This 'Game Of Thrones' prequel fan theory sounds incredible

With Doctor Who’s John Simm joining the Game Of Thrones prequel series (rumoured to be called The Long Night), becoming a part of a cast that includes the likes of Naomi Watts, we’re getting excited enough to start over-analysing every tiny detail about the show.

With the proper series ending soon, we need something to obsess over.

And there’s actually enough in the official synopsis to start speculating about what could be an insanely exciting element of the new show.

Read more: Game of Thrones prequel adds John Simm

‘Taking place thousands of years before the events of Game of Thrones, the series chronicles the world’s descent from the golden Age of Heroes into its darkest hour. From the horrifying secrets of Westeros’s history to the true origin of the White Walkers, the mysteries of the East to the Starks of legend, only one thing is for sure: It’s not the story we think we know.’

The bit that’s getting us a bit giddy in that description is the ‘mysteries of the East’ element. In the books, the eastern side of Westeros is known as known as the ‘Golden Empire of Yi Ti.’

One fan has connected the region to some significant stuff from the main series, and it sounds awesome.

According to Redditor phdknave, “What’s fascinating is that the Yi Ti have a very similar story to the Night’s King and his Corpse Queen as being the reason for the Long Night happening in their culture. The Yi Ti had the last emperor of the Great Empire of the Dawn, the Bloodstone Emperor. His sister was the rightful empress and he had her murdered and declared himself emperor.”

‘Then the stories say he took a “tiger-woman” to wife (literally supposed to be a half-tiger demon race), started torturing and enslaving his people, practicing necromancy, cannibalism, and began worshipping a strange black stone that fell from the sky. This led to the Yi Ti goddess the Maiden-Made-of-Light to turn her back on the world, allowing the Lion of Night to usher in a dark age. As far as I’m aware, this happens right around the time of the first Long Night.’

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Seeing this play out on a long-form HBO series would be worth the cost of the show as far as we’re concerned.

And that cost is going to be high – “$50 million (per season) would never fly for what we are trying to do. We are going big,” HBO’s VP of drama, Francesca Orsi said.

We’ve done some digging ourselves, and there’s an even cooler element in Yi Ti that could play a part in this new series. Namely, the Lion Of Night.

The Lion of Night is a god in Yi Ti, who the Faceless Men believe is another representation of the Many-Faced God – there’s even a statue of it in the House of Black and White which is most commonly visited by rich dudes (Arya Stark sees it in A Feast For Crows).

According to stories told by the priestly scribes of Yin, the Lion of Night fathered a son on the Maiden-Made-of-Light.

Read more: Game Of Thrones cast says show’s ending is ‘numbing’

This son was the God-on-Earth, who ruled the Great Empire of the Dawn for ten thousand year before ascending to the heavens. The descendants of the God-Earth ruled the empire after him, each ruling a shorter time than the previous one.

That’s until the brother of the Amethyst Empress usurped her in the Blood Betrayal and crowned himself as the Bloodstone Emperor, ushering in the Long Night.

The Maiden-Made-of-Light turned her back upon the world and the Lion of Night came forth in all his wroth to punish the wickedness of man.

The Five Forts (think ‘The Wall’), which predate the Golden Empire of Yi Ti, are claimed by some to have been raised by the Pearl Emperor to keep the Lion of Night and his demons away from the realms of men.

Yeah, that all sounds incredible to us – start your Lion Of Night fan-casting now!

Game Of Thrones returns to Sky Atlantic on April 15.