Gendry made his triumphant return to Game of Thrones last season (presumably after several years of rowing). Now, actor Joe Dempsie is teasing the possibility of a game-changing theory about his character in Season 8.
In a Men’s Health interview, Dempsie admitted to wading into Gendry theory territory and was intrigued by one that fans came up with all the way back in Season 1:
I just wanted answers about my character. I was the most curious as to what we might find out about Gendry’s parentage. Obviously, we know that he was the bastard of Robert Baratheon, but who might his mover have been?
There’s a line in season one, and it’s a first scene you ever see of Gendry, where he’s looking to Ned and he’s asked about his mother, and he says he doesn’t remember much about her at all, other than the fact that she had yellow hair and she would sing to him. It’s one of those things where you go, “Do they usually write lines that don’t mean anything, or lines that seem to have significance that [are] never addressed again?” I was kind of intrigued to see what that might mean, and what impact that might have on Gendry’s clout politically.
Political clout indeed!
If (that’s a big “if”) Gendry is not a bastard but in fact the first-born son of Robert and Cersei Baratheon, that would give him an equal if not better claim to the Iron Throne than even Jon or Daenerys. At the very least, it would make him the heir to Storm’s End.
Melisandre *did* insist on the power of Gendry’s king’s blood
To be fair, this is probably just Dempsie throwing out a red herring. Game of Thrones actors are notorious for lying to press in order to throw off fans. And it’d be extremely weird for Dempsie to offer up a theory that ends up being true in Season 8.
But for funsies, let’s go back to review the evidence for a second.
The line Demspie refers to isn’t the only hint that Gendry could be Cersei’s true-born son. In Season 1 when Cersei is trying to offer Catelyn some comfort during Bran’s post-fall coma, she talks about her first son, who she claims was stillborn.
Cersei also describes the baby as a “black-haired beauty,” which is extremely of note because all her other kids are blonde (since they’re actually Jaime’s). Remember that Ned only realized Cersei’s children weren’t Robert’s because the Baratheon “seed is strong,” and only ever produces dark-haired offsprings.
But before you go buying into the King Gendry theory, there’s another more plausible interpretation for why these lines were important
It’s most likely meant to show how, even in these two cases where blonde mothers were thrown into the mix (Cersei and Gendry’s mom), the Baratheon seed was still more dominant. So the fact that all three of Cersei’s other kids were blonde is pretty definitive proof that they are not Robert’s.
Outside of theory territory, Dempsie did also offer some takes on the overall ending, like that it doesn’t end the way fan theories have predicted:
[I’m feeling] joy and, I guess, relief at the fact that they managed to bring this show to such a fantastic close. That’s a daunting prospect for anyone … I think that if the show ended in the way that a lot of people online predicted, then that might be a bit of an anticlimax.
And while that unexpected Season 8 endgame might make some happy, “There may be people that aren’t too keen on the ending. But I really think that it’s one that will stand the test of time.”
Gendry probably won’t sit on the Iron Throne. But there are many other ways he could prove vital to how things end in Season 8, which we’ve speculated about here.
Urgh how many more days are left until April 14?
