Fans of Game of Thrones were finally given a proper glimpse of season eight with HBO dropping the highly-anticipated official trailer last week (March 5). The two minute and two-second promo provided a wealth of hints about what’s in store and brand new content to analyse. Season seven ended with Daenerys’ (Emilia Clarke) dragon Viserion being resurrected by the Night King (Vladimir Furdik) – so does this mean the beast is an undead wight or a sentient White Walker?
WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Game of Thrones season 7
Fans will remember in season seven, the Night King killed the smallest of the dragons Viserion before resurrecting him and turning him into an ice dragon.
Who could forget the highly debated ice chains that were used to drag the dead dragon from the bottom of a frozen lake?
The series ended with a sinister shot of Viserion brought back to life and breathing icy blue flames on the Wall.
What is an Ice Dragon?
According to A Song of Ice and Fire mythology, an ice dragon is a creature from legend somewhat resembling a dragon, but made of ice and breathing cold instead of fire.
In the books and series, long before Viserion arrived in Westeros, ice dragons are spoken about by various characters.
They are said to roam the Shivering Sea and the White Waste and are described as being made out of living ice with pale blue crystal eyes, vast translucent wings and very cold breath that can instantly freeze people.
So the very opposite of normal fire-breathing dragons essentially.
There is also a constellation of stars to the north called the ice dragon in the books.
Is Viserion an Ice Dragon?
At first, it makes sense to call Viserion an ice dragon, but the creatures are described as natural beings, not former dragons who have been changed.
Therefore, that would make Viserion either a wight dragon or a White Walker dragon.
White Walkers are inhuman beings with mystic powers and we see how they are created in the series when the children of the forest make the Night King by stabbing dragon glass into his heart.
Subsequently, the Night King created more White Walkers by taking the infant sons of Craster and touching their faces, which immediately turned them into White Walkers.
Wight is a catch-all term for reanimated human corpses aka zombies who are under the control of the White Walkers.
So by this logic, it would seem Viserion is a wight as he is a reanimated corpse.
Beings need to be alive, like Craster’s sons, to be turned into White Walkers.
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However, the season seven finale script was released last year in order to be eligible for an Emmy and it states: “He’s [Night King] done the same thing to Viserion that he did to Craster’s sons. Only those were babies, and this is a dragon.”
But Viserion was already dead so this doesn’t quite add up – unless he wasn’t dead when he was brought down by the Night King’s arrow.
Either way, fans will have to wait and see for sure when season eight arrives back on screens next month.
There is also a theory that Jon Snow, being resurrected himself, may have the ability to control and even ride Viserion in season eight.
Game of Thrones season 8 premieres on April 14 on HBO and Sky Atlantic and on NOW TV on April 15
