Thrones”, the White Walkers are the most frightening because they symbolise forces beyond human control, making them part of a burgeoning genre of Arctic horror which is inspired by the prospect that the planet’s coldest zones may not be frozen for much longer.