With less than a month to go until the Game of Thrones season 6 premiere, HBO has released yet another curious teaser for the fantasy drama series. The 30-second video hints at more death and darkness to come, using a combination of ominous words and battle scenes.
“Are you afraid?” asks Tyrion Lannister (played by Peter Dinklage) to open the teaser. “You should be. You’re in the great game now, and the great game is terrifying.”
Tyrion isn’t the only one whose words tease more danger in the season to come. The High Sparrow (Jonathan Pryce) does his part as well, warning, “We are sinful creatures. We deserve death. We all do.”
As if you weren’t already convinced that the series’ return would be eventful, new footage shown in the teaser confirms it. After opening with a few slow scenes, the promo quickly ramps up in intensity. We see men preparing for battle, sword fights underway, Sansa (Sophie Turner) running through the forest, and a massive figure breaking down a door. The White Walker extraoardinaire, the Night’s King, even makes a brief appearance against a backdrop of flames.
That’s not the end of it, though; the preview reaches peak foreboding with an addition from Jaqen H’ghar (Tom Wlaschiha). “One way or another, a face will be added to the hall,” he says, as we get a glimpse at the creepy Hall of Faces. A rapid montage of characters follows, and we’re left wondering which character the unfortunate fate awaits.
Showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss recently revealed that they consider the upcoming season to be the best yet. Based on what we’ve seen in previews so far, we expect their words to hold true when Game of Thrones season 6 premieres on April 24.
Game of Thrones to get better, Cersei and Jaime to get weirder
Originally published 3/22/2016
If you thought Game of Thrones couldn’t get any better or Cersei and Jaime’s incestuous relationship couldn’t get any stranger, think again. New EW interviews with GoT showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss and actress Lena Headey have promised that not only are both situations possible, we’ll see them in season 6.
“We’re always reluctant to say it’s ‘the best season yet’ because so much of that is in the eyes of the beholder. And Dan and I are so close to it that it’s impossible to be unbiased,” Benioff told EW of the upcoming sixth season. “But that’s my sense – watching [the episodes] all together now, this is the best one we’ve done.”
It’s not just the sum of the season’s parts that came out well, according to Benioff. He revealed that he doesn’t think there’s a single weak episode in the group, which is great news for fans who have been greedily ravishing every morsel of information about the show’s next chapter. The showrunner called season 6 “the hardest,” so naturally, he was especially proud to see it all come together so perfectly.
As if Benioff’s endorsement wasn’t enough (to say nothing of our burning curiosity after season 5’s cliffhangers), Headey, who plays Cersei, dropped some tantalizing tidbits of her own. She shared that the upcoming season will be her character’s most interesting to date, as she has “nothing to lose and … everything to gain from a horrible position she finds herself in.”
Cersei will team up with her frequent ally, brother Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), and the two will reach an “all-time weird level.” Obviously, that’s really saying something, considering that he’s also the father of her (spoiler alert!) deceased child. “It’s juicy, and it’s so f–king dark,” said Headey.
Waiting for Game of Thrones season 6 is painful, but the wait will be over soon. The series returns to HBO on April 24.
What’s in Snow’s future?
Originally published 3/14/2016
For every piece of evidence that we get that (spoiler alert!) Jon Snow may be dead after being stabbed repeatedly in the season 5 finale, there is another hint that the beloved character may, in fact, not be gone for good. Most recently, HBO screened an exclusive Game of Thrones teaser behind closed doors at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, and the clip hinted at Snow being revived, according to Business Insider.
A revival is in line with a tease from new Game of Thrones cast member Ian McShane, who previously said that his character would “bring back a much loved character everybody thinks is dead.” At the same time, it contradicts words from the man who plays Snow himself, Kit Harington. The English actor said that he filmed scenes for season 6 as a corpse, but that he’s “not in the show any more … definitely not in the new series.”
The new clip adds fuel to the much-debated topic’s fire. Although press members weren’t able to record the clip and HBO hasn’t released it for public viewing yet, it reportedly shows Jon Snow’s body, and then Melisandre (played by Carice van Houten) is heard saying, “I saw him in the flames, fighting at Winterfell.” Whether she is actually referring to Snow is unclear, though; the two may simply have been cleverly juxtaposed to give viewers hope after the first extended trailer sent the message that “he’s gone.”
At this point, we should just surrender ourselves to a state of ongoing uncertainty. HBO is clearly going to milk the Jon Snow question for all its worth — into the season 6 premiere and likely beyond. All official signs point to the former Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch being dead for now, but whether he’ll stay that way appears to be the question of the season.
Game of Thrones returns to HBO on April 24.
Is Snow really dead?
Originally published 3/6/2016
The first extended trailer for Game of Thrones season 6 is here, and if there was any doubt that fans are itching to know what will happen next, the response has squashed it. Within 24 hours, the trailer was viewed 30 million times, according to THR. The total easily topped the previous record — set by the season 4 preview — of 27 million.
Season 6’s trailer picks up exactly where the fifth season left off — with (spoiler alert!) Jon Snow (played by Kit Harington) bleeding on the ground. The teaser offers some sought-after hints into what will happen in the upcoming season, as much as some of the plot details burn like hot steel.
“He’s gone,” we hear Davos say after Snow’s corpse is shown. Anything is possible on Game of Thrones, of course, but the outlook looks pretty grim for the return of the former Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. We can’t say we weren’t warned; Kit Harington recently revealed that he is “not in the show anymore,” highlighting that he plays dead in season 6 scenes.
Between the news about Snow and the sad sounds of the Wicked Game cover that serves as the trailer’s score, the tone is somber, to say the least. This bleakness won’t be accepted without a fight, though. “Everything they’ve taken from us, we’re going to take back and more,” Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) tells his twin-slash-lover, Cersei (Lena Heady), likely referring to the death of their daughter Myrcella (Nell Tiger Free), who was poisoned. It appears that Cersei is onboard with payback when she announces that she chooses violence later in the trailer in rebuke of the Sparrows.
Numerous other hints are dropped throughout the 90-second preview. We see a flayed man being burned by the Boltons; Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) in a long march, defeated; Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead Wright), making his return after a season’s absence; and more. It isn’t until roughly the one-minute mark that we see GoT’s usual violence flare up, but once it does, it is fast-paced and abundant.
Game of Thrones season 6 is clearly not going to be short on action when it premieres on HBO on April 24. Stay with us for every new twist and turn leading up to the new season.
Updated 3/9/16 by Stephanie Topacio Long: This article has been updated to include news of the trailer’s record-breaking number of views.
