The Game of Thrones Season 6 premiere finally and officially confirmed what most of us already knew: Jon Snow really is dead. That much was obvious from the episode. What’s a little more subtle is the proof that Jon Snow isn’t going to stay dead. That, of course, is the biggest question about this season. And the show didn’t directly answer it. But there are two really, really big clues. One is obvious. The other, not so much.
Jon Snow’s Ghostly Secret: He’s Not All The Way Dead
Jon Snow’s death is established from the first shot of the episode, as you would expect. Not long after that we see Melisandre’s confusion: She saw him in the fires, fighting at Winterfell. But now he’s dead! But prophecies always come true! Except they don’t. Except they do! Her throwaway line about her visions of Jon Snow in the future are an obvious sop to the audience. It’s a huge tease—an obvious one, but a good one. And it doesn’t tell us too much about what the future could hold.
The other clue is harder to spot, but more definitive. It requires you to know the primary theory floating around out there—that on Jon Snow’s death, his consciousness moved over into Ghost, his direwolf and warg companion. From there, Melisandre could bring him back to life, as other red priests have done with other men.
And the Game of Thrones Season 6 premiere also gives us a hint that maybe Jon Snow really is trapped in Ghost’s body now. And here’s what it is: Ghost is normally virtually silent. This is noted in both the show and the books. And in the Game of Thrones season 6 premiere, the normally silent direwolf is very loud indeed. He growls and howls and makes a ruckus, and appears several times in the episode—after being noticeably scarce for most of the last few seasons, because he wasn’t that important. But now he is. And all of a sudden the silent direwolf is noisy.
Is that because he’s just grieving for his master, in a way that’s very uncharacteristic to him? Or is it because he’s suddenly got a whole new personality inside of him? That’s a pretty compelling reason for him to suddenly start acting totally differently, isn’t it? Indeed. It’s the best evidence we have so far that Jon Snow is still alive… and trapped.
