A major fan theory could have been hinted at in the latest Game of Thrones season eight teaser
A 90-second trailer for
Game of Thrones was released overnight on Monday along with the news the first episode will air on 14 April.
The Stark children play a big part in the latest
Game of Thrones teaser. But while Jon Snow, Arya and Sansa Stark all feature, their brother Bran is a notable exclusion from the preview footage.
In the clip, the three Starks come face-to-face with statues of themselves in the crypts below Winterfell, with a particular emphasis on Jon as he passes a statue of Ned's sister Lyanna Stark.
https://twitter.com/GameOfThrones/status/1084631184804433921
When he walks past his birth mother's crypt a small feather is blown out of her hands, a female voiceover then says: "You must protect him," the same words Lyanna spoke when she gave Ned baby Jon just before she died.
While some fans have suggested the return of the feather motif means
something sinister lies in the future for Jon Snow, others have suggested that the clip has a big suggestion about Bran - and the
ever-present theory that he is the Night King.
Bran is, of course, the Three-Eyed Raven, a near-omniscient being able to see the future and the past. But the speculation about Bran also being the show's main bad guy stems from a conversation between the Children of the Forest previously, in which he asked them: "It was you? You made the White Walkers?"
Leaf replies: "We were at war. We were being slaughtered. Our sacred trees cut down. We needed to defend ourselves."
Bran: "From whom?"
Leaf: "From you."
This could have meant mankind as a whole, but lots of fans have taken the "you" to literally mean Bran.
There has also been a lot of online speculation about the similarities in the Night King and Bran's
facial structures and attire and a hidden message in the season seven finale showed the wights walking in a 'wolf' formation, which is the sigil of House Stark.
Following the release of the new teaser fans on social media have suggested that the end moments of clip could validate the Bran / Night King theory further. One suggestion is that Bran is absent from the video because the entire trailer is actually one of Bran's vision.
But another say that the encroaching cold is the trademark of the Night King and with Bran the only absent Stark child, the implication is that Bran
is or
will become the Night King.
It might all seem farfetched, but remember, the idea that Jon Snow was the bastard son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen was initially a fan theory, only for it to be then proven correct in the seventh season.
Is Bran the Night King? We will only know for sure once the programme comes to an end.
Here's what people had to say on Twitter...
https://twitter.com/primskEE/status/1084706863403327489
https://twitter.com/AishaSanders42/status/1084819333904240651
https://twitter.com/primskEE/status/1084706863403327489
https://twitter.com/MentionMeT/status/1084637480882786304
https://twitter.com/theblackpanthcr/status/1084649332371087360
https://twitter.com/bruceuwayne/status/1084775409282138113
