Kit Harington confirms that Jon Snow's hair has followed its own plot arc

Kit Harington’s performance as Jon Snow has been one of the anchors of Game Of Thrones, slowly tracing the journey of a brooding, magnetic bastard-son from exile into death and finally into the arms of, um, his sister. (It’s a fucked-up show.) One consistent aspect of his performance, aside from being sort of grouchy about everything, is his fantastic hair, which has inspired no shortage of tributes and video tutorials over the years. And, while most of the show’s actors have gotten extremely good over the years at not revealing anything about the show’s production, Refinery 29 got the generally tight-lipped actor to confirm that, yes, his hair has been following its own plot arc.

Ever since his resurrection at the beginning of season six, Snow has favored not the tousled locks that made him famous but rather a taut, Brooklyn barista-style man-bun, which he says was extremely intentional. “They wanted me to look more like Ned Stark,” he says. “There’s a real reason behind [my hairstyle], to show how the story was evolving.” Does this mean that when he returned from beyond the veil of death he had somehow absorbed the spirit of the man who raised him, thus heralding his reclamation of Winterfell? Probably not, but it’s cool to know they build the plot into the character’s damn hairstyles.

Elsewhere in the interview, he discusses the long-shouldered burden of having such fantastic hair, which is contractually locked into place with HBO. “I haven’t been allowed to touch it for years,” he tells Refinery 29. “It’s going to be weird, because it becomes part of your look as an actor. It’s strange to think now that I can change it. Do I want to change it? Am I going to change it? I don’t know.”

He’ll probably change it, but it’ll probably still look great, because he’s Kit Harington. You can read the rest of the interview, which is mostly about cologne but also about vaping (Harington vapes), here.