Guys, holy crap! The Game of Thrones season 6 premiere aired tonight, and the biggest spoiler by faaaaaaaar is that, it turns out, Jon Snow is dead! Whoa! Who would have thought it? I know it’s hard to believe, but everything HBO said was true all along. Jon Snow is dead as a doornail. I am sure this comes as shocking news. Nobody could have anticipated it.

Game Of Thrones Season 6 Spoilers: Jon Snow Is Dead, Stop The Presses

But seriously: The Internet has been abuzz about Jon Snow for the better part of a year now, and we finally got our real, official answer. It’s the one we couldn’t get from Winds of Winter, which isn’t out yet. Only now do we really know the truth.

And it’s the truth HBO has been trying to tell us all this time. Jon Snow really is dead. The show confirmed it in the season 6 premiere date. Over and over. It established very clearly that Jon Snow is a dead man. So that settles that. HBO had been trying to tell us this for months, conscripting tons and tons of the show’s actors to spread the word. Nobody believed them.

The truth is, this doesn’t change anything. If you were really in the know, you knew and believed that Jon Snow was dead all along. The question isn’t whether he’s dead, but whether—and when—he’ll get resurrected. Probably by Melisandre (but what was that end of episode revelation about? Does that change anything? That’s another article).

Here’s the real key takeaway from the Game of Thrones season 6 premiere about Jon Snow: He’s dead, but Ghost is very definitely alive… and pretty noisy. Considering Ghost is known as the direwolf that never barks, he barked a lot in that episode. Ghost doesn’t even show up very much in the show. For him to appear in several different scenes in the season premiere, and to behave noticeably out of character, is… very meaningful indeed. But that will also be another story. For now, here’s all you need to know: Jon Snow is dead, to begin with.