After what has been a curious emphasis on the crypts in the first two episodes of the final season, a new Game of Thrones Season 8 theory posits if the White Walkers will resurrect dead Stark family members. Especially as a large number of Winterfell citizens are laying low in the catacombs — could this mean trouble?
Warning: Spoilers ahead for Game of Thrones
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The prospect of having the battle all the more personal and harder to fight considering who’s in the crypts, like Gilly, Sansa, and Tyrion, could make for a very emotional and frightening episode. Additionally, Stark siblings , Sansa, Bran and Arya as well as Jon would be surprised and pained to see their father, Ned Stark’s corpse brought back only for him to be fighting alongside the Night King.
IGN proposed this new possibility, implying that if the Night King reaches the crypts of Winterfell, he could potentially bring back some of the fallen Starks, which would certainly be an insane development.
The graven crypts have been heavily featured in the promos for the new, and final, season of Game of Thrones, so it is not much of a stretch to presume that a major development will take place there.
On another hand, however, IGN notes that there is not much evidence to support the notion that Starks such as Catelyn and Robb are even actually buried in Winterfell. Ned is there, but he was beheaded and there does not yet appear to be a precedent fr a headless person to be revived by the White Walkers.
Maybe the most likely Stark to return could be Rickon, who was killed at the Battle of the Bastards.
This theory could also serve as an opportunity to introduce Lady Stoneheart, who is the vengeful, risen spirit of Catelyn Stark. In the book series, Beric Dondarrion and the Brotherhood Without Banners discover her body after the Red Wedding and raise her from the dead.
There were rumors in Season 7 that she was seen during a scene in Winterfell, but that speculation was mostly unfounded.
In other Night King news, the actor who plays the fear-inducing villain — Vladimir Furdik — recently opened up about the new season and revealed that the leader of the White Walkers does have his sights set on someone in specific.
“People will see he has a target he wants to kill, and you will find out who that is. There’s also that moment [in “Hardhome”] when Jon Snow was on the boat and the Night King looked at him and raised his arms — there’s a similar and even stronger moment between Jon and the Night King this time,” Furdik said.
He also shared some insight into why he believes the Night King is motivated to do evil.
“Somebody made him the Night King. Nobody knows who he was before — a soldier or part of [nobility]. He never wanted to be the Night King. I think he wants revenge. Everybody in this story has two sides — a bad side and a good side. The Night King only has one side, a bad side.”
Game of Thrones airs Sunday, April 28 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.
