House of the Dragon sparks fan theory Game of Thrones’ Night King was a Targaryen

Anyone who watched Game of Thrones will know the Night King left about a thousand questions behind him, mostly because HBO offed him before he got to say a single word. With House of the Dragon digging ever deeper into Targaryen history, the Night King speculation train hasn't just left the station — it's tearing down the tracks, brakes off. The theory du jour? That the Night King was actually a Targaryen all along. If you're into wild fan theories, it's catnip. If not, it's a bit of a headache. Let's untangle it.

Speculation over the Night King's Targaryen links first cropped up during Game of Thrones' original run and exploded again after House of the Dragon offered up mystic visions, prophetic eggs, and a steady supply of Targaryen weirdness.

Where this theory comes from

Right, here's the argument: there are three main bits of 'evidence' put forward by people who swear the Night King is a secret Targaryen.

• In Game of Thrones' later seasons, the Night King gets himself a dragon. And if there's anything drummed into us, it's that riding dragons is a Targaryen-only club (well, unless you count the other Valyrian dragonlords wiped out in the Doom).
• He doesn't burn when blasted by dragon fire at the Battle of Winterfell. That's usually Daenerys's gig—everyone else seems to go up like a torch.
• The pattern the White Walkers leave with body parts looks (if you squint and ignore the gore) quite a lot like the Targaryen crest.

If you actually break it down, though, there's a much duller explanation for the dragon taming bit: the Night King brought Viserion back from the dead, and everything he resurrects is under his control. Just as his army of wights march wherever he points, dead-Viserion takes orders. No Targaryen magic required—just standard undead management.

As for the dragon fire business, that's debatable. In the actual books, Daenerys's fire immunity only happens once—and it's not even a classic Targaryen trait. Most Targaryens are as flammable as a hay bale. But they've no real reason why the Night King could wade through Drogon's fire like he was strolling through a summer rain. Maybe it's just 'Night King powers', as unsatisfying as that is. The bit about the massacre patterns looking like a Targaryen sigil is a real stretch, mostly propped up by wishful thinking and a few shots from House of the Dragon thrown in for good measure.

The Daemon and Aemond connection

House of the Dragon pokes the fan theory bear even harder. Now, some reckon that characters like Daemon or Aemond could be destined to become the Night King himself. Daemon's the fan-favourite pick simply for being the wildcard of the series; plus, his vision of the Army of the Dead in the season two finale sent conspiracy theorists into overdrive. In that vision, the White Walker they show has the famous Targaryen white hair, which, fair enough, is a bit on the nose. But unless Daemon is also shape-shifting, growing antlers, and inventing time travel, it's still a huge leap to say he's the Night King.

The other piece of ammo for this theory is Daemon's end in the books. In the big showdown, his body is never found, unlike Aemond's, giving just enough narrative wiggle room for wild transformation theories. That said, there's nothing in the actual story linking him directly to White Walkers, outside of this suspiciously open ending. Aemond gets shoehorned into the Night King theory, too, mostly because he's got the 'icy' look and a blue sapphire where his eye used to be, but there just isn't much for it—his corpse is accounted for in the text, so unless he's risen as a particularly angry wight, it's a dead end.

The problem: the timeline (and canon)

There's a much bigger snag: the timeline. Game of Thrones made it pretty clear in season six that the Night King was created by the Children of the Forest, using some unfortunate First Man as a magical guinea pig. That's thousands of years before the Targaryens even left Valyria, well before Aegon's Conquest or dragons in Westeros altogether. Unless you want to bulldoze straight through established canon with some timey-wimey nonsense, the Night King can't be a secret Valyrian, let alone a Targaryen.

Given that, it's far more likely the Night King is linked to one of the ancient families descended from the First Men—so, if anything, House Stark (the books even play with this via Old Nan's stories). There are already enough wild prophecies, lost eggs, and undead ice zombies to fill up a shelf; shoehorning in a surprise Targaryen bloodline just doesn't track—no matter how good the theories sound online.

That said, with fantasy it's not impossible, just extremely unlikely unless HBO fancies a canon-busting twist to top all twists.

House of the Dragon is set about 172 years before Game of Thrones, telling the rise and (eventual) fall of the Targaryens—the last surviving family from Valyria who actually rode dragons.

The cast

In the casting department: Milly Alcock and Emily Carey play young Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Hightower at first, but the show moves things along to older versions played by Emma D'Arcy and Olivia Cooke. Matt Smith is all brooding and chaos as Prince Daemon Targaryen. Rounding it out, Paddy Considine does a turn as King Viserys Targaryen, Rhaenyra's long-suffering dad.