For all that the last day or so has been something of leak central for the huge battle coming at the end of Game of Thrones Season 6, we should all take a minute and congratulate David Benioff and Dan Weiss. No, really. Because the more spoilers that leak out of the now-completed filming in Saintfield, the more I realize how little we actually know about what’s going down in what looks to be a huge turning point in the series. Much like last year’s Massacre at Hardhome, the more we learn, the more we realize how much we thought we knew, or surprised or speculated, could be way wrong.
Yesterday brought the first round of spoiler rumors from unnamed sources. Round two? Pictures.
———These are the spoilers for today———
———You don’t want to know what they say?———
———Look away, baby. Look away.———
No really. Are you sure you want to see this? I mean, this is some Ramsay Bolton-level stuff.
Ok then. But if you can’t sleep tonight, don’t blame me.
Let’s start here. You might vaguely feel like you recognize this picture. That’s because you’ve seen that umbrella stand before. The Daily Mail helpfully provided close ups of it a few weeks back.
It’s the picture that first revealed that Jon Snow would return—that would be Kit Harington as Jon Snow in the uniform. But we’ve seen it before. And, to be honest, though the production probably wouldn’t have wanted those images to get out, the truth is, once it was clear the scale of the Saintfield filming, it was only a matter of time before someone got that shot and revealed it.
Now let’s take a slightly wider look.
First, the woman who was vaguely hidden under the umbrella is out, and her hair is definitely red. Is it Melisandre, as we speculated back in September? Or, given the newer rumors that Sophie Turner was also on set for this battle, could it be Sansa?
My money, for the record, is on Melisandre. Not that I don’t think the Sansa rumors are false. In fact, we have some new information on that—according to a source, not only is Sansa present, but Littlefinger is, too. And that’s actually why I don’t think that Sansa is with Jon Snow on the battlefield. I would assume she is being kept back and safe by Baelish, who will presumably arrive with soldiers from the Vale. If the battle goes south, he can smuggle the two of them out quickly. Our source tells us that Sansa will survive the battle.
Now let’s zoom in on the person tied to the cross.
Yesterday, it was revealed that Ramsay would tie a couple of people to crosses upside-down and burn them on the battlefield. Ends up we’ve had photographic proof of that the whole time!
Some people are speculating this is Rickon, although credible sources deny it. I don’t want it to be Rickon. I know it looks small compared the the rest of the flayed cross, but I don’t think that’s proof it’s a kid. (Also, would the production really leave a child actor tied upside-down on a cross while members of the crew discussed the next shot under an umbrella several feet away?) Finally, is that a wolf’s head to the lower right of the body? Or maybe just the way to wood is stacked.
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