The Long Night has already been long, and will be continue to remain so until the first episode of Game of Thrones Season 8 drops sometime in 2019.
GoT Season 7 bounced out with a finale in which we confirmed Jon’s Targaryen heritage and saw The Night King (and his Ice Dragon) destroy The Wall, meaning Season 8 will feature all our beloved (and hated) characters fighting forces greater even than their own selves and each other.
Though producers have set a new precedent in terms of keeping plot points and scripts under wraps (“We would get sent sides for the scene we were shooting the next day. So we would have to learn it all the day before, Sophie Turner told Digital Spy. “And once you’ve read it, it disappears 24 hours later, and you can never access it again. It’s tighter than the White House security!“), the various actors on the show have given us little teeny tidbits through which to let our imaginations run free concerning the final (sob) season of GoT.
1. “I only wrapped on that [Game of Thrones] three weeks ago” Joe Dempsie, who plays Gendry, revealed to Metro UK last June.
While this may not seem big, here’s why it is: Gendry sailed away at the end of season 3, only to reappear in season 7 when Jon Snow sought him out to reveal that he is the bastard son of Robert Baratheon.
At this point in time, Gendry hates the Lannisters as much as everyone else. His appearance in the final season of the series suggests that he could play an integral role in whatever the hell goes down between the Lannisters and the rest of Westeros.
2. “It f-cked me up… Knowing that is going to be a lasting flavor in someone’s mouth of what Daenerys is…” Emilia Clarke, who plays Daenerys Targaryen, told Vanity Fair of her final scene.
Contextually speaking, this gives credence to the prevailing fan theory surrounding Dany and Jon; that one of them is the reincarnation of legendary hero and Whitewalker destroyed Azor Ahai, and that whoever it is will have to kill the other.
If the second popular fan theory turns out to be true – that Dany will give birth to Jon’s son and that this child will be Azor Ahai reborn – Jon’s Targaryen heritage (meaning he is the rightful heir to all of Westeros) and sovereignty as King Of The North will still forever be at odds with Dany’s desire to rule the world. There can only be one!
3. “I think pretty much everybody cried at one point. And it was … pretty surprising” – Lena Headey, who plays Cersei Lannister, remarking on the “one especially sad moment to come” to Mashable at the start of the year.
The phrase “it was pretty surprising” coming from the mouth of an actor who plays A) a character whose very survival depends on never being surprised on a B) show that has shocked millions around the world with surprise endings, twists, deaths, and Ed Sheerans, must mean that this very sad upcoming moment is very sad and very surprising indeed.
So who could it be? Which GoT death will both come as a surprise and a sad surprise?
4. “It’s not like a fairytale happy ending by any means at all” – Hannah Murray, who plays Sam’s chick Gilly, told Winter Is Coming.
Great, does everyone die Gilly? Because that is fully 1000% expected from George RR Martin. Murray also said, “I knew to expect the unexpected. Anything that felt too obvious to me I knew was not going to be what happened,” which begs the question: If most are expecting either Jon or Dany (or both) to die, and they don’t, what could possibly be sadder or less “fairytale happy ending”?
And don’t you dare say “Nymeria and Ghost.”
5. “Can we redefine ourselves? Most people have moments in their life where you go, ‘Can I really, fundamentally change?’…The core of him has always been Cersei…” Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who plays Jamie Lannister, told Vanity Fair.
He went on: “When that’s taken away, what are you then? What’s left? Is there anything left? When he leaves, obviously he has no idea. He doesn’t know the answer to that question.”
Coster-Waldau is referring here to the final interaction between Jamie and Cersei in season 7. Cersei implies she can have her twin brother killed and Jamie responds by saying “I don’t believe you.”
According to Vanity Fair, the subtext, for Coster-Waldau, was this: “I don’t love you anymore. . . . I’m calling your bluff, and, you know, you can’t hurt me now because my heart has been destroyed by you. You can’t hurt me anymore than you already have.”
So what does Jamie Lannister’s identity crisis mean for season 8? WWe’ve certainly seen his character develop and change over the past 7 seasons, but is this transformation deep enough to abandon his twin and lover in lieu of his brother, who is fighting on the side of Dany and Jon? Or will he inevitably sink with Cersei’s doomed ship?
6. “I love the fact that these two come back, they’re both lethal, and I just wanted to give the impression, as much as possible, that one of them is going to die,” GoT director Alan Taylor told The Huffington Post of Arya and Sansa Stark.
SANSA AND ARYA NEED TO STOP COMPARING THEIR SUFFERING! YOU BOTH SUFFERED ATROCITIES!! YALL NEED COME TOGETHER!!#GameOfThrones #ThronesYall pic.twitter.com/79suIpqN4C
— ShyBro Ren (@Speede_e) August 21, 2017
He went on to add: “But you’re not sure which one…. Something is coming very soon between them, and it will be violent but surprising.”
WhAaAaAt?! Did Taylor confirm one Stark sister will kill the other? Or is he just saying he wants it to seem as though one of them will die, but in reality will suffer a far worse, more violent fate? Like turning into a Whitewalker or getting eaten by a dragon?
If you recall, to say the Stark sisters left season 7 on poor terms would be a gross understatement. After six years apart, they don’t know each other any longer. Arya doesn’t approve of who she perceives Sansa to now be: power-hungry enough to betray her family. Meanwhile, Sansa can’t reconcile her little sister with the lethal murderer she’s become.
Will Littlefinger’s attempts at keeping these two divided (and thus weakened) work? Or will this sneaky snake finally get his long-delayed comeuppance?
7. “Goodbye Belfast. Goodbye Arya. Goodbye ‘Game of Thrones.’ What a joy I’ve had. Here’s to the adventures to come.” – Maisie Williams, alongside a picture of bloody sneakers last month.
Your guess is as good as mine.