This post contains discussion of Season 6, Episode 2 of Game of Thrones titled “Home.” If you want to leave, now is your chance.

So there we have it. After months of speculation, spoilers, and half-truths, Kit Harington’s character Jon Snow is back from the dead. And, seemingly, after all that, it happened exactly the way both book readers and show watchers thought it would. Melisandre, like Thoros of Myr before her, prayed to the Lord of Light and Jon Snow opened his eyes. But is it really that simple? Let’s explore.

Did Jon Snow Come Back Wrong? So we know that Jon can open his eyes and take dramatically deep breaths, but what else do we know about his return? The closest model we have to go off of is Beric Dondarrion, the knight who Melisandre met in Season 3. Beric, you might remember, had been resurrected by the Red Priest Thoros of Myr six times.

In the book “A Storm of Swords,” though, it’s extremely clear that Beric isn’t what he once was. He explains his half-living state:

Can I dwell on what I scarce remember? I held a castle on the Marches once, and there was a woman I was pledged to marry, but I could not find that castle today, nor tell you the color of that woman’s hair. Who knighted me, old friend? What were my favorite foods? It all fades. Sometimes I think I was born on the bloody grass in that grove of ash, with the taste of fire in my mouth and a hole in my chest. Are you my mother, Thoros?

So even if Jon Snow starts walking around tossing around his luscious curls in his old way, don’t expect him to remember everything that happened with Ygritte nor be able to fully appreciate the beauty of his imminent reunion with his sister (?) Sansa. On the subject of resurrection, George R.R. Martin said in 2011:

I do think that if you’re bringing a character back, that a character has gone through death, that’s a transformative experience. . . My characters who come back from death are worse for wear. In some ways, they’re not even the same characters anymore. The body may be moving, but some aspect of the spirit is changed or transformed, and they’ve lost something.

And then once again referring to Beric Dondarrian, Martin brought up the concept of the solitary, driving force of the resurrected.

Each time Beric’s revived he loses a little more of himself. He was sent on a mission before his first death. He was sent on a mission to do something, and it’s like, that’s what he’s clinging to. He’s forgetting other things, he’s forgetting who he is, or where he lived. He’s forgotten the woman who he was once supposed to marry. Bits of his humanity are lost every time he comes back from death; he remembers that mission. His flesh is falling away from him, but this one thing, this purpose that he had is part of what’s animating him and bringing him back to death. I think you see echoes of that with some of the other characters who have come back from death.

(Only book readers and spoiler-holics know who Martin is referring to in that last line. Show watchers might think of Cersei’s new faithful servant: Zombie Mountain.) So what would be Jon Snow’s driving force? His mission? Defend the Wall against the encroaching Others seemed to be his biggest concern last season. It’s why he wouldn’t send his men to help Stannis fight the Boltons. But maybe, just maybe, justice for the Stark family will supersede justice for the realm and we’ll see Jon Snow join his sister in regaining glory for his once-great house.

But if he is Azor Ahai reborn (as Melisandre once thought Stannis to be), then Jon’s fate may be a little different. According to legend, Azor Ahai will wake dragons from stone (that sounds more like Dany), and defend the realms of men against the White Walkers (that’s our Jon.) Azor Ahai will also likely pair up with the Children of the Forest to defeat the Others. (That’s what happened last time, and Martin is really big on history repeating). How convenient, then, that Jon’s ”brother“ Bran has been chilling with the C.O.T.F. for an entire season, presumably learning how to make magic grenades and tap into the mystical tree-root network. If the efforts of Azor Ahai reborn and the C.O.T.F. fail, the realms of man will fall. No pressure, Jon.

How Could Melisandre Be Right About Jon Snow But Wrong About Stannis? When Davos approached Melisandre to help him resurrect Jon Snow she said no at first. Having lost faith in her own ability and in her god, she says, “The great victory I saw in the flames, all of it was a lie.” Is she right? Well, first we should remind Melisandre that Thoros was also all outta faith when he brought back Beric Dondarrian. “It’s a terrible thing to say, but by the time I came to Westeros, I didn’t believe in our Lord,” he told her back in Season 3 about his state of mind right before Thoros’s resurrection. “I decided that he—that all the gods—were stories we told children to make them behave. So I wore the robes and every now and then I’d recite the prayers, but it was just for show.” So it’s possible faithlessness is a key ingredient for the resurrection process. How lucky we are that Melisandre sunk so low last week. But was she wrong? There are some who theorize that Melisandre never saw Stannis as Azor Ahai reborn in the flames but that she saw his home, Dragonstone, instead. There are reasons (we might get to as soon as next week) why Dragonstone might mean Jon Snow and not Stannis Baratheon. The hints that Melisandre isn’t exactly interpreting her visions accurately come through clearly in the latest book, “A Dance with Dragons.” In her point of view chapter Martin writes, “There was no one, even in her order, who had her skill at seeing the secrets half-revealed and half-concealed within the sacred flames. Yet now she could not even seem to find her king. I pray for a glimpse of Azor Ahai, and R’hllor shows me only Snow.” Well, duh, Melisandre. Learn to take a hint.

Proof’s in the, Uh, Blood. We should also point out that this episode did provide even more proof of Melisandre’s powers. Back in Season 3, in order to bolster Stannis’s chances in the War of the Five Kings, Melisandre threw three voodoo leeches on a fire and Stannis wished death upon the following: the usurper Robb Stark, the usurper Balon Greyjoy, and the usurper Joffrey Baratheon. Naturally, it was Joffrey’s leech (plump with blood from Gendry’s, um, Baratheon) that made the most satisfying pop.

When Robb Stark died, Davos chalked it up to coincidence. He wasn’t ready yet to believe in the magic of penis blood voodoo leeches.

But even Davos can’t deny that three out of three ain’t bad for penis blood voodoo leech magic. Thanks to Melisandre, Balon, Joffrey, and Robb are all dead now and Jon Snow is alive. If I were you, I wouldn’t make an enemy of Melisandre.

Was That Haircut Scene a Nod to the Obsessive Off-Season Speculation About Kit Harington’s Curls? I sure hope so.

Is There Any Chance It Wasn’t Melisandre Who Brought Him Back? Sure. There was certainly enough of a time lapse between her efforts and his eyes opening to allow for plausible deniability. Actress Carice Van Houten herself said Melisandre wouldn’t be the one to bring him back. (Though she probably meant the Lord of Light would. Another half truth.) At any rate, there’s definitely something going on with Ghost. Creators David Benioff and Dan Weiss are usually much more chatty in their HBOGo post-episode interviews, but this week they kept their discussion of Jon Snow pretty vague and mostly restricted to his direwolf. Benioff said that after Tormund, Edd, Melisandre, and, finally, Davos gave up hope, Ghost remained by Jon’s side. “All these wolves have a strange and deep connection with their Stark counterpart. So Ghost has a sixth sense about Jon Snow and when he might be in danger and when he might be coming back,” Benioff said.

In the books, the last word Jon Snow says as he goes down is “Ghost,” which is why readers generally thought his soul might have journeyed into his wolf’s body. (Remember, Bran can slip in and out of his direwolf with ease.) Kit Harington alluded to the warg theory during a panel event last year. He told the audience, “I’d like to be a warg. I’d like to put myself inside a wolf.” (As you might imagine this got a lot of laughs.) Show creator Dan Weiss then said, “Two words for you: Season 6.” It all seems like a joke, but maybe not. In the books Melisandre describes Jon as “a man then a wolf than a man” which sounds pretty close to the waging experience.

So if Jon’s soul was safely stored in Ghost during the hiatus between Seasons 5 and 6, does that mean he’s in a better place than Beric was? Beric’s soul went R’hllor knows where, but Jon’s was right nearby. Does that mean we will see the return of the old Lord Commander we knew so well? We’ll find out next week.