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The Children of the Forest stabbed a First Man in the heart with a dragonglass dagger, transmogrifying him into the first White Walker, the Night King.

Season 6, Episode 5, "The Door":

The Children of the Forest stabbed Benjen Stark in the heart with a dragonglass dagger preventing him from becoming an wight.

Season 6, Episode 6, "Blood of my Blood":

Does anybody else from the books or TV series have a shard of dragonglass in his or her heart?

I am specifically asking about the Children plunging a dragonglass shard into somebody as part of some magical intervention. I'm not asking about the killing of wights with dragonglass.

Please provide answers with quotes from the books, rather than the TV series. (Although I would consider answers from the TV series in lieu of answers from the books.) I would accept answers about long dead characters as well as living ones.

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    +1 for the use of "transmogrifying"
    – Paul
    Oct 22, 2018 at 12:18

1 Answer 1

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TL;DR: In both canons we have no explicit example of this happening to anyone else. In A Song of Ice and Fire we don't even have enough information to infer what happened to the two examples we have never mind anyone else. For Game of Thrones we can speculate this has happened to others based on evidence but we can't know for certain.


A Song of Ice and Fire

We Do Not Sow Know

Like Benjen in Game of Thrones Coldhands appears to be a pawn of the Three-eyed crow. The ravens are his eyes and ears and he seems to implicitly confirm it with a conversation with Meera.

From a nearby oak a raven quorked, and Bran heard the sound of wings as another of the big black birds flapped down to land beside it. By day only half a dozen ravens stayed with them, flitting from tree to tree or riding on the antlers of the elk. The rest of the murder flew ahead or lingered behind. But when the sun sank low they would return, descending from the sky on night-black wings until every branch of every tree was thick with them for yards around. Some would fly to the ranger and mutter at him, and it seemed to Bran that he understood their quorks and squawks. They are his eyes and ears. They scout for him, and whisper to him of dangers ahead and behind.

[...]

Meera's gloved hand tightened around the shaft of her frog spear. "Who sent you? Who is this three-eyed crow?"

"A friend. Dreamer, wizard, call him what you will. The last greenseer." The longhall's wooden door banged open. Outside, the night wind howled, bleak and black. The trees were full of ravens, screaming. Coldhands did not move.

A Dance with Dragons, Bran I

This would imply he is not the first tool of the Three-eyed crow and he won't be the last and so it is likely others have been saved in the same way.

Note, however, that the origin of the Others in the books has not yet been stated and so we have no evidence that the Others were created by the Children never mind how that process took place. We are told that they are "a different sort of life" and so it's quite possible they weren't created by the Children at all.

[the Others] are strange, beautiful… think, oh… the Sidhe made of ice, something like that… a different sort of life… inhuman, elegant, dangerous.

A Game of Thrones: The Graphic Novel, Volume 1

Game of Thrones

Unclear but likely

TL;DR: There is no explicit example of someone else as of yet but evidence suggests there may have been others.

The wording around how the Night King was created leads us to believe the Children may have created more White Walkers around the time they created him.

BRAN: It was you. You made the White Walkers.

LEAF: We were at war. We were being slaughtered. Our sacred trees cut down. We needed to defend ourselves.

BRAN: From whom?

LEAF: From you. From men.

Game of Thrones, Season 6 Episode 5, "The Door"

Notice that Bran uses the plural "White Walkers" and Leaf neither denies nor confirms that they did create multiple. However, this isn't anything explicit as we know the Night King can create more White Crawlers Walkers and so they may have only made the Night King still.

However, if we couple this with how Benjen was Saved we can assume more people have had dragonglass plunged into their hearts. Benjen was saved from turning into a wight by the Children of the Forest who then used him as a tool for their purposes beyond the Wall.

MEERA: Why did you help us?

RIDER: The Three-Eyed Raven sent for me.

MEERA: The Three-Eyed Raven’s dead.

RIDER: Now he lives again.

RIDER (to BRAN): When I last saw you, you were a boy. A fearless boy. Loved to climb the castle walls, frighten his mother.

BRAN: Who are you?

BRAN: Uncle Benjen. The last letter Jon wrote me said you had been lost beyond the Wall.

BENJEN: I led a ranging party deep into the North to find White Walkers. They found us. A white walker stabbed me in the gut with a sword of ice. Left me there to die. To turn. The Children found me. Stopped the walker’s magic from taking hold.

BRAN: How?

BENJEN: The same way they made the Walkers in the first place. You saw it yourself.

BRAN: Dragonglass. A shard of dragonglass plunged into your heart.

BENJEN: You are the Three-Eyed Raven now.

Game of Thrones, Season 6 Episode 6, "Blood of My Blood"

Notice here how Benjen mentions he essentially "works" for the Three-eyed Raven and so it is likely that the Children have created multiple pawns in their time for him especially considering the number of Free Folk who have been getting killed in recent times.

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    So, I don't see what in your Cold hands quote implies that there were other tools, nor does it even hint that Cold hands was created by either the Children or the last Greenseer. Further, the Nights King is talked about at length and it's said he was a Lord Commander of the Nights Watch who loved a woman that sounded like an Other, which strongly implies the Others pre-date the Nights King. While we might learn that legend is incorrect, it's the best info we have at present.
    – Paul
    Oct 22, 2018 at 12:24
  • @Paul In the books there is the Nights King and the Night King with the two being different. As for Coldhands well it shows he is working for the 3ER and seeing as it is likely he Is Benjen I am speculating his origin is similar to the shows and so like my analysis for the show there were probably other tools too.
    – TheLethalCarrot
    Oct 22, 2018 at 12:26
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    Cold hands being Benjen has been long since debunked in the books,the timeline doesn't work out at all. As for Nights King and Night King in the books... I'd love to see your source for that as I've never noticed there being both after mulitple rereads.
    – Paul
    Oct 22, 2018 at 12:29
  • @Paul I wouldn't put too much thought into timelines, GRRM for the most part ignores that sort of thing. Unless something is in the books it isn't canon too. As for the Night King bit, woops, I've been switching between the two canons a lot recently and confused myself for a moment.
    – TheLethalCarrot
    Oct 22, 2018 at 12:37
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    By timelines, I mean that it's stated or at least implied that Coldhands is centuries old (iirc Leaf says something like,"they killed him long ago"), while Benjen has been missing for only a year or so.
    – Paul
    Oct 22, 2018 at 13:59

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