Sean Bean wants to come back...

[Lord Lymond Lychester]

If he comes back it has to be done right, it can't be some throw away scene.

The scene has to have the emotional impact of bringing back Ned, I'll put this in a spoiler tag, cause I'm not sure who might be reading this but...

When Bran sees him through the weirdwood, along with many other flashbacks, Ned's especially just packs this emotional punch. Straight up if there was a time I got teary eyed it was that passage there. So much time had passed since Ned's death, so many events happened, and so much change in Bran's life that it brought so much sadness for him see his father again, alive in another time, when life was normal.

[HouseHarrison]

HBO produces a Robert's Rebellion movie, and the greenseer moment. Bam.

[Darryk]

They have to show some of the flashbacks at some point somehow (I think Bran will be the main vehicle for that).

Dunno if it'll be as soon as season 4 though.

[Fightbringer]

i dont think he will be back for season 4, but for season 5 or 6 onwards they might want to bring him back to film bran's green dreams, if they want, they could even put part of brans story arc being the story of ned earlier on

[Cas Stark]

I've always thought they should bring him back for some dream sequences.

[King Tyrion I]

They've said they're not doing flashbacks. However I recall in DWD a certain young Green Seer seeing Ned through a Weirwood ;)

^ That would be great.

[Ser Luke.]

How bout this?

Since Bran will need shit to do in Season 4, we could have him have a vision of The Tower of Joy, but before they get to Lyanna, he is woken up by Coldhands.

[Thedamned]

I would love falshback

[Jon of the Dead]

It would be awesome if he appears during Cersei's walk...

[dtones520]

The problem with using Sean Bean in a flashback to the rebellion is that he is like 30 years too old to be Ned's age in the rebellion. So it would have to be a scene with him in the Godswood in front of the heart tree, which probably means he comes back for Brans vision of Ned in front of the Hearttree praying for Jon and Robb to grow up as close as brothers or whatever.

That would actually be a great way to open up the season or episode where they really start giving us info about Jon's parentage and the causes of the Rebellion. The opening credits end, pan up to a man kneeling in front of a Weirwood praying, zoom into a side view close up of Ned praying about Jon and Robb then Bran wakes up.

The show runners have said no flashbacks or dreams for anyone but Bran. I think they are going to use Bran for a lot of history when the time is right. Especially because Jojen said he has seen the rebellion in his green dreams.

[Lord_Ravenstone]

Can't they CGI Sean to make him look younger?

[DavosSeaworthy]

Since Sean is game, they will probably do the scene from ADWD when Bran is looking through the Weirwood and Ned is praying infront of one. If they do dream scences with him and flashbacks that'd be awesome as well!

[Eogh]

I think having Ned appear in elaborate scenes from the past like the ToJ is unlikely, however I would be shocked if they didn't do another dream sequence like the one this season where Bran sees Jon, Robb and Cat. Perfect cameo opportunity for Sean.

[Diehard_si]

Well there is another season for the rest of book 3. FFC and ADWD will probably be 2 series in total. So we need something for 4 years time.

Will WOW even be out by then? If it is then DOS won't be. The tv series will have caught up and probably have to wait for GRRM.

So time for a prequel series like Spartacus did. Roberts Rebellion. They could make that a whole series easily. Include the whole R+J at the end of it.

That could give GRRM another year to get it wrapped up.

[Hiram McDrogon]

I doubt HBO is going to care, at all, about whether or not GRRM is finished. If he gets the books done, great. If he doesn't, the show will keep going. D&D probably know the endgame, but if GRRM goes into some odd sulk and refuses to tell them what happens, they'll just deliver their own ending (assuming the show gets that far). Besides, GRRM isn't exactly reliable on deadlines: remember that Book 4 ended with an afterword saying that the next book would be out in a year or two.

I suppose there's a chance of a slightly longer hiatus at some point, but probably only in circumstances where, for example, they take a year and a half between seasons in order to produce a 12 or 15 episode season. Any break will NOT be to give GRRM more time, but rather to give the show runners more time to make something a bit bigger, which may make sense for the final season. If Robert's Rebellion is ever done, it'd be as a separate made-for-TV film, or perhaps another miniseries after the main show is done.

I would be really surprised if Sean Bean comes back for any of the Robert's Rebellion scenes, whether in flashback or a different series: he's too old to play a young man. Maybe they could CGI it, but that would be far too expensive, and would probably mean no money for dragons or wolves or other battles. Not worth it. I suspect the only actors that could be the same in the prequel are the older ones like Barristan, where the difference between 60 and 40 isn't THAT big.

As dtones520 suggests above, if Bean comes back, it's most likely going to be in a "more recent" scene with Bran watching: perhaps Ned is praying to the Godswood tree, and says something like "Dear sister, I have kept my promise to you, and no one knows who the boy is" (but hopefully with less lame lines than my version!).

I'll be quite surprised if we ever see anything from Robert's Rebellion: hear it, from Bran, much as Jojen said he'd seen Jon? Yeah, that will probably happen, but not until Jon's parentage, or whatever other loose threads there are, become important.

[Batman]

If Sean Bean wants to come back they should bring Sean Bean back. He is the best actor they have had on their show and it has never been as good without his presence. Mark Addy's presence is also missed but he is not quite Sean Bean.

[cade]

I'd love for D&D to drop this rule they have against flashbacks, but I'm not optimistic. They reiterated this rule again in an interview (skip to 21:33) last month, well into the period of writing season 4.

[Thedamned]

can someone help me find chapter of young ed stark please :dunce:

[CrypticWeirwood]

It’s a real pity they missed the chance for this scene:

In the godswood she found her broomstick sword where she had left it, and carried it to the heart tree. There she knelt. Red leaves rustled. Red eyes peered inside her. The eyes of the gods. “Tell me what to do, you gods,” she prayed.

For a long moment there was no sound but the wind and the water and the creak of leaf and limb. And then, far far off, beyond the godswood and the haunted towers and the immense stone walls of Harrenhal, from somewhere out in the world, came the long lonely howl of a wolf.

Gooseprickles rose on Arya’s skin, and for an instant she felt dizzy. Then, so faintly, it seemed as if

she heard her father’s voice

.

“When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives,”

he said.

“But there is no pack,” she whispered to the weirwood. Bran and Rickon were dead, the Lannisters had Sansa, Jon had gone to the Wall. “I’m not even me now, I’m Nan.”

“You are Arya of Winterfell, daughter of the north. You told me you could be strong. You have the wolf blood in you.”

“The wolf blood.” Arya remembered now. “I’ll be as strong as Robb. I said I would.”

[Shitmouth the Wise]

I think that if they did flashbacks as cold opens to episodes, they could make it much less cheesy and not have to rely on green dreams. Somewhere down the road they could open an episode with the Tower of Joy, for instance, then go to the title sequence. They've done that for Breaking Bad.