I think the “regular folks” were the wildlings outside the gates. The ones that were pounding to be let in, then suddenly silenced. I think they were taken by the incoming horde and turned into soldiers right away.
Imagine fighting these things, and for each time one of your mates dies in battle, he rises and turns on you…
Yeah, there was White Walkers and zombies in vastly different states of decay. Some were fresh kills, some were down to skeletons only. I guess walking skeletons wouldn’t technically fit under the zombie banner as we know them.
The more powerful White Walkers are the ones with the glowing blue eyes, right? Otherwise the zombie army are just dead people in various stages of decay. But at the very end when the WW raises the fallen, including the woman leader, they all had glowy blue eyes. So are they regular zombie wights or White Walkers? 
That last kid looked just about skeletal. Maybe he had some hair. So, they keep fighting until they turn to dust. How long does that usually take in freezing cold temperatures?
Yeah, that part didnt make sense to me. Why the faceless men wanted him killed was due to the fact “The Gambler” didnt pay out on a claim to the insured heirs. But the scene with the captain trying to press money on the “The Gambler” and being dragged away made no sense.
I don’t see why there is so much confusion, the White Walkers don’t look human at all. Dead humans turn to reanimated corpses for their undead army.
He refused to insure his voyage after looking at the map, i imagine it was simply too dangerous to be worth the risk.
Unless the proposed route he was taking on his next trade voyage looked too hazardous to insure.
Ah, that could be it. Thanks.
There are two or possibly three types of baddies north of the Wall: White Walkers and wights/undead and it’s possible the Night’s King is separate.
The White Walkers are the supernatural enemies that are the reason the Wall was erected. We’ve seen them in maybe 4 or 5 scenes total. We see a couple in the shadows in the first episode, we see one riding a dead horse in the Season 2 finale. Sam kills one, and we see several in this episode. It seems they are created by the Night’s king from live human babies. They wield ice weapons, wear armor, seem to be sentient, and can be killed by dragon glass and Valyrian steel.
The wights are the reanimated corpses of the dead. We’ve seen them several times since the pilot. Jon fights one in Lord Commander Mormont’s room and the Night’s Watch has encountered them several times north of the Wall. They can definitely be killed by fire. I thought it looked like some were killed by normal weapons in this episode, but maybe they were just temporarily incapacitated. Their appearances vary depending on the amount of decay the body has experienced.
The Night’s King is either the head White Walker or another being that created the White Walkers. We’ve seen him twice. Craster’s child was brought to him and a touch of his cheek turned the babe’s eyes blue. Then we saw him this episode. He’s got horns.
All of the above have blue eyes unless the eyes have rotten away in the case of old wights.
It’s been shown before that damaging them conventionally will briefly incapacitate them, as seen in Jon Snow’s previous encounter with a wight. It goes down after it gets a sword through the chest, only to rise up again.
OK, thanks. That helps a lot!
I still don’t get why people who are facing impending doom spend so long standing and staring at it. If I had been there, the minute the dogs started going nuts I would have headed for the boats. I know, it’s drama and stuff, but I think most people who knew the following things;
You know what else I wanted to see? Ice Spiders.
It seemed Caster’s babies were changed but were not killed. I surmised they became Walkers.
In this case, wasn’t the “opposite direction” the open ocean?
Yep. And full of boats to take you to safety.
I like how, at the end, the boat that Jon Snow was in kept moving out to sea even though no one was rowing.
That is my take as well.
Here ya go:
Not enough boats, once people started to panic. And I assume the Lord Commander was worthy of a powerboat. Hence no need for rowers.
All the more reason to be one of the first ones to get into the boats.
And… power boats??? The oars were being held just above the water.
