Season six of Game Of Thrones was one of comebacks. As the story begins to zero in on the heart of Westeros and the battle for the Iron Throne, we saw lost and forgotten people returning to the fray, and others returning home. The Hound resurfaced and seemingly rejoined the also-somewhat-forgotten Brotherhood Without Borders; Jaime returned to Cersei’s side; Daenerys set out on her ships, at long last, to go home to Westeros; and of course, Jon Snow came back from the dead, even as his half-sister (er, probably cousin) Sansa came back to Winterfell.
It’s as if the series were a game of chess in which the board was upended early on and only select pieces were found and placed back on the board. Now those pieces are back in position and ready to play out the actual game we’ve been circling all along. But it might be a mistake to think that all of the players are visibly in place. There are still several characters—some dead and others simply left out of the story for a while—who could still impact the final two seasons of this show.
Syrio Forel
One reason this felt like a piece worth writing is that over the summer some pretty convincing evidence surfaced pointing to the return of the “First Sword of Braavos.” We never actually saw Syrio Forel die, and in Game Of Thrones that means he could well be in play. Well, as it turns out, he could also be the Waif. Time, which actually does a fair bit of good Thrones coverage in its online entertainment section, posted an article about the theory, which is effectively that the Waif casts Syrio Forel’s shadow. It’s a pretty easy trick for the show to work out, given that the Waif studies with the Faceless Men and could have been anyone this whole time.
Catelyn Stark
Spoiler alert, in case you haven’t read George R.R. Martin’s books: Catelyn Stark never totally dies. It’s actually not particularly clear what happens to her, but the gist is that after her “corpse” is thrown in the river after the Red Wedding, she washes up clinging to some shade of life and starts roaming the river lands as “Lady Stoneheart.” At this point, it appears this character isn’t in the plans for the HBO show, but it’s certainly possible that she makes an appearance and even has a significant impact on the direction of the story.
Tywin Lannister
Tywin is almost certainly dead for real. But he may be the most influential of the show’s deceased characters, because he lorded over a fantastically wealthy corner of the continent that we still haven’t seen! Generally recognized as a destination for Euro Millions lottery hopefuls, Lottoland draws up the occasional piece about wealth and fortune, and in one such piece that looked into the richest characters in fiction, Tywin’s net worth was listed at £1.2 billion. That’s about $1.6 billion, which is a huge pile of potentially war-influencing gold that’s presumably just sitting there at Casterly Rock. Tywin’s lingering fortune and inheritance could yet play a major role in Cersei’s desperate struggle for power.
Khal Drogo
There’s a really fun theory that’s made the rounds online about a possible return by Khal Drogo, the fan-favorite Dothraki warlord from season one. The details are a little bit complex, but suffice it to say the sinister witch who helped to poison/infect Drogo after he sustained a minor wound made a wicked pronouncement of everything that would have to happen for Drogo to return to Daenerys. And there are certain ways of reading the show’s symbolism that suggest most of those things have happened. It’s probably a reach, but this long-dead character could potentially return to help Dany wreak havoc on Westeros.
Stannis Baratheon
Okay, so the show confirmed that Stannis is dead. Big deal. It’s still hard to just roll with the idea that a show obsessed with violence and decapitations chose to cut away from the final sword swipe into Stannis’s neck just because. Odds are he’s a goner, but it could also be that Brienne spared him, swinging her sword into the tree he rested against rather than Stannis himself. The Baratheon lord could be in hiding, ready to reclaim the throne that, after all, is rightfully his.
These are probably all long shots, but this show is just wild enough that none of them seems beyond the realm of possibility. We’ll just have to see where season seven takes us.
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