‘Game Of Thrones’: New Filming Location Could Be A Huge Season 6 Spoiler

Rumors are circulating that the death of another Game of Thrones character is imminent. And for fans of the book series, the image below will be a dead giveaway at which character could die in season 6. As far as book fans are concerned, the death is long overdue since this character died all the way back in the third book of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, A Storm of Swords.

WARNING: Spoilers for both the book and TV series of Game of Thrones abound in this article. Please proceed with caution.

Season 6 of Game of Thrones is branching out into unknown territory as a result of the series passing the currently published books it is based on. While, in theory, anything could go as far as HBO is concerned, and that may — or may not — be an indicator of how the books will end, there are still some book story lines that have not seen their conclusion yet in the TV series.

Take for example, the Greyjoys. Balon Greyjoy, Theon’s father, lost his life in book three of George R.R. Martin’s books. In fact, his life became forfeit before the infamous red wedding. And Catelyn Stark heard all about it before she lost her life. According to Vanity Fair, the passage in the book where Catelyn finds out about Balon’s death goes as follows:

“There was a blow coming in from the west, rain and thunder, and old King Balon was crossing one of them bridges when the wind for hold of it and just tore the thing to pieces. He washed up two days later, all bloated and broken. Crabs ate his eyes, I hear.”

As Vanity Fair also pointed out, in season 3 of the Game of Thrones TV sereis, Melisandre and Stannis threw three slugs onto the fire to aid three deaths; Joffrey, Robb and Balon. So far, all have died except for Balon. Is his time finally up?

According to Game of Thrones fansite, Watchers on the Wall, his death is certainly imminent. They have reported that filming for season 6 of Game of Thrones has been occurring in and around the Irish town of Ballintoy. More importantly, around the Carrick-a-Rede bridge. For book fans, the image in the tweet below will make it pretty clear that if filming is currently underway here, then Balon will surely lose his life in season 6.

Gorgeous today at rope bridge and my @RickStevesTours members enjoyed watching Game of Thrones filming nearby too. pic.twitter.com/qOwK4jOCiU

— Susie Millar (@TitanicTours) September 1, 2015

Vanity Fair has a couple of theories as to why HBO waited so long to kill off Balon Greyjoy. The first surrounding Arya having a vision of Balon’s death at the hands of a “faceless man”. Considering just how much HBO focused on the faceless man story line in season 5, this seems like a fairly likely reason for holding off his death until that story line could be explored more. The other reason is is determined by a different interpretation of Arya’s prophecy. “A man without a face, waiting on a swaying bridge, on his shoulder perched a drowned crow with seaweed hanging from its wings,” could possibly imply that Balon’s brother, Euron (who has an eye patch and is known as “Crow’s Eye”), will be instrumental in the death. Considering a casting call has gone out for season 6 of Game of Thrones for a character which matches Euron’s description, this theory could be just as likely as the first.

Game of Thrones will return to HBO in 2016.

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[Image credits: HBO Inc. / Twitter / Susie Millar]