Game of Thrones: Is This the End of The Night King?
The Long Night, the third episode of the final season of Game of Thrones, premiered a week ago. People are still talking about it.
As they should be. There is a lot to talk about.
The Long Night polarized the world. Many fans are disappointed, critics are thriving like vultures, and Dan & Dave are staying silent. The Night King is done. Dead. Dust. Stabbed by Arya Stark with a Valyrian steel dagger. The army of the dead is, finally, actually dead.
Or is it?
People are not happy. The Night King and the White Walkers have been an imminent threat throughout the show, they’ve been talked about, they’ve been fought against, and now they are basically entirely gone after one episode. A bit anticlimactic, no?
We, personally, disagree; we don’t see that many problems with the latest episode and we’re not disappointed by how The Night King was defeated. But we are disappointed that he was defeated.
The problem is not Arya killing him or the way the battle developed. The problem is that The Night King dying now, in episode three, goes against the whole premise of the show. The White Walkers are supposed to be the big evil, they are supposed to be the endgame; now, however, it seems that Cersei will be the final obstacle. Which would go directly against the main message of the show: the game of thrones is just a distraction from the great war.
It doesn’t make sense. And while many have given up on Dan & Dave, we still have faith. Maybe foolishly so. But hear us out.
The producers of Game of Thrones are not stupid people. They are not bad writers. They absolutely do screw up occasionally with the little details but when it comes to overarching storytelling, Dan & Dave have been pretty damn good so far. It would seem out of character that they’d pull this at the very end and leave fans with such bitter taste. Dan & Dave know what we want better than we think they do.
Which brings us to our ‘theory’. The Night King is dealt with. He is done, 100%. We’ve been reading theories on Reddit all week about how maybe someone (Bran, Arya, or Dany) will take his place, about how there is The Son of The Night King character coming, etc., etc… These all don’t make sense. There is only one possible thing that could happen to both keep The Night King story alive and prevent Cersei from being the final villain.
The Three-Eyed Raven is the real evil.
Here’s a short summary of this theory from Reddit user u/SilentPr3dator:
The three eyed raven is the real villain. Not Bran. Bran is dead, Bran died in that cave. The 3ER, now in the form of Bran, and having seen all the s**t people do to each other, and their destruction of the CotF’s habitat and weirwoods, has been out to kill all of mankind to “cleanse” the world. He has been wreaking havoc across time, trying to get men to end each other. He might have been the reason Aerys became mad. The 3ER had no qualms with using Hodor to escape his death.
The White Walkers were, in fact, “good” – so to speak. They have been trying to kill the 3ER for generations. As soon as he ventured South of the wall in the form of Bran, they followed suit ONLY to try kill him. So what does the 3ER do? He manipulates the rest of humanity to save him from the WW, painting THEM as the evil guy. That’s his only option. The NK’s mark is on him and will hunt him down.
Which means – all of this was engineered by the 3ER. That is why he gave Arya the Catspaw dagger. So she could use it to kill the NK in order to save himself.
There are problems with this theory, in the way described above. The Three-Eyed Raven cannot want to ‘cleanse’ the world, that doesn’t fit with any Game of Thrones themes. So his motivation remains a mystery.
But otherwise: this could make sense.
This would mean that The Three-Eyed Raven orchestrated the whole battle and possibly even many of the events leading up to it. He used mankind to protect himself from The Night King. This would also serve to make The Night King a more complex character and erase that crappy explanation that we got about his motivation. Instead of ‘wanting to bring an endless night’, this would mean that what The Night King truly wants is revenge; and, in the process of getting that, saving humanity. But he wouldn’t be a good guy either; he would believe that the ends justify the means since he killed so many people just to get to The Three-Eyed Raven.
Cersei would appear as the final threat, but something would reveal The Three-Eyed Raven as a wicked puppet master and our heroes would have to deal with that.
In general, this would fix a lot of problems posed by the latest episode. The Night King being defeated so early wouldn’t be a problem anymore because, in the biggest plot-twist ever, it would turn out that he’s actually not the big bad of the story. Cersei wouldn’t be the final villain because they’d have to deal with The Three-Eyed Raven as well. Also, through this reveal many questions about The Night King and The Three-Eyed Raven could be answered.
Following previous statements from Dan & Dave, GRRM, actors, and really everyone involved in the Game of Thrones story, it would seem very logical that there is a huge plot-twist coming out way. There shouldn’t be a way, logically, that they decide to actually end The Night King storyline like this.
One can only hope.
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If you want to read more about this theory, this reddit user goes into explicit detail from the lore and the books.
Read our past theories: who is Azor Ahai, who will die, the blue-eyed giant theory, and whether Tyrion will serve The Three-Eyed Raven.
If you’re like us and know you’ll rewatch the whole show immediately after its over, get the Game of Thrones Blu-Ray here. And what better way to enjoy that than with a nice glass of scotch? Get your Tyrion Lannister whiskey glass here.
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