'Game of Thrones' Season 8 Spoilers: Why a Dead Character Could Come Back

The cast of Game of Thrones has never been smaller as we head into Season 8. After so many deaths, it’s natural to wonder whether you’ve favorite deceased character will return for the show’s final season, but a newly resurfaced theory has us convinced that one of Game of Thrones’ most conniving characters might not be as dead as he seems. Will Littlefinger appear in Season 8 after “dying” in the Season 7 finale? Here’s why it’s not as impossible as it might seem.

In short, the idea here is that Lord Petyr Baelish (aka, Littlefinger) figured out what the Stark siblings were planning in Season 7 and came up with a plan to escape his death sentence.

“It’s not really crazy since it makes much more sense than him being defeated by Sansa, Arya and Bran in a kid’s game,” redditor u/RamaGarcia wrote in a thread discussing “out of the box” theories.

The theory goes that Littlefinger hired a faceless woman to die in his place, which sounds like pure fan fiction until you take a closer look at a few key moments from the last season of Game of Thrones.

A video published on YouTube explains exactly how this all makes sense. First of all, the Stark kids give away their plan in several conversations with Littlefinger, including one where Bran repeats the famous “chaos is a ladder” quote back to Baelish, essentially revealing his powers as the Three-Eyed Raven. We also know from previous seasons that Littlefinger’s family originally comes from Bravos, where the Faceless Men are based. So it’s possible he knows about the secret assassins.

Most importantly, there’s a scene in Game of Thrones Season 7 where Littlefinger meets with a mysterious woman in Winterfell. We can’t hear most of their conversation, but she seems to say “Your time’s up.” Then he hands her a small metal object that could be a coin.

So did Littlefinger pay a faceless woman to die for him? Maybe. More importantly, assuming he did, what could that mean for Game of Thrones Season 8? If everything thinks he’s dead, Littlefinger would be free to escape Westeros entirely, but something tells us his desire for power will outweigh any instinct for self-preservation.

Maybe Baelish will head to Kings Landing and form an alliance with Cersei Lannister. After all, the only person who hates the Starks right now more than Littlefinger is Cersei.

Game of Thrones Season 8 premieres April 14 on HBO.