HBO programming president Michael Lombardo has weighed in on the rumors about Game of Thrones, and there’s good news and bad news for fans.
The bad news, depending on your character loyalty, is that Jon Snow really is dead. “Dead is dead is dead is dead. He be dead,” Lombardo said at the Television Critics Association press tour on Thursday, the L.A. Times reports. (Then again, he would say that either way, wouldn’t he?)
And as for those proponents of R+L=J, their theory could be put to the test on screen: Lombardo hinted, “There’s enormous storytelling to be mined in a prequel.”
See The Real-Life People Who Inspired Game of Thrones Characters
From left: Cersei and Margaret of Anjou
HBO; Getty Images
From Left: Khaleesi and Queen Elizabeth I.
HBO; Getty Images
From Left: Melisandre and Bloody Mary
Helen Sloan—HBO; Getty Images
From left: Talisa Stark and Anne Boleyn.
Helen Sloan—HBO; Getty Images
From left: Brienne of Tarth and Joan of Arc.
HBO; DeAgostini—Getty Images
From left: Henry VIII and Robert Baratheon.
HBO; Getty Images
From left: Joffrey and Caligula.
HBO; De Agostini—Getty Images
Advertisement
Get The Brief. Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know right now.
Read next: Watch Katniss and Jon Snow Face Off in ‘The Hunger Game of Thrones’
Download TIME’s mobile app for iOS to have your world explained wherever you go
