New Game of Thrones Fan Theory Has a Prediction About Littlefinger

Warning: This post contains spoilers for the first six seasons of Game of Thrones and predictions about major plot points in the seventh season.

The seventh season of Game of Thrones is coming, and online predictions about the notoriously volatile fates of its characters are swirling. One circulating fan theory that’s gathering some steam purports to predict the fate of Westeros’s sleaziest operator, Petyr Baelish, a.k.a. Littlefinger, in the next season. It all revolves around an unlikely rival: Sandor Clegane (The Hound), whose connection to Baelish stretches back to the show’s first season.

The theory, as reported by TIME and courtesy of redditor Flay_the_pope, centers on one of the show’s earliest betrayals. In the first season, after Ned Stark discovered that Joffrey is not Robert Baratheon’s legitimate son—and therefore has no claim to the Iron Throne—Littlefinger promised to help Ned secure the support of the City Watch to stage a coup. Instead, Ned is arrested for treason and, as the City Watch slaughters his men, Baelish puts a dagger to Ned’s throat and, with a grin, says, “I did warn you not to trust me.”

The Starks never found out about Littlefinger’s betrayal, but one newfound Stark ally was in the room to witness it: Sandor Clegane. As the series has progressed, The Hound has built personal relationships with both Arya and Sansa Stark. In the season four finale, Arya admitted that she took The Hound off of her kill list, and he later offered to escort Sansa home to Winterfell. When we last saw The Hound, he was traveling north with the Brotherhood Without Banners—putting him right on track to run into one or both of the Stark sisters at Winterfell.

That could pose a problem for Littlefinger, who is currently acting as an advisor to Sansa. “I believe if Littlefinger, Sansa, and Sandor all end up in the same room, Littlefinger will be in BIG trouble and this may be his downfall,” Flay_the_pope writes.

Fellow Redditor BatsAreCute concurred, writing “I've been hoping for the day Sansa finds out this detail, and knowing The Hound, he'll have no reservations about blurting it out.”

Could this spell the end for Littlefinger? You’ll have to tune into Game of Thrones’s seventh season—which premieres on HBO at 9 p.m. on July 16—to find out.

[h/t: TIME]