If you’re one of the fans who is somewhat unconvinced by the death of Jon Snow (Kit Harington) in Game of Thrones’ series five finale, then you’re in good company – a certain Red Priestess thinks he’ll be up and fighting again too.


“No, he can’t be dead. No!” Melisandre actress Carice van Houten said at the London Film and Comic con today, before the whole Game of Thrones panel clammed up on the subject.

“I’ve seen that on the internet; like I’ve seen stuff saying ‘we’ll forgive you if you save him’,” she went on, referring to the popular fan theory that Melisandre will resurrect Jon – just as fellow Red priest Thoros of Myr was shown to do for people back in series two. (And after all, she did turn up at The Wall just in time to be around for Jon’s murder…)

It remains to be seen if van Houten’s comments imply this theory could be true. Either way, it might not be enough for some fans to forgive her for another of series five’s shocking moments, where Melisandre convinced wannabe King Stannis to burn his only daughter alive.

“I had so many people on Twitter telling me ‘fuck off, bitch,’” van Houten recalled. “I’ve never had so many death wishes in my life. It was so interesting to experience that. I mean, I knew it was coming – I thought, I’m not gonna get any more sympathy after this!”

One of the tweets hoping Melisandre could save Jon

The actress also reflected on earlier memories of the HBO series, sharing the secrets of her most difficult scene to date – giving birth to a shadowy spirit back in series two accompanied by Liam Cunningham’s Ser Davos Seaworth. “I had a big belly of course,” she said. “I was in prosthetics for six hours!”

“My belly had to move, so there was a guy behind me with tubes, sort of pushing in air. And every time I opened the robe, it would already be deflated, like, pffffft.”

“It was in a muddy cave at night, in Ireland in November, with Liam Cunningham at the side, [and I was] butt naked, obviously. And there was a camera RIGHT THERE.”

“[The effects] were all put in afterwards – they just had a little sticker that I was gonna look at. I had no idea what it was gonna look like. But they did a pretty good job, I think.”


Game of Thrones will return next year