The final image from Season 5 of Game of Thrones was Jon Snow on his back, crimson blood slowly spilling out from the various puncture wounds inflicted by his fellow members of the Night’s Watch. Motionless in the snow, another of the central characters in the addictive, unflinching HBO drama had been felled. Or had he?
As soon as the episode ended, the speculation began.
Jon Snow was too important to the story to be killed. He’d somehow make his return next season, you’ll see.
But then came the interviews, where showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss said the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch would not be returning, following by Kit Harington, the actor who portrays the beloved bastard son of Ned Stark (maybe?) on the series, confirming that Jon Snow’s watch had indeed ended.
Even with those confirmations, no one seemed to believe it to be true. After all, if he was supposed to be brought back from the dead in some way, why would the showrunners or anyone involved offer up that spoiler in the days following the conclusion of Season 5? This is the kind of juicy potential twist that sets the internet ablaze and generates interest in a program that is still 10 months away from returning.
You can’t buy that kind of off-season interest and the internet (myself very much included) can’t help but want to try to figure out officially if Jon Snow will return in Season 6.
The latest “hint” that perhaps we haven’t seen the last of him came this weekend when Harington was spotted at Wimbledon.
Now, a lad from London taking in some tennis over the weekend isn’t a big deal. What makes this a buzzworthy bit of information, however, is that Harington arrived at the All England Club sporting Jon Snow’s trademark long, curly locks. Again, that wouldn’t be a point of interest – “Man shows up at sporting event with hair, story at 11!” isn’t bringing in viewers – but Harington has repeatedly told the media that he hates having long hair.
Well if you hate it and your character with the long hair is dead, why haven’t you shaved your head and started enjoying freshly-shorn freedom that comes with Jon Snow’s dath?
BECAUSE JON SNOW ISN’T ACTUALLY DEAD!
Sorry – I couldn’t contain myself. I also have no idea if that is indeed the reason Harington is still sporting the long locks he claims to hate.
It’s entirely possible that Harington has kept the Snow-like mane for an upcoming role (Pompei II: Electric Boogaloo), because the ladies seem to love him with long hair or because he hasn’t had a chance to sit down with his stylist and get rid of it yet. He could also be keeping it to mess with obsessive writers and gawkers (and Gawker) who will freak out about his long hair each and every time he’s spotted in public with it between now and when filming for Season 6 is supposed to start later this summer.
That would be the best move: keep it right up until everyone knows the cast has gone back to work on the various locations where Game of Thrones is filmed and then turn up somewhere noticeable with a nice, tight fade or a hard part with a little pomade run through the top.
Of course, it could also be that Jon Snow is going to be resurrected from the dead by Melisandre and he’ll be back kicking ass and taking names (hopefully starting with Aliser Thorne) next season, but we won’t know one way or another until much closer to Season 6’s premiere date.
For now, all we can do is speculate. And don’t worry: we’re not going to be running “Hairwatch 2015” here every week… it’ll be once a month at the most, I promise.
