In what might be the biggest television question since ‘Who Shot JR?” (or for millennials, “Who shot Mr. Burns?”), fans have been rampant for information on whether or not beloved character Jon Snow is really and truly dead on ‘Game of Thrones.’ The Season 5 finale saw the bastard child of Ned Stark betrayed by his fellow Nightswatchmen, stabbed dozens of times and left bleeding in the snow, the life going out of his eyes as we pulled away. But is that truly the end for the character? According to the man portraying Jon Snow, Kit Harington, it truly is:
“I was hoping that there would be an outcry of ‘why?’ and ‘oh god, no, no’ rather than ‘thank god’. That was the right reaction as far as I was concerned! …People didn’t want me to die, but he’s dead. So there you go, everyone has to get used to it.”
Harington was quoted saying at much in a recent Digital Spy interview, where he was next asked about the last time he was on set filming ‘Thrones,’ especially after all the rumors that he had been on set during Season 6 shoots:
“I haven’t done Thrones in a while. I had quite a lot of time off last year. I’ve been taking it easy. And relaxing. When I realised I was doing this, I had a few months to prepare for it, and something like this takes some working through before even getting into the rehearsal room.”
And when they asked how Harington has felt about all the fans asking if he is truly dead, and the rumors swirling about his resurrection, he responded with the following:
“I’ve just hit the ground, and gone undercover. I’ve tried to do absolutely no press for anything. It’s brilliant, the fact that people care about this TV show and what happens to the people they love or hate in it, is a special thing. I’ve got nothing to complain about, put it that way. If they care about it and I get asked about it a lot, it means that people hold it dear to their hearts and it’s doing what it meant to.”
And when asked if he is truly dead on the show, whether he will keep watching, Harington replied:
“Yeah, absolutely. Can’t wait for the next season.”
While it all sounds convincing, there are some holes in this. First of all, HBO is very clear about keeping its secrets for ‘
Game of Thrones,’ and I cannot imagine they are not enjoying the speculation about Jon Snow’s death, and the fan fervor about finding out the answers in Season 6. I cannot image them condoning Harington blowing the secret in an interview like this, but I can see them enjoying his deliberate misdirection, trying to make people truly people Snow is dead so his resurrection will be all that much more triumphant in Season 6. Plus, Harington said he had not done ‘Thrones’ “in a while,” which is just vague enough to let us think he might have already shot his scenes for Season 6, as he did not say he did not shoot anything for Season 6.
Who knows, maybe I am just grasping at straws. What are your thoughts on the matter? Feel free to share your theories in the comments below!
Nicholas Graff
A Southern California native (which seems to be a rarity as everyone seems to migrate here from outside the state, and everyone else born here ends up leaving for less crowded spaces), but for Nick, he loves it here. Nick has been writing since he was a teenager, self-published his first book trilogy, 'The Legacy of the Roras' back in 2011, and in 2014 published the inaugural issue of his first comic book, 'The Shadow of Aquaterra.' While not working on my own projects, he is working as a technical film editor at a major television network in their digital media division and recently began writing news and recap articles for ScienceFiction.com, a position which he has found extremely rewarding.
