TL;DR: HBO’s teaser images for Season 6 of “Game of Thrones” suggest that Jon Snow could still be alive.
HBO stirred the theory pot in late February when it posted on its official Facebook page an image of dead faces.
The only problem: Not all of the characters whose faces are shown are dead (yet).
The faces shown in the above image, from left to right: Jon Snow, Dany Targaryen, Robb Stark, Sansa Stark, Oberyn Martell and Cersei Lannister.
Put another way: Jon Snow (presumed dead), Dany Targaryen (still alive), Robb Stark (dead), Sansa Stark (alive), Oberyn Martell (dead) and Cersei Lannister (still alive).
Additionally, Tyrion Lannister, Arya Stark, Ned Stark, Joffery Baratheon — pretty much all major characters — have also had “dead faces” teased by HBO in the lead up to Season 6.
As one would say: Valar Morghulis. Anyone can die.
But what about the reverse of that phrase? Anyone can … live? That’s what some have taken the images to mean — specifically as it relates to Jon Snow.
This isn’t the first time HBO has teased us with the possibility of Jon Snow still being alive. In its first Season 6 trailer, a popular theory that Jon Snow wargs into Ghost just prior to death was implied (some would say strongly implied). There are several “Jon Snow is still alive” theories out there — one of which took a pretty big hit when Stannis Baratheon burned Shireen — but the warning theory remains one of, if not the, most popular.
The Game of Thrones faces: Dead, alive, or both?
We have seen these faces before. Well, not these faces, but similar faces.
Arya is in the House of Black and White, home of the Faceless Men, where the faces of countless dead people are used as masks among the Faceless Men. It seems like a stretch, but it’s possible that the House of Black and White has received Jon Snow’s death mask, and that someone — Arya Stark, maybe — will “become” Jon Snow by taking his face. Nothing is ever as it seems in Game of Thrones.
With Jon Snow’s face being shown alongside the living (and the dead, to be fair), it’s only fair to wonder whether or not he might truly be coming back — whether as himself or via a Faceless Man — in Season 6.