The Night King is a Targaryen? – Theory & What it could mean for the Game of Thrones saga

So, if you have watched the first episode of Game of Thrones season 8, you will know where we are coming from. If you haven’t then there is a massive SPOILER alert here, so don’t read this before you watch the episode.

Okay, now that we have the obvious disclaimer out of the way let’s go back to the most defining scene of season 8 episode 1. Remember at the end of the first episode when Little Lord Umber was nailed to the wall as part of that display of carefully arranged limbs?

Of course! How can you forget something that was grotesque, ominous and symbolic at the same time. At the time that happened, Beric Dondarrion exclaimed: “It’s a message from the Night King.”

So far, so simple.

However, once the kid came back to life and was eventually set on fire, the whole symbol became a bit more visible. It’s a sign that we’ve seen before.

It sat around the Weirwood tree at the creation of the Night King. He also arranged it out of bits of horse all those years ago for the Night’s Watch to discover. It’s his bizarre and grotesque business card, at this stage.

Anyway, a lot of people have noticed that the symbol itself also bears more than a passing resemblance to the sigil of House Targaryen – the three-headed dragon.

Oh, and the fire thing. Targaryens love fire, don’t they?

All of that seems to point to the idea that the Night King could be a distant relative of the Targaryen family. That would make him some relation of Daenerys Targaryen and – here’s the spoiler alert again – Jon Snow. Jon is Aegon Targaryen the 6^th of his name, son of Rhaegal and Lyanna Stark as was revealed by Samwell Tarly in the first episode of season 8.

That’s only half the theory, though.

He rides a dragon. Sure, he can raise the dead and control them, but it has also been explicitly stated before now that only Targaryens can ride dragons. That’s not even a fan theory.

One of the showrunners, David Benioff, recently spoke in the ‘Inside The Episode’ documentary segment that accompanies each episode and said: “No one has ever ridden a dragon except for Dany. Only Targaryens can ride dragons and that should be a sign for Jon. Jon’s not always the quickest with the uptake but he gets there.”

So there you have one more clue: ‘Only Targaryens can ride the dragons!’

So at this point can we ask the question as to whether the Night King is a Targaryen himself?

Okay, so let’s go back a little to the part where Leaf from the Children of the Forest created the Night King. It was a normal man in whose chest Leaf pushed in the dragon glass and voila, Night King came into being.

Here’s reason number 1: What if the man who turned into Night King wasn’t a normal man? To start with he had blonde-ish hair and was one of the first men to come to Westeros and in contact with the Childen of the Forest. Now we can attribute blonde or whitish hair to Lannisters and Targaryens but Lannisters have no control over dragons in their history.

Reason number 2: This is the obvious one as stated before that, if Drogon and Rhaegal warmed up to Jon because they sensed he had Targaryen blood. It can mean that Viserion even though undead has warmed upto the Night King because he has Targaryen blood too or had before he became cold.

Reason number 3: That sigil has a striking resemblance to the Targaryen sigil and the Targaryen sigil has three dragons on it. The third one being Viserion which is with the Night King.

Reason number 4: The entire Game of Thrones saga is called the ‘song of ice and fire’. Daenerys is fire and Jon snow is ice being under the Stark household for so long. Jon in himself is also ice and fire both, now that we know he’s a Targaryen. So Jon is a Stark-Targaryen alliance (ice and fire). Now bear with me as I get there. The man who was turned into the Night King is also claimed to be a Stark ancestor. So what if Jon is not the first of a Stark-Targaryen alliance? What if all this has happened before and history is repeating itself? What if the Night King is also a Stark-Targaryen alliance when he was a man – the first of the Starks and the Targaryens. History can be a bit blurry right?

Reason number 5: This is just me trying to put bits and pieces together of whatever information we have and whatever we have seen on TV so far. We know Jon was let go by the Night King on a couple of occasions before when the leader of the White Walkers had a chance to kill him. Maybe, that points to the fact that there is a connection between Jon and the Night King.

Also, Sam says Jon is Aegon Targaryen the 6^th of his name. What if the first Aegon Targaryen was also born of alliance between Stark and Targaryen, long before the Westerosi households were up in arms against each other? Maybe, Night King is the long lost ancestor of Jon and was also an Aegon Targaryen. Also the affinity of Rhaegal towards Lyanna and vice versa, might be a sign of affinity between another Targaryen towards a Stark before.

So what do you think about this theory? I know there are lot of loopholes and there can be lot of suggestions as well, but think about it. The first episode of season 8 was a reflection of the very first episode of Game of Thrones in terms of symbolism. It is like history repeating itself. What if the entire Game of Thrones saga is just HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF?