Why Game of Thrones fans are refusing to believe Jon Snow is dead and gone

Kit Harington has done everything in his power to convince us he is not coming back to Game of Thrones next season – he has reiterated the fact in every interview, he has claimed to have signed several movie projects, and, hell, he even cut his hair (how very permanent).

But all it took for the rumour mills to start churning again was a Wimbledon appearance with his medieval hairstyle back in place.

Reddit had never really given up on Jon Snow, but some people had disconsolately begun to move on. Some had gone so far as to transfer their affections to another dark-haired, brooding character with an endearing accent – Poldark, whose scything scene has made most people of compatible sexual orientation forgive Aiden Turner for, you know, playing Kili.

Last weekend, Harington parked himself on the Royal Box at the ongoing Wimbledon tournament, and if one could get past the sunglasses and the suit, one would have realised he was in his Lord Commander avatar.

So, maybe he’s been feeling a little out-of-the-limelight, and decided to mess with fans on a slow news day; maybe he wasn’t the best saver, and his most effective austerity measure has been to skimp on haircuts; maybe he’s been typecast, and is playing another character from the Middle Ages in some movie; or, maybe, Game of Thrones is actually allowing us all to be right, for once, and actually bringing him back.

The Old Gods and the New know there are enough good reasons he can’t be gone. Jon Snow has to be alive because:

1. L + R = J

If you don’t know what this means already, you’re late to the party. You need to go back to Season 1 and listen very, very carefully. Remember that conversation between Robert Baratheon and Ned Stark about Jon’s mother? Remember how Ned bristled when Robert mentioned a “wench” Ned “bedded”? Remember the special love Benjen Stark seems to have for Jon Snow? Remember how Ned Stark promised Jon he would tell him about his mother the next time they met?

So, whatever Harington says about how one doesn’t get all the answers in real life, we know Jon has to find out who his mother was.

Because she could very well be Lyanna Stark.

Lyanna, the cause for Robert’s rebellion and his hatred of the Targaryens; Lyanna, the woman to whom Rhaegar Targaryen gave a bunch of flowers at a joust, riding past his own wife and children. Maybe Jon was born of the ensuing romance between Rhaegar and Lyanna, which culminated in her “abduction”.

So, why would Ned hide that Jon is Lyanna’s son? Because Robert wants to kill all the Targaryens, even Daenerys’ unborn child. You might also want to go back and look at Ned’s face in the episode in which Robert wants Daenerys-and-child murdered. Ned’s response is that he will not be party to the killing of an infant with Targaryen blood. Hmm.

This would make Jon the nephew of the Khaleesi, and he could sit on the iron throne of Westeros, while she and her dragons strut about in Essos.

2. He can rule because he’s freed from the oath...right?

Well, you’d think he’s free, because you can’t really continue to be a Brother of the Night’s Watch after all your brothers-in-arms ganged up on you and literally stabbed you in the back, right? We know he was already kinda sorta torn when Stannis offered to legitimise his birth, and grant him freedom to avenge his family. Maybe he needed a reality check, so he would abandon the Wall for the throne. And maybe the only thing that will get him away from the Wall is his having to keep up the pretence of his death.

3. Fire cannot kill a dragon

So, if Jon is a Targaryen, and the Night’s Watch decides to cremate him so the White Walkers won’t recruit him, there’s a good chance he will do a Daenerys, and re-emerge from the flames, alive and unclothed and seething.  Of course, there’s also a chance he will remain dead but unburned, which would make him a great cadet for the White Walkers.

4. Speaking of fire...

"You know nothing, Jon Snow", trilled the Red Priestess, after he rebuffed her sexual advances. Which made me think, for a moment, that the flame-haired Ygritte was probably a manifestation of Melisandre.

Why did Melisandre ride all the way back to Castle Black instead of going someplace where she wouldn’t have to deal with an awkward conversation about the Joan-of-Arc treatment she gave Princess Shireen?

Well, maybe it was a red herring (no pun intended), or maybe she was willing to brave Ser Davos Seaworth because she’d had one of her visions. The books apparently have a passage about her hearing the whispered name ‘Jon Snow’ through the crackling of fire, “a shadow half-seen behind a fluttering curtain. Now he was a man, now a wolf, now a man again.”

This would tie in nicely with the idea that fire must cast a shadow, and maybe poor Shireen was the human sacrifice that would empower Melisandre to resurrect Jon Snow.

5. Nothing is on the show for no reason

We’ve seen the resurrection of Ser Beric Dondarrion by another Red Priest, Thoros of Myr. We’ve seen an encounter between the Brotherhood without Banners and Melisandre. She knows, then, that she can carry out the occasional friendly resurrection. And we know she knows. So, why not make Jon Snow her guinea pig? Clearly, she wants something from him, or she wouldn’t have tried to seduce him.

6. Rewind to the "man-wolf-man" thing

In the books, the last word on the dying Jon Snow’s lips is “Ghost” – his faithful direwolf, who has saved him so often from the jaws of death. There are plenty of hints in the books that Jon might be a warg, and skinchange into the wolf. The name “Ghost” is a rather broad hint too, eh? In the books, Bran has visions of Jon as a wolf; there is also an incident where Jon and Robb play a prank on the younger Starks – Robb lures Sansa, Arya, and Bran into the crypts, while Jon disguises as a ghost, scaring Sansa and annoying Arya.

7. The original title for the final book was...

...A Time for Wolves, before it became A Dream of Spring. The original title could mean the Starks surge back to power. We can’t be sure how, since Arya’s blind and Sansa’s in the less-than-capable hands of Theon Greyjoy and Robb’s dead and Bran’s busy having visions and that-other-kid-Rickon is MIA. But, let us, for a moment, interpret it literally. Arya’s direwolf Nymeria is alive, right? And so are Ghost and Summer and Shaggydog? So, maybe Jon Snow becomes the one warg to bring them all, and, in the winter, bind them?

8. Only Jon Snow has killed a wight with a sword

So, only he knows that Valyrian steel can kill the White Walkers, right? It would be something of a shame if everyone had to go south to hunt for dragonglass, when there are about ten good Valyrian steel blades in circulation. If Jon Snow is dead-dead, no one will ever know, unless Sam chances upon a fortuitous line in some book he finds in the Citadel.

9. Speaking of Sam...

Surely the last meaningful conversation Jon Snow has with his best bud can’t be a Sex and the City style, morning-after dissection? If I remember right, and I usually do, their exchange goes something like:

Jon: They will make you keep off women if you’re a Maester too, you know.

Sam (giggle, sly face): They can try.

Jon (oh-my-god face): Sam...Sam!

Giggles, significant looks exchanged.

Jon: But...how?

Sam: Very, very carefully.

That’s a pretty pathetic collection of last-memorable-words. No, Jon Snow can’t go out like that.

10.  Kit Harington’s stalkers won’t keep us in the dark

Yeah, some fangirl spotted Harington-and-girlfriend in a Belfast cafe, and asked to take a picture with them. Harington told her he couldn’t take a picture, since no one was supposed to know he was at the site of shooting for Game of Thrones. She promptly broke the news on Reddit, and posted this photograph as proof.

Maybe he was shooting for the cremation scene, but why would he need to hide it?

And the incident also indicates that maybe, just maybe, he’s not the most discreet actor around. You know, since he trusts a random fan, who has broken in on his date to request a selfie, with privileged information.

So, perhaps Harington himself thinks Jon Snow is dead, because the makers would rather keep him in the dark than risk a Darth-Vader-is-Luke-Skywalker’s-Dad type leak.