Does Game of Thrones have ALIENS? (fan theory)
Thanks to the launch of HBO Max, I have started my second watch through of Game of Thrones. I only recently watched the entire franchise last year, and it quickly became my absolute favorite fictional fantasy universe. It’s an amazing show with amazing characters, and I am still debating if I am going to rewatch the awful last few episodes, or just throw a rock at any number of internet fan fictions to come up with a better end to that story. Seriously, in my opinion that was one of the biggest cinematic and narrative failures in modern tv.
Awful ending aside, my second watch through has made me all the more convinced of my crazy fan theory than ever before. I will say that my theory is based entirely off observations from the show, as I have never read the books, so if there are any possibly conflicting details from the books let’s just ignore for now.
Here’s my fan theory, and then I’ll explain it in more detail why I believe it. I believe ancestors of the residents of Game of Thrones were abducted from Earth a long time ago, by aliens, and transplanted to another planet. Allow me to explain why.
Have you ever stopped to wonder about the in-lore origins of the Game of Thrones universe? Because I’m a space nerd, I have (and plenty of other fans) wondered about what the planet and solar system of Westeros look like. Fans assume the name of the planet the occupants of the Game of Thrones events is called “Westeros” despite that really being just the name of the largest main continent where most of the events take place. The planet’s actual name is never directly referenced. It’s possible the occupants have such a primitive view of the universe that the continent is viewed the same as their whole planet. This is reasonable by the fact that virtually most of known civilzation lives on that continent with other parts of the world considered distanct, unimportant, and primitive. If Earth had a super contintent still instead maybe ancient man would have the same name for it and the planet itself. For sake of simplicity, we will refer to the planet as Westeros. Unlike some other fantasy universes, it is very clear from the very beginning that Game of Thrones does not take place on Earth. We know this for two specific reasons. First, because geography is a dominantly important part of the story, we know that the map of Westeros’s currently discovered continents resembles nothing on Earth. A fictional map isn't new to fantasy but there is a bigger more unusual concept. The second is the seasons. Westeros not only has incredibly long seasons, something many fans speculate would be caused by an incredibly long orbit around Westeros’s star, it also has unusual “variable” seasons. Earth’s Winter / Summer seasons are caused by two things, orbit and tilt. The Earth’s tilt is vary stable thanks to our disproportionately large moon. The Earth tilts away from the Sun on one side of it’s revolution around the Sun, and towards the Sun on the other side. This tilt points the Earth towards or away from the Sun causing warmer and colder seasons. This is also why the seasons are flipped for the Souther hemisphere. It only takes the Earth 365 of our days to orbit around the sun. If Westeros was located in the goldilocks zone (the habitable distance from a star) of say a star 20x more massive or hotter than ours, it’s orbit around it’s star would necessarily be much farther and therefore longer, perhaps closer to the decade long winter and summers we see in the show. Also, as some fans speculate, if Westeros had a significantly unstable “wobble” meaning the planet did not have a stable tilt but wobbled around on its axis, like a top about to topple over, its seasons would become more variable and harder to predict. We do know in the lore that Westeros may have had a second moon that was destroyed in the past. A cataclysmic event capable of destorying a moon could have destabilized Westeros’s rotational tilt.
Why is this all important? It’s proof that we know for certain that Westeros is an alien planet in another solar system. Which begs the next question, How do a bunch of english speaking people, who according to all evidence are very much human, end up on a alien world? Better yet, how are there also Earth wildlife and vegetation on this alien world? Scientifically speaking, “alien transportation” is definitely not the only possible explanation, but I think it is the coolest answer, and the simplest one with the most clues and implications for the show.
One of my other favorite fantasy fiction universes is Star Trek. You may be interested to know that the story arc of “aliens abducting humans at some point in the past, transporting them to an alien world, only to be discovered later by Earth humans,” is actually used on multiple occasions. In Star Trek, aliens abduct Amelia Earhart and many others in 1937 and transport them to an alien world, only to be discovered by Voyager in the Delta Quadrant. Aliens also abducted a large batch of humans during the Wild West era, only to be discovered by the Enterprise. This story arc even occurs on the flip side with the Federation being guilty of being the aliens who transpot more primitive people across the galaxy. On Next Generation, The Enterprise crew is tricked by Worf’s brother into saving primitive people and transporting them to a new world when their old one was dying. It happens again most recently in Star Trek Discovery when the Red Angel (no spoiler on who that is) transports humans to a distant world. My point being is that it’s a well accepted scifi trope to see Aliens transport primitive humans to an alien world. If I wanted to dial this fan theory up to 11, I could argue that it’s so common place in the star trek universe that maybe Game of Thrones actually takes place there. Having the Enterprise show up at the end would still have been a better ending.
Now if Aliens did abduct humans in the past, why would they? Where did they go? Does the timing of when it would have happened make any sense? What are the clues I mentioned that it was in fact aliens?
Well the most common reason in fiction for this event, is to use the humans as laborers, entertainment, or for study. Given the lack of an aliens vs humans uprising tale in Game of Thrones lore, I think the reason may have been more towards the later. It could have been for amusement or study. Maybe the humans were meant for a zoo or to be sold as pets. Maybe they were laborers and the ship crashed. Maybe Westeros was always meant to be a battle ground for alien amusement. If the humans were being transported, it would explain why the aliens would bring along vegitation and wildlife to support the human population. Perhaps continuing with the zoo or arena theory, they could have transported horses, wolves, ravens, for the same reason, study or entertainment. I think Game of Thrones, was literal. The map is a giant GAME. Westeros is a Giant RTS game for aliens amusement.
The timing of it all makes sense
Next, does the timing of it all make sense? In fact it makes no sense unless there’s alien transportation. In Game of Thrones, the early history referred to is “the first men” who lived a 1000 years before the events of the show.
Is it a coincidence that the entirety of their history seems to only be as long as its been about since the middle ages here? If aliens abducted english speaking medieval folk say, a 1000 years ago, it would line up perfectly. In fact, it is strange that they think the first humans only originated a 1000 years ago. That’s actually odd to have such a short history span. The people of Westeros are way too advanced to only have a 1000 year history, if that was the case they should all still be tribal and cavelike. On Earth, medieval civilization was well aware of ancient Rome, Greece, and Egyptian eras spanning several thousand years prior. It would make more sense if the humans lost their Earth history when they suddenly arrived on Westeros. Having no history prior to a medieval period is odd.
What is more evidence is the fact that this planet seemed to have indigenous life that preceeded them. The early humans brought to Westeros were clearly an invasive species that the natives found threatening. The natives even created beings that fought the early men. We see this happen when we as humans bring destructive invasive species to new parts of the world, they decimate the local ecology. Eventually, like an invasive species, the humans killed and drove back most of the native species. Even in the way it is described in the show, it sounds like Humans showed up out of nowhere and posed a threat to the long existing native species.
Now, one thing to point out is the fair question of “if medieval humans were abducted a 1000 years ago”, why are they still in a similar era during what would be our modern time? First, admittedly, we don’t know exactly when they were abducted, it could be farther in the past and what we see in the show doesn’t line up with our present. But assuming it does, it is actually quite fair to expect them to not be as advanced as us. The clue lies in the stories I mentioned from star trek. If you pluck a small percentage of a populace and transport them far away, they will most likely advance and grow at a much slower rate than the original group. In one episode of Star Trek, the group of wild west residents remained largely unchanged despite hundreds of years of passage of time, and the rest of humanity having developed interstellar space craft. The reason is a simple numbers advantage.
Imagine if we delete the Wright brothers from history. There is really no telling how long it would have taken for someone else to successfully build an airplane. Sure someone eventually would, but it could have taken years or even decades. The airplane was invented in 1903. If they hadn't, maybe it would have been far longer before we had planes, meaning WWI may not have featured airplanes at all, and the ones used in WWII would be far more primitive. This could have pushed the moon launch from 1969 to maybe the late 80’s or 90’s? What if we then again delete Alan Turing from WWII, and he never invents the first computer. It could have been a while before someone else did. Maybe instead of having a smart phone in your hand today, you would have something in 2020 that more resembled a 90’s pager. The point is, if you remove one person, there’s no telling how long someone else would have taken to figure it out. Now imagine if you remove 99% of the population? That could grind all progress down to a hault for a very long time. It’s fair to expect a few thousand humans trapped on an alien planet starting all over to progress much slower than the vast remaining human population on Earth. This process of transplanting a small colony of a culture could easily create a “time capsule” of sorts of a culture. In fact with considerable technology this could make for an interesting scientific experiement. You could create colonies of isolated pockets of human cultures to observe over time.
The Old gods and the New
Polytheism, or worship of multiple gods, is so commonplace in human history that it's unsurprising to see in Game of Thrones. What is surprising is a dichotomy of old and new gods. That verbiage and terminology is unusual, as most cultures don’t acknowledge changes in beliefs over time, let alone embrace them. So many religions have a verifiable "creation point" that is rarely acknowledged because it is seen as a vulnerability to the "truth" of the belief. In Game of Thrones they acknowledge a huge change in their religion in common conversation. Now forgive me if there is more explanation of their religion in the books, but it's odd for a culture to create “new gods” while still worshiping “old ones”, not without a major social/cultural event. What if the old gods were the gods the humans worshipped prior to their arrival, and the “new gods” were gods they created when they arrived on their new world? Being abducted by “supernatural beings” and transported to a world as alien as Westeros would definitely constitute a significant event to cause them to create new gods.
There’s actually no magic in Game of Thrones
One of the things I found odd about Game of Thrones is that for a fantasy universe set in a universe mostly devoid of true fantasy. The first portion of the show largely is minimal on fantasy tropes with only myths and legends. Magic is not common place and many don't believe it exists. While other fantasy universes have magic everywhere, in Game of Thrones it is uncommon and a surprising event when it happens.
What if I said there was a scientific explanation for everything that happens in Game of Thrones according to this theory. Game of Thrones' Westeros is a giant game where aliens observe and influence events for their entertainment, perhaps having stacks in the events. The magic we see is alien intervention where they essentially cheat at the game. The show doesn’t dabble in magic very often, and the little it does mostly revolves around certain individuals. The first piece of magic we really see is resurrection. There are two types of resurrection in the show, the kind that fully restores a dead human, and the less powerful kind that turns beings into sort of zombies.
I posit that the “magic” of resurrection we see isn’t really magic at all, but alien technology belonging to the aliens who brought the humans to Westeros. They may have possessed some kind of technology that could resurrect biological beings through some sort of nano technology. They used it to create the first white walkers. Or maybe it’s possible the technology was given to them by their alien overseers. However they didn’t fully understand the technology and couldn’t use it perfectly. Their use resulted in the imperfect resurrection that we see. However there is one being in the entire Game of Thrones universe that can do perfect resurrection.
Aliens walk amoung them
In my theory, I think there are handful of aliens walking amoung the humans, and they use their technology or give it out to manipulate events. Perhaps it is as simple as them cheating to get events the way they want. If this were a giant Game to the aliens, it might make sense that they use their technology to save their favorite pawns or manipulate who wins. There are countless examples where magic drastically changed the course of the show. The Red Woman, Jon, and Dani all have regular examples of magic and these events alter the course of Westeros significantly. Dani is made immune to fire. Jon Snow is brought back to life. Even characters in the show are convinced some higher power has a plan for them and that’s why they’re protected. On the subject of Dani’s fireproofing, is it possible Dani or the Red Woman’s who both have magic and both had deformed mutated children, better explained by alien hybrids?
The entire time I watched Game of Thrones I kept wondering who the “Lord of Light” was. Honestly the character seemed so out of place. Was it supposed to just be a thematic "Christian-god-parallel" to the polytheistic nature of the Westeros folk? Or was he more? In Game of Thrones the old and new gods are never shown, or shown to have any real power. They don’t act or make themselves known to be real like in an ancient Odyssey story. The first time we see any god do anything real in Game of Thrones is the Lord of Light perfectly ressurecting a human, and on multiple occasions. This is huge because this proves that the Lord of Light is a real being in the Game of Thrones universe; one that goes completely unexplained. I felt it odd that the show completely skips over the fact that a a real invisible being with that kind of power exists in Westeros. In a largely semi-realistic, real world focused story about politics and betrayal, an invisible entity capable of raising the dead seems like a game changer fact. It seems a little narratively out of place. What if the Lord of Light was one of the aliens? It would explain why he was the only one capable of “true” resurrection when the natives could only use the technology imperfectly. It just makes sense that this Lord of Light is some alien being, that observes from the shadows and manipulates events when he wishes. He never makes himself known to the humans. Or does he?
There is another being that displays “true magic”, and claims to serve a god. The faceless man teaches Arya about a “many faced god” who gives them the ability to change faces. The masks they create can perfectly imitate another humans face. Is this magic or is this science that could also be easily recreated with advanced alien technology. Is the many-faced god a rival alien on the board game of Westeros?
Perhaps these humans simply got a hold of different technology than the natives? Perhaps it is a different alien all together. One uses holographic or masking technology to appear as humans, another uses a similar technology to appear as fire.
Lastly, another major piece of magic seen in the Game of Thrones is some form of time travel with an omniscient view of the world across space and time . If that doesn’t scream more technological than magic I don’t know what does. It’s obvious to me that the specific magical acts we see are better explained with science than magic. The magic leans more realistic than not. There’s no wands or curses or spells, it’s mostly just things we could see from an advanced civilization. We know from Einstein’s theory of relativity that space and time are one, and it’s plausible (and possibly necessary) that an alien civilization capable of faster than than travel would also be capable of time travel. If my theory that the aliens brough the humans to study or observe for entertainment, and there were only a few of the aliens, it makes perfect sense they would have brought tech to observe them. The 'three eyed raven" could be some advanced reconnaissance technology that allows the aliens to observe all of Westeros, anywhere, at anytime. Perhaps, it even allows the aliens to rewind back to a point to interfere again if they wished. It would make sense that the aliens would bring time travel technology and mass observation technology. Again, if this technology fell into the hands of the humans it would appear as magic.
it seems that any time a human or native uses the alien's technoloy it is with their blessing. Considering how the history of Westeros seems to be in constant state of war, with various native and human factions, it’s not a far stretch that it is one giant war game, with aliens observers occasionally using their technology to cheat. One alien gave "zombies" to the natives; another alien gave humans resurrections, another holographic masks, another time traveling observation.
In conclusion,
I think its probable that in Game of Thrones, aliens transported a group of humans, a 1000 years ago to an alien planet called “Westeros”, where the humans either escaped or were purposely released for unknown reasons, most likely for entertainment. Humans then became an invasive species against the natives. The natives and humans were occasionally given alien technology. The natives used their alien technology against the humans. It explains the magic in the universe. It explains the sudden appearance of humans in Westeros with only a brief history. It explains the presence of Earth aspects on an alien world.
