Jon Snow’s fate was finally settled once and for all on Game of Thrones 6×02. So which one is it? Dead… or alive? Jon Snow lives!
The long-awaited answer came during the very last moments of Game of Thrones 6×02. After a long and elaborate resurrection ceremony by Melisandre seemed to fail, Jon Snow opened his adorable brown eyes from the darkness of death.
The question of the murdered Lord Commander’s fate has pulsed through the fandom and general pop culture since the finale of season 5. Last week’s episode of Game of Thrones appeared to only add further heft to Jon’s dead-ness, but many fans weren’t fooled — and once Ser Davos asked Melisandre to perform her religion’s resurrection rites, it was only a matter of time.
And fans of HBO’s epic fantasy series aren’t the only ones who are relieved.
“Sorry!” actor Kit Harington laughs ruefully in an interview with EW. “I’d like to say sorry for lying to everyone!”
For almost a year, Harington has had to keep Jon’s true fate zipped up tighter than the vaults of the Iron Bank. It’s been a rocky road, with the actor, along with showrunners and HBO executives, vowing ad nauseum that Harington’s days on Game of Thrones were over. A few slip-ups, along with the realities of filming, further complicated the task of keeping television’s biggest secret.
But for all of the pressure, lies, and cover-ups, Harington admits that he was relieved and gratified by fans’ reaction to the loss of Jon Snow.
“I’m glad that people were upset that he died,” he says. “I think my biggest fear was that people were not going to care. Or it would just be, ‘Fine, Jon Snow’s dead.’ But it seems like people had a, similar to the Red Wedding episode, kind of grief about it. Which means something I’m doing — or the show is doing — is right.”
Showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss also share their thoughts on Jon’s resurrection in HBO’s “Inside the Episode” featurette. While Weiss relates that Davos has a “Nothing to lose” attitude toward the ritual (“If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work,” he says) Benioff notes that Melisandre’s point of view is rather more desperate.
“The events of the last many episodes have shaken [her] faith” in the Lord of Light, Benioff says. “She still believes in him, she just doesn’t know if he believes in her. And so she comes to Jon Snow’s body with the tiniest hope that maybe, if she says the right words, if she says them with enough belief, with enough passion, the Lord will listen to her.”
Of course, Jon Snow’s return takes perhaps a bit more faith than anticipated by those involved.
“First, Melisandre believes she’s failed,” Benioff says. “It’s kind of like, you’re applying the paddles to the patient who’s suffered cardiac arrest, and the paddles don’t work as the last-ditch thing, but you can’t get a pulse back, and he’s gone.”
But crucially, Jon Snow still has one believer left. “Ghost, he’s known Jon longer than any of these people have, and all these wolves have a strange and deep connection with their Stark counterpart,” Benioff relates. “So Ghost has a kind of sixth sense when it comes to Jon Snow, and when Jon’s in danger — and when he might be coming back.”
And come back he did.