House Of The Dragon Season 2 BTS Images May Tease MAJOR Game Of Thrones Villains

Does this tiny set detail from Season 2 of the “Game of Thrones” prequel “House of the Dragon” mean a huge villain from the original series could potentially return?

A fan site called Redanian Intelligence got its hands on some photos from the set of the show’s sophomore season shooting at Leavesden Studios outside of London and there’s a sign clearly visible in an area the website says is the “crowd makeup booth” (which means it’s for background actors). What does that sign say? “Undead.”

Though this could mean any number of things, as the site points out, the word “undead” is definitely conspicuous considering the implications involved. As any “Game of Thrones” fan knows, the show was constantly marked by the presence of undead ice zombies led by ancient beings known as the White Walkers, who had the ability to turn a dead body into a sort of violent puppet known as a “wight.” We know that White Walkers and their wights were around long before the initial events of “Game of Thrones” — and the pilot’s cold open (pun intended) shows soldiers being massacred by them — but they haven’t popped up in “House of the Dragon” just yet. So could they?

How could White Walkers and wights factor into the second season of House of the Dragon?

The major way that White Walkers and wights could stumble into Season 2 of “House of the Dragon” involves the North, a location that’s been mentioned but not yet seen on screen. Redanian Intelligence notes that there’s a video on Twitter that sees actors filming as Night’s Watch men — the men tasked with guarding the realm from White Walkers and wights — and also points out that we know that the Wall, the location where the Night’s Watch men live and the structure that stands between the far North and the rest of the Seven Kingdoms, will be in Season 2 of “House of the Dragon.”

Thanks to the Season 1 finale, we know that a member of the royal Targaryen family is heading North to speak to the Stark family about becoming an ally during the family civil war known as the “Dance of the Dragons.” In that episode, Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) tasks her two sons with traveling via dragon to go talk to potential allies as her faction, the Blacks, readies itself for all-out war against the Greens, another Targaryen faction. Her eldest son Prince Jacaerys (Harry Collett) is told to head North to speak to Cregan Stark, and thanks to the way things unfolded in that finale, that scene hasn’t happened just yet.

Season 2 of House of the Dragon already has a clear trajectory

The Dance of the Dragons is clearly going to be the major throughline for Season 2 of “House of the Dragon,” thanks to a major scene in the Season 1 finale that sets the stage for what’s to come. At first, Rhaenyra isn’t totally certain that she wants to pit family against family … until her younger son Lucerys (Elliot Grihault) ends up dead at the hands of his own blood.

Lucerys was also sent off on a mission to speak to Baratheons at Storm’s End, but Prince Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) beats him to the punch — and pursues the younger boy on dragonback when they both leave. It does seem unintentional, but it doesn’t change the fact that, as their dragons battle it out, Aemond’s dragon Vhagar, known for being one of the largest dragons in existence, chomps down on Lucerys and his steed Arrax. The boy and the dragon are already grievously injured, but when they fall from the sky, their fate is immediately clear. Rhaenyra was already fighting with her best friend turned stepmother Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) over whose children have a right to the Iron Throne, but after Alicent’s son kills Rhaenyra’s son, all bets are clearly off the table.

The White Walkers got a lackluster ending in Game of Thrones – could this redeem them?

It would be kind of cool if the White Walkers and wights returned to the “Game of Thrones” universe, though, because their ending in the original series definitely left a lot to be desired. For eight full seasons, as various high-ranking families in Westeros squabbled over who would get to sit in the pointiest chair in the land, the White Walkers loomed large, and those who had encountered the terrifying beings knew that they had the power to destroy the entirety of the Seven Kingdoms without much effort. In the final season’s third episode, “The Long Night,” the White Walkers and assorted wights finally come to the Stark stronghold of Winterfell and wage their attack — only to be taken out in a completely unserious manner.

Jon Snow (Kit Harington), who spent the show facing off against the White Walker’s leader the Night King, wasn’t the one to take him down in the end; his younger sister Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) is. Sure, it’s a cool moment, but it doesn’t make any narrative sense — Arya and the Night King have literally never been on screen together before and the whole thing just comes out of nowhere — and after Arya’s neat little knife trick against the Night King, all the White Walkers vanish and are never discussed again. So why were they even there? Were they really that easy to defeat the whole time? Maybe if the undead do appear on “House of the Dragon,” the show will find something more interesting to do with them this time around.