Top 10 wildest Game of Thrones fan theories ahead of season 8

Sam is the Prince That Was Promised

That last Sam theory was cute, but we’re in the big leagues now. According to one theory posited by the Redditor MrSilenceT, Samwell Tarly is actually the Prince That Was Promised, aka Azor Ahai, a messianic figure who will save the world from the Night King and his minions.

How’s that, you say? Let’s walk through it, starting with the premise that the Prince That Was Promised (PTWP for short) is destined to be born from the line of Rhaegar Targaryen. The gist of the theory is that, before the sack of King’s Landing, Varys smuggles Aegon Targaryen, the first born son of Rhaegar and Elia Martell, out of the city. In his place, Varys substitutes a random peasant boy, whom the Mountain murders. In the Song of Ice and Fire novels, we’re told that Varys sends Aegon across the Narrow Sea, where he’s renamed Young Griff and raised in secret by Rhaegar’s friend Jon Connington, who prepares him for the day he will retake the Iron Throne. Instead, MrSilenceT posits that young Aegon is sent to be fostered by Randyll Tarly, then a Targaryen loyalist.

So who is Young Griff really, then? According to MrSilenceT, he’s the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, the one born in the Tower of Joy. Varys, the theory goes, wanted two potential Targaryen heirs in case something happened to one, so he smuggled Rhaegar’s son by Lyanna across the Narrow Sea and sent his son by Elia to be fostered at Horn Hill.

Obviously, this is a book-only theory, because on the show, we know that Rhaegar and Lyanna’s son grew up to be Jon Snow. In MrSilenceT’s theory, Jon is the son of Ned Stark and Ashara Dayne. It’s complicated.

So is Sam secretly the hero Westeros needs? We’re gonna say no, particularly on TV. But kudos to MrSilenceT for some serious creativity.