As often as anyone has come back to life on Game of Thrones, we’ve been reminded they don’t come back the same. Then again, that wasn’t immediately true of Kit Harington’s Jon Snow this past season, for which the actor admits a bit of disappointment with the script. Plus – is Jon safe for Season 7?

An involved profile with The Wrap saw Harington looking back on the circus surrounding his Game of Thrones character’s death and resurrection; in particular the character tweaks that net him an Emmy nomination. Harington had initially hoped Jon Snow would return from the grave with a more antagonistic streak, but instead found more or less the same-old Jon:

I knew I was coming back to life, but I didn’t know if I’d come back as a changed person, as a villain. So I couldn’t pre-plan anything, which was hard.

And then I got the scripts, and actually, he comes back as himself, as the Jon that everyone knows. Which at first I found disappointing. But it’s more subtle than that. He has an insight into what lies beyond that very few people in his world do, and that no one in our world does—he knows that there’s no afterlife. Which does quietly drive who he is and what he wants to do.

Not only that, but Harington joked that where his Season 6 return made him “one of the safest people on Thrones now,” the same may not hold for Season 7:

Maybe I shouldn’t say that. He could die next season, but I felt very safe this season. Because if I come back to life in Episode 2, it would be awful storytelling if you kill me in Episode 4. So I felt a bit cocky this season.

In the meantime, HBO has confirmed that Game of Thrones Season 7 will start production on a shortened seven episodes this coming year, with an aim to premiere in Summer 2017. A list of directors for the year has also been announced, while at least a portion of filming will take place in Iceland.

We’ll see if Jon Snow registers any bigger differences as the new “King in the North” (or perhaps after learning of his history) but does Harington have a point about Jon Snow seeming no different than before?

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