If Jon Snow ran for Public Office

Jon Snow is dead.  No, really - no pining for the fjords from this Westerosi Blue.

See, we've been told again and again that John Snow is dead - by the show runners and by the actor himself.

Never mind the lack of a hair cut.

Never mind the popping up in all the locations where Game of Thrones is filming.

Certainly, you don't want to pay attention to the fact he's been spotted in a battle scene with his family's foes.

It's one of the worst kept secrets in television history (like, ever!!  Or at least this season), yet the show-runners still try to keep up appearances.  

Why?

Easy enough - it's a path they've already started on - keep the audience out of the know, keep 'em focused on the story that's being told, etc.  It'd be kinda embarrassing to change tune midstream, wouldn't it?

The producers have a particular story they want to tell - one that, before social media, smart phones and the like, they could have stuck to with only the most modest bits of trickery.  When The Fugitive series was filming, the lead actors weren't allowed to dine together at restaurants so as to preserve the tension of their on-screen story. These days, that wouldn't matter - barbecue pictures and vines of them paling around the set would have emerged, ruining the illusion.

Speaking of ruined illusions - how about that #elxn42 campaign?

Never mind that the Liberals are controlling open nominations or the Tories are fumbling their economic fundamentals; it's the Facebook and Twitter gaffes, the bozo eruptions et al that are ruining the carefully-scripted narratives of the campaigns.

No matter how hard the Party comms teams try to stick to their strategies and suffer no deviations, reality and its virtual airing keep getting in the way.

We have the Price of War Rooms telling candidates that even if they never have a fresh unscripted moment ever again, whatever they did at any point in their online lives (which for anyone under the age of 20 is pretty much their whole lives) is available to be used against them.

It's getting harder and harder to keep secrets.  It is therefore getting harder and harder to tell stories without acknowledging the public's ability and clear desire to be part of the story-writing process.

You can think it good, bad, or some mix of each, but the fact remains - Jon Snow would have a helluva time running for office.