You have to hand it to HBO, who trolled Game of Thrones fans hard with its first poster for the upcoming sixth season a couple months back.
It was simply a close-up on the face of Jon Snow, the felled leader of The Night’s Watch, who was removed from the world of the living at the close of Season 5. No sooner did Snow shuffle off this mortal coil than did theories and speculation start to bubble about how Kit Harrington’s character would return to the series because for as savage as the show has been about killing off anyone you’ve ever been attached to, they couldn’t really kill Jon Snow… could they?
The first full trailer for the upcoming season, which debuts April 24, dropped last week and sent everyone scurrying to dissect every millisecond of the video in an effort to start figuring out what may come in the season ahead. Check out the trailer below and then we’ll talk about some ideas of what we might get in Season 6:
Jon Snow
There is no other place to start than right here and no reason to beat around the bush: Snow will be back in Season 6 and not just laying dead as we saw him in the trailer. Dude is too important to be all the way dead, so the bigger question is how long will it be before Snow returns to the realm of the living-ish?
We see Davos collect Snow’s sword and apologize to what he’s about to do, which undoubtedly will be something to do with bringing Jon back to life. Chances are we’re not going to go more than three episodes before Snow is upright and active again, simply because there is more than needs to happen this season beyond bringing him back from the dead.
Bran Stark
After not being involved last season, the young paralyzed Stark is back in the mix, learning about his powers from the Three-Eyed Raven. The trailer shows a point where the Night’s King is standing all blue-faced and icy behind an upright Bran, so it’s almost assuredly a vision, but you can bet he’s going to be a big part of things this year too.
In the teaser trailer that came out before the full-length trailer above, Bran utters the words “They have no idea what’s going to happen,” and my guess is that the Stark family warg will be the one that eventually clues others in on what is going to happen.
Lannisters vs. The Faith Militant
“I choose violence.”
That’s what short-haired Cersei tells her cousin, former lover, and current hyper-aggressive religious conservative Lancel Lannister when he directs her to get the reincarnated Mountain to stand down or face violence. You gotta love it!
The tension between the Faith Militant and the Lannister Clan were a major part of last season and will be the same this year, given that Queen Margaery is still locked up, the High Sparrow pops up in the trailer talking about the power they can wield and we see a conflict brewing between the two sides. Expect a full blown brawl between these opposing groups at some point in the season ahead.
Dany and the Dragons
Last we saw Dany, she was being surrounded by a Dothraki khalasar and she doesn’t look like she’s in a position of power in the trailer. But the “Mother of Dragons” left ring behind and her faithful man-servants Daario and Jorah are out looking for her, plus there are still two more dragons down in the catacombs of Mereen.
Last season was about Dany learning the challenges of being a ruler and this season seems to take her down a notch, at least to start, but again, she’s I wouldn’t bet against her rising up before seasons end, especially if Tyrion creeping around with a torch is a nod to him releasing the other two dragons to go find their mother.
