Game of Thrones season 7 ended a couple days ago, but we're still scanning the finale episode for all sorts of insight into the show's future — anything to tide us over for the next year until the show returns. And we've just stumbled on a seriously game-changing clue that has us all screaming and wishing it wasn't true.
There is a theory that Bran Stark is the Night King. We've previously discussed this theory in detail. Its basic premise is that Bran uses his time-travel abilities to go back to the moment that the Night King was created by the Children of the Forest in order to intervene, but accidentally gets trapped within the body of the zombie lord instead. It's not as far-fetched as it seems: there's a few clues that suggest this, including Bran's clothing suspiciously mirroring the Night King's garb.
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But the finale episode, "The Dragon and the Wolf," may have dropped a major hint that this theory is true. It comes to us from Reddit by way of Marie Claire, and we need to discuss it immediately.
Remember that terrifying scene of undead Viserion destroying the Wall? When the Army of the Dead began their march , there was an aerial scene of the horde as the trudged through the glacial remains of the Wall and Eastwatch. And this aerial scene happens to show the horde assembled into...wait is that a Stark direwolf head?!
I couldn't believe it either. To investigate this theory, I rewatched the last few minutes of the finale several times to make sure my eyes weren't playing tricks on me. And yes, it definitely looks like the Army of the Dead is shaped like a direwolf head. The direwolf is, of course, the sigil of House Stark, and it seems to be a massive clue that Bran is the Night King. Or at least that the Army of the Dead has some connection to the Starks. In the books, the Night King is a fallen Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, who is rumored to have been a Stark.
Personally, I hate this theory, because I want Bran to be a quiet, honorable Stark like the rest of his family, not the embodiment of inexorable evil. Unfortunately, when it comes to Game of Thrones, there are no happy endings.