Even as the show came to a close, there is still so much mystery surrounding Game of Thrones‘ White Walkers and their leader. One question fans have always wondered about is whether or not The Night King was actually a Targaryen or a Stark.
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In the world of Game of Thrones, blood and family names are everything. Entire wars have been fought over last names, and being considered a “bastard” can be enough to turn someone into a pariah. Knowing this, every monarch in Westeros — especially in the Seven Kingdoms — has had ties to one of the royal families of old; and I mean every monarch.
As we know from the later seasons of the show, the Night King was created by the Children of the Forest as the ultimate weapon and the last line of defense against the expansion of the First Men. However, the Night King didn’t just materialize out of thin air: he was a living, breathing person before he became the menacing iceman we’ve come to hate in the show.
Knowing that the Night King has a massive amount of magic energy, and is probably someone of royal blood, there are only a few candidates that could have become the commander of the army of the White Walkers.
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A popular theory seems to relate the Night King to the Targaryens. This theory does make sense, to a certain extent. In the show, the Night King is impervious to dragon fire, a trait that some Targaryens seem to demonstrate. He also has a unique, almost innate skill at dragon riding, something that only the Targaryens seem to master in Game of Thrones. Going a bit further into this theory, the Night King’s sigil, which is an odd-looking spiral, also bears a close resemblance with the emblem of House Targaryen. Maybe that’s just a coincidence, but, when we take everything else into consideration, it almost seems too perfect to just be a twist of fate.
However, as much as the Night King could be yet another secret Targaryen, the most likely theory is that he is a member of House Stark. Not only does that hypothesis fit better within the A Song of Ice and Fire lore, but it could also explain some of the Night King’s magical capabilities and his ties to Bran.
There’s a widely-accepted theory that claims that the power that the Night King has over the Army of the Dead has to do with his warging powers. Just as Bran can warg animals, the Night King does the same with the corpses of the recently deceased. Perhaps the only power that the Children of the Forest gave him was the ability to create other White Walkers.
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Geographical proximity could also be another important factor to consider when discussing the identity of the Night King. The creation of the Night King and the first White Walkers happened thousands of years before the Targaryens arrived in Westeros; meanwhile, the Stark were among the first inhabitants of the North, so any test subject acquired by the Children of the Forest would have been likely tied to the Starks.
As far as the books go, we have to consider that the Night King from the show and the “Night’s King” from the books are drastically different entities. There’s a very high chance that the creature we see in the show has some close ties to the Starks, which only makes it all the more tragic that we never got a proper explanation about the origins and objectives of the White Walkers.
