Child of the Forest or Wildling?

Question

In the first scene of season 1 episode 1, "Winter is Coming", a child appears twice. The first time she is on a tree appearing to be dead. The second time one of the men from the Night's Watch sees her standing in front of him staring.

The show seems to call her a wildling, but she appears to look more like one of the Children of the Forest than a wildling. She looks similar to the child in the series finale of season 4.

On the Game of Thrones wikia for Children of the Forest, it makes no mention of the incident. Also, On the page for this episode, it calls her a wildling, and it seems that she has become a Wight.

Is there any proof that this child is indeed a wildling wight, or could this possibly be the first place where the Children of the Forest are revealed?

Answer 1

It's highly unlikely that it was a Child of the Forest. Here are a few reasons:

• Children of the Forest have gone into deep hiding after their near extermination by the Andals several thousand years ago. They are so rarely seen that the vast majority of the populace believe them to be extinct.

• The scene of the massacre was a Wildling village, and the other corpses were those of adult Wildlings.

The probability of not only there being a Child of the Forest around, but also one in close vicinity of a Wildling village is very very low. The reason for the child's odd look was that she had turned into a Wight that has the characteristic bright blue eyes.

Answer 2

The child is a dead wildling then a wight.

It is quite clear when you compare an image of the child to an image of one of the Children of the Forest:

Notice how they are green, no blue eyes and are more "leafy" and natural looking.

However, the dead child looks like so:

Then when we see the child later on she has blue eyes and is clearly a wight:

You can see the full scene here: