Major spoilers for Game of Thrones' season five finale ahead.
In a particularly bloody season finale, one death was even more shocking than the rest (assuming you haven't read the books). Jon Snow, the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, was stabbed to death by a mutinous contingent of his brothers in the Night's Watch.
Jon Snow's death was so unexpected that critics and fans have already come up with a series of explanations for why he isn't really dead. But it's tempting to trust one of the last trustworthy men in Westeros, and everything Kit Harington says has certainly sounded pretty definitive:
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- "It's like I've been sitting on this big f--King secret. [...] Jon dies. It's final. He's dead. [...] Trust me, I'm sad, too. But all I know is that he's dead. When you gotta go, you gotta go." [Vulture]
- "I've been told I'm dead. I'm dead. I'm not coming back next season. So that's all I can tell you, really." [Entertainment Weekly]
- "I'm quite dead. It's over for Jon Snow — at the very least, he gets to join his family and kin and leave this terrible world behind." [New York Daily News]
If you still want to hold out hope that Jon Snow is coming back next year, you can always assume that Harington is lying, or that he's simply being kept in the dark to preserve the surprise. Jon Snow does, after all, know nothing.
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