Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.As the sun rises on Castle Black, we’re treated to a cutesy version of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game”.

“Wicked Game”/Game of Thrones. It’s all very clever and we’re only a couple of seconds in.

The camera pans in on a definitely dead Lord Commander, and all hope is removed as someone softly exclaims: “He’s gone.”

It sounds like the voice of lead Snow-stabber Ser Alliser Thorne. But tbh it’s someone northern and grumpy so it could equally be Ser Davos.

Away from winter’s reaches (for now), we see Jaime arrive back in King’s Landing with the body of his recently murdered daughter.

Also I would totally buy that postcard.

Back on dry land Jaime is trying to convince Cersei that the game isn’t over just yet.

“We’re the only ones who matter, and everything they’ve taken from us we’re going to take back. And more.”

Moments later Cersei looks to be back in full-on “I will fuck you RIGHT up” mode.

Back in the north we see Ser Davos doing some excellent brooding, and it looks like he’s ventured outside of Castle Black.

This certainly looks like a man who has just found out a little girl whom he loved as much as anyone was burnt alive. It’s a very specific look – we’d recognise it anywhere.

Inside Winterfell Roose Bolton doesn’t look best pleased with his son, probably as a result of Ramsay letting Sansa escape.

The North remembers. And if there’s no Stark/Bolton union any more, the Boltons’ place as Wardens of the North is in real danger.

Next we see a flayed man (this is what Boltons do to their enemies) on a battlefield. Who it is is anyone’s guess, but it’s probably not Stannis.

Why? Well, it certainly looked like Brienne was about to cut off Stannis’s head last time we saw him. So if Stannis is dead, chances are his corpse is sans head. But who knows tbh. We all look the same once we’ve had our skin removed.

Not accidentally, we go from flames to Melisandre, who is having a pretty severe crisis of faith.

“The great victory I saw in the flames, all of it was a lie.”

They’ve had some disagreements over the years, but this feels like a real moment between Mel and Ser Davos. They’ve both lost their king. They’re both heartbroken. Expect them to be very much on the same side of things from here on in. That’s assuming he can forgive her for burning Shireen alive, obvs.

Somehow (hopefully this will be explained) Daario Naharis and Jorah the Explorer end up at EXACTLY the same spot where Daenerys was taken by the Dothraki in Season 5.

And if that wasn’t fortunate enough…

Jorah even manages to find the ring that Dany dropped as she was being surrounded.

Finding a ring in the middle of the Dothraki Sea makes finding a needle in a haystick look like a piece of piss.

Also, for anyone looking for signs of Jorah’s greyscale, that was on his other arm.

Next we see Dany, who very much appears to be in prisoner mode.

But Dany being Dany we have a feeling this won’t last too long. Not once Drogon has finished licking his wounds, anyway.

Then, surrounded by one mother of a khalasar, Dany looks up at what appears to be a giant statue of a horse on its hind legs. This probably means they’ve taken her to Vaes Dothrak – the Dothraki capital.

You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

Back in Westeros the High Sparrow definitely seems up for the battles to come. The Faith Millitant vs the Lannisters/Tyrells will be one of Season 6’s most important plotlines.

“Every one of us is poor and powerless, and yet we can overthrow an empire.”

Those grey skies and golden kraken banners mean only one thing – we’re back in the Iron Islands.

What is dead may never die.

Last time we saw Sansa she was escaping from Winterfell, but here she is all warm and dry and wearing furs. So where is she?

The most likely option is that she’s with a house that’s loyal to the Starks. Seeing as Small Jon Umber has been cast for Season 6, House Umber is where our money’s going. This could even mean that she’ll be reunited with her youngest brother, Rickon.

HEY TYRION. Chances are Tyrion’s Season 6 will mostly be spent in Meereen, but this shot (and quote) suggest that he’s still going to be a big player.

“You’re in the great game now, and the great game is terrifying.”

Fifty-one seconds in we finally get some dragon action. But which one?

To be honest it does look like it’s probably Drogon, but seeing as it followed on from the shot of Tyrion maybe they’re hinting at the fact that the other two may make an appearance this season. Maybe.

Here’s where shit starts to go down. Back in King’s Landing Lancel Lannister tells Cersei: “Order your man to step aside or there will be violence.”

“Your man” being the reanimated, veiny-faced, skull-crushing, brother-burning, Frankenstein’s monster of a Mountain.

That’s probably not going to go well for you, Lancel.

(FYI, if you want to read about why it’s looking very likely that the Mountain’s brother will also be reappearing in Season 6, give this a read.)

Then we’re treated to the best line of the trailer: “I choose violence.”

Last season Cersei was locked up, had her hair cut off, and was made to walk naked through her own city as people threw waste at her. She probably won’t make it to the end of the story, but there is no doubt that from now on all Cersei wants is revenge, and you can bet that before she joins Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tywin in the Dead Lannisters Club, she’ll have it. And then some.

Now here’s a shot that even the most optimistic fan didn’t expect to see in a trailer. See that guy with his sword out? That’s almost certainly Ned Stark.

How/why/what?!

Don’t worry. He’s not come back to life. This is our first glimpse of a Season 6 flashback. More specifically, this is the first time show watchers have seen one of the most important places in the entire Game of Thrones universe: the Tower of Joy. (You can read about what the Tower of Joy is and why it’s important here.)

However, I’m sticking my neck out and saying that while it may be Ned Stark, it is NOT Sean Bean. To me it looks as though he’s been recast with a younger man (which makes sense as these events happened 17 years before the show is set).

There’s more evidence later in the trailer, but those are Stark clothes, those are the Red Mountains of Dorne. Tower of Joy: confirmed.

From here the whole trailer starts to move pretty quickly. Back in Castle Black Ser Alliser Thorne is trying to knock down a door.

The most plausible option here is that Thorne and co. are trying to get to Jon Snow’s body in order to burn it, while the people on the other side of this door may just have other ideas about how to proceed.

In the throne room we see a definitely-not-out-of-his-depth King Tommen being backed up by his Kingsguard.

At some point in this season Tommen has to start acting like a king, because there are plenty of people around him who would be happy to take over.

The trailer makes it look like Tommen and Cersei are squaring up to each other. Perhaps Cersei gets sick of her youngest doing nothing with his crown?

Or, you know, maybe it’s just how it was edited.

Then we see some horses seemingly charging into battle. Looking at the ground this is almost certainly Bolton-related.

These ships don’t seem to be having the best time of it. But who’s all at sea?

Given where everyone’s at, the most likely location is the Iron Islands. Perhaps this is Theon’s uncle Euron’s long-awaited return? (More of him soon.)

Over a minute in we finally get our first glimpse of Arya, who’s on the receiving end of a rather painful blow.

Things don’t seem to have gotten much better for Ms Stark since she lost her sight in Season 5.

This is the only shot of Littlefinger we get in the entire trailer, but at least it tells us he’s back in the North.

We can’t imagine Sansa is going to be best pleased with him if they were to cross paths again. Anyone who forces you to marry Ramsay Bolton probably isn’t going to be on your Christmas card list. Sansa, like Cersei, will be out to fuck shit up in Season 6.

Here’s a brief glimpse of still-incarcerated Margaery. On the plus side, she still has all her hair.

Margaery 1–0 Cersei

And this is one of the only shots in the whole trailer where we can’t identify the subjects. Night’s Watch? Wilding? Bolton? Other?

Whoever it is, the person on the horse definitely comes out on top.

The sigil on this banner is hard to make out, but to my eye it looks like the four chains linked by a central ring of House Umber.

Who are, almost certainly, pointing their arrows at the Boltons. About time too!

Then we see some kind of explosion/impact in what looks to be Meereen.

Finally we get some Theon action (Reek is dead to us now). But he seems to have been caught by some Bolton men in the woods around Winterfell.

It looks like this is happening immediately after he and Sansa jumped off the walls of Winterfell.

Next we see a man wearing Greyjoy armour and a priest of the Drowned God flanking a character that’s new to Season 6, Euron Greyjoy.

He seems to be being baptised. Why? We’ll soon find out.

In case you were wondering, it looks like Westeros’ most famous twins are still at it in Season 6.

Finally Brienne shows up, and in typical Brienne style she is killing some men. Specifically, they look like Bolton men.

Chances are she stumbles across Sansa and Theon just as they’re about to be captured and saves the fucking day because that’s what Brienne does.

Then we see a woman looking into the flames. Our first instinct is that it must be Melisandre (who bloody loves looking at fire), but…

…that ring sure does look like Dany’s.

Next up we get a brief shot of the House of Black and White, but we’ve seen that in the teaser trailer already, so, moving along…

Then another thing we’ve seen before: Mel taking her clothes off. But who for?

Ser Alliser? Davos? Olly? OR MAYBE A NEWLY RESURRECTED JON SNOW, HMMM?

We know he has a thing for redheads…

Speak of the devil. Could this be that resurrection? And if so, who’s doing it?

Probably not. There’s been so much talk about him being dead that there’s no chance they’d tease him being alive in the trailer.

There are some, however, who’ve suggested that if this IS the resurrection, instead of being Melisandre, the chap with his hands on Snow’s face is expert dead-people-bringer-backer Thoros of Myr. Seems like a huge leap, mind.

From one Stark we move to another. Maybe.

This certainly looks like the streets of Braavos, and there have been leaked shots of Maisie Williams filming scenes that involve her running through streets and jumping over buildings. Whether she’s doing it with the ability of sight remains to be seen. Pun intended.

Another northern battle scene shows Bolton forces coming across a group that seems to contain wildlings.

If Jon Snow is brought back and begins to rally the troops, you’d certainly expect the wildlings to follow him into battle, given what went down at Hardhome.

Next we get a fleeting shot of Theon’s sister Yara, who very much seems to be enjoying the company of an unknown naked acquaintance.

Last time we saw her she was trying to rescue her brother, only to find that he didn’t want to be rescued. Will we see a reunion this season?

Sticking with the Greyjoys, we get another clip of Euron, who seems to be up to no good near a bridge.

Book readers may have an idea of what’s going on here, but the rest of you will have to wait.

And now we get to see something we’ve never seen before: Targaryen armour!

This is, to my mind, undoubtedly more footage from the Tower of Joy. The only way we’d see Targayren armour is in a flashback, seeing as Dany’s sort of the only person left on her family tree, and that’s definitely Stark leather on the other two men.

Rhaegar Targaryen’s kingsguard. Fighting Ned Stark. At the Tower of Joy.

R + L = J WILL be confirmed in Season 6. And you should be very, very excited.

Next we see Tormund stood in front of some flayed men shields, confirming the aforementioned “wildings fighting the Boltons” theory.

How good would it be if Tormund got his hands on Ramsay.

Then we have another battle shot and some horses falling over. But…is that Jon Snowin the background?

Personally I’m going with no. It might be, but IF it was it would be a huge mistake on HBO’s part – it surely wouldn’t go to all the trouble of making us think Snow is dead only to show him in the trailer six weeks before the new season.

Back in the capital it looks like Margaery may be about to give in to the High Sparrow.

Then we see a bunch of people we don’t recognise doing something probably not very nice to someone.

Insightful, huh?

Thankfully we definitely do recognise Arya. I’d be very surprised if they keep her blind for the whole season, but it certainly seems like she’ll be spending the first few episodes in the dark.

This one looks like it could be a rather epic scene. Jaime climbing the steps on his horse, with Tyrell guards behind him.

Looks like they want their queen back.

Unlike the earlier shot of Sansa, here she appears to be running for her life. Chances are this scene is from around the same time as the shot of Theon being caught by the Bolton guards.

Either that or Sansa has yet another rollercoaster of a season.

Don’t worry, we’re nearly at the end. Just time for some angry Dothraki.

And some even angrier wildlings.

Yes! It’s Bran. Yesss! He’s standing. But no, he can’t walk again.

In the final episode of Season 4 the Three Eyed Raven told Bran that he would never walk again. As far as I’m concerned, that’s that. So why is he standing up?

As we’ve mentioned in previous posts, Season 6 will be huge for Bran. He’ll learn how to have visions of past, future, and distant events, and in these visions it’s looking like he’ll be able to walk. But visions is all they are. Sorry!

But, tbh, it’s a good job it IS a vision, because he seems to be hanging out with the Night’s King.

The Night’s King’s “come at me, Snow” stare at the end of “Hardhome” was one of the show’s greatest moments to date. The fact that he’s been included in the trailer suggests we’ll get a lot more of the same in Season 6.

If anyone is going to make a real difference in the war against the Walkers (the War for the Dawn, if you will), it’s going to be Bran. And frankly we can’t wait to see how this one’s going to play out.

And just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, Ser Davos delivers the second-best line of the trailer: “I’ve never been much of a fighter. Apologies for what you’re about to see.”

With a heartbroken Ghost lying next to his still very dead companion, Ser Davos grabs Longclaw and looks like he’s about to take down a room full of brothers of the Night’s Watch.

Why? Well, if Jon’s brothers were planning to burn the body but Melisandre had a theory that she could bring him back, isn’t it possible that she’d ask the Onion Knight to stop them? There are a LOT of things to look forward to in Season 6 – as far as I’m concerned Jon IS coming back and it WILL be worth the wait – but the thought of Davos and Mel being BFFs is almost too much.

Don’t worry. Only six weeks to go. Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.