Just when you thought the Game of Thrones hype couldn’t get any stronger, HBO goes and drops a crazy trailer video for season six. Just yesterday, they kicked off #GoT50, encouraging everyone to watch an episode of Game of Thrones every night leading up to the premiere. Now we’ve got a trailer so dense with new goodies, it’ll take us an entire article to unpack it and reveal its secrets.
If that’s what you want, of course. This is the point where we have to warn that this post is dark and full of spoilers. The trailer hits you with so many things so fast you don’t really register what you’re seeing. But we’re going to slow things down and separate everything piece by piece to reveal what’s happening. Turn back now lest you’re cool with that, and with hearing book-related insights into all the freshly released footage.
Jon Snow, still dead.
Yup. Dead, dead, dead.
But what’s this? Ser Alliser Thorne and his gang of Night’s Watch cronies trying to break down a door. To keep Ser Davos and Melisandre from doing something to Jon Snow’s corpse? Bringing him back to life, perhaps? Or maybe this is just another normal day in the life of the Watch’s worst locksmith.
Ser Davos, Jon’s friends (including Dolorous Edd), and Ghost on the other side of the door preparing for what’s coming.
Eagle eyed trailer watchers have noticed the lad in this clip looks suspiciously like Jon Snow. Alive. Riding a horse. Which is not something a corpse should be able to do, Weekend at Bernie’s-style hijinks aside.
It’s all part of a big battle rumored for the end of the season that fans have dubbed the Snowbowl, or Battle of the Bastards.
As usual, there ain’t no party like a Bolton party. Here’s some unfortunate soul who ended up getting the full flaying treatment before getting hung upside down. We’ve got no solid leads on who it may be.
With few friends in the North, it doesn’t seem like Theon’s season six is going to be getting much better.
Bad news for those hoping this showed Theon making it back to the Iron Islands and being blessed in salt water. That’s actually Euron Crow’s Eye, the brother of Balon Greyjoy and Theon’s uncle.
In the books, Balon Greyjoy dies falling off one of the rope bridges connecting the towers of Pyke together. The next day, his exiled brother Euron Crow’s Eye conveniently returns to the Iron Islands to bid for power. Many readers have suspected that the Crow’s Eye had the Faceless Men kill Balon in exchange for a dragon’s egg, but it looks like the show may be going for a more hands-on approach to patricide/fratricide.
And here’s Yara Greyjoy making out with an unknown woman. People are figuring it’s either part of the Kingsmoot celebrations or that Yara has crossed the narrow sea, based on the exotic jewelry the unknown woman is wearing. If that’s the case, it looks like she has basically replaced Balon’s brother Victarion in the books, whose quest was to bring Daenerys Targaryen onto the side of the Greyjoys.
Daaaamn, Daenerys! Back at it again with the khalasar. But on foot this time… such disrespect. Looks like they’re taking her back to Vaes Dothrak to become an unwilling member of the dosh khaleen, the fate of all women who outlive their khals.
Meanwhile, Jorah Mormont has found the proverbial needle in the haystack and is hot on her trail with his favorite person in the world, Daario.
In Braavos, a blind Arya continues to train under the gentle guidance of the Faceless Men.
But she seems to have gotten the hang of some Assassin’s Creed-style parkour, which is cool.
One of the most important scenes of the season doesn’t even take place in the present. This looks like young Ned Stark and some companions about to storm the Tower of Joy to rescue his sister Lyanna from Rhaegar Targaryen.
Here’s Young Ned fighting some badass Targaryen knight who knows how to dual wield. Is this Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning?
Meanwhile, back in the capitol, it doesn’t look like relations between the church and the state are doing much better.
R.I.P. Lancel Lannister.
Even though this is a vision — Bran standing up is a pretty clear sign — we’re pretty sure our greenseer-in-training will have some wet pantaloons when he returns to his mortal body.
That’s it for our in-depth dissection of the Game of Thrones season six trailer. We’re down to the final month and a half before the show returns on April 24. We hope this glimpse into the future has whetted your appetite, because it seems like there’s going to be a whole lot going down over the next 10 episodes.
