Game of Thrones season 6 is coming out soon, and the new season is going to spoil Winds of Winter. That much is a given; we’ve known it for a long time. The new season finally and irrevocably is going to pass the books, with all the implications that has. Storylines we haven’t seen yet in the books will come to pass in the show; that can’t be avoided at this point. But here are the most important.
The Biggest Winds of Winter Spoilers In Game of Thrones Season 6
The Fate Of Jon Snow
Obviously, the most notable spoiler we’ll get from Game of Thrones season 6 is the fate of Jon Snow. This is no surprise: His death at the end of season 5 has been plastered all over the marketing for the next season, and is the biggest—or at least most popular—open mystery in the show and books right now. Is he really dead? Almost definitely. Will he stay that way? Almost definitely not. What will happen when he comes back to life? It’s hard to say. But we won’t have to wait until Winds of Winter to find out.
Bran Stark And His Visions
Bran met the three-eyed crow/raven at the end of Game of Thrones season 4 and in A Dance With Dragons. In the book, he started to learn to see—visions of the past, present, maybe future, as viewed through the weirwood trees. Nothing much has come of it yet. That will most assuredly change in Game of Thrones season 6—that’s clear enough from the trailers, which appear to include an actual flashback (a true rarity in the series). More on that later, but we can expect that Bran’s visions will answer some of the biggest mysteries in the series.
Cersei’s Trial, The Hound And Lannister Rule
Cersei’s fate is a bit less obviously exciting than Jon Snow’s, but it’s just as important and it will be a key plot element in Game of Thrones season 6. The High Septon has already broken her power, but will the Faith she enabled take her life as well? A trial by combat will decide. Ser Robert Strong, née Gregor Clegane, against the unknown champion of the Faith. The unknown champion who is totally going to be The Hound, a man who is not in fact dead.
Tommen’s Life And The Kingship
With Cersei go the hope of the Lannisters. Myrcella is dead in the show (but not in the books, yet) and Tommen is fated to go, probably before Cersei does. The prophecy of Maggy the Frog says that Cersei’s children will all predecease her. If it’s true, Tommen may not be long for this world. Soon enough Lannister’s rule over Westeros could be well and truly broken. Who is the legitimate heir of Tommen “Baratheon,” you ask? Why, it’s none other than Stannis! Could that be the crazy twist GRRM is alluding to that can’t happen in the show anymore? In show continuity, the next-closest heir to the throne after Tommen, with Myrcella dead, Stannis and his line dead, and Renly dead, is none other than… Daenerys Targaryen. But expect the Tyrells to take it for themselves. Whatever happens, the next season will show us the broad strokes—although the details may differ substantially from Winds of Winter.
Daenerys’s Path And Aegon
What’s Daenerys up to in Winds of Winter and Game of Thrones season 6? The question isn’t as juicy as poor Jon Snow, so it’s less discussed, but it’s of great importance… and here, the show and book are in the same place, roughly speaking. Daenerys has her dragon back and may be about to have a khalasar. Moreover, she’s accepted that she is a creature of violence. Her destiny is to conquer Westeros, and in Game of Thrones season 6, she’s going to put the wheels in motion. Hopefully.
As for Aegon Targaryen of A Dance With Dragons, his appearance or non-appearance in the next season of the show will be potentially very telling. If he doesn’t show up, he can’t be that important (one imagines)—and it may be indirect evidence that he’s the mummer’s dragon, not the dragon’s third head.
Jon Snow’s Origin
But the biggest Game of Thrones season 6 spoiler for Winds of Winter brings us back to our old friend Jon Snow, who is surrounded by mystery. The biggest question about Jon Snow isn’t whether he’ll come back to life, but how he came to life in the first place—that is, who his parents are. Because neither of them is Ned Stark. One of Bran’s flashbacks in the trailer seems to be a vision of The Tower of Joy, where Ned’s sister died, where Ned and Howland Reed killed half the Kingsguard during Robert’s Rebellion, where Jon Snow was probably born—the son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen.
It’s the oldest theory in A Song of Ice and Fire lore, and pretty well-attested already, but Game of Thrones season 6 is going to finally and definitively reveal it. It is the series’ pivotal moment, and it’ll happen this season—before we ever read about it in Winds of Winter.
