Is This the Real Reason the Game of Thrones Panel Was Extra Secretive at Comic-Con This Year? 

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The buzz in Hall H on Friday was in overdrive as San Diego Comic-Con’s most famous and capacious venue waited eagerly for the three blockbuster panels of the day:

and Lucasfilm. The front section of the massive 6,500-seat hall was jammed with the kind of die-hard, I-slept-outside-for-two-nights-to-be-here fans that have made Comic-Con such a joyfully extreme experience. But while the day had many ecstatic surprises in store for film and TV lovers, anyone hoping for some insight into what to expect next season on

grown too big for Hall H? After rubbing elbows with real-life royalty, has the HBO cast and crew lost touch with their fan base? Unlikely. In fact, the real truth behind all this secrecy might actually be a gracious nod to the show’s humble beginnings.

The rigors of getting into Hall H usually prompts the bigger panels to pull out the stops when it comes to delivering a memorable, you-had-to-be-there presentation for their devoted fans. (See, for example, the

timpani intro or, even more dazzling, the full concert experience from Lucasfilm.) And even when there aren’t any grand musical gestures in the offing, there are often exciting “first looks” or “exclusive trailers” offered up to the fans as a reward for their dedication. But despite a cute compilation of cast audition footage, there were no blow-your-hair-back moments at the

panel this year. Even the traditional Comic-Con casting video announcing of the new faces of the Seven Kingdoms was missing from the presentation.

became a fixture at Comic-Con, the major creative forces behind the HBO series were absent from the panel. Author George R.R. Martin and creators D.B. Weiss and David Benioff took the year off with stars Kit Harington, Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey, Emilia Clarke, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (all the actors HBO reportedly defined as “A tier”) following suit. Maisie Williams, Natalie Dormer, Alfie Allen, and Sophie Turner, (reportedly “B tier”) were joined by Conleth Hill, John Bradley, Hannah Murray, Gwendoline Christie, Liam Cunningham, and Carice Van Houten. But despite this generous spread of

actors alongside executive producer Carolyn Strauss and director David Nutter, the panel revealed zero new information about the upcoming season.

The excuse the actors gave for their silence? They haven’t seen the upcoming scripts yet so, according to them, they know nothing at all. And with Christie the only confessed book reader on the panel, that answer

just be the truth. Either way, the simplest explanation for the lack of any hints or insight from the creators and cast is the age-old

hot button issue: spoilers. The push and pull between the all-knowing book readers and the fearful show watchers has created in

an almost entirely unique cultural experience when it comes to the spoilerphobic/spoilerphilic way we talk about a work of adaptation. Because his text is often peppered with clues and portents, longtime fans of Martin’s work have been poring through his books looking for hints of what’s to come for decades. Show watchers, for their part, feel entitled to experience the tragic thrills of

first hand through the series. So the dance between the spoiled and unspoiled has always been an especially tricky one for

fans. And the creators, respecting their non-reading audience, have always kept their cards pretty close to the chest.

But the approach this year feels less like a reluctance to tip their hand and more a refusal to play the game at all. The timing on this shift in strategy is could be telling given that now, more than ever, concrete spoilers really shouldn’t be as much of an issue with

. The show has almost entirely left the books in its rearview by both outpacing Martin’s narrative and taking a more liberal approach to adapting his story. And while it may seem like the creators are growing more and more distant from Martin, the man who started it all, it’s entirely possible that all this secrecy surrounding the fate of Jon Snow and the content of next season has

author. Could this secrecy be a gracious gesture on the part of Weiss, Benioff, and HBO to protect Martin’s story? Is the show now afraid of spoiling the books?

There’s still no official word, yet, on when Martin’s next book will be released. It won’t be out in 2015, but it’s within the realm of possibility that

will hit shelves at some point in the three or so months before Season 6 of

graciously be waiting to allow Martin to tell the next chunk of his epic yarn on his own terms and in his own words. There have been some hints at behind-the-scenes tension as Weiss and Benioff have had to go farther and farther afield from the books, and one overt callout from Martin's editor, but I think we’d all like to live in a world where pure altruism and, okay, maybe some financial benefits from book sales are what is driving this peculiar silence at Comic-Con.

And it’s not really that much of a stretch to believe that Weiss and Benioff, who owe much if not all of their astronomical success to Martin, would want to give the author one last go at driving the narrative before they take

across the finish line. Because while it’s possible

will come out before Season 6, there is no way Martin will finish his final book,

debuts in 2017. So, no matter what happens, Weiss, Benioff, and HBO will get the first take on the final word on Martin’s life’s work. Is it any wonder they might want to take this year off Comic-Con to give him one last hurrah?

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