Don’t call it a Curtain Call: Jon Snow will live again!

You’ve seen the Curtain Call on Kit Harington written by my esteemed colleague, Ani Bundel, but I am of the opinion that she was a tad premature in her eulogy for the 998th Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. There is a vast sea of contextual clues as to Jon Snow’s involvement in the end game of A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones, and for any of us to believe that he’s dead, gone, and never coming back is to fool ourselves. Don’t follow the rest of the lemmings over the side of the cliff that was the Game of Thrones Season 5 finale—Jon Snow will return.

Many of my arguments are rooted in the source material from which Game of Thrones draws its storylines: George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire books. And, while Martin himself has said that the show is the show and the books are the books—meaning that events may not play out in the same way on the screen as they do on the page—both versions of the story are bound to reach the same conclusion, and to follow fundamentally similar paths to get there.

The story of Jon Snow has always been one of extremes. As a young man, he decided to join The Night’s Watch, the members of which adhere to a strict rules: they will take no wives, father no children, and generally keep neutral regarding affairs of the realm. While on his first ranging north of the Wall, Jon was forced to kill a legendary brother of the Night’s Watch in order to infiltrate a wildling army. Later, Jon made the decision to defend Castle Black from the wildlings he had infiltrated, and from the wildling woman with whom he had fallen in love.

Later, after he had been elected Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, Jon was forced to execute a man who disobeyed his orders, even when that man begged for mercy. Jon also decided to make peace with the wildlings, let them through the Wall, use them to garrison several abandoned forts, and allow them to settle on lands where the White Walkers could not touch them. These were all extreme decisions that no other brother of the Night’s Watch, let alone a Lord Commander, had ever had to make.

As a consequence of making those decisions, Jon was brutally stabbed by several of his fellow Night’s Watchmen, and many fans would have you believe that he’s gone for good. Let’s look at why that reasoning is flawed. While I may not have said many kind words about Game of Thrones Season 5, one of the few bright spots in this season was Episode 508, “Hardhome.” In that episode, Jon Snow set himself apart from any other warrior in the Seven Kingdoms by defeating a White Walker in mortal combat. I’m not talking about Sam’s accidental dragonglass shanking of a White Walker, either.

Jon not only fought hand to hand with the Night’s King’s lieutenant, but he was able to avoid what appeared to be devastating blows while searching for Longclaw, his Valyrian steel sword. Then, once he had Longclaw in his hands, he was able to parry the White Walker’s spear thrust before shattering his opponent. I’ll say this again: no one else has done this…not in the show, and certainly not in the books.

So, if you’re going to permanently kill a major character, why kill the one who holds the key to thwarting the Night’s King, his lieutenants, and their horde of undead? Why show the Massacre at Hardhome at all? The answer is simple: Jon Snow’s not gone for good. The Season 5 finale was meant to mirror the massive cliffhanger from A Dance with Dragons…and to a point, it did. Despite the ridiculous method Olly and Ser Alliser used to lure Jon to his death, the result was the same. “For the Watch” was uttered, Jon was stabbed, and we were left lamenting the loss of yet another major character in the series….or were we?

If we accept the fact that David Benioff and Dan Weiss are loosely basing Game of Thrones on George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, then we too must accept that they are following Martin’s blueprints for the end. What I mean by this, is that while they can alter events to make them more television-friendly, add and subtract certain characters, and even change the way some plotlines develop, in the end they need to reach the same conclusion as Martin himself…which leads me to my next and most convincing point.

The prologue for A Dance with Dragons is all about a warg (a person with the ability to possess the body of another living being) named Varamyr Sixskins. In this chapter, the reader learns all about how Varamyr learned to jump into and out of various animals’ bodies over the course of his life. He had taken many animals to inhabit, and even attempts, in the final moments of his life, to inhabit a human being. That doesn’t work out, so just before his human body expires, Varamyr wargs into one of his wolves, and prepares to live out his “second life” as the animal.

At one point, Varamyr even thinks about Jon Snow and his direwolf Ghost. Wargs, Varamyr reveals, can always tell when another warg is around. When the two met, Varamry knew that Jon was a powerful warg, even if Jon’s gift remained undeveloped to the point where Jon didn’t realize it himself. Varamyr even thought back to his initial meeting with Jon Snow, back when Mance Rayder was still leading an army of wildlings to the Wall.

Mance should have let me take the direwolf. There would be a second life worthy of a king.

This is a clear use of foreshadowing on Martin’s part. All the Stark children share a special bond with their direwolves. Think of Rickon’s direwolf Shaggydog, who takes on Rickon’s anger and rage over being abandoned by his parents, or Bran’s multiple forays into the body of his direwolf Summer. Jon and Ghost share that bond as well, yet Jon has never been shown to inhabit Ghost. However, he does have the same “wolf dreams” that Arya has about Nymeria, and that Bran has about Summer.

Finally, when Jon meets his end in the books, his last thought is “Ghost.” This is Martin’s way of bringing all that foreshadowing about wargs to bear, and inferring that while Jon’s body may be dead, his consciousness is now inside his direwolf Ghost.

Now, Varamyr Sixskins hasn’t appeared on the show, nor have we been privy to any wolf dreams Jon or Arya may have had, but that doesn’t mean these things can’t be introduced. Also, it’s not the only theory on how Jon may be brought back.

Before Jon was betrayed, something very important happened—Melisandre arrived back at Castle Black. We know from Season 3, Episode 6, when Melisandre met Thoros of Myr, that the Lord of Light has the power to resurrect the dead. Melisandre and Thoros have never met in the books, and yet the producers of the show decided to bring them together. Why? It wasn’t just to show how Beric Dondarrion could have returned from death so many times—it was a bit of foreshadowing.

So, now that we in the audience know that Melisandre is aware of the Lord of Light’s power of resurrection, and that Jon shares a close bond with Ghost, is it really that much of a stretch to think that Jon warged into Ghost the moment before his body died? If not that, is it a further stretch to think that Melisandre, who is now at the Wall, might use what she learned from Thoros to bring Jon back from the dead? Even if you stand on the fact that the show has not shown Jon manifest the ability to warg, how can you ignore the fact that a practitioner of the Lord of Light’s religion is conveniently at the Wall at the very moment Jon is stabbed to death?

My colleagues think I’m off my rocker with all this, and of course you could put it firmly in the “tinfoil hat category,” but until Season 6 begins, and Jon Snow’s body is burned or buried or gone, I say nay. Nay, I say. Of course, there’re interviews from the writers/producers of the show saying that Jon is dead, but if I was part of the Game of Thrones brain trust, then I would want to keep what is arguably the biggest cliffhanger in all of television a secret at any cost. And then there’s Kit Harington saying, multiple times, “I’m dead,” and “Jon Snow is dead.” Well, of course he is. I believe that Jon Snow is 100% dead…because you have to be dead, in order to be resurrected.

And now my watch begins.

• Published on 06/23/2015 at 8:00 AM CDT
• Last updated on 06/23/2015 at 8:00 AM CDT