“You know nothing” – George RR Martin to every GOT lover. Game of Thrones is some messed up sh*t in the best way, whether you read the books and then watched the show or just did one or the other. Oh, you love a character? Now he’s dead. Oh you think someone’s actually going to be happy for once? Hah. Oh you think that one little detail you may have overlooked because it was literally one sentence doesn’t matter? Wrong.
There are so many paranoid Game of Thrones conspiracy theories that it’s a little hard to keep track. And now that the show is going off-book, there could be just as many book theories as there are show theories.
Here’s a look at some of the biggest fan theories, ranked from craziest to actually, totally plausible.
7) Westeros Has Mermaids—er, Mermen—and Varys Is One of Them
There are a lot of theories out there, but this has to be by far the craziest. According to a Reddit user, a merling is a real thing (which it is, in Westeros) but we don’t know anything about them. Little Finger has a ship named “The Merling King” and also implies that he has Varys under his control. The user also points out that people assume Varys is a fat man with robes that cover till the bottom of his feet—could he be hiding a tail you guys?! Is Little Finger keeping Varys’ secret in return for his help?! Is anything real?
6) Theon Murdered His Own Son
Remember when Theon burnt those two boys in tha to save his own skin and pass their bodies off as Bran and Rickon Stark in season two? In A Dance With Dragons, Theon thinks about how he slept with their mother before: “Theon did not want to think about their mother. He had known the miller’s wife for years, had even bedded her. Big heavy breasts with wide dark nipples, a sweet mouth, a merry laugh.” Seeing as Theon would have only been 12 when the first son was born, many think that the younger of the two was Theon’s kid—making him a kinslayer. Fans think this explains his terrible bad luck since taking Winterfell, as we all know how the gods feel about slaying one of your own. (If you don’t—not good. Not good at all.)
5) Jaimie Will Kill Cersei
In season five, Cersei has a flashback where she visits Maggy, a witch, and gets her fortune told. With her last question, she learns that after her tears have “drowned” her, “the valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you.” Valonqar means “little brother” in High Valyrian, and Cersei immediately assumes this means her littlest brother Tyrion. But, even though she and Jaime are twins, Jaime was technically born after her–making him younger. And let’s be real—getting offed by your brother whom you used to get off and then dismissed/rejected would be very Game of Thrones-y.
4) Sandor Clegane Is Alive and Will Fight His Brother (Who May or May Not Be Dead)
A pretty popular theory is that Sandor Clegane—AKA the Hound—is not dead even though we saw Arya leave him after Brienne had kicked him off a cliff. Instead, he becomes a gravedigger—something that we get to hear more of in the book, as Brienne eventually comes across a huge man digging graves for a monastery, wearing a hood with injuries that would correspond to the Hound’s. His brother, Gregor—AKA the Mountain–was definitely dead, but now seems to have turned into some sort of zombie/Frankenstein experiment thanks to Cersei’s go-to/former maester Qyburn. The idea is that the the Hound will finally seek revenge on his abusive brother in a showdown named by fans as the “Cleganebowl.” Okay then.
3) Tyrion Isn’t a Lannister—He’s a Targaryen
In other Lannister theories (and one that definitely gives more credo to no. 5), Tyrion is not a Lannister, he’s a Targaryen. Some fans have surmised that Tyrion is actually the son of Mad King Aerys Targaryen and Joanna Lannister. In A Dance With Dragons, Ser Barristan Selmy tells Daenerys that the Mad King was head over heels for Joanna, and that they had something between them (possibly even after Joanna and Tywin were married).
Prince Aerys … as a youth, he was taken with [Joanna]. When she and Tywin wed, your father drank too much wine at the wedding feast and was heard to say that it was a great pity that the lord’s right to the first night had been abolished. A drunken jape, no more, but Tywin Lannister was not a man to forget such words, or the…liberties your father took during the bedding.?
But while that argument is compelling, some take this to mean that Mad King Aerys is actually the father of Cersei and Jaime—as they were born first and it would be prettyGame of Thrones in spirit if Tywin–who loved his twins but hated Tyrion–actually had only one legitimate heir: the one he hated.
2) Jon Snow Is a Twin—And We’ve Met His Sister
Okay, so this hinges on theory #1 being true, so we’ll just explain both real fast. Basically, Jon Snow is a Targaryen—the son of Lyanna Stark (Ned’s sister) and Rhaegar Targaryen. The theory states that when Ned arrives at the Tower of Joy during Robert’s Rebellion, he finds his sister in a “bed of blood,” (childbirth?!) and that she dies shortly afterward, asking her brother: “Promise me, Ned.”
To get to Lyanna, six men entered but only two survived—Ned Stark and Howland Reed. Though we’ve never met Howland, Jojen and Meera Reed both turn up later in the series to help Bran Stark on his mission to find the three-eyed raven. In the books, Meera and Jon Snow both have the same birth dates (the same year Lyanna died), similar looks (dark hair/slim), and c’mon–we all like a plot twist.
1) Jon Snow Isn’t a Bastard at All—He’s a Targaryen
As we’ve (sort of) gone over in not much detail, the biggest fan theory is that Jon Snow is not a bastard—he’s the son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen. There is so much evidence for this, that it seems a little hard to argue. But one of the most convincing is that early on, Arya and Jon are said to look so much alike that Sansa jokes Arya is a bastard like Jon. Arya is then said to resemble Ned’s sister, Lyanna. DO YOU SEE NOW?
Source: Marieclaire.com