
The Forest appeared in the first season of Game of Thrones as the. Leaf makes the ultimate sacrifice when she shields Bran and the others from an explosive weapon, giving up her own life and possibly marking the end of her species. Tollymore Forest was the first state forest park in Northern Ireland, established in 1955 and coovering an area of 1600 acres. Later, she and the remaining Children help defend Bran in his battle against the Night King, though most of them do not survive. Leaf explains to Bran that her people had no other choice to defend themselves from the First Men. Bran has a vision revealing the Children created the White Walkers, and Leaf even took part in the process (this suggests her kind can live for thousands of years). Then, apart from a brief mention in Season 5, when Sam discovered the Children used to hunt with dragonglass weapons, the mysterious creatures aren’t mentioned again until Season 6, when they’re seen with Bran at the Three-Eyed Raven’s cave. In Season 4, we finally get to meet one of the Children, Leaf, who emerges from the Three-Eyed Raven’s cave to save Bran and his travel companions from being attacked by a group of wights. Unlike many Game of Thrones characters who first popped up in Season 6 of the show, the Children were first mentioned way back in Season 2, when Maester Luwin told Bran Stark that the Children of the Forest had long been thought extinct and forgotten, and many people doubted they ever even existed at all. While it's uncertain what the cave drawings Jon and Daenerys found really signify, it's possible the Children left these swirl patterns behind to warn others that the fight between the living and the dead may eventually come full circle.

Despite these efforts, the Children might have known the Wall wouldn't keep the White Walkers away for good.
