Even though readers of George R. R. Martin’s book, ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ may already know this, the fact that the White Walkers have a tongue of their own comes as a major surprise to most watchers of the show ‘Game of Thrones.’ The White Walkers in the show have been portrayed as mysterious, silent creatures who seek to take over Westeros with the only thing standing between them and the city is the Wall, which got breached at the very end of Season 7 by the Night King on his new dragon.
As it turns out, there was initially a pilot plot which included the White Walkers having not only voices but also their own unique script in which they spoke according to a finding. This original pilot script was found by Huffington Post’s Bill Bradley at Texas A&M University’s Cushing Memorial Library. It primarily contained a lot of scenes which never made it into the final script of the show. Some of these scenes include Jon Snow getting drunk at a feast in Westeros and Cersei burning King Robert’s feather for Lyanna Stark.
Another one of the many things which this pilot script had was the special language of the White Walkers which never made it to the final cut of the show. The language reportedly sounds like ice and is composed primarily of crackling sounds. It was created by David Peterson and was based upon Martin’s description of the language. It was named ‘Skroth’ by Peterson since Martin never bothers to give this undead tongue a name.
“The crackling is coming from multiple sources now. These are not the noises of mindless predators. This is a language, and whatever is speaking it is getting closer,” reads the script. “Will closes his eyes against the ice voices beneath him, muttering silent prayers.”
Apparently Peterson even went ahead with recording and editing the language in a way her thought would portray it the best. However, it never made it to the final cut as the showrunners weren’t impressed by it. They even discussed using it in Season 2, but they ended up never including the aspect of White Walkers actually being beings with their own culture instead of simply monsters from beyond the wall.
“I came up with basically some dialogue. I recorded it, and then I suggested to them, ‘Here’s how you might modify it digitally to give it a unique sound,” explained Peterson. “It didn’t get used for the pilot, and then there was discussion they were thinking about using it in season two. They said they tried it, and it just wasn’t working out, so they abandoned the idea.”
There have been other languages which have been created solely for the show including Valyrian and Dothraki. However, Skroth never made it to the show. Otherwise, people might just have had a vastly different opinion of the White Walkers, which most viewers now see as Zombies.
