Damn. That sure was one hell of a Game of Thrones episode, huh? (SPOILERS AHEAD!)
For months now, Game of Thrones fans have wanted to know one thing: is Jon Snow actually dead? Fans knew that resurrection was technically possible, and that a character like Melisandre, who is a priestess of the Lord of Light, could potentially pull it off. Some took Melisandre’s appearance at the Wall as a good sign. But then again, the actors on the show, Kit Harrington included, kept insisting that no, Jon Snow is actually dead and would absolutely stay dead. Sharp viewers took those interviews with some scepticism, of course: it could all be marketing, meant to make an eventual reveal all the more shocking.
And then season six happened. An entire episode went by and Jon was still freakin’ dead, with no resurrection or twist in sight. I wouldn’t blame anyone for losing hope at that point. But, as it turns out, it was all just a long con! Game of Thrones waited until the second episode of the sixth season to bring Jon back in a cliffhanger ending. What a tease. I was kind of expecting it to happen, but I still felt giddy watching it all the same.
I am not alone. Right after the episode ended, fans everywhere took to social media to express their delight over Jon Snow. Kit Harrington himself even apologised for deceiving fans over at Entertainment Weekly, but I think fans were too hyped to be mad at him.
Here are some of the internet’s best reactions to Jon Snow’s revival.
On YouTube, some fans recorded themselves as they watched Jon Snow come alive:
Source: lucieintheskye
me when jon snow took that very breath pic.twitter.com/rj8vsroUCN
— mikaela (@cestmonamour_) May 2, 2016
Pretty sure I had the same reaction! ?? #JohnSnow #GameofThrones pic.twitter.com/nYGVOjwYtz
— Kelle Wisker (@Kelle8681) May 2, 2016
Jon Snow pic.twitter.com/e4PIlGZn6G
— Pamela Dávila (@PamelaDavilaA) May 2, 2016
St. Jon Snow pic.twitter.com/5E0NH0kIqg
— Rhaegar (@agustinmarengo) May 2, 2016
Jon Snow gasping for breath and me be like. pic.twitter.com/p78Nwdmc5Z
— Ceteri~ (@DormiensAnimus) May 2, 2016
Yes! Jon Snow ? #GOT pic.twitter.com/7fYVd7KSuy
— Tams Wright (@TweetinTams) May 2, 2016
My reaction when Jon Snow suddenly took that breath. pic.twitter.com/6Rf33DAgDi
— Saim (@itsSaim) May 2, 2016
watchin jon snow come back to life like pic.twitter.com/eYq5ZDIOc1
— Melanie Ann (@mel_torro) May 2, 2016
Jon snow pic.twitter.com/Z9dnqAwP5f
— Deiny-sk8 (@ICEMANSK8) May 2, 2016
Like I said @GameOfThrones #GameofThrones #JonSnow pic.twitter.com/4Fa3uOicvE
— Jason (@jason_walker24) May 2, 2016
Always remember, there’s a big difference between being mostly dead and all dead. #JonSnow #GameofThrones pic.twitter.com/bhSQ2xnaTR
— Minstra (@ViceRoyMinstra) May 2, 2016
When Jon Snow woke up in the end of the episode! https://t.co/8AHH9j5SRM
— Kevin Maggiore (@kevinmaggiore9) May 2, 2016
He’s alive. #GameofThrones #JonSnow My heart only just stopped. pic.twitter.com/jUJ60tTcpM
— Michelle Singletary (@SingletaryM) May 2, 2016
What do we say to the god of death?
Not today. #GameOfThrones
— Jon Snow (@LordSnow) May 2, 2016
Jon snow came back like #GameofThrones pic.twitter.com/Ug4s2HKB2a
— robert_da_vinci (@robertbett1) May 2, 2016
Jon Snow nella 6×03 pic.twitter.com/Ne3Z0oO3Jg
— Mushu (@kenobliss) May 2, 2016
We live in a world where Leo won an Oscar and Jon Snow is back from the dead. Chase your dream. Anything is possible.
— Mr Dombastic (@MrDomLea) May 2, 2016
Jon Snow really knows nothing, not even how to die!
— Elcid Dalangin (@cdthkd) May 2, 2016
JON SNOW!!!!!!
— Justin Timberlake (@jtimberlake) May 2, 2016
Jon Snow!!!!!!! We know nothing!! ?? I freakin’ knew it!!!!!!!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/OUALnpoqd8
— Mickey Guyton (@MickeyGuyton) May 2, 2016
Jon Snow is alive pic.twitter.com/92w19bR8Ek
— Jaqen H’ghar (@caffreey) May 2, 2016
Jon Snow and his wolf #GOT pic.twitter.com/BmQYY0W2pf
— Kristina Nicaj (@kristinanicaj) May 2, 2016
If jon snow can get resurrected so can my GPA pic.twitter.com/E4CEI9Vo7D
— tee (@tarynmarak) May 2, 2016
Me: *goes outside*
Jon snow is alive
*goes to market*
Jon snow is alive
*goes to pharmacy*
Hey jon snow is alive— Moose (@007Madridista) May 2, 2016
Game of Thrones Redditors seemed pretty overjoyed at the news, too:
Finally, Tumblr was as amusing as ever:
Via melisandlre
Via fairweatherfrey
Via thetimewriter
Via ashleymorris1000
You can read Gizmodo’s recap of last night’s Game of Thrones episode here.
Comments
34 responses to “The Internet Reacts To The Latest Bombshell Game Of Thrones”
As someone who doesn’t watch the show, can I get some context as to why he’s so important and why it’s a big deal that he’s alive?
Because people might think they could possible known who his potential father is.
He’s one of the few ambiguous good characters so most fans have latched onto him.
He’s one of the main characters. Like main, main ones. His parentage has been hidden but most people have got a fairly good idea of who they are, which means he’s pretty important to the overall story. Also, he’s a fan favourite.
Some prophecy nonsense from the books that hasn’t made it into the show… every other prophecy in the series has turned out to be false, but they’ve got a good feeling about this one. For some reason.
“Every other prophecy” meaning Melisandre’s visions? The prophecy you’re alluding to seems to be the backbone of the entire story. Besides, Maggy the Frog’s Cersei prophecy seems to be coming true.
Jon Snow is the illegitimate son of the deceased Eddard ‘Ned’ Stark. Ned Stark was Lord of Winterfell and ruled the North (the northern half of the Seven Kingdoms, so a large and powerful area). Who controls the North has been a matter of contention in the series, as control means great military and political power – enough to greatly influence any play for the Iron Throne (ruler of the Seven Kingdoms).
However, due to a series of unfortunate events, all the members of House Stark are either dead or scattered and in hiding. Jon Snow is the eldest surviving male of House Stark and, despite his illegitimacy, one of the frontrunning candidates for Lord of Winterfell. His resurrection has implications across the entire political landscape.
And he’s got a really f***ing cool direwolf!
You know nothing, Amanda Yeo.
Neither do I, though I have an inkling that the above isn’t quite true.
Edit: wow, looks like I’ve been gazumped by the overwhelming post below by kermitron.
People like his face and torso. Succinct.
In the beginning Westeros was conquered by the Targaryens, who were famous for incest and being able to tame motherflippin’ dragons. They took the country, defeated the invincible tower at Harrenhal (which was only invincible from a ground attack, not airborne dragons which no one saw coming) and built an empire with fire and blood. The lords bent the knee and threw down their swords in a massive pile which was forged in dragon fire to become the Iron Throne.
300 years later the dragons are all dead as the Targaryens lost their power, likely connected with the “doom” that destroyed their place of origin, Valyria. After a long succession of increasingly shitty Targaryen kings culminating in the reign of the “Mad” King Aerys, there was a rebellion. It was called “Robert’s Rebellion” because it was started by Robert Baratheon in a bid to rescue his true love and promised wife Lyanna Stark who had been purportedly kidnapped by Prince Rhaegar Targaryen despite the fact Rhaegar was already married to Princess Elia Martell of Dorne. Robert rode into battle with the northern lords behind him, not the least of which was his best friend Eddard (Ned) Stark, Lyanna’s brother. Some houses such as the Lannisters were supposed to be loyal to the Targaryens but ultimately turned and supported Robert.
Robert took King’s Landing, the seat of the Targaryen power and the Mad King Aerys was slain by his own kingsguard, Jamie Lannister. Jamie would later reveal in confidence that he broke his vow to protect the king and slew Aerys because Aerys had filled tunnels under the city with wildfyre, a potent explosive liquid, and was going to burn King’s Landing to the ground. He would rather burn his own city and the innocent people living in it than let it fall to Robert, so Jamie stopped him and never told anyone, bearing the title “kingslayer” with a kind of sad pride.
Tragically, Lyanna died during the rebellion. While Robert was facing Prince Rhaegar in single combat Ned found her in “The Tower of Joy”, surrounded by Kingsguard who surrendered to Ned’s men, already aware their king Aerys was dead. They swore that had they been protecting their king, he would never have been slain by the oathbreaking kingslayer Jamie. So why were they at the Tower of Joy protecting Lyanna, a prisoner of Prince Rhaegar instead? This mystery hasn’t really been answered. After the dust settled, Robert has all the surviving Targaryens including Aerys’ baby children Daenerys and Viserys murdered, permanently ending their bloodline. Interestingly part of how Robert gained access to King’s Landing was when the Lannister army arrived and Aerys had the gates opened believing they were his reinforcements, but instead they joined with Robert’s men and helped take the city, with Cersei Lannister (daughter of Lord Tywin Lannister) being promised to Robert in marriage to become his queen. Tywin’s men ran rampant on King’s Landing and it was rumoured that princess Elia was raped and her and her children murdered by Ser Gregor Clegane, otherwise known as “the mountain who rides” due to his amazing stature, something certain parties in Dorne were determined to seek justice for (but that’s a whole other story).
When Ned came to Lyanna, she was dying in a bed of blood, surrounded by rose petals. Before she passed away she asked Ned to “promise her” one thing. That one thing he held in confidence. After the war Robert became king (technically he is considered a usurper but he was granted the throne because the Baratheon and Targaryen families had been previously joined in marriage some three generations prior so Robert had some Targ blood claim to the Iron Throne) and married Cersei, though he never really loved her and spent his remaining years pining for his lost love Lyanna, sometimes even calling Cersei Lyanna in bed. Ned Stark returned to his role as warden of the north and Lord of Winterfell with his bastard son Jon Snow, to have an awkward conversation with new new wife Catelyn Tully who would then give him five more children – Robb, Sansa, Arya, Brandon and Rickon.
Fifteen years later King Robert Baratheon comes to Ned and tells him the Hand of the King Jon Arryn has died. Robert and Ned were both wards of Jon Arryn as children and he was dear to them. Robert asks Ned to be his hand and Ned reluctantly agrees. Later, Robert dies during a supposed hunting accident and his son Joffrey becomes king. Ned discovers Joffrey is actually the product of incest between queen Cersei Lannister and her brother Jamie (the kingslayer). Ned threatens to expose Cersei’s secret and she has him arrested. Joffrey later executes him and he takes his secret promise to Lyanna to the grave.
Cersei has all of Robert’s bastard children (he liked the whores) murdered so no one could potentially challenge Joffrey’s claim to the throne. Robert’s brothers Stannis and Renly also discover the incest (which quickly becomes very well known) and challenge the throne, as does Ned’s eldest legitimate son Robb Stark who unites the north to get revenge for Ned’s death. Balon Greyjoy of the Iron Isles also claims he should be king (following a failed rebellion some ten years prior), and this sets off what is known as “the war of the five kings”. As a bastard Jon Snow has no claim to the Stark name and “takes the black”, joining the Night’s Watch at the northern wall, a barrier between Westeros and the frozen north which is filled with all kinds of monsters including white walkers, mythical invincible ice zombies who are steadily progressing towards Westeros who is too busy destroying itself to notice or care.
Meanwhile it is revealed that not all the Targaryens were killed. Daenerys and Viserys Targaryen were actually switched out and spirited away to Targaryen loyalists on the other side of the narrow sea and protected until Daenerys and Viserys would come of age (“of age” apparently being 13 years old). A deal is brokered to marry her to a powerful Dothraki horselord called Khal Drogo so that when she gives him a son, he will set out to conquer Westeros and their son can rule the world. Daenerys is give three stone dragon eggs as a wedding gift. The eggs are dormant, dead along with the magic that sustained the last dragons some centuries ago. Viserys is impatient and wants Khal Drogo to take his Khalasar west immediately, and Drogo executes him for his impertinence – Daenerys is pretty indifferent to this, since he was abusive towards her their whole life anyway. Later Drogo falls in combat and Daenerys asks a witch to save him. She thought she could trust the witch because she stopped her from being raped when she was captured by Drogo’s men – she saves his body but his mind is gone, along with Daenerys’ unborn baby who the witch used as a sacrifice for her blood magic to torment Daenerys because she had been a victim of khalasar raids before and did not really want to save Drogo. She tells Daenerys that she will now be barren until the sun “rises in the west and sets in the east” (i.e.: never). Most of Drogo’s men leave him to follow another Khal, as a Khal who cannot ride a horse is not deserving of being a Khal.
Daenerys smothers her catatonic husband and builds a pyre to burn the witch with his body. She then walks into the fire with the three stone eggs as a mysterious red star rises in the sky. When the pyre is burned out, Daenerys is found unharmed in the ashes with three newly hatched dragons, earning her the titles “the unburnt” and “mother of dragons” in addition to “Stormborn” (because she was born during a really bad storm, I guess). With Drogo’s last remaining men still loyal to her (mostly the old and infirm) Daenerys, the last Targaryen sets off to find a new army.
Over time the dragons grow larger and stronger but Daenerys is stymied by circumstance and is getting no closer to returning to Westeros. Robb Stark is murdered at a wedding in a troubling break from tradition. Joffrey is assassinated at his own wedding to Margaerey Tyrell and is succeeded by his brother Tommen, who is also a product of Lannister incest (and also marries Margarey because that chick is going to be queen no matter what). Balon Greyjoy dies in a mysterious accident. Renly is killed by a sorceress named Melisandre who is a priestess of the red god Rh’llor and is working for Stannis, believing him to be Azor Ahai reborn, a kind of prophet of the Red God in human form.
The war of the five kings has now become a straight up civil war between Stannis Baratheon and the Iron Throne held by a Lannister boy who is a Baratheon in name only.
Meanwhile, after ranging north of the wall and living among the wildling people (or “free folk”) for awhile (including lying with a wildling woman named Ygritte, which is expressly forbidden) Jon Snow returns to the watch with intel and after defending the wall against a wildling attack, is voted in as the new Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch and brokers peace between the wildings who live north of the wall who want to escape from the White Walkers. Jon also ventures north to a wildling settlement called Hardhome to rescue wildings trapped there just as the White Walkers attack the people there. We learn that people who die at the hands of a White Walker may rise as one if the body is not burned. When he returns, loyal longstanding members of the watch who don’t trust the wildlings murder Jon, calling him “traitor”, and leave his body in the snow as a warning to any others in the watch who might feel compelled to follow in his footsteps.
I’m leaving out a lot of details but basically it has long been suspected that
Jon Snow is not actually Ned’s bastard son but actually the secret son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, who were married in secret – so not only not a bastard, but not even technically a Stark. There are a handful of people who might know this, Ned Stark being one obvious candidate but his secret died with him (it is assumed Lyanna’s promise was to keep her son Jon safe as she was on the verge of dying after giving birth to him). When Jon “died” at the end of book 5/season 5 it was a big blow to fans of the “R+L=J” theory, as it meant we’d never find out, but it seemed like the pieces were in place for Jon to be resurrected and at the same time released from his vows to serve in the Night’s Watch until his death. Technically he’s free and, if he discovers his heritage, potentially has the strongest claim to the Iron Throne as he’s the last surviving male of the Targaryen bloodline (and the only person who can produce a Targaryen heir, as Daenerys is barren).Of course whether Jon’s heritage matters to the rest of Westeros is another story entirely, I mean at the moment everyone knows that the Baratheon claim to the throne was bullshit but let it slide because he won it through conquest. Now there’s a pure Lannister boy king and this is still ok. It’s not like Jon Targaryen turning up and saying “oi that’s mine” is going to achieve anything. Buuuut, he is a product of both Targ blood and the long-standing Stark family that was Warden of the north, which when/if united can easily overpower the south and take King’s Landing, which makes him a powerful symbol for a united kingdom.
There is also the belief, particularly since it was Melisandre who revived Jon, that HE is in fact Azor Ahai. There are several prophecies about who Azor Ahai is and what he’s going to do but a lot of the prophecies do pertain to Jon, particularly his suspected Targaryen heritage. Other candidates for Azor Ahai: Daenerys, Euron Greyjoy, and Tommen’s pet cat Ser Pounce.
Edit: typos and a few extra details
Edit 2: got a couple of names/lineages wrong
Wow that’s… way more than I expected. But a very succinct and clear summary. Thank you.
I more or less skipped from the end of season 1 to the present (season 6 episode 2) so there’s a lot of information missing, but I think I pretty much covered all the key events of the “A” plot. There’s a bunch of other cool stories going on with the other characters, but how significant they’ll ultimately be remains to be seen. The showrunners seem to be keen to wrap this show up so I expect a lot of extraneous characters and plots are going to fade away.
You enjoyed that, didn’t you? 😛
For real though, a fantastic explanation and help in catching up on the overarching story, so thanks 🙂
Mate! That’s an amazing summary
I’m not a book reader, so don’t know who is wrong (or if TV has changed from the book) but according to the GoT wiki Daenerys is Aerys’ daughter not Rhaegar’s.
Which if the “R+L=J” theory is true would make Jon her nephew, not older brother.Whoops, you’re correct/ Been so long since I read book one and watches season 1 that the details got fuzzy. I’ll fix my post so this doesn’t get overlooked.
Because of his gorgeous hair nothing more nothing less, it is all about his hair,
On thing that is interesting is that having a manifest destiny can be bad for your health in GOT. Does it look like some guy is the hero of the piece? He has a destiny being laid out before him that means he will kill the big bad guys and win for the good guys?
Yeah that guy is dead, plus his mates, mum, wife, dog, second cousin. The author used the tropes of story telling against you to show the comparison between some fantasy story and, say, the kind of evil stuff that really happened during human history. When you start reading Harry Potter or any kind of hero story you know this kid is the hero and will (eventually) win after many struggles. George R R Martin murders Harry Potter at the end of the first book.
So when Jon Snow has a destiny, and is killed, and there is a possible “out” for this death nobody really knew if it was all another trick. So when something “good” actually happened for real it was not certain. George has done this not just by killing off characters, but by using our own expectations of stories against us. Lots of prophecy in the story but only a small part of it is real.
Ah… I may need to actually get on board this then…. ‘cos that sounds pretty good.
The first few books (A Game of Thrones, A Storm of Swords and A Clash of Kings) are quite good. Then GRRM realised his characters were started off a bit too young and wanted to skip ahead 5 years to age them up. Then he realised that it made no sense for nothing to happen in those 5 years and book 4 underwent a massive late rewrite and wound up being split into 2 books, A Feast for Crows and A Dance of Dragons. There were people who simply did not appear in AFFC at all, and the first half of ADOD runs concurrently with AFFC to give us those “missing chapters”, so to speak. All through these five books we hear “winter is coming” over and over as the world Westeros is on has weird seasons. Long summers that last many years, followed by long winters that can last up to a decade. The winters are brutal and many people starve, so summer is seen as a time of relative ease and prosperity. A condescending insult is “oh, you sweet summer child” implying that the problems you are having now are nothing compared to what is yet to come, as you have never known winter even if you are 15-20 years old.
The North is the worst affected obviously as it’s already generally cold there, hance “Winter is Coming” being the house motto of the Stark family. It is suspected that Winter is actually a magical effect brought on by the movements of the White Walkers, or possibly that the White Walkers move in response to winter, hence why they are suddenly a threat around the time that “A Game of Thrones” is taking place. At the commencement of the story Westeros has enjoyed an unusually long summer and winter is expected to be similarly long and difficult. Really instead of warring and wasting resources, Westeros should have been preparing. There is a could chance winter will devastate the entire kingdom, if something is not done soon. Of course there are a few things that can defeat White Walkers – blades made of Valyrian steel (a rare magically infused metal from Old Valyria, which no longer exists), strong flame (such as that produced by dragons which also don’t really exist but for Danerys’ three) and “dragonglass” better known as obsidian. There is a massive reserve of it in the keep at Dragonstone which was once the seat of Baratheon power, but that’s at the other end of the kingdom and the only person with the right to access it was Stannis, who is currently kind of dead.
Again, very interesting.
Thanks Kermithrone!
These reactions….did people not see the writing on the wall? Very early in the whole last sequence I knew the credits would roll when he opened his eyes. Also knew we would get a cure from the wolf the first time he was revealed to be in the room. Wish there was at least a little surprise there.
Also, when are we going to see the lady with the heart of stone……
Likely never, the show runners didn’t see it as required nor would it progress the story in their eyes so i believe they’ve scrapped her.
Especially now that Snow is back. Non-book readers would criticise the show for “bringing everyone back” since it worked with JS.
It was a pretty interesting turn. I’m still hoping there is some point to her in the future story.
I was still half thinking that he was actually dead, and that all the clues to his resurrection were part of a years-long GRRM troll. It would’ve been a far more surprising (read: GOT-worthy) twist is he was actually dead.
Anyone and everyone could see that coming from the end of last season. Am I the only person though that’s getting increasingly bored with GoT though over the last couple of seasons? Not much in the way of plot progression, and what plot progression there is is tedious. Just because it’s GoT doesn’t mean it’s automatically the best thing ever like some people on Facebook* would have you believe
*edit – on Twitter as well…
Shh
Are you joking? S5 was admittedly a bit slow but we’re only 2 eps into S6 and so much has happened already. Death of Balon, introduction of Euron, Brienne/Sansa reunited, Doran Martell dead, set up of Lannister/Sparrow conflict, Arya beginning assassin training, Wildlings taking Castle Black, Jon Snow resurrection, not to mention setting up TOJ, R+L=J and the three heads of the dragon. I’m as excited about Thrones as I’ve ever been.
Yeah it’s pretty hard to surprise people when all the plot developments are adapted from books that were released like a decade ago. Even Jon being resurrected was only a fan theory until less than 48 hours ago.
Many of the things we consider “predictable” are the result of thousands of fans scrutinising minor details and mining them for significance.
Edit: reply fail
I expected crazy eyes though. Kinda disappointed on that front. Wish they revived Ygritte as well *sad face*.
There can’t have been many people who didn’t see it coming. The only bit that had me on the edge of my seat was the 2% chance of him cracking back to life with a pair of bright blue eyes.
Bright blue eyes being an indication that he’s a white walker? My wife was convinced he’d have violet eyes, as if being reawakened by the fiery power of the red god would trigger some latent part of his heritage.