Could One of These 4 Targaryens Secretly Be the Night King?

House of the Dragon Season 3 wasted no time reigniting one of fandom’s favorite guessing games. Episode 1 introduced the Isle of Faces and its resident Green Man — a figure tied directly to the Children of the Forest, the very beings who created the Night King in Game of Thrones. It’s the clearest on-screen link yet between the Dance of the Dragons and the White Walkers, and it’s sent fans straight back to a question the fandom has been asking since House of the Dragon began: which Targaryen secretly becomes the Night King?

House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones theories are running wild. First, there was the theory that Daemon Targaryen was the Night King. Then fans questioned whether or not Viserys Targaryen could be the White Walker with the spear. If that wasn’t enough, Aemond Targaryen was also accused of being the Night King. Now, with Season 3 back in the mix, an old candidate has resurfaced too: Ser Criston Cole. Here’s every theory, and why none of them hold up.

Theory: Daemon Targaryen

The most persistent of the bunch. It’s built on Daemon’s Season 2 finale vision of a White Walker with unmistakably Targaryen hair, combined with the fact that his body is never definitively recovered after the Dance of the Dragons in the books — a theory fans have been building since the original vision first aired. Season 3’s Isle of Faces imagery has only added fuel to it. We’ve broken this theory down in full — including why the timeline makes it functionally impossible — in our dedicated piece on the Daemon Targaryen Night King theory.

Theory: Viserys Targaryen

Throughout the release of the House of the Dragon episodes, fans have suspected many of the characters to be the future Night King, primarily because of similar facial structures. There have been several theories about how it might be possible, inspired by things such as their body never being found after a battle. One of those characters was the late King Viserys — though some fans also think he could be the White Walker with the spear that Sam Tarly encountered. It would be incredibly ironic if Viserys the Peaceful became the creature causing havoc for the entirety of Westeros. There are several reasons why Viserys I Targaryen can’t be the Night King. Here are a few.

1. The Timeline Makes No Sense

When fans are making up their theories, they seem to forget that there is a very long, very detailed timeline that sets out all the events that take place during the time of Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon and before. The Night King was the first White Walker, born in 10,000 BC when the Children of the Forest kidnapped one of the First Men and stabbed him with a dragonglass dagger. King Viserys was born in 77 AC, a couple of thousand years after the creation of the White Walkers. There is no way he could be the Night King.

2. Viserys I Targaryen’s Death

The White Walkers are very strange creatures. They are neither living nor dead and are created through cursed dragonglass or the touch of another White Walker. Wights are created and controlled by the White Walkers when they raise the dead. Viserys can’t have been turned into either. If the Night King had revived Viserys for his army, he would have had to travel to King’s Landing, find the old king’s body, revive him as a wight and return to the Wall in time for the start of Game of Thrones. People definitely would have remembered the White Walkers trying to get into the Red Keep to get their hands on an old king’s body.

3. The Catspaw Dagger

The Catspaw dagger has become one of the many pieces that link Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon. It was forged by Aegon the Conqueror when he dreamed about an attack from the North that would devastate all of Westeros. To ensure the survival of the Seven Kingdoms, he passed a warning down to his descendants through the dagger: “From my blood, come the prince that was promised and his will be the song of ice and fire.” Westeros would be safe if a Targaryen sat on the Iron Throne. It wouldn’t make sense for the person responsible for the destruction of Westeros to come from the same blood as the person meant to save it.

King Viserys being the Night King, a White Walker, or even a wight makes no sense, given everything that has already transpired before the events of House of the Dragon.

Theory: Aemond Targaryen

The blue-eyed reveal under Aemond’s eyepatch was enough to send fans straight to the theory boards, drawing an easy visual line to the Night King’s own glowing blue stare. The timeline problem is the same one that sinks every other candidate on this list, and Aemond’s own confirmed fate in the books rules it out entirely. We’ve covered the full case for and against in our piece on whether Aemond Targaryen is the Night King.

Theory: Ser Criston Cole

A scorned lover can be one of the most dangerous things in Westeros, and Ser Criston Cole is the perfect example of this. Though he began his role in House of the Dragon as one of Princess Rhaenyra’s closest and most intimate allies, he eventually became another name on the long list of enemies keeping Rhaenyra away from the Iron Throne. When Ser Criston became Queen Alicent’s sworn protector, he had, unknowingly, sealed his fate in Rhaenyra’s eyes. If there’s one thing you should never do, it’s cross a Targaryen, and this had deadly consequences for the noble Ser Criston.

Could Ser Criston Cole be the human that would eventually become the Night King? In short, no. We know precious little about the White Walkers, other than that they aim to destroy every living thing in Westeros. What we do know, thanks to the visions revealed to Bran by the Three-Eyed Raven, is that the Night King — and the other White Walkers — were created by the Children of the Forest thousands of years before the time of Ser Criston Cole.

In Game of Thrones, we see what we can presume is the creation of the Night King in a strange ritual performed by the Children of the Forest, involving a piece of dragonglass driven into their victim’s heart, which partially explains the creatures’ weakness to that material. In A Song of Ice and Fire lore, the White Walkers were created using the live bodies of the First Men of Westeros — as far as we know, they are not reanimated corpses like the wights, but undead creatures in their own right. By the time of Ser Criston Cole, the Night King is already planning his conquest north of the Wall, and there’s little chance he’d travel all the way south just to recruit a single Kingsguard knight to his army.

So Which Theory Actually Holds Up?

None of them, technically. The timeline alone rules out every human-to-Night-King theory on this list, more than a thousand years before any of these characters were born. But that’s never stopped House of the Dragon fans before, and Season 3’s Isle of Faces tease means the theories aren’t going away. Tell us: which Targaryen do you think is secretly the Night King?