All of Game of Thrones' Legendary Creatures Explained in 21 Minutes

Manticores. These insects prove that in the world of ice and fire, the deadliest creatures aren't always the largest. Native to the Manticore Isles of the Jade Sea, these creatures are small, black-shelled arthropods. They are scorpion-like, with a barbed tail and, most disturbingly, a face on their shell that looks almost human, twisted into an almost hateful expression. When curled up, they resemble ornamental scarab beetles, which is exactly how assassins smuggle Their venom is among the fastest-acting poisons in the known world. It kills the instant it reaches the bloodstream. Qyburn claimed that a thickened version of Manticore venom was used on Prince Oberyn Martell's spear during his duel with the Mountain in Season 4. Though the Mountain won the fight, the venom turned his blood black and caused his flesh to fall off in sheets, effectively rotting him while his heart was still beating. Only Qyburn's forbidden sorcery kept the rotting titan upright and functional as a silent, undead bodyguard to Cersei. The most dramatic Manticore appearance came in Season 3, when a child in Astapor presented Daenerys with a small wooden ball. It opened to reveal a Manticore that sprang at her chest. Ser Barristan Selmy, disguised at the time as the old squire Arstan Whitebeard, knocked it aside with his staff, mere moments before it stung. Had his reflexes been a half second slower, the Mother of Dragons would have been killed by an insect on a dock. Manticore venom also turned up in Grand Maester Pycelle's poison stores, in Braavosi menageries, and in the Faceless Men's lethal repertoire. Even the grotesques carved on Dragonstone include Manticores, proof that even Dragonmasters knew to fear these tiny terrors. Whitewalkers and Wights For 8,000 years, they were a ghost story. Known in ancient texts as the Others, they were the enemy so terrible that the continent raised a 700-foot, 300-mile wall of ice just so they could forget about them. In the TV series, the First Walker was a man transformed by dragonglass and dark magic by the Children of the Forest. The result was a pale, gaunt creature that radiated cold, with pale blue blood and bones like milk glass. In the books, their true origin remains one of the great unsolved mysteries, and George R.R. Martin himself has indicated the Others are not simply undead. Legend says the Others rode giant ice spider-like creatures, but canon never confirms exactly what they were. More on that later in the video. Whitewalkers wielded crystalline blades that sang when they cut, and they wore armor that reflected the world around them like living mirrors. They possessed the most terrifying power of all—the ability to raise the dead. Every fallen soldier, every frozen corpse, could become a blue-eyed puppet in an army that grew with every battle it won. That power extended to animals as well. The very first Game of Thrones scene established the threat when a Night's Watch patrol finds wildlings butchered by walkers beyond the wall, their bodies arranged in ritualistic patterns. From then on, the series slowly escalated the horror, starting with dead men attacking Castle Black, moving on to Sam killing a walker with a dragonglass dagger and watching it shatter like frozen glass in Season 3, and then the full apocalyptic reveal at Hardhome in Season 5, where the Night King resurrects an entire field of dead wildlings simply by raising his arms. Jon watches in horror as they rise to their feet, each blue-eyed and obedient. On the plus side, it was also at Hardhome that Jon realized Valyrian steel could withstand their ice blades, shattering a walker with longclaw. The stakes were raised several notches in Season 7, when the Night King killed the dragon Viserion with an ice spear, turning it into an undead weapon that breathed blue flame powerful enough to shatter the wall itself. And the final reckoning came in the long night, when Arya Stark drove a dagger into the Night King's chest, and every walker, every wight, every reanimated horror collapsed into nothing. 8,000 years of dread ended in a single thrust. Children of the Forest. Before the first crown was forged or the first wall raised, Westeros belonged to the Children of the Forest. In their own true tongue, they called themselves Those Who Sing the Song of Earth, while the giants referred to them as Wo-Dak-Na-Grom, meaning Little Squirrel People. They are small by the standards of men, standing no taller than a human child, with a clawed three fingers and thumb on each hand in the books, and five fingers in the TV series. They have dappled skin like the hide of a deer, and eyes of slit-pupiled gold green that catch the light like an animal's in the dark. As the name suggests, they lived in the silence of the woods, carving the faces of their nameless gods into weirwood trees. Through the weirwood roots, the greenseer children could see across time, while the skin-changers could transfer their consciousness into the minds of wolves and eagles. When the first men arrived from Essos around 12,000 years before conquest, they brought bronze and fire, and started hacking down the sacred groves. The children fought back with a fury that redrew the map of Westeros. Legend says their sorcerers called down the Hammer of the Waters, shattering the land bridge known as the Arm of Dorne, and later the Neck, to slow the invasion. But it was not enough. The first men already had a foothold, and no tide could wash them away. In an act of desperation, as the TV series tells it, the children used dark magic to turn captured humans into the first White Walkers. During season six, Bran witnesses in a vision that these beings were originally intended as weapons. However, they eventually turned on their creators, nearly extinguishing all life during the long night. In the books, the others' true origin remains unknown. After about 2,000 years of war, both sides eventually grew weary of the bloodshed, and met on the Isle of Faces to sign the pact, effectively ending the Dawn Age. The children kept their forests, the first men kept their settlements, and in the long peace that followed, the two peoples grew close enough that the children shared what they knew—the worship of the old gods, and the practice of prayer In the Age of Heroes, they got closer still. It was recorded that the children gave the Night's Watch a hundred obsidian daggers every year during the Age of Heroes to defend against the darkness beyond the Wall. By the time of the War of the Five Kings, the children of the forest were believed to be extinct, and to the Andal-descended peoples of the South and the Lords of the Seven Kingdoms, they were dismissed as myths. But the children reappear in season four to rescue Bran from a white attack outside the Three-Eyed Raven's cave. However, their story reaches a tragic conclusion in season six, when one of the last children, Leif, sacrifices herself to ensure Bran's escape. Giants and Mammoths Alongside the children, giants once roamed Westeros as the world's primordial muscle. Standing ten to fourteen feet tall, they are towering humanoids with sloped foreheads and bodies wrapped in coarse fur. Their companions, the mammoths, are just as staggering—massive tusked creatures that also served as beasts of burden, capable of carrying giants on their backs across the frozen wastes of the Far North. Notable giants include Wunweg Wundarwun, better known as Wun Wun, and Magmartundoweg, or Mag the Mighty. In the show, Mance Rayder names him the King of the Giants. In the books, he is described more as a chieftain. By the time of the series around 300 AC, both species were relegated to bedtime stories, told to frighten children south of the Wall. But the nightmare came back to life in season four, when giants and a mammoth emerged from the treeline with Mance Rayder's army. In that epic battle, Mag the Mighty falls to Gren and five brothers of the Night's Watch, who died holding the gate. Wun Wun, the last of his kind, fought alongside Jon Snow's army in season six's Battle of the Bastards, surviving arrows, bolts, and javelins that would have felled before being killed by Ramsay Bolton's final arrow to the eye. Even after death, giants retained their ability to terrorize humans. In season eight, an undead giant smashed through Winterfell's defenses before being killed by Lyanna Mormont, who stabbed it in the eye with dragonglass as it crushed her. Ancient, proud, and ultimately doomed, the giants were living proof that the old stories were never just stories. Direwolves The direwolf is the sigil of House Stark, carved into their banners and the stone of their ancestral tombs. For nearly two centuries, they were believed extinct south of the Wall, until 298 AC. In the series' opening act, Ned Stark and his children discover a dead female direwolf, killed by a stag's antler, predicting the plot of the entire series. Beside her are six One for each Stark child, including the white-furred, red-eyed runt Ghost, found separated from the litter by Jon Snow. What makes the direwolves extraordinary isn't just their size, though they grow as large as ponies with jaws that can take a man's arm. Rather, it's the bond they have with their owners. Each wolf mirrored the fate of its Stark. Lady, gentle and trusting, was executed in 298 AC at Cersei Lannister's command, foreshadowing Sansa's long captivity. Grey Wind charged into every battle alongside Robb Stark, only to be slaughtered at the Red Wedding. Nymeria, driven away by Arya to save her from the Lannisters, disappeared into the Riverlands to lead a massive, feral pack, a reflection of Arya's own journey into the wild. By the final years of the story, most had fallen. Summer died protecting Bran from the dead in the Three-Eyed Raven's cave, and Shaggydog was killed when Rickon was handed over to the Boltons in Season 6. Only Ghost endured. He fought through the Great War, lost an ear to the Army of the Dead, and eventually returned to the far north at Jon's side, the last direwolf returning to the wild alongside the last Stark, who truly belonged there. Skin Changers and Greenseers Among the free folk beyond the Wall, certain individuals are born with a gift that most Southerners would call witchcraft, the ability to project their consciousness into the mind of an animal. These are the Skin Changers, those who enter an animal's mind, or when the animal is a wolf or dog, wargs. Some believe this power was inherited from the children of the forest during the Dawn Age, and it comes with rules written in blood. To break these is to commit an abomination. As passed down by teachers like the wildling Elder Hagen, these are 1. Never eat the flesh of man while wearing the skin of a beast. 2. Never mate with an animal while inhabiting its body. 3. Above all, never slip into the mind of another human being. The wildling Varamyr Sixskins was a famous practitioner. Among thousands of Skin Changers, a rare few are born with greensight. These greenseers, the wise ones of the children of the forest gifted with visions, can not only enter animals but peer through the weirwood network, seeing events across continents and centuries. Bran emerged as the most powerful greenseer in living memory. He first experienced wolf dreams as summer as early as season one, but soon crossed a more disturbing threshold by entering the mind of the servant Hodor. In the tragic events of 303 AC, Bran warged Hodor across time itself, an act so traumatic it shattered the man's past identity, collapsing his entire life into a single desperate command. Hold the door. By the series' end in 305 AC, Bran's abilities made him something beyond human, the Three-Eyed Raven, a living archive of all human memory. He became the last vessel of the old gods in a world that had mostly forgotten them. We're deep into the lore now, and we're not done. If you're still here, you're a real one. Share this with someone who thinks they know everything about Game of Thrones. I promise there's something in here they've never heard. Shadowcats are the apex predators of the wild frontier, massive felines somewhere between a tiger and a mountain lion, cloaked in thick black fur with white stripes. Their eyes glow at night. From the mountains of the Moon in the Vale to the haunted forest beyond the Wall, they stalk any region where the terrain turns steep and civilization thins out. Legendarily vicious and nearly impossible to track, a shadowcat can reportedly smell blood from as far as six miles away and disembowel a man with a single swipe of its claws. In the North in the Vale, a cloak made from their fur, a shadowskin, is a mark of a However, as Varamyr describes them, these beasts are cruel and vain, and are also the hardest animals for a skinchanger to dominate as they fight back against the mind of their master. One shadowcat even accidentally altered the course of history. A young ranger of the Night's Watch named Mance Rayder was mauled by a shadowcat while on patrol. A wildling woman saved his life and mended his shredded cloak with scraps of red silk from Asshai. When Mance returned to the and was ordered by Ser Denys Mallister to burn the non-regulation cloak, he chose his freedom instead. That single act of defiance, sparked by a shadowcat's claws, led Mance to desert the Watch, unite the ninety-odd tribes of the Free Folk, and eventually march an army of tens of thousands against the Wall. No sailor in the known world crosses open water without fear of these undersea creatures. They are the colossal, multi-tentacled predators of the Abyss, capable of dragging a whaling ship to the seafloor in a matter of seconds. While never definitively confirmed on screen, the evidence for these creatures runs deep through the history of Westeros and Essos. Varys reported to the small council that a kraken had pulled down an Ibbenese whaler off the fingers, an omen promptly ignored by the lords of King's Landing. Long before that, the priest-king Lodos attempted to summon krakens to crush Aegon the Conqueror's fleet. When the depths failed to answer his call, Lodos filled his robes with stones and walked into the waves to consult his god. There is also the rumor that House Celtigar of Claw Isle possesses an ancient horn capable of summoning these monsters from the crushing depths of the Sunset Sea. While many regard the kraken as a thing of legends, the ironborn have built their entire identity around it. House Greyjoy has a golden kraken as its sigil, and their ancestral throne, the Seastone Chair, is carved from a mysterious, oily black stone. Legend holds that the First Men found it already there when they arrived on the Iron Islands. Some maesters, noting its strange properties, speculate it may have been fashioned by builders far older, perhaps the so-called Deep Ones, though this remains unsettled. These hint at an ancient, unknowable relationship between the islands and the deep. During the later wars, Euron Greyjoy styled himself as the Living Kraken, a force of nature that rises from the sea to claim the world. Giant Ice Spiders Of all the creatures in Westerosi legend, the Giant Ice Spiders occupy a uniquely unsettling space, feared by everyone, yet confirmed by no one. During the Long Night, they were thought to be the ultimate hunters of the frozen wasteland. As Old Nan whispered to Bran Stark in Season 1, the Others rode these pale spiders big as hounds, using them to track the last survivors of humanity through the snow. Whether they are literal giant spiders, frozen waste creatures, or magical constructs remains unclear, canon never confirms their true nature, but we do know they have multiple legs and are fast enough to serve as cavalry for the Others, ranging across the frozen terrain. If the Walkers were Death's generals, the Ice Spiders were their dogs of war. Their presence lingers in the TV show's dialogue and deep lore. During Jon's meeting with Wildling leaders at Hardhome, one Wildling scoffed that the old legends also include Giant Ice Spiders, yet the mere mention still drew unease. The implication is clear, even men and women who lived alongside giants and had seen the Dead Walk still speak of these creatures with genuine terror. The showrunners reportedly considered bringing them to life for the final seasons, but ultimately decided against it, with D.B. Weiss citing the big-as-hounds scale as why realizing them on screen proved difficult. Which creature do you think got robbed of screen time? Let us know in the comments below. Basilisks. These creatures are the reason explorers rarely return from the steaming jungles of Sothoryos. They are massive, ferocious reptiles that range from the size of a hound to twice the size of a lion. They were known to infest the southern continent in such terrifying numbers that the Valyrians used Gagassos in the Basilisk Isles as a twisted penal colony, a death sentence in all but name. These nightmarish creatures are fast enough to close distance before you draw a sword, and vicious enough to tear a warhound apart in seconds. In the books, Daenerys witnessed exactly that at a gaming pit by the harbor, a Basilisk shredding a large dog while sailors placed bets. But while their teeth are lethal, their true power lies in their blood. Basilisk blood rewires its victim. Any warm-blooded creature that ingests it is possessed by a violent, irreversible madness. As the saying goes, a mouse will attack a lion. The Faceless Men weaponized this with surgical precision. In the books, during Arya's training in Braavos, she pieces together what likely happened at Harrenhal. Jaqen H'ghar didn't need to touch Whys, the cruel steward. A single drop of Basilisk blood slipped into the dog's food was enough to turn a faithful companion into a frenzied killer that tore its master's throat out. Basilisk venom is known to appear in the hidden stores of those who traffic in poisons, sitting alongside nightshade and sweet sleep, proof that even in the gilded halls of King's Landing, the green hell of Sothoryos had already reached through the door. Dragons. No creature in this universe carries more significance than dragons. They are the reason the Targaryens ruled Westeros, and the reason the Valyrian Freehold conquered much of the known world during their 5,000-year empire. Dragons are not simply large reptiles. They are magic-made flesh, possessing blood so hot it smokes in the air, and breath capable of melting castle stone into slag. According to legend, the Valyrians were originally sheepherders whose rise to power began when they discovered dragons living in the Fourteen Flames, a massive volcanic chain. Those volcanoes erupted in 102 BC, obliterating the entire Valyrian peninsula, an event known as the Doom of Valyria. The Targaryens were the only dragonlord house to survive with dragons intact, having relocated to Dragonstone 12 years earlier. Balerion had been born in Valyria itself. After the other dragons Aenar brought to Dragonstone died, he became the last living creature to have seen the Freehold in its prime. Vhagar and Meraxes hatched on Dragonstone during the Century of Blood. Balerion was the largest and most powerful dragon in history. His scales were as black as coal, and his wingspan was large enough to shroud entire towns in darkness as he flew overhead. His fire possessed jaw-dropping power, capable of melting the massive towers of Harrenhal into the twisted ruins seen in the series. During the Conquest, 2 BC to 1 AC, Balerion and two younger dragons, Vhagar and Meraxes, burned six kingdoms into submission. Vhagar would grow to be nearly as large as Balerion by the time of the Dance of the Dragons. However, the Dance of the Dragons, which took place between 129 and 131 AC, pitted kin against kin and nearly drove the species to extinction. Notable dragons from this era include Caraxes, the Blood Worm, known for his long serpentine neck and terrifying shrieks, and Sunfyre the Golden, considered the most beautiful dragon to ever fly. The last dragon died in 153 AC, a sickly, stunted creature. For a century and a half, the world moved on without them, until Daenerys emerged from a funeral pyre with three hatchlings, Drogon, Rhaegal, and Viserion. Their rebirth changed the nature of war again. During Season 7, for example, Drogon incinerated the Lannister supply train with ease. But the species story came to a dramatic end. Viserion was killed and resurrected as an undead dragon by the Night King to shatter the Wall, while Rhaegal was shot down by Euron Greyjoy's fleet. In the series finale, Drogon melted the Iron Throne, the seat that had consumed his mother's soul, and flew east, the last of his kind vanishing into the horizon. As revealed by King Viserys in House of the Dragon, these majestic creatures were never meant to merely serve human ambition. They were the fire in the Song of Ice and Fire. So there you have it, every mythical creature in Game of Thrones. If you want more deep dives like this, subscribe and turn on notifications. Thanks for watching and we'll see you in the next one.