The White Walkers have always been the Big Bad ofGame of Thrones. They were teased in the very first scene of the series, and their presence has been beefed up over the years as a constant reminder of an oncoming threat that could destroy all of Westeros. While the White Walkers don’t seem to have any politics or beliefs beyond killing anything that gets in their way, they do have an organizational structure where wights (reanimated corpses) follow White Walkers and the White Walkers follow the Night King (played byRichard Brakein Seasons 4 and 5 andVladimir Furdikin Seasons 6 and 7).

As far as we can tell, the Night King, while never speaking, does have some serious attitude. When Jon Snow was leaving Hardhome after the wights overran the town, the Night King stepped straight down the pier, looked right at Jon Snow, and then raised the dead as if to threaten his enemy. Although the Night King doesn’t have emotions, it was clearly a threat and a dramatically made point. He wants to inspire fear even if he doesn’t have any emotions.

But that’s still not enough for some fans, and now they are wondering if there’s more to The Night King than meets the eye. Currently, we’ve been working under the assumption that the Night King and his fellow White Walkers were created by the Children of the Forest. This is what Bran discovers in Season 6, Episode 5 “The Door.” Here’s the scene:

The Children of the Forest explain they were at war and created the White Walkers as a defense against mankind.

But we also found out in Season 4, Episode 4, “Oathkeeper”, that White Walkers can create other White Walkers by using their magic on human infants:

So if you work under the assumption that White Walkers can turn anyone into a White Walker (and remembering that wights are just the reanimated dead), fans have started speculating that the Night King could be someone we already know.

One theory that’s been circulating is that Rhaegar Targaryen is the Night King. We’ve never seen Rhaegar in the show, but we assumed he was killed by Robert Baratheon at the Battle of the Trident. However, asGame of Throneshas pointed out, stories we hear are not necessarily what truly happened. It’s possible that Rhaegar is actually the Night King somehow, and that by virtue of him being in the bloodline of the Targaryens (fire) and then becoming a White Walker (ice), he fulfills the title of the book series,A Song of Fire and Ice.

Another theory floating around is that Bran is somehow the Night King by virtue of his ability to fuck with the laws of space and time, with evenTimethinking this is a possibility. The theory goes like this: Bran, in his effort to save the world, goes back in time, wargs into the body of the First Man the Children of the Forest were going to turn into the first White Walker to stop them, he fails, and his consciousness gets trapped in the White Walker so history fulfills itself. He’s predestined to fail, but he also gives the Night King “Three-Eyed Raven” abilities.

Personally, I think both of these theories are kind of silly, and pretty much amount to fans trying to fill in an empty space so they can have some kind of investment in the series’ main villain. If the Night King is just an unthinking force of nature who indiscriminately kills any of the main characters, he’s not very interesting. So fans are trying to give the character a rich mythology that will make us invest in him.

However, that’s never what the White Walkers have been about. They’ve always been a force of nature, the equivalent of a natural disaster, which makes them more relevant thematically. In the real world, we face countless threats that we could overcome through mutual cooperation. We could work together to stop climate change or nuclear proliferation, but our own petty squabbles make us lose sight of the bigger picture.Game of Thronesis setting up its own version of this conflict where the characters will have to work past their deep-seated grudges or else they’ll all die.

That’s why the Night King doesn’t need a backstory or personal stakes. He doesn’t have to secretly be Rhaegar or Bran, and if he was, that would take even more work; with the series almost over, the showrunners would basically have to color in a character for the Night King and then try to set up personal relationships with a guy who, to this point, never speaks and never emotes. But now he’s going to become a multidimensional characters because—surprise!—we knew him all along. At that point, you may as well make him Tommy Westphall.

So what do you think? Is the Night King a familiar face, or is this just a lot of fan fiction trying to fill in a gap that’s not supposed to be filled? Sound off in the comments section below, and take our poll below on who you think might be the Night King.

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