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In Game Of Thrones Season 5 Episode 8 (Hardhome), we saw :
Jon Snow and others escape from white walkers using boat.
I wonder why :
the White Walkers couldn't enter into water or swim? Can't they just turn water into ice with their touch?
Was it intentional :
to let Jon Snow run away after they saw his sword (Valyrian steel) could kill White Walkers?
We don't know as of yet.
This particular event hasn't taken place in the books, nor has anything similar happen. The TV show didn't offer much insight either, so we can only speculate.
Maybe the white walkers can't swim, maybe they didn't want to.
There is a good discussion on Reddit.
If they could swim what's the point of the wall?
and
It could've also been a trick. Now Jon suspects they can't swim so he's only going to prepare for land attacks.
The only thing that comes close to this from the books is in aGoT, Tyrion III:
Mormont was deaf to the edge in his voice. "The fisherfolk near Eastwatch have glimpsed white walkers on the shore."
Also, on aDwD, Jon XII; this is a message sent from Cotter Pyke to Jon:
Jon read:
At Hardhome, with six ships. Wild seas. Blackbird lost with all hands, two Lyseni ships driven aground on Skane, Talon taking water. Very bad here. Wildlings eating their own dead. Dead things in the woods. Braavosi captains will only take women, children on their ships. Witch women call us slavers. Attempt to take Storm Crow defeated, six crew dead, many wildlings. Eight ravens left. Dead things in the water. Send help by land, seas wracked by storms. From Talon, by hand of Maester Harmune.
And another discussion on the forum of Ice and Fire.
As of Season 7, Episode 6, Beyond the Wall it appears that White Walkers or at least their wights can "swim".
The definition of swim here is being used loosely as "able to walk into water deeper than they are tall, walk back out at a undetermined amount of time later, and seem to have no ill effect".
We see the Army of the Dead take large chains into a frozen lake to pull out Viserion
Also in Season 7, Episode 7 The Wolf and the Dragon
Euron: Can they swim?
Jon: No.
So in-universe characters are describing them as unable to swim. How much that actually means is debatable...
There has not been a confirmed case of white walkers crossing water in the books or in the show. You bring up a good point though. If they could have crossed water, why did they
let Jon Snow escape?
Given the conclusion of that episode, and the fact the wall was built in the first place, it seems their army (including the wights) cannot easily cross large bodies of water.
This is based mainly on speculation, but there are a few reasons I think the assault stopped at the shoreline:
White walkers make everything freeze. Even metal. If they were to go into the water, the water would freeze around them, and they would be stuck. Not a very good attack plan.
Most of the undead are just bones. Humans float because of a combination of the air in their bodies and the wading/swimming techniques they use. These skeletons have no air to help them, and swimming without much surface area on their bodies cannot be easy. They are very dense compared to humans, so they likely would sink.
To make the last moments of the scene amazing. Who doesn't want to see that "come at me, bro" moment when an entirely new army rises from the ground?
The white walkers and armies of the dead don't have to swim they can walk across underwater. The dead don't breathe air or float when weighed down with armor. Far fetched theory but a good one
