If the last year of TV news has taught us anything, Game of Thrones actors don’t have the most trustworthy record when it comes to keeping secrets. Maisie Williams herself has “confirmed” a death or two most know to be false, though the longtime series star has something to say to the God of Death for a long-held fan theory.

Take this with a grain of salt for the moment, as once again, Game of Thrones stars are not the be-all, end-all of death reports, but at least one recurring Song of Ice and Fire fan theory posits that Arya’s early “dancing” master Syrio Forel actually survived the Stark purge of Kings’ Landing, in that neither HBO nor the books explicitly confirmed his death at the sword of Ser Meryn Trant, despite an ominous last stand.

Fans, bless their hearts, have even gone so far as to suggest that Syrio Forel might have been another incarnation of Faceless Man Jaqen H’ghar, which may hurt your head, considering there are no “individual” Faceless Men, but rather whatever visage they wear at the time, Jaqen included.

Not so, according to Maisie Williams herself, who according to IGN, presented the same idea to showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, but was told in no uncertain terms “No, he is dead.”

I always was like, ‘Oh, no, I feel like he’s still alive.’ I always had my own theory that he and Jaqen were the same person … [After correction] I was like, ‘Oh, OK.’ So that put that to bed really quickly, but I guess we can all still dream.

In fact, Williams even acknowledged the potential for George R.R. Martin to write otherwise in the forthcoming novels, saying “Maybe if it’s not in the show, it will be in the book, and that will be great.” Martin too has spoken to HBO killing off a character he’d subsequently written an important Winds of Winter twist for, so who’s to say he didn’t mean Forel?

We’ll find out more when Game of Thrones Season 6 premieres on April 24, but has Syrio finally run out of retorts to the God of Death?

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