Game of Thrones CC #3 | :- Waiting For The Winds Of Winter -: | - Page 59

Does Kit Harington's New Haircut Spell Doom For Jon Snow On Game Of Thrones'?

Warning: This article contain MAJOR SPOILERS for both the show and the books, as well as wild speculation.

Please continue with care.

It's one of the most talked-about moments from the Song of Ice and Fire books"at the end of A Dance with Dragons, Jon Snow is stabbed by several of his fellow Night's Watchmen. It's unclear whether he survived, an ambiguity George R.R. Martin encouraged after Entertainment Weekly asked him why he killed the young Lord Commander. Martin's answer: "Oh, you think he's dead, do you?"

There are a lot of theories out there regarding Jon Snow's fate, one of which posits that his last words hold the key to his ultimate survival. From A Dance with Dragons:

Then Bowen Marsh stood there before him, tears running down his cheeks. "For the Watch." He punched Jon in the belly. When he pulled his hand away, the dagger stayed where he had buried it.

Jon fell to his knees. He found the dagger's hilt and wrenched it free. In the cold night air the wound was smoking. "Ghost," he whispered. Pain washed over him. Stick them with the pointy end. When the third dagger took him between the shoulder blades, he gave a grunt and fell face-first into the snow. He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold.

Jon Snow is known to be a skinchanger, meaning that he can warg, or possess, animals, although he doesn't have complete control over the ability the way certain wildling skinchangers do. Still, a popular theory holds that Jon Snow warged into Ghost just before his own, fleshy human body suffered death by stabbing. This would allow Jon to live on inside his direwolf.

Season 5 of Game of Thrones has departed from the books in several ways, but it's still expected that the year will end with Jon Snow's murder. Will Ghost play a role? An interview with Andrew Simpson, the man who trains the wolfs used onGame of Thrones, may provide a clue.

First, Simpson talked a little about Quigly, the wolf who stands in for Ghost on the show. "Quigly is a big old Arctic wolf. He's a very sweet wolf, but you'll see in one of the upcoming episodes that he has a darker side to him." A darker side to Ghost? Interesting.

Simpson also teased a big moment for Quigly coming in Episode 7 of Season 5, which will feature Jon Snow traveling to Hardhome so he can rescue the wildlings who have fled there. There's no word on what exactly that big moment will entail, but it's safe to assume that it won't involve the Night's Watch mutiny, as that can't happen until Jon Snow returns to Castle Black.

But that's not the clue we're looking for. The end of the article is where we get our first casting information for Season 6, as Simpson talked about what's in store for Quigly going forward.

They just started shooting season six now and we have been talking about it " so, the next couple of seasons, I'm hoping.

While this is far from conclusive, Simpson's interview gives us hope that Ghost will appear in Season 6. And if Ghost comes back, that implies that Jon will still be around in some form, since the Stark family direwolves don't tend to outlive their masters. Or things could go in a completely different direction. Only time (just over four week's time, to be specific) will tell.

Much has been made of George R.R. Martin's slow writing pace, especially since David Benioff and Dan Weiss have had to go off book in part because Martin has yet to finish The Winds of Winter, the 6th book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series. Earlier this year, the author announced that he would be skipping out on some conventions and public speaking engagements so that he could dedicate his time to finish book 6 before Season 6, which, by the way, he also announced he would not be writing an episode for.

Admittedly, as a huge fan of the books, I was pleased to hear that he was dedicating his time and effort toward finishing the series, or at the very least, the next book. We know very little about The Winds of Winter, but Martin has released a few sample chapters on his website, including an excerpt about Sansa titled Alayne. Understandably, the anticipation for Winds is starting to build to quite a fever pitch, with fans much like myself thirsting for any sort of news or information about a release date.

Well, this isn't a release date, but it's something, as Martin has announced via his Not A Blog website that he will be heading to Conquest 46, a local convention in Kansas City, Missouri, as the Editor Guest of Honor, on Memorial Day Weekend, May 22-24.

Yes, I will be reading a chapter from THE WINDS OF WINTER there, and yes, I'll talk about ICE AND FIRE and my other writing... but the emphasis at Conquest will be on my editing, especially the WILD CARDS series, and one of my two scheduled autograph sessions will be limited to the anthologies I've edited. Just sayin'.

So, if you have some free time, and are either in or around the Kansas City, Missouri, area, you may just get to hear Martin read a new chapter from The Winds of Winter. I say "may" because Martin did not say that it would definitely be a new chapter. Still, it would be quite a pleasure to listen to the bearded bard read any chapter from Winds, and to listen to him talk about Ice and Fire.

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