Why Does the Night King want to die?

Potential Spoilers Below

I keep telling everyone that similarities between The Wheel of Time (TWOT) and A Song of Ice and Fire (ASOIAF) are vast even if there are those out there that say otherwise.

In the Wheel of Time Lew Therin wanted to die and Rand at the time thought the voice in his head belonged to a madman.  Rand later learns that the voice is his all alone as he has and always had been Lews Therin.  Lews Therin’s voice would emerge from the deep recesses of his mind and Rand would think himself going crazy.  Below is an excerpt that could paint a picture of what the Night King could be experiencing within himself:

“Carry on with this,” Rand told Taim. “I will come back tomorrow to see how you’ve done. Remember the trust I’m putting in you.” Don’t trust him, Lews Therin groaned. The voice seemed to come from some capering figure in the shadows of Rand’s head. Don’t trust. Trust is death. Kill him. Kill them all. Oh, to die and be done, done with it all, sleep without dreams, dreams of Ilyena, forgive me, Ilyena, no forgiveness, only death, deserve to die. . . . Rand turned away before the struggle inside could show on his face. “Tomorrow. If I can.”

This is what Benioff said of the Night King:

"I don’t think of him as evil, I think of him as Death,” Benioff told EW. “And that’s what he wants — for all of us. It’s why he was created and that’s what he’s after.”

Lews Therin seems to want the same thing as the Night King except that he wants it for the male channelers whom Rand wants Taim to train to become his weapons during the Last Battle.  Lews Therin feels this way because he was driven mad, and all male channelers who touch the true source, due to the Dark One’s counterstrike that placed a taint on saidin during the War of Power; the male half of the power.  During his madness he killed his wife Ilyena.  After Ishamael healed his mind to give him clarity of thought he traveled to an island near Tar Valon and drew in too much of the One Power atomizing himself and created a volcanic mountain called Dragonmount to mark his tomb.  Could the Night King have been driven mad due to the death of his corpse queen?  But what if she isn’t dead?  The following is said of them:

“Yet over the thousands of years of its existence as the chief seat of the Watch, the Nightfort has accrued many legends of its own, some of which have been recounted in Archmaester Harmune’s Watchers on the Wall. The oldest of these tales concern the legendary Night’s King, the thirteenth Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, who was alleged to have bedded a sorceress pale as a corpse and declared himself a king. For thirteen years the Night’s King and his “corpse queen” ruled together, before King of Winter, Brandon the Breaker, (in alliance, it is said, with the King-Beyond-the-Wall, Joramun) brought them down. Thereafter, he obliterated the Night’s King’s very name from memory.

“In the Citadel, the archmaesters largely dismiss these tales—though some allow that there may have been a Lord Commander who attempted to carve out a kingdom for himself in the earliest days of the Watch. Some suggest that perhaps the corpse queen was a woman of the Barrowlands, a daughter of the Barrow King who was then a power in his own right, and oft associated with graves. The Night’s King has been said to have been variously a Bolton, a Woodfoot, an Umber, a Flint, a Norrey, or even a Stark, depending on where the tale is told. Like all tales, it takes on the attributes that make it most appealing to those who tell it.”

What if she was made a hostage to keep him from attacking and crossing the Wall?  This is a well-established custom in Westeros.  Theon comes immediately to mind.  After Balon Greyjoy’s failed rebellion his last surviving son was given to Lord Eddard Stark as a hostage to ensure Balon’s good behavior.  What if this is what was meant by “Brandon the Breaker, (in alliance, it is said, with the King-Beyond-the-Wall, Joramun) brought them down”.  Nothing ever says she was actually killed.  He simply no longer wants to live without her and the rest of the world be damned.

In the Wheel of Time Lews Therin created seven seals made of cuendillar; which was thought to be unbreakable.  What if something similar was made to entomb his corpse queen?  The following excerpt got me thinking:

“I don’t know what that is,” Bashere said quietly, “but I think maybe you should wait before deciding to break it. Eh?” Tumad and the others were no longer watching Taim; they gaped wide-eyed at Rand. Even the Maidens had shifted their eyes to him, eyes full of concern. Sulin took a half step toward the men, and Jalani’s hand was outstretched toward Rand as if she did not realize it.

“No.” Rand swallowed; his throat hurt. “I don’t think I should.” Bashere stepped back slowly, and Rand brought the seal down just as slowly. If Rand had thought Taim unflappable, he had proof to the contrary now. Shock painted the man’s face. “Do you know what this is, Taim?” Rand demanded. “You must, or you wouldn’t have brought it to me. Where did you find it? Do you have another? Do you know where another is?”

“No,” Taim said, voice unsteady. Not with fear, precisely; more like a man who had felt a cliff unexpectedly crumbling under him and had somehow found himself back on solid ground. “That is the only one I. . . . I’ve heard all sorts of rumors since I escaped the Aes Sedai. Monsters leaping out of thin air. Strange beasts. Men talking to animals, and the animals talking back. Aes Sedai going mad like we’re supposed to. Whole villages going mad, killing each other. Some could be true. Half what I know to be true is no less insane. I heard some of the seals have been broken. A hammer could break that one.”

Bashere frowned, stared at the seal in Rand’s hands, then gasped. He understood.

“Where did you find it?” Rand repeated. If he could find the last. . . . Then what? Lews Therin stirred, but he refused to listen.

“In the last place you would expect,” Taim replied, “which I suppose is the first place to look for the others. A decaying little farm in Saldaea. I stopped for water, and the farmer gave it to me. He was old, with no children or grandchildren to pass it on to, and he thought I was the Dragon Reborn. He claimed his family had guarded it more than two thousand years. Claimed they were kings and queens during the Trolloc Wars, and nobles under Artur Hawkwing. His tale could have been true. No more unlikely than finding that in a hut only a few days ride from the Blightborder.”

Rand nodded, then stooped to gather up the rags. He was used to the unlikely happening around him; it had to happen elsewhere, sometimes. Hurriedly rewrapping the seal, he handed it to Bashere. “Guard this carefully.” Break it! He squashed the voice hard. “Nothing must happen to it.”

Bashere took the bundle reverently in both hands. Rand was unsure whether the man’s bow was for him or the seal. “For ten hours or ten years, it will be safe until you require it.”

For a moment Rand studied him. “Everybody’s waiting for me to go mad, afraid of it, but not you. You must have thought I finally was, just now, but you weren’t afraid of me even then.”

The description of the man that had one of the seals reminded me immediately of one person; Old Nan.

She was a very ugly old woman, Bran thought spitefully; shrunken and wrinkled, almost blind, too weak to climb stairs, with only a few wisps of white hair left to cover a mottled pink scalp. No one really knew how old she was, but his father said she’d been called Old Nan even when he was a boy. She was the oldest person in Winterfell for certain, maybe the oldest person in the Seven Kingdoms. Nan had come to the castle as a wet nurse for a Brandon Stark whose mother had died birthing him. He had been an older brother of Lord Rickard, Bran’s grandfather, or perhaps a younger brother, or a brother to Lord Rickard’s father. Sometimes Old Nan told it one way and sometimes another. In all the stories the little boy died at three of a summer chill, but Old Nan stayed on at Winterfell with her own children. She had lost both her sons to the war when KingRobert won the throne, and her grandson was killed on the walls of Pyke during Balon Greyjoy’s rebellion. Her daughters had long ago married and moved away and died. All that was left of her own blood was Hodor, the simpleminded giant who worked in the stables, but Old Nan just lived on and on, doing her needlework and telling her stories.

But her last surviving relative Hodor is now also dead; leaving her like the old farmer who gave the seal to Taim.  Old Nan seems to be the only person in the books to know who Bran truly is.  She says the following and it doesn’t make sense unless you believe Bran to be older than her:

“I don’t want any more stories,” Bran snapped, his voice petulant. He had liked Old Nan and her stories once. Before. But it was different now. They left her with him all day now, to watch over him and clean him and keep him from being lonely, but she just made it worse. “I hate your stupid stories.”

The old woman smiled at him toothlessly. “My stories? No, my little lord, not mine. The stories are, before me and after me, before you too.”

When she says “before you too” it simply doesn’t make sense.  If the stories are before her there should be no need to say that they are before Bran.  That is when the light turned on and it was then I knew that Bran was indeed Bran the Builder or will be after he goes back in time physically.  Click here to see where my theory of Bran time traveling began and here to see where I think he has resided for the entire series.

Comments encouraged.  Love to hear the idea’s of others.  Most believe that since I present my idea’s as “fact like” I’m not open to change my viewpoints which is far from the truth.  I simply look at the information presented and go from there.  If you can shine a light on another way of thinking that opens the door to debate.