So what is HBO's strategy on the Jon Snow question?

[calo760]

Sadly Jon is dead and we will never learn anything more about the secret of his parentage. I have a feeling pretty much everyone who seems incredibly important to the story is going to die. The series isn't going to end well. I feel like season 3 foreshadowed this when Ramsay tells Theon "If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention." Really It should be called Game of Pointless Dead-End Storylines

[Drasanil]

Maybe Jon Snow really is dead and really Kit is gone.

They'll cast a new Targ looking actor to play the resurrected Aejon Targaryen First of His Name King of the >Insert Boiler Plate here<.

[Dilshan Muthalib]

if they came out and said Jon is not dead its no story..now the world wide media are speculating, if you had not heard of GOT or had little interest before after this you will want to know what the fuss is..you are very likely to buy the dvd set for previous series, you are adding to the fan base for next series, you will be funding the majestic scene in episode 2-3 when Ghost howls, the wall collapses and Jon rises from under it with the flaming blade..Mel will have nothing to do, she is just a diversion..the wall will bring him back, its the magic...

telling people Jon is alive makes no sense interms of GRRM's stories, the real curve ball could be the release of next book before much details into the production of next series, imagine the sale that will generate..telling us Jon is dead is gold for them

[Xarkar]

Seems to me like they are getting far more media attention because Jon is dead, vs what they would have gotten even if they had revealed R+L=J.

Just saying. If they had come out and said R+L=J. Everyone would have said "told you so", "about time" etc.

Then we would be done talking about it.

Leaving us in a cliffhanger, means they get 9.5 months before the next episode airs to keep us wondering.

Remember in the one conference when Jon said "he would like to warg", and "put himself inside a wolf"

Everyone started laughing because of the "inside a wolf" comment. But then one of D&D said to Kit. "Two words".... "Season 6"

This was before S5 aired (maybe even before it was filmed? not sure).

Were they just trolling us? Or was it a mistake/spoiler that was unintended.

Think about it, if Kit made that joke now, everyone would know he isnt dead. So why did he say it then (my guess is it wasnt on the radar at that point so he just said it)

[SerJeremiahLouistark]

Seems to me like they are getting far more media attention because Jon is dead, vs what they would have gotten even if they had revealed R+L=J.

Just saying. If they had come out and said R+L=J. Everyone would have said "told you so", "about time" etc.

Then we would be done talking about it.

Leaving us in a cliffhanger, means they get 9.5 months before the next episode airs to keep us wondering.

Remember in the one conference when Jon said "he would like to warg", and "put himself inside a wolf"

Everyone started laughing because of the "inside a wolf" comment. But then one of D&D said to Kit. "Two words".... "Season 6"

This was before S5 aired (maybe even before it was filmed? not sure).

Were they just trolling us? Or was it a mistake/spoiler that was unintended.

Think about it, if Kit made that joke now, everyone would know he isnt dead. So why did he say it then (my guess is it wasnt on the radar at that point so he just said it)

Honestly the way he said it sounded like trolling to me. I think if it's gonna be anything it's gonna be Mel.

[Xarkar]

Honestly the way he said it sounded like trolling to me. I think if it's gonna be anything it's gonna be Mel.

Sure Kit may have been trolling... but what about D&D?

Should look up the date of that conference.

Just the way they said it made we think it was an oversight. Especially if the plan was for him to die (for good).

Personally I just do not see a reason why Jon would stay dead at this point in time. It would make all the build up worthless.

I remember in an interview, people asked GRRM why he killed Ned, then Rob etc.

He said it was because no one would expect it. Then Rob because everyone would say "no way he can die now".

Also remember there was originally supposed to be a 5 year gap and the series was 3 books. Jon's story has not really advanced much other than filler (becoming LC etc). Would GRRM really have a 5 year gap and then boom kill him off.

[SerJeremiahLouistark]

Sure Kit may have been trolling... but what about D&D?

Should look up the date of that conference.

Just the way they said it made we think it was an oversight. Especially if the plan was for him to die (for good).

Personally I just do not see a reason why Jon would stay dead at this point in time. It would make all the build up worthless.

I remember in an interview, people asked GRRM why he killed Ned, then Rob etc.

He said it was because no one would expect it. Then Rob because everyone would say "no way he can die now".

Also remember there was originally supposed to be a 5 year gap and the series was 3 books. Jon's story has not really advanced much other than filler (becoming LC etc). Would GRRM really have a 5 year gap and then boom kill him off.

I don't think he's done I just think he was trolling the people who think he wargs into Ghost. If that were to happen it would make no sense because if that's true, he really is done. His spirit will eventually die inside Ghost and the show hasn't given the slightest inkling that he knows he can warg unless I'm forgetting something.

[Xarkar]

I don't think he's done I just think he was trolling the people who think he wargs into Ghost. If that were to happen it would make no sense because if that's true, he really is done. His spirit will eventually die inside Ghost and the show hasn't given the slightest inkling that he knows he can warg unless I'm forgetting something.

Only Bran from what I can remember.

If he is resurrected by Mel, in theory he would lose part of himself as well (based on earlier episodes)

They did make a point of Mel showing back up at the wall, so it is likely that she will be involved in it. Otherwise why in the world would she go to the wall. The ONLY other possibility is she was going to see Davos (who hates her)

[Zyxw]

Reading FTW in the books it felt a bit out of character for Jon to respond in that manner to the letter or at least rushed in the decision. I felt it happened solely 'cos GRRM needed to move Jon away from the wall because everyone there will be annihilated by an impending WW invasion and death of the body was the release.

So I think no one is lying - Kit is dead but not Jon. He will live in a different body, possibly Ghost and then another human body. Bran is set to return next season and my bet is he plays some part in this.

[BlueDragon]

Sadly Jon is dead and we will never learn anything more about the secret of his parentage. I have a feeling pretty much everyone who seems incredibly important to the story is going to die. The series isn't going to end well. I feel like season 3 foreshadowed this when Ramsay tells Theon "If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention." Really It should be called Game of Pointless Dead-End Storylines

I am now really afraid that you are right.

If LOTR ended with saving the world, this narrative ends with the end of the world, an appropriately postmodern ending for 21st century story.

If I were to make any predictions about a dualistic narrative, I would have to say that neither side can ever be completely annihilated. That would mean the end of everything.

I didn't think I was this attached to Jon, but apparently I am.

I am never, ever starting to read a series which is unfinished. I'm too old to wait around.

[Xarkar]

I also think HBO / D&D are trying to give GRRM as much respect and time as possible for him to finish his storylines.

IE By leaving every single story in a cliffhanger, Jon included, they are giving him until April 2016 to get his book out. D&D obviously have respect for GRRM so if they can let him do the big reveal, why not.

If D&D had revealed R+L=J, or that Jon was alive, of showed Stannis die etc, it might have taken something from the books, but with the ends all open, only GRRM and D&D know what is coming.

[GreenSeeress]

I'm not too upset about the cliffhanger in the show -- it's at exactly the same place as GRRM left us, and Jon. Sure, in the book we got the references to the Azor Ahai that feeds into our belief in Jon's survival/resurrection, and in the show we didn't. Sure, Jon says "Olly" instead of "Ghost." Sure, Ned died, and Cat died, and Robb died. Sure, anyone can die. Everyone WILL die. Valar morghulis.

Jon is dead on the show. In the books we're not sure, he may just be drifting off into unconsciousness as the last, unfelt knife stabs him. But I don't think he lives. Without interruption, that is.

Jon dies. He will live again. Remember that synopsis GRRM sent to his publisher when he was first proposing his "trilogy"? He named five characters who made it until the end of the books: Daenerys, Tyrion, Jon, Arya and Sansa. The plots have changed -- Arya is not in love with Jon, and Sansa doesn't have Joffrey's baby and reject her family -- but I think the same five will still be standing in the end. Even if one or more of them briefly laid down during a short interim death. To become Azor Ahai reborn, Jon Snow will be reborn as well.

[lancerman]

lol at thinking Jon isn't coming back. Come on. Yeah nobody associated with the show is going to say "yeah he's coming back next season, don't worry".

[judahjsn]

There are so many things about this situation - adapting a still-in-progress novel series into a TV show - that seem like firsts. It's amazing that the show has been so successful at generating speculation and must-see viewing in an age where anyone could wiki an episode's outcome before it even airs. And now, for the first time, even the book readers are in the dark and it's unnerved us.

Has there ever been an instance in television or film where the creators or actors involved purposely lied to the press to cover up a plot point?

What is also unique and even mind-boggling about trying to predict the future in Martin's world is that, in addition to the information in the texts and in the show, we can also deduce a lot from things the creatives say in the press as well as by analyzing the choices made in compressing the show story from the book story. It's a type of cross collateralization. For instance, the show has skipped the Iron Islands storyline from AFFC and ADWD. Since we happen to know that the showrunners have been entrusted with the endgame of Martin's story, we can deduce from this that the Iron Islands tangent is not essential to the endgame. Similarly, knowing that Martin originally conceived this as a more taut trilogy, and as a Story with a capital S, with a specific end in mind, we can look at the way he set the chess pieces on the board as clues about his overall strategy. So, since Dany was, from the outset, the only major POV character not in Westeros (where we thought the stakes were highest), we can deduce from this that she is essential to the story's end and will not be killed. (By the time we get to AFFC, however, we don't necessarily ascribe the same importance to new tangents being introduced off-Westeros).

Along these lines of anecdotal evidence as clues to the larger story structure, Entertainment Weekly pointed out something interesting recently. Two years ago they had an image of Jon and Dany on their cover, for a story on Game of Thrones. EW said it was Weiss and Benioff's idea to use Jon and Dany. "It's ice and fire," the showrunners said.

This, to me, is extremely telling.

My take from the books has long been that this is a story about two opposing elemental forces, ice and fire, coming to a clash and finally balancing out into a state of peace. That it was not a story of one force defeating another. In contrast to Dany's status as a living metaphor for fire, I've predicted that Jon will be resurrected by the Others (funny how much resurrecting goes on in this story, from the Red Priest to the Others to freaking Qyburn - everybody's doing it) and that we will come to see the Others for something less than a mindless horde of evil Orcs. That's something I deduce from Martin repeatedly making the point of how dangerous good vs. evil paradigms are.

So I've assumed that Jon, like Dany, is "un-killable." However, there is one thing that gives me pause and makes me wonder how willing I truly am to accept Martin's approach. He has long said that the readers have to know that any character can die at any time. This gives the story verisimilitude and makes scenes of risk exponentially more effective. One of the first things he did to upend our expectations in this way was to kill off Ned, and event that was profoundly shocking not just because we liked him but because the book had devoted so much time to his noble point of view that we felt our assumptions about how stories are told had been turned upside down. Eventually we all came to terms with the fact that this was just how this story was going to go, and watched it play out with Robb and Catelyn's deaths.

But over time, I think many of us have reverted to our old habits and, deep down, think there are some characters that simply are too important to die such as Tyrion, Dany and Jon. And Martin himself, as the story (hopefully) approaches its conclusion, has dealt out fewer and fewer surprise deaths for any characters we're rooting for. In fact the epic has largely become a weeding out of either peripheral or "wicked" players. The last unambiguously heroic characters I can think of that met violent deaths were Yoren and Lord Commander Mormont. Whereas more negatively viewed people like Lysa Aryn, Joffrey, Poliver, Pycelle and Tywin have been dropping like flies. And he didn't even have to heart to confirm the deaths of The Hound, Syrio or Brienne, while Catelyn even came back from the dead. If you're looking at the trend, Martin has gone soft as the plot has thickened.

So if Jon were to die - really die - it would in some ways restore this narrative to what made it special in the first place. Its cold, unsentimental realism and refusal to give the audience what it wants or thinks it knows about what's coming.

[hallam]

Funny that you suggest Jon is dead/not dead as theories and then assume R+L=J as incontrovertible fact.

It is quite possible that Jon returns but Kit Harrington does not. The only real evidence for R+L=J is that Jon looks like a Stark. If Jon looked like a Targarean nobody would have suggested it in the first place.

I was predicting Jon would come back with Targarean hair before episode 10 and before the interview became public. R+E=J does not require Jon to be played by a different actor but changing the actor is the most dramatic way of having AAR be distinctly different.

Rather than focusing on the clues in the text, a better way to look at the problem is to ask what we don't know that we have been led to believe is important:

* Why did Ned build a tomb to Lyanna, what is it Jon is searching for in his dream?

* What happened to Lightbringer?

* What was Ned's promise to Lyanna?

* What were the words of the prophecy that Rheagar was obsessed with?

* What are the words of house Dayne, how are they a spoiler?

* What happend to Ashara Dayne?

The show has not given any hints that point to R+L=J. The only hints that have been given are that Ned didn't bang Wilda and Lyanna's tomb has something to do with it.

The show and the books have to have the same parents for Jon. But just as there are folk who don't believe Stannis will burn Shireen in the books despite the fact he has already built the pyre and is waiting for Mel to send him something, people will insist on R+L=J even after the show proves them wrong.

[hallam]

What is also unique and even mind-boggling about trying to predict the future in Martin's world is that, in addition to the information in the texts and in the show, we can also deduce a lot from things the creatives say in the press as well as by analyzing the choices made in compressing the show story from the book story. It's a type of cross collateralization. For instance, the show has skipped the Iron Islands storyline from AFFC and ADWD. Since we happen to know that the showrunners have been entrusted with the endgame of Martin's story, we can deduce from this that the Iron Islands tangent is not essential to the endgame.

...

But over time, I think many of us have reverted to our old habits and, deep down, think there are some characters that simply are too important to die such as Tyrion, Dany and Jon. And Martin himself, as the story (hopefully) approaches its conclusion, has dealt out fewer and fewer surprise deaths for any characters we're rooting for. In fact the epic has largely become a weeding out of either peripheral or "wicked" players. The last unambiguously heroic characters I can think of that met violent deaths were Yoren and Lord Commander Mormont. Whereas more negatively viewed people like Lysa Aryn, Joffrey, Poliver, Pycelle and Tywin have been dropping like flies. And he didn't even have to heart to confirm the deaths of The Hound, Syrio or Brienne, while Catelyn even came back from the dead. If you're looking at the trend, Martin has gone soft as the plot has thickened.

So if Jon were to die - really die - it would in some ways restore this narrative to what made it special in the first place. Its cold, unsentimental realism and refusal to give the audience what it wants or thinks it knows about what's coming.

I don't think the Iron island plot line was abandoned. I think it has just been slid to Season 6 along with Sam's OldTown plot line. It works much better there because dragonbinder is just another mcguffin until we know that the dragons really matter because of the wall and the WWs.

If the Iron islands wasn't going to matter we would have seen them killed off.

As for no good characters dying recently, well in the show there was Shireen and other than her, how many good characters are left? Other than Tommen and Myrcella (who might be dead), which good characters are left? GRRM has been slacking certainly but it was pretty clear Shireen is going to burn soon and Myrcella has already lost an ear.

[Darren Long]

I think there is a possibility that the show has given some clues but you have missed them, there was a picture on a post with R+L that was in the show.

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2015/01/17/the-strongest-game-of-thrones-scene-supporting-rlj/

Littlefinger, had the talk in the crypts regarding R+L, as well.

None of them confirmed the theory but they are not in there for nothing either. We know that someone has deduced a theory that Martin has said is right. What theory exactly do you think it is? It could be anyone but this is one of the best known theories out there that Martin would be aware of...

They may just be toying with us or they may have placed these there for some people to see.

[Darren Long]

double post

[Darren Long]

Triple post

[ShadowKitteh]

HBO, D&D, Kit, and the entire cast and crew are going to attempt to keep the "Jon is DEAD" plates spinning as long as possible, and rightly so.

Carice Van Houton appeared on the UK's Throncast show this season, and was asked, "Of the characters on GoT you've kissed, who is the best kisser?" She replied, "Jon Snow." But we never saw her kiss Jon.

Hand on boob? Check.

Kiss? Nope.

So. Either they cut that scene, or they shot it, and are saving it for next season, when she resurrects him. (she says the words... Nothing...then she tries to "breathe life" into him, he wakes up and before he's all the way coherent, actually starts kissing her back. She goes with it for a few seconds then opens her eyes in shock, he becomes fully awake and opens his eyes, they're lip locked and wide-eyed, and pull apart. Jon's alive, Mel is partially redeemed, with power that surprises even her, and we get a laugh.)

They could try to do without him for the rest of the season like Bran this year, (though I don't see how, but then TWoW???)

That way, there'd be no leaks that he's back on set filming.

No way D&D deviate that far from the books. If they really kill Jon, it's only because George will too.

No way Jon is perma-dead. If they've given Kit a year off, he'd have cut his hair by now.

It will be fun to see how long they can make this ruse last. How fun for them! I wish I was in the cast so I could be in on it.