UPDATE: Yes, Ramsay Bolton finally died in "Game of Thrones" Season 6, Episode 9, "Battle of the Bastards." Rickon Stark died before the battle started. Wun-Wun was also killed, along with others on the field. Team Stark was losing until Littlefinger's army from the Vale showed up -- thank you, Sansa's letter -- so the Starks technically "won" the battle. But Ramsay, after being beat up by Jon, was taken prisoner in Winterfell. Alive. Sansa got some great last words in and then let Ramsay's own starving hounds be the ones to kill and eat him. So she kind of did get to kill him in the end, but it was even better, because he was killed by the creatures he thought were loyal and -- as Sansa noted -- were loyal until they were starving.

Original story:

Gods be good, HBO should send ravens to each individual "Game of Thrones" fan to promote Season 6, Episode 9, which airs this Sunday, June 19:

You are cordially invited to the "Battle of the Bastards," aka BastardBowl or SnowBowl, the long-awaited epic showdown in the North between Jon Snow's Team Stark and Ramsay Bolton's Team Why Does Ramsay Even Have a Team?

Episode 8, bless it, was essentially forgotten the moment the Episode 9 promo aired.

Here it is again:

As you can hear, most of the dialogue comes from Jon:

Jon Snow: "Battles have been won against greater odds. I fought beyond The Wall against worse than Ramsay Bolton.
Sansa Stark: "You. Don't. Know. Him."

Jon to Melisandre: "If I fall, don't bring me back."

Jon: "Thousands of men don't need to die. Only one of us."

Is that last line from Jon to Ramsay, challenging him to single combat? If so, it doesn't seem to work, based on the front line charges in the promo. But who will be victorious? We'd say obviously Jon and Sansa (whose previous letter was most likely to Littlefinger, asking him to send forces from the Vale), but GoT loves to give victories to Ramsay.

"Battle of the Bastards" was written by showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss, and directed by Miguel Sapochnik. In its latest press release, HBO simply presented the title, and the supersized finale title "The Winds of Winter," without further comment, refusing to even offer a vague synopsis for either episode. "Battle of the Bastards" sounds like a quote Ramsay might say, maybe if/when he and Jon ride out to meet before the attack.

UPDATE: The Episode 9 synopsis has been listed as "Terms of surrender are rejected and accepted." Does Ramsay both reject, initially, and then accept surrender? If so ... well, he'd have to be alive to accept, but maybe his team accepts when he's killed?

Since there are so many players on the field for this battle, we're expecting casualties on both sides, certainly minor and possibly major. (Don't kill Tormund, please!) But you don't really think they'd kill off Jon again, do you? No one's really buying that threat, we hope. He hasn't even met Daenerys Targaryen yet.

Whatever the showrunners decide to do, in your esteemed opinion, who SHOULD have the honor of killing Ramsay?

Jon? Sansa? Theon, although he's not even here? A total stranger? Melisandre with another shadow? Dany with her dragons, although they're not around yet either? Ramsay's own hungry hounds? No one? As opposed to No One/Arya Stark although, she kills everyone else, so why not him, too? (If you're really curious, you can head to Reddit to try and track down battle and finale spoilers, but it's more fun to just speculate and see.)

Earlier in the season, Kit Harington teased to Entertainment Weekly, "There's one episode this season, which is Jon's story, that's the most epic episode we've done." That's gotta be this one. The Powers That Be also teased the extraordinary ambition of this battle: "It's definitely the biggest [action sequence yet]," producer Bryan Cogman told EW. "We've always wanted to get to a place – story-wise and budget-wise and time-wise and resource-wise – where we would be able to do a proper battle, with one army on one side, one army on another side."

The promo only showed the Battle of the Bastards, which hinted to maybe this being like Season 2, Episode 9's "Blackwater," which focused the entire episode on the Battle of the Blackwater. But there's talk that we might also head to Meereen this Sunday, so it may not be totally set on this battlefield.

Question: If Team Stark wins, who should rule the North -- Jon or Sansa? She's the Stark, and he didn't seem that fond of ruling after being stabbed to death by his own men. Maybe she should be the Stark of Winterfell and he can focus on keeping the fight going against the White Walkers.

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