Wonder if there's some sort of Stark/White Walker connection considering the Stark heritage within the north. Still feel like we'll see more to them than plain one-dimensional villains, hopefully.
Well, I think the White Walkers are simply something of a Frankenstein's monster and nothing more, an experiment gone wrong. The Children of the Forest thought they'd make for good killing machines during the ancient war with the First Men, but they became self-aware and decided to just wipe out the entire human race in Westeros (and as far as Essos, if the original tales of the Long Night are to be believed). Having said all that, the White Walkers are clearly capable of some form of negotiation - their deal with Craster is evidence of this - and they're clearly intelligent enough to wait until Westeros has been completely covered by winter so they can descend with the storm.
But the fact is they were defeated during the War for the Dawn and history is perhaps about to repeat itself in Game of Thrones. The War for the Dawn was won by different races and species banding together to save Westeros, but Azor Ahai, with his flaming sword, ultimately brought them forward out of the darkness and sent the White Walkers back to the Land of Always Winter. There they've had to sleep for thousands of years before another devastating winter arrived, essentially waiting for the conditions to be just right, and now they almost are. Winter has hit the North pretty hard but everything south of Winterfell remains relatively untouched. Snow hasn't fallen on King's Landing yet, but it will have to before the Night King dares to breach the Wall.
A lot of people are complaining that the White Walkers are being held back by the writers so they can get the story finished before the shit hits the fan, but the plot has already explored this. Alliser Thorne was sent south to King's Landing with a piece of dead hand to show them that wights exist, but it decomposed along the way. The Night King can't exactly have himself decomposing as he travels through the continent he's attempting to control. "The enemy won't wait out the storm, he brings the storm" as Jon so eloquently put it in the season six finale. As Frank Reynolds of It's Always Sunny once told us, meat spoils slower in a fridge.
And where does Jon come into this plan?
First off, he's clearly Azor Ahai reincarnate. Daenerys has fire-breathing dragons, Beric has his (admittedly significant) flaming sword, but Jon
is this story. He
is the song of ice and fire. Born under a bleeding star, back from the dead because the Lord of Light willed it. It all fits. But there have also been actual moments shared between Jon and the White Walkers - three of them were in the same episode ('Hardhome'). Jon and a Walker realised simultaneously that Valyrian steel can resist their weapons, and they shared
that look; the Night King observed that incident and studied it closely; the third is simply that the Night King identified Jon as the leader and looked him dead in the eyes as he resurrected the dead.
They seem to show respect and reluctant admiration of Jon in ways they haven't with other human characters. They reveal genuine emotion when they're near him and are always keen to show
him their powers. There's also a strong link between the Night King and Bran, but that's more easily explained: the Night King has the same ability of greensight, so he can detect Bran's warging whenever he's nearby. It's why he could gain a physical presence in Bran's visions, it's why he spotted the ravens in the previous episode. But while the relationship between Jon and the White Walkers is more complicated and less easily defined, there's still something spiritual - or prophetic - about it.