Is Jon Snow dead? The president will probably know before you do

Being the leader of the free world isn't a bad gig. You get a nice house (with ample parking, right in the middle of Washington), your own jet, and, perhaps most important, early access to the year's most-anticipated show.

HBO and Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have made it abundantly clear that they wouldn't be releasing screeners of the new season, the Washington Post reported, which is a decision TV Guide called "unprecedented."

One man, though, knows how to play the game of thrones.

During HBO's Sunday red carpet for the premiere of Season 6's first episode, the showrunners confirmed that the president would receive advance episodes of the show.

"When the commander in chief says, 'I want to see advanced episodes,' what are you going to do?" Benioff said.

This might not seem like particularly striking news, unless you consider the work that HBO has put in during the last year to maintain what the Wrap called the year's biggest cliff-hanger. It matters so deeply to some that one impassioned fan has created an online petition on the White House's official website demanding that President Obama release information from the screeners.

(Warning: This piece contains spoilers from this point on.)

In the Season 5 finale of Game of Thrones, which Variety reported was the show's most-watched episode, drawing 8.11 million viewers even though it aired against the NBA Finals, something happened that left fans' mouths agape and their hearts pounding.

The show has dispatched its characters with the ease of tossing a used Kleenex into the garbage, but one beloved protagonist kept his neck from the blade (an awfully difficult task in a world where "you win, or you die"). Jon Snow, played by British actor Kit Harington, can be seen as the moral center of the show - Bustle, in fact, called him just that. Unrelentingly good, no matter the circumstances, Snow quickly became a fan favorite.

Which led to some displeasure and disbelief on Twitter when the finale June 14 left him lying in the show, blood pouring from several stab wounds to his abdomen, blank eyes staring at ... nothing.

Some were not convinced of his demise. One Twitter user wrote, "I'm sure he will rise again." Another wrote that he knew they were "gonna bring back Jon Snow from the dead."

TV critic Andy Greenwald agreed with this camp in the now-defunct Grantland, writing simply, "He's not dead." In a live Q&A on washingtonpost.com, TV critic Hank Stuever wrote that it was a "safe bet Jon Snow will come back from the dead."

Thus began a year of secrecy, spying, and potentially outright lies.

Because, for the first time, no one knows what's happening next in the series. It's based on a series of books by George R.R. Martin, but as the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza points out (while wishing he had those screeners), "for the first time in the history of the series, the TV show is running ahead of the books by George R.R. Martin on which it is based."

"Look, I'm not in the show anymore," the beleaguered Harington said to Time Out London. For its part, HBO has stuck to its guns, just last week releasing a statement that said, "Jon Snow is dead," TV Line reports.

Fans will have to wait until the April 24 premiere of Season 6. Well, all fans but one.

Well-played, Mr. President.