'Game of Thrones': New Theory Suggests How to Defeat an Army of the Dead

We may not know much about Game of Thrones Season 8, but we do know the final season is building towards a battle against the Army of the Dead. At the end of Season 7, the zombie army reached The Wall easily brought it down with an undead dragon on their side. So how can this undead enemy be stopped?

Light spoilers for Game of Thrones below.

Redditor u/cardiacman shares a theory that could offer an explanation as to how humanity survives this zombie invasion.

“All characters that have been burned to death/after death by fire will be reincarnated by R’hllor (god of fire/light/red god),” they write. “You fight an army with an army, an army of burned dead people that you resurrect.”

If there’s any truth to this wild theory, it would also explain how some characters, including deceased but “key individuals [such as] Khal Drogo, Loras Tyrell, Shireen Baratheon, Ned Stark’s father Richard” could potentially return for a climactic final season — though there’s little evidence to indicate that’s going to happen. Still, what better way to end the series than by remembering those who didn’t make it to the end?

u/cardiacman goes on to argue that the Red Priests would be the ones to resurrect this army, suggesting that Bran Stark might even travel back in time again and convince the Mad King to execute a few thousand people just to bolster this undead army in the present.

“There are holes,” the fan says. “But [I don’t know] how you defeat an army of the dead fantastically otherwise.”

It definitely doesn’t make sense, but at the very least it would be pretty awesome to see a zombie Ned Stark take on the White Walker army.

We know there’s an epic battle scene coming in the Season 8. Entertainment Weekly previously revealed that the final six episodes begin with Daenerys and her army reaching Winterfell.

“What follows is a thrilling and tense intermingling of characters — some of whom have never previously met, many who have messy histories — as they all prepare to face the inevitable invasion of the Army of the Dead.”

Filming for that battle took longer than any previous fight scene in the series. In addition to 55 night shoots, which “were only for the battle’s outdoor scenes at the Winterfell set,” they also filmed in the studio “for weeks after that,” according to EW.

“Having the largest battle doesn’t sound very exciting — it actually sounds pretty boring,” showrunner David Benioff said, “We’ve been building towards this since the very beginning, it’s the living against the dead, and you can’t do that in a 12-minute sequence.”

That last sentence makes the above theory unlikely; after all, “burned dead people,” even brought back, are still “dead.”

Game of Thrones Season 8 premieres in April 2019 on HBO.