DOES DEAD MEAN DEAD?

SPOILER ALERT: If you're late to the party, and haven't yet caught all the way up to the end of last season on Game of Thrones (Season 5)—especially if you've been living under a rock somewhere, far away from any media access—STOP READING!

I mean it! I see your eyes trying to scan down the screen, like you think I won't notice. STOP IT RIGHT NOW! Go check your mail, or something. Or else I won't be responsible for the consequences.

Okay. For the rest of you who might have come in late, a quick primer on the GoT universe can be found here and here.

As we all know, GoT, Season 6, starts tonight, and the Interwebs have been all ablaze with speculation over whether you-know-who is really dead. Just because we saw him stabbed 85 times in the last shot of that last episode last season, does that mean a fan can't hold out some hope?

Everyone connected with the show (which had its season premiere for the press last week), insists, in no uncertain terms, that Jon Snow is dead. Deader than dead. Dead as the proverbial doornail. Dead as Monty Python's dead parrot.

The showrunners and cast are all pretty adamant about this point, even though the  first poster for Season 6 featured—wait for it—Jon Snow. And yet, I fear they dost protest too much.

Here's the thing. Even if he's dead, that doesn't necessarily mean he's out of the show. This is fantasy, complete with flying dragons and armies of the undead on the march. What if that nutball, religious-fanatic witch resurrects him? What if he starts popping up in the wolf-dreams of Bran Stark?

(For that matter, he could come back as one of the undead zombie White Walkers, but only if the producers really want to alienate the hell out of their audience.)

Granted none of the (many, many) other killed-off GoT characters have ever come back—not Ned Stark, nor Daenerys' Klingon husband, nor the victims of the infamous Red Wedding, nor Jon Snow's Wilding lover.

But my guess is, the producers will find some way to keep him a presence in the show. HBO is playing it cagey, with a teaser poster featuring Jon Snow's visage in the Hall of Faces shrine to the dead—but along with the faces of some other cast members whose characters are still among the living — so far.

The Hall of Faces has not previously been like the deceased Headmaster portraits at Hogwarts, who converse with anyone who strolls by. But there's no reason they can't begin to interact, somehow. It's fantasy—anything is possible!

Anyway, we'll find out (or at least get a hint or two) tonight. In the meantime, get in the mood with this compilation of Season 6 teaser trailers!