Forgotten in the all the Jon Snow (hopeful) resurrection theories and other related Northern storylines has been how Daenerys Targaryen will handle the situation she was left in at the end of the fifth season of "Game of Thrones."
A new batch of leaks for the show's sixth season comes from Almeria, Spain, where Thrones is filming Dany's dealings with the Dothraki, remember this shot? It was the last we saw of the Mother of Dragons and it was not clear what it meant for her.
[Potential spoilers to follow, as we are dealing primarily with leaked photos, unconfirmed information, and speculation]
Watchers on the Wall learned Thrones casted an actor/model named Staz Nair to play an unspecified Dothraki role, so it is safe to say he belongs to the group that met Dany in that field. Neither Nair nor the showrunners have confirmed the actor's involvement, but he is not exactly hiding it either.
Earlier this month, Deadline learned Thrones casted Joe Naufahu for a "multi-episode arc," and Vanity Fair suspects he will be portraying the Khal of the Dothraki horde. You remember Drogo, right? Well, he was a Khal, which is basically a Dothraki king and he made Dany a Khaleesi.
When Drogo died, Dany tried to keep the Khalasar together on her own, but a huge portion left to follow a couple of Drogo's lieutenants, Jhaqo and Pono.
In A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin's first book of the Song of Ice and Fire novel Series, both named themselves Khal following Drogo's death. In the fifth and latest novel, A Dance With Dragons, it is Jhaqo who greets Dany in the field, presumably because he is the Khal. Dragons also has references to a Khalasar led by Pono, so those two may be separate entities.
However, Thrones very much likes to consolidate Martin's ranging work, so Jhaqo and Pono could well be part of the same Khalasar, meaning Nair could theoretically play lieutenant to Naufahu's Khal.
Now for the really intriguing leak from the Almeria set. James Costos, the United States Ambassador to Spain and Andorra, paid a visit and snapped this photo.
The background of the image appears to depict a temple and the set is apparently lit up by fire. Given the Khalasar just intercepted the Mother of Dragons, it stands to reason that a certain dragon started that fire. What remains to be seen is the "why?" aspect. Dany could certainly use a few thousand Dothraki to join her army, but she also cannot allow herself to be their prisoner, nor can she really stay with them long-term.
But also notice the foreground of the picture. That certainly appears to be the show's creators, David Benioff on the left in the North Face jacket and Dan Weiss on the right with the glasses. Maybe they were there because a political figure was making a visit, or maybe they were in Almeria because their oversight was needed for a very important sequence in a big episode.