How many times has the lord brought him back?
Six.
Hey Youtubers it's Charlie so time to talk about resurrection in the game of thrones
universe or song of ice and fire. I know a lot of you had questions after the season five finale
so I'm going to do a breakdown of all the resurrections we've seen on the show and
their methods. Also heads up the giveaway that I announced in my last video is still going
on it's a $20 Amazon gift card all you have to do to enter is be subscriber and leave a comment
on this video. I'll announce the winner in my Q&A video. So careful for spoilers if you're
not caught up on the show. Here we go. Thus far we have seen three different types of
resurrection. Four if you want to get really technical, but really it's three. There's the
White Walkers and the Night's King raising Wights there's Thoros of Myr resurrecting
Beric Dondarrion using prayers to the red God. Thoros also refers to this as giving
the kiss of life, although I think he only uses that terminology in the books. Later, Beric
Dondarrion gives his life force to another person even though it probably involves some
of the same mechanisms you could look at that is the same type of resurrection from
the red God. And then three, we have Qyburn raising the Mountain on his table here, Frankenstein
style. So I want to start with this quote from Thoros Of Myr it's this really nice quote.
I'm gonna omit some spoilery parts of it: "Harwin begged me to give her the kiss of life but
it had been too long and I would not do it. So Lord Beric put his lips to hers instead and
the flame of life passed from him to her and she rose. May the Lord of light protect us
she rose." So he's shitting his pants a little when he says that. He has absolutely no idea
how the Red God brought these people back from the dead or what he did to make it happen
on the TV show he explains it a little bit better he just says "I ask and the red God does what
he wants" he brings them back or he doesn't. So really Thoros has absolutely no idea what's
going on and neither does Melisandre. The Red God could grant people life because they're important
to his cause or some other reason. We have no idea. I like that idea though - the flame
of life. The way Thoros refers to it, it makes it sound like it's an actual physical thing
George RR Martin has offered no explanation about how it works but I think that we have
a little more context to understand the magic of the White Walkers. So let's move on to them
even though people on social media affectionately call these "ice zombies", they're wights. Both are
reanimated corpses but the difference is zombies aren't mentally controlled by another person
they're not remote-controlled. Wights are kinda like glorified finger puppets with White
Walkers pulling the strings. And I know in episode eight it was the Night's King that
ordered them into battle and raised up a bunch of new ones but any white Walker can
do that. It's kind of hard to tell but because the Night's King here isn't saying anything
he just raises his arms and they come up in the dead it seems like there's no prayer involved
like he just has the magic innately within him. Thoros can't do that. In the books he has
to give Beric the kiss of life, meaning he literally has to put his lips on his. Beric
does the same thing later to bring another character back to life but you could call
that almost invoking a blessing the way like a cleric in traditional fantasy literature
calls down a blessing from their God to give them power for a brief period. When a White Walker
raises the wight though, the wight is completely under their control and as we learned in season
four episode 10, from Mr. Skeleton here, wights don't have to be freshly deceased. The Night's
King could just dig up the skeleton of the mad King and add him to the Army of the dead.
Wouldn't that be fun? I know everybody wants to see Ned Stark back. He could technically be made part
of the Army of the dead. Even though technically the show hasn't promised this to us., I feel like
it would be amazing if we were to see characters that have died off on the show brought back
by the Night's King and made part of the Army of the dead just like a little patching Ned
Stark skeleton. For those of you that read comic books, it would be a lot like black as night, where a lot
of DC's dead characters were resurrected as black lanterns. in major contrast to that though
when priests of the Red God resurrect someone they're basically just reversing death
so the person you get back is almost exactly like themselves before they died. The caveat
being that the longer they've been dead, and the more gruesome the method of their death, the
less they are when they come back - the less of their original selves. Beric Dondarion
gets brought back six times. When we meet him in his sixth self here, in season three episode
six, he's a shadow of his former self. He barely has any memories from before the war of the five
kings. But still, remember that quote that I read from Thoros: he said that he would not
bring back that other person and Beric did it instead meaning that he could continue to bring
people back that had been dead for even longer periods of time, it's just that that they would
be like monsters. But both the White Walkers and the priests the Red God form of necromancy
raising the dead even though the Red Priests were really reversing death rather than raising
the dead. What about Frankenstein Qyburn though. What he's doing is slightly different but also
a form of necromancy. Let's remember his history. He was training at the Citadel but was kicked
out because he was performing freakish experiments, or what the arch Maester thought of as being
freakish. He wanted to be the best healer there ever was, so he started opening the living
to learn the secrets of death, which is really what physicians nowadays do. I mean like
you're sick, they open you up to see what's wrong and then they fix you. The Archmaester's not
having it so they kicked him out - he lost his chain. What I think Qyburn has done is
combined a lot of arcane knowledge from the Citadel with practical healing methods, enough
so that there might be some mystical aspects what he did but for the most part
you could call it science. The books really don't offer a whole lot of details as that
how it is, hopefully Winds of Winter will spell that a little bit better, but it's also implied
that he performs experiments on pregnant women and all manner of other creepy things, you know,
just the tip of the iceberg, he has all kinds of crazy experiments going on in the black cells
the important thing though is that during season four when he was talking to Cersei
about bringing The Mountain back, he said that the process would change him. We don't know the
full extent of his abilities you know but based on what we've seen he works more like a golem.
He has limited function and he can respond to commands but he doesn't need to eat and as
far as we know he can't speak. What does all this have to do a season six? Well it means
that death isn't the end, it's just the beginning. There have been resurrections many times in
the past in the books and on the show, they will continue to happen. That's why so many
people, so many book readers and now show people, think that Jon Snow is coming back. Even though
it doesn't happen all the time, resurrection - not the craziest thing we've seen them do
there are a whole lot of other structural narrative reasons book readers think that Jon Snow
is going to come back but if you've only been watching the show you've only seen a few clues
so I don't want to get too crazy with book stuff but as much as the show changes there's no
way that George RR Martin would point Jon Snow's character in a certain direction and
that the show would change that. Dead or not dead they wouldn't change that from the books. There are
a whole lot of theories about how he might survive, you know, but if he does Dan and Dave would
also be compelled to save him. That being said, I know everyone's asking what's the deal with
Kit Harington and the producers saying that Jon Snow is dead and he's not coming back. There are
two big theories. One: they're intentionally lying to heighten the WTF whenever he does come
back and two: they're just ... they're using slippery lawyer speak as in Jon Snow does come back but he's
fundamentally changed in the process therefore the Jon Snow we knew does not come back even
though Kit Harington the actor does. You can also think in a different direction too. Jon
Snow doesn't come back in season six, or at least just briefly in episode one as like a follow-up
like someone finds his dead body in the snow, his body gets dropped off a frame and he just
doesn't show up again until season seven - he gets fridged for an entire season like Bran did.
That would be really weird but it is totally possible. Here's my big question for you guys. Given
that bringing characters back from the dead is such a regular thing and there a lot of
clues that Jon Snow is a very critical character, do you feel like Dan and Dave are deceiving
fans to just, you know, try and misdirect us? And if so, how long do you think they can keep
that up? Like, do you think that they can keep this up for an entire year while they film
all of next season. If Kit Harington is going to be on set, someone's gonna spot him. Game
of Thrones starts filming really soon so even if, you know, we don't expect a lot of Jon Snow
in season six, I still think they could film a couple scenes with him and remember, comic-con
is coming up really soon too, they could be planning something really special, I'm not
expecting them to do any special Jon Snow stuff, but I do feel like they should bring
Kit Harington. They brought Pedro Pascal right after Oberyn Martell got his head squished
like a grape, so they bring dead actors to comic-con, like they brought Jason Momoa. Just speculation
you have to remember you know book readers have been living with this trying to figure
this out for the last four or five years and the books do offer a few more clues as to
why Jon Snow is such an important character, like it's not one of those George RR Martin
things where he just yanks the rug out from under you. Just to remind you guys, I'm doing a Q&A this
week. I'm also doing a Star Wars Rebels video, I know a lot of you guys were asking
for that. So while you wait for all that you can click here to learn all about the season six cast
that they're trying to land right now. They're going to announce some of that at comic con. And, you can
click here to learn all about Azor Ahai and the Night's King. Thank you so much for watching,
everybody, let's high five and I'll see you guys tomorrow!