HBO
Spoiler alert: He's alive
"Game of Thrones" is at its best when it subverts expectations.
You think Ned Stark's the main character? Well, now he's dead. Really think Oberyn Martell is going to get his vengeance against the Mountain? Too bad, his head got exploded.
Still, Jon Snow's story is so crucial to "Thrones'" larger tale that it was almost a sure-thing that he'd come back to life, even after his shocking murder.
So it was weird when the show treated the big resurrection scene last night with the same sense of inevitability that bored, book-reading fans have had for years.
It doesn't quite follow that Ser Davos, whose been highly suspicious about Melisandre's magic, would be the one pushing for Jon Snow's resurrection. Davos respected the young lord commander's potential, yes, but did he really know him well enough to care this much? It's almost like he knew Jon was the main character, and thus had to come back.
Davos also had never seen or heard of the Lord of Light's magic working this miracle - he wasn't with Melisandre when she ran into Thoros of Myr and Beric Dondarrion. It was just a lucky, forced hunch.
The whole scene seems so plainly telegraphed and its beats so straightforward that it's almost begging for a twist - surely, something was about to going horribly wrong or fail entirely (for now, at least). Instead, it goes off without a hitch. Melisandre and Davos should've just been more patient and waited 30 seconds longer.
Magic works in mysterious ways, but there wasn't much reason give as to why, exactly, Jon was allowed to come back when most characters on "Thrones" aren't if the process is this easy.
The most important part of the event was almost certainly Melisandre's quiet, defeated "please" sigh when all her pomp and ceremony failed to revive Jon. Remember, when Thoros brought his friend Beric Dondarrion back in season three, he said the Lord of Light's prayers "not because I believed in them," but because "they were the only words I knew." It worked. (Melisandre's having a crisis of faith and hitting rock bottom was probably the fuel that fired Jon's resurrection, but her story seems robbed of impact by Ser Davos' rushed lobbying to give necromancy a try.)
Perhaps there's no way that Jon's resurrection wouldn't be something of a letdown. After all, we did spend the past year sleuthing out the truth while being coyly lied to. And perhaps it doesn't matter. Freed, we presume, from his Night's Watch vows on account of having died, Jon Snow is free to do what he pleases, so that's what it's time to focus on. Hopefully that includes putting Longclaw through Ramsay Bolton's heart.