Game of Thrones is gearing up for the biggest battle the show has ever seen: At Winterfell, Gendry is forging weapons made of dragonglass, Brienne is training soldiers, and Jon is going through an existential crisis. No one knows who will live or die (or if anyone will live at all).

The White Walkers are very close to Winterfell, but where is their leader? At the end of season 8's second episode, "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms," we saw the frontline of White Walkers leading the wights toward Winterfell, but the Night King was nowhere to be seen. We know that the Night King is soaring through the air on Viserion somewhere, but what if his plan doesn't include making an appearance at the battle at all?

As Mashable reported, fans on Reddit have already started predicting that the Night King won't show up for the fight. They believe that he will use the battle as a distraction and that, while his army is attacking Winterfell, he'll fly to King's Landing instead.

The basic argument here is that the Night King is not stupid. He knows that it would be easy for Daenerys's two remaining dragons to fly up to the recently resurrected Viserion and breathe fire on him to kill him. So why not attack another, unguarded target?

"If you have a super weapon that you can't use against a particular target, then you find a different target," one Redditor explained.

So while everyone is expecting him to show up at Winterfell, the Night King could instead be flying to King's Landing in order to kill everyone there and create yet another army of the dead in the south—an army that whoever survives the battle in the north will ultimately have to conquer.

There are a couple of scenes in previous seasons that add some credence to this theory: In season 4, Bran had a series of visions which all came true—except the one where he sees a destroyed throne room and the shadow of a dragon pass over. This could have been the Night King on Viserion, instead of Daenerys and her dragons (as was previously believed). In season 2, Daenerys also had a vision where the throne room was destroyed and covered in snow.

While it does seem like a reasonable theory, we won't know for sure until next week, when audiences will finally witness what is being touted as the biggest battle in Game of Throneshistory.

[h/t Mashable]

This article was originally published on www.mentalfloss.com as New Game of Thrones Theory Predicts That the Night King Won't Be at the Battle of Winterfell.