Jon Snow and Game of Thrones shows our love-hate relationship with plot spoilers.
Jon Snow and Game of Thrones shows our love-hate relationship with plot spoilers.
Spoiler alert: This article contains Game of Thrones spoilers.
Don't you just hate spoilers? You couldn't watch the Game of Thrones season finale on the night it aired, and no sooner had Monday morning rolled around but your coworkers ruined it before you had a chance to get to your DVR. How dare they?
Our rampant fury over spoilers is so melodramatic, it has inspired multiple parodies.
So why's everyone busy trying to tease out Jon Snow's fate?
Requisite spoiler alert here for hard-core sticklers: During the season five finale of Game of Thrones, Jon was stabbed multiple times, and at least once in the heart - thanks a lot, Ollie. The episode ended with the lord commander of the Night's Watch laid out on his back looking very dead, what with the blank, wide-eyed stare and the pool of blood rapidly blooming around him.
Actor Kit Harington has insisted that he won't be back, but theories have sprouted up like weeds explaining how Jon might return sometime in the future. And frankly, that's fine: This kind of conjecture won't ruin a show; it will just give us all something to mull until the next season starts.
But then the sleuthing started. If Jon is dead, why is Harington still sporting his character's distinctive long locks, which he supposedly hates? If Jon is dead, what is Harington and his man-bun doing in the Belfast airport in close proximity to Game of Thrones season six filming? If Jon is dead, why is Harington hiding under a hoodie while hanging with cast member Ben Crompton near the set?
The more important question is: Why are so many people interested in exposing a potentially huge plot twist months before the next season airs? Given our spoiler-phobia, that's a confounding one. But it's not a new one.
Our waffling between "no, don't tell me" and "OK, tell me," didn't just materialise with Game of Thrones. It's a phenomenon that has affected viewers of shows as dispasrate as Lost and The Bachelorette. Here are some theories why.
Jon Snow played by Kit Harington in a scene from Game of Thrones.
Procedurals have dominated pop culture for decades. We've all learned from the very best TV detectives how to solve a mystery, but we've also made a hobby of beating Jessica Fletcher/Columbo/Gil Grissom/Velma to the punch. Seeing through the red herrings and deciphering the identity of the villain minutes ahead of the hero feels like a win - even if the only prize is smug self-satisfaction.
Mysteries are no longer solved within the hour, though. So we're left spending the entire Game of Thrones off-season trying to put together the puzzle of Jon Snow's fate using all the tactics we've picked up from our favorite sleuths. Figuring out the truth is all the more tantalising when producers are so hellbent on secrecy. (And they would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you kids.) But while it might feel great to tease out the solution, you're also draining drama from future episodes.
Mad Men fans, for example, couldn't be content to just enjoy the mysteries of Don Draper's past - they were obsessed with predicting his character's trajectory. This led to countless blog-hours spent analyzing costume clues to form a grand conspiracy theory that Megan Draper was destined to meet the Manson Family (she did not) or an even more brilliant and impeccably argued hypothesis that Don would turn out to be famed plane hijacker D.B. Cooper (he did not). Sometimes all this evidence you've collected really just is circumstantial.
We all want to be able to say: First!
Kit Harington as Jon Snow, in a scene from Game of Thrones.
Being the one to break news is exciting. And the more that fans work themselves into a tizzy over the fate of Jon Snow, the more a tweet like one with a photo of Harington and Crompton near the Game of Thrones set - a routine paparazzi ambush dressed up as investigative journalism - starts to feel like a major discovery.
If that picture seems like a primo scoop, it had nothing on the Snapchat that Bachelorette Kaitlyn Bristowe sent of herself in bed with winning contestant Shawn Booth weeks before the season finale. The show's fans were too excited about sharing the reveal to complain about the spoiler.
Readers have gotten used to being in-the-know
Game Of Thrones author George R.R. Martin.
There's a divide between those who read George R.R. Martin's books and the fans who only watch the show. The readers saw it all coming: Ned Stark's beheading; the Red Wedding bloodbath; the shocking assault on Jon Snow.
But now that the series has caught up to Martin's writing, the readers no longer have the upper hand. Unless Martin publishes The Winds of Winter before next season airs, there won't be many more opportunities for purists to shake their heads and sniff, "That's not what happens in the books." If book enthusiasts can just manage to game out what happens to Jon, though, they can keep their in-the-know status. And since they had always been accustomed to knowing the plot while still enjoying the series, they've probably made their peace with spoilers.
AMC's hit show The Walking Dead is in the same boat, given that it's based on a series of comic books. Like Thrones, the show deviates from its source material, but that doesn't stop readers from trading insights into which beloved characters will get killed off next. Fans of the books have until season six premieres in October to speculate about the terrifying character who will show up next and what actor will be cast.
The show drives people slowly insane
A scene from Game of Thrones series five finale.
Once Game of Thrones gets its dragon talons in a viewer, it doesn't let go easily. Never mind the people who said they were ditching the show after Sansa's rape or Shireen's death-by-fire: The series has a large base of rabid fans who have become so emotionally invested in what happens, they flock to numerous communities online to discuss every last plot thread and theory. "Are funeral customs handled differently in every region of Westeros?" a fan wondered on Reddit. And someone actually responded with a detailed breakdown of how people in the Seven Kingdoms deal with their dead.
In other words, people care a lot about what happens to these characters. And the fact that a person's fate in this supernatural world can be so ambiguous never gives people much closure. That explains why book fans are still pining for a peek at Lady Stoneheart so many seasons after Catelyn Stark's death. And why some believe we haven't seen the last of the Hound. If we don't see a character beheaded, a la Ned, or burned, then who's to say what might happen?
Eddard Stark played by Sean Bean is executed in the first season of Game Of Thrones.
Given the anything-goes nature of the story, our better judgment would dictate that we just sit back and wait for the next installment - either book or show - to land, but Game of Thrones and rational thought don't tend to co-exist.
The enigmatic Lost had a similar impact on the psychological well-being of its fans. Was everyone dead? Maybe the island was purgatory? What are all the numbers about? Nothing made sense in logical terms, leaving viewers scrambling for the tiniest bits of information to try to make sense of what was happening. Between seasons, the urge was high to go digging for clues from the Hawaiian filming locations, and if that meant finding out about an attack by The Others long before it happened onscreen, so be it.
We're masochists
In the end, this is the most logical explanation.
Jerome Flynn as Bronn and Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones.
