Game of Thrones has no shortage of people who could nominally be labeled bad guys. There are the more obvious antagonists—the White Walkers and Cersei Lannister, for example—but there are also two-faced hustlers and sporadically violent sociopaths littered throughout Thrones history. Shades of good and evil are everywhere in Westeros.
(Warning: Game of Thrones spoilers will follow.)
Evil may even be hiding in the smallest, seemingly inconsequential corners of the Thrones universe. Everyone has their crazy theories about how the end game will play out, but one particular theory pinpoints a single man for the potential downfall of humanity. Jon Snow? Nope. Jaime Lannister? Guess again. Could it be Bran Stark? Nope. The fate of humanity has apparently been altered by... Hot Pie?
I know, I know, this sounds completely ridiculous. What does the fledgling baker have to do with the battle against the Night King, or even the stakes between the rival factions of Westeros? While he's not directly involved, as one r/GameOfThrones user points out, he may be to blame for the unfortunate chain of events we've seen unfold.
If you'll recall, Arya Stark and Hot Pie have a brief reunion toward the beginning of Game of Thrones Season 7, and Hot Pie drops an important reveal on Arya: her half-brother (or so we thought) is now King of the North, inspiring her to make the trek back to Winterfell to reunite with her family. It was wonderful to see Arya return to her home, even if Jon wasn't there, because it put an exclamation point on her coming-of-age journey.
But as Reddit user abdo0000 points out, this was not Arya's original plan. The Stark assassin's kill list has been at the forefront of her mind, and the No. 1 target was teased in the show's first episode. Cersei Lannister is responsible for the loss of many people Arya held dear, and as she told Ed Sheeran's character during his brief cameo, Arya was on her way to murder the evil queen.
Arya's reroute set into motion a series of events which have undoubtedly impacted the show's end game. Had Arya been able to assassinate Cersei, the entire politics of Westeros would have shifted. Though he's not necessarily "good," Jaime Lannister has at least shown to be reasonable, and a partnership with Jon Snow and Daenerys against the Night King probably could have been worked out. Further, with Cersei eliminated, perhaps Jon and his band of misfits never head north of the wall, never have to call Daenerys for help, and never end up losing the third dragon, Viserion, to the army of the undead.
This all seems like a pretty big leap in logic, especially because there's no telling how the power players in Thrones would react if events had unfolded differently. The development of Jaime Lannister as a nominal "good guy" has come in part because he lost trust in his sister on his own accord, walking away from the woman he loves after she showed herself to be unreasonable. Had Cersei been murdered by an assassin of any kind, it feels likely Jaime would view her more sympathetically, because having her taken away from him changes his outlook on her and the world around him.
It's easy to point the finger at my man Hot Pie, because ultimately he's inconsequential and a lot easier to loathe than the characters who get lots of screen time. But he's probably not the guy to blame for instability here; Jon Snow's shitty plan to capture a White Walker was bad regardless, as was the idea that you could win Cersei Lannister's trust to begin with. Hot Pie sharing some information with an old friend is not going to cause of the end of humanity, and if it is, maybe these dumb ass "heroes" didn't deserve that distinction to begin with.
