Kit Harrington reveals in an interview with SFX Magazine that no one is safe in Game of Thrones’s upcoming seventh season, not even Jon Snow.
(Warning: Spoilers throughout!)
We sighed in relief when our beloved Jon Snow was resurrected in the sixth season of Game of Thrones. We got chills when he executed the traitors who killed him. We rejoiced when at his “coronation” as King of the North. But now, we must prepare for another potential heartbreak.
While his character may still know nothing, Kit Harington isn’t optimistic about Jon’s odds in the final two seasons. “He’s in mortal danger like everyone else,” Harington told SFX Magazine.
The breathtaking finale of season 6, “The Winds of Winter,” saw everything moved into place for the final war. Cersei is on the Iron Throne, and her chances don’t look great. Daenerys is (finally) setting off across the sea with multiple armies, allies, and dragons. And of course, Bran Stark has discovered the secret of Jon Snow’s parentage. Oh, and White Walkers!
Or, as Harington puts it, “the world’s ending!”
However, while Game of Thrones is not shy about killing off important characters, he has a track record of being less than honest about his character’s fate. From a storytelling perspective, the show has always been leading up to a war between the White Walkers and Westeros.
According to the structural rules of storytelling, season 7 must end on a critically low point. Some have gone nuclear with this idea, theorizing that the Wall and its Watchers will fall to the Night King. This opens the door for a final showdown between humanity and winter in season 8. Do we really think anyone but Jon Snow will be the King to defeat the advancing White Walkers?
Of course, there’s the possibility that Jon Snow will be the cost of victory against the now-arrived Winter. Game of Thrones has always been best at subverting viewers’ expectations. Thankfully, we have less than a month to wait before the joy and the horror both come.
Next: Game of Thrones dropped a season 7 trailer on the summer solstice
Game of Thrones will return for its penultimate season on July 16.