'Game of Thrones' Fan Theorizes Why Arya Must Now Kill Bran [SPOILERS]

This story includes spoilers for 'Game of Thrones' Season 8, Episode 3, "The Long Night."

There’s no denying the latest Game of Thrones episode “The Long Night” was met with a divided reaction from fans. Many were angry the Night King was defeated with just one easy stab, especially since we still had so many questions about the undead leader. Fans believe there has to be more to the whole conflict between him and Bran Stark. As we all question what the Night King’s true motives were, one fan theory brings a new idea into the mix.

Redditor SilentPr3dator suggests that the Night King might not have been the villain at all. They argue that the Three-Eyed-Raven is actually evil and wants to kill all of mankind, in turn resulting in Bran having those intentions as well. After seeing what men do—killing and destroying nearly everything—the theory states that it’s made the last greenseer want to cleanse the world.

This would explain why Bran has been causing destruction throughout time, perhaps even causing the Mad King to go insane. This is an idea which has circulated around Reddit for some time (we saw that he’s clearly capable of it when he caused Hodor to lose his mind). According to the fan's argument:

“The White Walkers were, in fact, ‘good’—so to speak. They have been trying to kill the [Three-Eyed-Raven] for generations. As soon as he ventured South of the wall in the form of Bran, they followed suit ONLY to try kill [to] him. So what does the [Three-Eyed-Raven] do? He manipulates the rest of humanity to save him from the [White Walkers], painting THEM as the evil guy. That's his only option. The [Night King]'s mark is on him and will hunt him down.”

Going with this idea—that the Three-Eyed-Raven has engineered the entire thing—would explain why Bran gives Arya Stark the dagger to kill the Night King. But the theory becomes even more interesting when the user postulates that just as Arya killed the Night King, she will be the one to kill the Three-Eyed-Raven, too.

The Redditor believes that Melisandre's prophecy to Arya—“Brown eyes, blue eyes, green eyes. Eyes you'll shut forever”—in both Season 3 and Season 8 signifies the brown eyes of Walder Frey (whom Arya killed), the blue eyes of the Night King (whom she also just killed) and green eyes of the greenseer, a.k.a. Bran. This would mean she’ll have to kill her brother as well.

We’re all hoping for more of an explanation as to what Bran’s intentions and plans are, and this theory would definitely be epic if it turned out to be true. With just three episodes of Game of Thrones left, we don’t have long until the truth is finally uncovered.

This article also appears on Mental Floss.