'Game of Thrones': What new HBO photos reveal about the upcoming season
The new images provide a look at what characters made it through the events of last season to appear in the upcoming episodes. The sixth season of 'Thrones' debuts April 24.
'Game of Thrones' stars Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (l.) and Lena Headey (r.).
Helen Sloan/HBO
New photos from the HBO hit fantasy series 鈥淕ame of Thrones鈥� have fans buzzing prior to the new season鈥檚 debut in April.聽
Network HBO recently posted various images showing characters in the new episodes.
Jon Snow (Kit Harington) is not one of them. The character of Jon appeared to have been killed during the season finale of the fifth season. He appeared in an image HBO tweeted out promoting the release date of the new season, but he鈥檚 not seen in these photos.聽
Who is? Along with returning characters like knight Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), his sister, Cersei (Lena Headey), his brother, Tyrion (Peter Dinklage), and aspiring ruler Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), also show some new characters such as the Three-Eyed Raven (portrayed by 鈥淭he Exorcist鈥� actor Max von Sydow) and ones we haven鈥檛 seen in some time such as Yara (Gemma Whelan), the daughter of the ruler of the Iron Islands.聽
The sixth season of the show is set to debut on April 24.聽
The prior episodes of 鈥淭hrones,鈥� which has become HBO鈥檚 most-watched show of all time, won the acclaim of those behind the Emmy Awards, with 鈥淭hrones鈥� becoming the first fantasy TV show to win the prestigious best drama series Emmy.
The past season, however, was perhaps the show鈥檚 most controversial, with many viewers and critics objecting in particular to an episode that included the rape of a young female character, Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner).聽
Jeremy Podeswa, who directed the episode in which that took place, recently said that he believed the co-creators of the show, D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, had kept the criticism in mind when working on the new installments of the show.聽
Weiss and Benioff 鈥渨ere responsive to the discussion and there were a couple of things that changed as a result," . "It is important that [the producers] not self-censor. The show depicts a brutal world where horrible things happen. They did not want to be too overly influenced by that [criticism] but they did absorb and take it in and it did influence them in a way.鈥�