What does it take to destroy a wight? Obviously fire does the job, but when Jon Snow’s team is hacking away at them with conventional weapons, does it have any impact? It also seemed that dragonglass isn’t an immediate wight stopper.

nobodysuspectsthebutterfly:

I think the idea that dragonglass can’t kill wights is actually a myth. The reason Sam’s dagger did nothing is because it broke on Small Paul’s armor.

There was no time to think or pray or be afraid. Samwell Tarly threw himself forward and plunged the dagger down into Small Paul’s back. Half-turned, the wight never saw him coming. The raven gave a shriek and took to the air. “You’re dead!” Sam screamed as he stabbed. “You’re dead, you’re dead.” He stabbed and screamed, again and again, tearing huge rents in Paul’s heavy black cloak. Shards of dragonglass flew everywhere as the blade shattered on the iron mail beneath the wool.

–ASOS, Samwell III

We’ve never seen anyone get a dragonglass dagger into a wight’s flesh. Could be that would kill them sure as it does Others. (And the reason why it kills them, no matter what, is because their armor is made of ice, just like they are.)

I imagine you’d catch this when you get to Sam III in RFTIT, so just a note in advance. 🙂

I believe I said has no “special properties.” 

The dagger didn’t break on the White Walker’s armor.

EDIT:

Also, this:

racefortheironthrone:

In the books, dragonglass has no special properties when it comes to wights – Sam tries to use his dragonglass dagger on the zombiefied Small Paul (pour one out) and the dagger does nothing.

Other than fire, total dismemberment is the only other method known to work. Basically if you damage the thing so badly that it cannot move, it’ll die (again).

Edit:

While I understand the show simplifying things, I do feel something was lost in the change b/c it seems to me that the white walkers created the wights in part because they don’t share their weaknesses to dragonglass (and presumably to valyrian steel too?), so they can send them in as arrow fodder while staying safe themselves.

“We’ve all read the books countless times so we all have a pretty thorough working knowledge of them. That said, we sometimes have to alter book lore a bit to fit the demands of the show. For example, changing Asha Greyjoy’s name to Yara and that dragonglass also kills wights, as we saw in 605.“  

Dave Hill, from Buzzfeed Interview