Pretty much the moment the credits rolled on the final episode of Game of Thrones' fifth season, with that very dead main character staring up at us out of his very dead eyes, we all started frantically googling and screaming "WTF???" Luckily for all of us, there were tons of Jon Snow resurrection theories ready and waiting to calm us down, and by this point, you probably think you've heard them all. But you haven't! You might know about Jon warging into Ghost, about him becoming a White Walker, and about him being resurrected in the flame — whether by Melisandre or just because of the Targaryen blood that might (!!) flow through his veins. But I went digging through some of the book forums and unearthed a theory that I hadn't really seen around anywhere, and it hinges on Bran and Theon, of all people.
In A Forum Of Ice And Fire, on Westeros.org, user OldGod begins his or her hypothesis with a familiar theory: that Jon's spirit left his body and entered that of his direwolf, Ghost. But from there, it goes in a very different direction, to a character we haven't seen all season: Brandon Stark. Bran is Jon's half-brother (according to the information we have now, at least), and he's been learning how to do some pretty serious magic, specifically blood magic. So, isn't it possible that he, instead of Melisandre, could be instrumental in Jon's return? Particularly as Bran is now a greenseer, so he would have full knowledge of Jon's importance to Westeros.
The book makes no secret of the fact that blood sacrifices exist, and that they're connected to heart trees in some way, but they don't get much more specific than the line "only death may pay for life." So presumably, someone has to die so that Jon can live. And the person that OldGod has his or her eye on is, drumroll please... Theon Greyjoy. Now, the specific proof that he or she is drawing from comes from a teaser chapter of the as-yet-unreleased sixth book in the series, The Winds of Winter , so if you aren't up-to-date on those teasers, and/or don't want to be, this theory isn't for you, so get on out of here, because this is about to get spoiler-y.
Are you gone?
OK, great. So something that is heavily alluded to in the teaser is Stannis Baratheon's intention to behead Theon in front of one of the heart trees as soon as he's properly dealt with the Boltons. And in the same teaser, we seem to see Bran attempting to communicate within the scene from afar, with ravens repeating the words "Theon" and "tree." And remember, as the last remaining son of Balon Greyjoy, Theon is a king, so all these factors seem to indicate that some chain of events would be triggered by the spilling of his blood in that sacred place. OldGod goes into it in more detail in the original post, but so far it all fits, right? I'm definitely intrigued.
... or, y'know, maybe Jon is dead forever and everything is ruined and George R.R. Martin will never publish another book. It's really anybody's game at this point.
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Images: HBO; Giphy
