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Get set for The Long Night

The Long Night is here, everyone. Game of Thrones Season 7 bowed out with an epic final episode in which we learned of Jon’s true parentage and saw The Night King and its Ice Dragon break down The Wall and move on Westeros.

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As Season 8 airs, here’s absolutely everything you need to know about the show’s final episodes, including release date, trailers, posters, photos and fan theories.

The HD Game of Thrones Season 8 trailer is set to ramp up the hype surrounding the award-winning HBO series in the build-up to its April 14 release. Season 8 will be the final installment in what has already become one of the most-loved fantasy series, created by author George RR Martin. Jan 22, 2019 - Runtimes for Game of Thrones season 8 episodes revealed. Watch Game of Thrones for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon.

Spoilers for Game of Thrones Season 8 below…

Latest updates:

• Images from Episode 5 imply that bad news is coming for our heroes
• New theory suggests which major character Arya will kill by the end of the season
• Photos from Episode 3 show the main players heading to battle, ready for The Night King’s arrival
• Fans think they’ve sussed who will kill the Night King’s Ice Dragon
• “You’re going to need therapy” – Gwendoline Christie hints big things will go down in Season 8
• Daenerys’ fate was teased seasons ago, according to one fan theory (potential spoilers, see What’s going to happen with Jon and Daenerys?)
• New teaser declares: “We must fight together or die”
• Reactions to Episode 1 premiere give new details about the new season
• New teasers and a harrowing poster give even more – and it looks like everyone’s going to die
• Maisie Williams teases that Arya Stark will join forces with Sansa
• Littlefinger is definitely dead, Aidan Gillen has confirmed

What is the release date for Game of Thrones Season 8?

Game of Thrones Season 8 has made fans wait a bit longer than usual, with Season 7 concluding in August 2017. We finally had a firm premiere date, with the show returning on April 14, 2019.

Where can I watch Game of Thrones Season 8?

As per previous seasons, Game of Thrones Season 8 will air first on HBO, and then on Sky Atlantic the following day in the UK. Viewers can also watch it by signing up to NOW TV.

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Are there any trailers for Game of Thrones Season 8?

Thrones season has now officially begun but we’re now getting weekly teasers so that we know what to expect. Check out some of the teasers and episode trailers below.

The first official trailer was released on March 5 (watch below), providing the most in-depth look at the new season yet. “I know death. He’s got many faces. I look forward to seeing this one,” Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) says at the beginning, before preparations are made for the Winter War. Elsewhere, Jon Snow (Kit Harington) pledges to “fight for the living”.

In a teaser, we see Arya Stark as she looks up at a dragon who appears to be flying over the Unsullied and Dothraki. The moment then heads to a scene that shows armies arriving into Winterfell, which goes some way in explaining why Arya looks so happy to have them on board.

Another shot sees The Wall falling down from a seemingly different angle than the season seven finale, which suggests it could be the other side of Viserion’s unbridled destruction.

In another trailer (above), Bran Stark is somewhat conspicuous in his absence. Some fans have deemed this as proof that Bran will transform into the Night King after becoming stuck in time at the end of the series. However, there’s also the possibility that he might not be here because he’s become the Three-Eyed Raven and therefore never a true Stark again.

In a brief clip released during the Golden Globes, we see Daenerys Targaryen as she enters Winterfell with Jon Snow. She is greeted by Sansa Stark at the gates who tells her, “Winterfell is yours, your grace”, although there’s some clear animosity.

A teaser trailer released in December showed ice and fire sweeping over Westeros. The ice covers the Starks’ dire wolf and a Targaryen dragon but then fire rages up and sweeps up over a lion – representing the Lannister’s suggesting one epic battle is to come. HBO led on the words “fire and ice” to introduce the teaser.

Two TV spots were shown at the end of March that expand on what we’ve already seen in the official trailer and teasers.

Fans initially posted recordings of the spots on Reddit (March 31) with the official Game of Thrones YouTube channel sharing them later on April 1.

At one point in the ‘Survival’ teaser, which shows that Arya and Jon are officially reunited, Snow is heard telling someone, “Now it’s just us”. It could well mean that all of the Stark children bar them will die. But a brief, disconcerting moment in which Arya is seen running away in what appears to be a fight for survival suggests she ultimately perishes.

Another shot in the ‘Survival’ trailer shows the destruction of Winterfell with a huge fire engulfing the former Stark family’s castle. Lovers Jon and Daenerys, who at the end of Season 7 were unaware that they are related, are also in shot. Jon stares at Dany while she looks deep into the fire.

Elsewhere, in the ‘Together’ teaser Tyrion Lannister says, “We must fight together, or die.” Who exactly is he referring to? We know that Jon and Daenerys are his allies. Could it mean that it’s a gigantic battle against the White Walkers?

On April 2, the ‘Aftermath’ trailer was released which, well, pretty much hints that everyone is going to die.

Shots pan over a snow-covered Winterfell with familiar artifacts dotted about. We see Bran Stark’s wheelchair at the base of a tower. Jaime’s gold hand is on the ground. Jon Snow’s Longclaw comes into view. It suggests that everyone there has perished or has abandoned the site. The only (vaguely) visible being is a shadowy figure standing at the castle’s gate as the clip draws to a close. Could it be the Night King?

On April 5, another teaser appeared on Twitter. In it, Tyrion Lannister is seen looking concerned and telling someone: “We must fight together now or die.” It ends with a dragon unleashing a huge breath of flames.

Episode 2 preview

Episode 3 preview

Episode 4 preview

Episode 5 preview

Have photos been released from Game Of Thrones Season 8?

Yep. Photos from episode 3 show that those holed up in Winterfell are preparing for battle. In one dramatic snap, Brienne of Tarth is seen standing next to Jaime Lannister as they prepare to do battle.

This follows directly from the photos of Episode 2 that we were previously treated to.

Things look suitably dramatic….

A campaign was rolled out on Twitter on February 28, placing a whole host of characters on the Iron Throne. The images range from likely contenders such as Jon Snow (Kit Harington) and Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) to current occupant Cersei (Lena Headey) and her brothers Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and Tyrion (Peter Dinklage).

The Stark siblings also take their turn: Sansa (Sophie Turner), Arya (Maisie Williams), and Bran (Isaac Hempstead Wright). More surprisingly, characters including Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie) and Jorah Mormont (Iain Glen) appear in the individual posters too.

For Entertainment Weekly‘s special issue previewing the final season (published March 16), the magazine boasts 16 different covers featuring dramatic new images of Westeros’ surviving characters. Take a look at them all in the Twitter thread below.

More images from the set were shared on April 2 [via Express]. Take a look below:

Picture: HBO

On April 2, HBO shared this horrible poster for the new series. Seriously, is everyone going to die??

HBO has continued to share pictures from upcoming episodes. On May 8, photos from episode 5 were posted online that suggest things won’t end well for our heroes.

In one image, Varys is seen talking to Jon Snow on the beach at Dragonstone. This counsel implies that he is warning Jon about Dany, whom the showrunners have presented as increasingly volatile in recent episodes. Will she repeat the history of her ‘Mad King’ father in pursuit and occupancy of the Iron Throne?

Varys’ concerns about Dany (voiced to Tyrion in episode 4) seem prescient: is Game of Thrones going to end with the two lover, Jon and Danaerys, fighting each other?

Take a look at some of the other images below:

Ser Davos Seaworth and Jon Snow (HBO)

Daenerys Targaryen (HBO)

What’s the plot of Game of Thrones Season 8?

Well, it was always going to be about The Great War, wasn’t it? The show and book have teased at lengths that the ultimate battle in the show is between the living and the dead – and now that The Night King is through the wall, that showdown is going to come sooner rather than later.

Obviously, there will be other smaller plotlines, but as the show moves towards its conclusion, every storyline sits within the lingering chill of The Night King’s assault on Westeros.

This was realised in Episode 3 *SPOILER ALERT* when the living faced the dead in an epic (and very dark) battle at Winterfell. While many expected Jon Snow and the Night King to come at loggerheads – hopefully with Jon dealing a fatal blow – it was Arya Stark who in fact saved the day by killing NK with her dragonglass spear.

One person who doesn’t seem to give a damn is Cersei Lannister, who is determined to beat Daenerys and Jon’s armies once the battle is ‘over’. This was despite her promise to pledge her Lannister men to the cause. Basically, she’s going to screw over whoever she can to keep her hands on the Iron Throne. Photos taken in Dubrovnik in February suggest a meeting is set to take place between Cersei and Jon Snow in King’s Landing. It’s not clear whether the former enemies will eventually become part of the same team or whether Cersei is somehow tricking Jon.

Jon and Dany, meanwhile, got it on in the final episode as they started their journey from Dragonstone to Winterfell, with Tyrion lingering outside with a concerned look on his face. His concerns are likely different to ours, as Bran and Sam Tarly exposed Westeros’ best kept secret – that Jon is actually a Targaryen, that his real name is Aegon, and that he’s actually the rightful heir to the throne. Oh, and that means Dany is his Aunt. All was revealed to Jon by Sam in Episode 1 and in turn revealed to Dany by Jon in Episode 2. It’s not clear exactly how their incestuous relationship will pan out….

As for fan theories, it seems that Littlefinger definitely is dead after having his throat slit by Arya Stark.

Free Download Game Of Throne Season 8 Full

Despite fan theories that say Littlefinger is in fact one of the Faceless Men in disguise, actor Aiden Gillen isn’t buying it.

“I’ve heard a lot of that recently, but no,” he told Metro.

“What can you say other than no? To kind of utilise that as I might be able to would be a lie. I’d had enough of that guy.

“I loved doing it but when it’s done, it’s done.”

While remaining vague, Gwendoline Christie has teased that fans will need “therapy” after the show’s end.

Christie, who plays Brienne Of Tarth, said: “You’re going to need therapy.”

She told Radio Times: “The show ending is going to send all of the world into professional help.”

What do we know about the ending?

Emilia Clarke has teased her final scene, saying of the experience: “It fucked me up. Knowing that is going to be a lasting flavour in someone’s mouth of what Daenerys is…”

Clarke confirmed some widely theorised directions for her character as she spoke of “shooting for the first time with several of the show’s top stars, including Sophie Turner (Sansa Stark) and Maisie Williams (Arya Stark)”, as well as mysteriously teasing Daenerys “doing all this weird shit – you’ll know what I mean when you see it.”

Kit Harington has also hinted at an “emotional” finale. Speaking to BBC Radio 2, he said he was glad that the pressure is now off his shoulders but that he has “always enjoyed” the massive success of the show.

“I’ve actually just wrapped on Thursday last week,” he continued. “And it’s just been this amazing journey. I kinda said to them on my wrap speech that it’s always been more than a job. They were a family and it was my life. I’ve loved every minute of it. I’ve been quite emotional all last week thinking about having finished it.”

In July 2018, Natalie Dormer revealed that she knows how Game of Thrones will end. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Dormer – who played Margaery Tyrell on the show – said: “I’m excited to see the next season. I’m on the edge of my seat like everybody else.

“I know A to B,” she said about her knowledge of how the show will finally end. “I know what B is, but I don’t know how they get B. But I do know B.”

Meanwhile, Sophie Turner’s new tattoo could also hint at what lies in store for her character’s future. Turner recently got a new tattoo of a dire wolf and the words: “The pack survives.” Tattoo artist Lauren Winzer shared an image of her handiwork on the star’s body on Instagram, which you can see below.

While we don’t know the firm details yet, some of the show’s stars have hinted at how the final episode might leave fans feeling. Sophie Turner is the latest, suggesting it could be a divisive finale.

“To be able to act out the way that it all ends, it was really satisfying for us,” she told IGN. “Who knows if it will be satisfying for the fans? I think a lot of fans will be disappointed and a lot of fans will be over the moon.”

She continued: “It will be really interesting to see people’s reactions, but for me reading the script, it was just heartbreaking to read. At the very final page of the script, it just says, ‘End of Game of Thrones‘ [and] that was really emotional.”

Speaking to EntertainmentWeekly, Turner also discussed the emotional toll of concluding filming on the show. “I still don’t accept that it’s done,” she said. “It’s basically been the majority of my life. I’m still very much processing it.”

Turner also said she was joined by fellow cast members on her final day, while showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss provided a handwritten note for her alongside a storyboard of their favourite Sansa Stark moment.

Unsurprisingly, filming proved a very secretive process. “We have a whole different name for it when we’re shooting it. I think this season it was like The Tree of Life or something”, Turner explained to Vulture.

They also use a specialised device that kills any drones flying over the set. “I don’t know how it does it. It creates like this field around and the drones just drop,” she said. “Also, we shoot fake scenes. We got into costume in Croatia because we know the paparazzi lurk around there, so we would spend like half a day doing nothing.”

Executive producer Bryan Cogman has teased what will happen in the final episodes of Game of Thrones, saying that they will honour George R.R Martin’s original intentions. He said: “[Season 8] is all about all of these disparate characters coming together to face a common enemy, dealing with their own past, and defining the person they want to be in the face of certain death. It’s an incredibly emotional, haunting, bittersweet final season, and I think it honours very much what George set out to do – which is flipping this kind of story on its head.”

Meanwhile, Martin has delivered a new clue about the ending via his new book and an interview with news.com.au., seemingly suggesting that Daenerys might not end up on the throne. He said: “I have tried to make it explicit in the novels that the dragons are destructive forces, and Dany (Daenerys Targaryen) has found that out as she tried to rule the city of Meereen and be queen there.”

“She has the power to destroy, she can wipe out entire cities, and we certainly see that in ‘Fire and Blood,’ we see the dragons wiping out entire armies, wiping out towns and cities, destroying them, but that doesn’t necessarily enable you to rule — it just enables you to destroy.”

The author also hinted that his latest book might foreshadow some of the events in Game of Thrones.

David Nutter, Game of Thrones director who has worked on three of the final Season 8 episodes has spoken to The Huffington Post about the level of security required to keep the ending a secret from fans.

“Well, sometimes there were paparazzi in amazing places ― on construction cranes and all kinds of crazy places, to try to get a point of view of things… They were all over, everywhere, trying to get in on what was happening. But it was definitely a situation where there was no paper on the set…

“[The production team] wanted to make sure nobody knew what was happening, and they went to the nth degree, like they do on the show in general. They basically take it to the point where it’s like the Gestapo. It’s tough to get answers.”

Speaking about the last episode, Nutter gave little away but did say that he thinks most fans will enjoy the ending. “All I know is that David and Dan spent a lot of time to tell the story in a proper fashion, and the audience will be completely satisfied. Not everybody will be satisfied, but I feel the audience will be satisfied with the direction the series goes. It lives up to all the building it’s coming to, I promise you that.”

Meanwhile, Kit Harington has said he is “fearful” that the “awful” Game of Thrones pilot will be released once the show comes to an end next year. Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Harington said “I didn’t know what I was doing” when asked about the pilot, adding: “I was like, ‘Oh, this is fun. I’m in a TV show.’ I had no idea whether it was going to be big a success or anything…and apparently it was a disaster.”

Whilst Harington hasn’t seen the pilot, he added: “They blackmail me every now and then threatening they’ll release bits on YouTube because apparently, it was terrible, and I had this awful wig.”

Harington also spoke about filming his final scene on Game of Thrones, revealing that he “burst into tears” when it ended. He added: “You know, it’s a weird thing. I’m not sad about it ending. I just feel very joyous about it ending and having completed it…but it doesn’t make it any less emotional.”

Meanwhile, Game of Thrones star Gwendoline Christie has said that fans will “need therapy” after watching the finale of the show in 2019. Christie told E! News: “I think just the show ending is going to send all of the world into professional help.”

Gwendoline Christie as Brienne of Tarth and Maisie Williams as Arya Stark

Christie also added that cast members – as well as herself – are feeling emotional as the show comes to an end. She said: “I think it’s going to make me incredibly emotional…We’re all emotional about the fact that this is the end, and this is the end of something incredibly significant for all of us, and it’s been a truly incredible thing to be a part of.”

Game of Thrones’ Richard Madden has meanwhile offered up his own thoughts on how he thinks the next season will end. As reported on Winter is Coming, Madden told The Hollywood Reporter: “I kind of think it’s just going to be three dragons flying around and everyone else is dead…it’s a possibility!”

Meanwhile, Iain Glen who played Ser Jorah Mormon tin the show has revealed how security measures put in place to protect the final scenes being leaked by “paranoid” producers caused “problems” for the actors.

In a new interview with Radio 5 Live, Glen said: “They’re absolutely paranoid now about anyone finding out anything about the series and spoiling it…We weren’t allowed a written word on a page.”

He added: “Everything was accessed through iPads with different security you had to get through to access it. Which caused a problem for the actors, I have to say.”

Glen also described the final season as “absolutely phenomenal”. “This season was the first ever that we sat and read the entire arc of the story from beginning to end right through over the course of a day,” he said.

“Kit [Harington – who plays Jon Snow], if he wasn’t lying, had not read it, so he was reading it on that day for the first time.”

He continued: “Honestly, these six episodes are absolutely phenomenal. The writers really, really came up trumps. The way they pulled it all together was a real writing task.

“There were a lot of tears that day… and it’s been a season of that because it’s been a season of farewells and finishes.”

Meanwhile, Harington has told The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show that he’s “maybe not happy, but very satisfied” with how things end in Game of Thrones. He said: “I’m so excited for people to see it…I think it’s going to be extraordinary, hopefully it’ll change TV again like it did originally, and break boundaries. I think it might.”

Who’s going to die in Game of Thrones season 8?

As Entertainment Weekly reports, a data scientist has done loads of maths with 2,000 characters from GoT and figured out the likelihood of various character deaths. You can see them below – with Daenerys at the most risk:

• Daenerys Targaryen – 83.77%
• Jaime Lannister – 72.91%
• Tyrion Lannister – 70.76%
• Bran Stark – 66.02%
• Cersei Lannister – 60.39%
• Jon Snow – 58.99%
• Euron Greyjoy – 54.95%
• Sansa Stark – 50.28%
• Arya Stark – 49.04%
• Gendry – 39.87%

Meanwhile, a separate Game of Thrones study has revealed which personality types are likely to survive Season 8 as reported in Digital Spy. Titled “‘Death is certain, the time is not’: mortality and survival in Game of Thrones”, the study found that over half of the characters it studied (186) died over the first seven seasons. It also found that all Game of Thrones characters have a 14% chance of dying during the first hour on screen. Oh dear.

The study then uses this information to determine that characters most likely to survive are high-born, female and less loyal characters who appear more sporadically.

This implies that Season 8 might not be good news for Varys and Tormund who are both high-born and male; Sansa and Arya Stark meanwhile, have a better chance of survival based on their birth and gender. Ceresi Lannister is the most likely to survive using the study’s findings.

Actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau has hinted that his character Jaime Lannister won’t be in the final scene of the final season, leading to speculation whether he will have died before the show’s very end.

“I had a great last scene. It was absolutely beautiful. It was the perfect way to end,” Coster-Waldau told Star 2. “Obviously I can’t tell you what the scene was. It wasn’t the final scene [of the series], but it was close to the end, and it was shot at a beautiful location. At this point, I had seen quite a lot of colleagues wrap, so I had seen a lot of tears, beautiful speeches, and I knew what to expect.”

Sean Bean, meanwhile, believes that only one from House Stark will be standing at the end of the show. After meeting recently with the entire cast, Sean suggested that only one will survive. “Who’s left?” Sean told Mashable. “Jon Snow is left, isn’t he? But Arya would have to be it. Yeah Arya will last—maybe she’ll be on the throne.”

Additionally, Liam Cunningham, who plays Ser Davos Seaworth, told RTÉ One’s The Late Late Show on Friday (January 18) that “we’re all going to die”.

When he was asked if Seaworth will survive until the end of season 8, he responded: “So far, so far,” and added, “That doesn’t mean anything. We’re all going to die. Don’t forget ‘valar morghulis’ which is one of the phrases on the show which means ‘all men must die'”.

What do we know about the battles?

Unsurprisingly, the battles are going to get a whole lot bigger too – with one taking a staggering 55 days to film. According toever-reliable fan site WatchersOnTheWall, the cast and crew recently wrapped a massive battle which was filmed over 55 consecutive night shoots.

The length of time is more than what it took to film some of the the previous large-scale action scenes. A since deleted Instagram post features a thank you note from assistant director Jonathan Quinlan, who recognises the hard work of the team. “When tens of millions of people around the world watch this episode a year from now, they won’t know how hard you worked,” the letter reads. “They won’t care how tired you were or how tough it was to do your job in sub-freezing temperatures.”

Peter Dinklage teased the epic showdown as he promoted new movie I Think We’re Alone Now. When asked if anything can top the Battle of the Bastards, he replied: “Oh my god, and then some. You are in for it. Truly.”

In a new interview withEntertainment Weekly, Maisie Williams, the actress who plays Arya Stark in the show, also discussed how gruelling it was to film the epic battle scene for the upcoming season.

“Nothing can prepare you for how physically draining it is. It’s night after night, and again and again, and it just doesn’t stop. You can’t get sick, and you have to look out for yourself because there’s so much to do that nobody else can do… there are moments you’re just broken as a human and just want to cry,” she said.

Executive producer Bryan Cogman also teased the final battle, describing it as “completely unprecedented”.

He said: “This final face-off between the Army of the Dead and the army of the living is completely unprecedented and relentless and a mixture of genres even within the battle.

“There are sequences built within sequences built within sequences. David and Dan [wrote] an amazing puzzle and Miguel came in and took it apart and put it together again. It’s been exhausting but I think it will blow everybody away.”

Is it going to include plot from the books?

Since its inception, the show and the book series, A Song of Ice and Fire, by George R. R. Martin have existed on an uneven time schedule. This means that parts of the book appear in the show further down the line, and that the show does not incorporate every storyline in the book.

Since the end of Season 6, the show has been running on completely fresh material – as its storylines went beyond that of A Dance With Dragons, Martin’s last finished work.

One specific scene had everybody in tears, says Lena Headey (Cersei Lannister). “We had a giant read-through with all the cast in October,” she told Mashable, “and I think pretty much everybody cried at one point. And it was… pretty surprising.” HBO’s Francesca Orsi has also told the Hollywood Reporterthat the read-through of the final script ended with 15 minutes of applause by those in attendance.

Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss with George R.R. Martin

Will George R. R. Martin write the ending?

It’s hard to say just how involved he is with the show’s finale. Just weeks ago Martin said that he hadn’t caught up with Season 7 of the show, but in previous series he had several writing credits for episodes.

In 2014, however, Benioff and Weiss said that they had sat down with Martin and learnt how the book’s were going to end. So whether they decide to follow Martin’s blueprint, or continue to take the show in their own direction is up for debate.

But considering that the show has taken a distinctly different path from the books in its later series, and Martin’s currently slow writing pace – Game of Thrones Season 8 could provide the definitive ending for the saga.

According to HBO’s President of Programming Casey Bloys, the show will shoot several different endings in a way to combat hackers and keep the finale secret. “I know in Game of Thrones, the ending, they’re going to shoot multiple versions so that nobody really knows what happens,” he said .

How many episodes will there be in Game of Thrones Season 8?

As confirmed by show runners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, Game of Thrones Season 8 will feature just six episodes. Though it is likely that each episode will be a feature-length, so anything from 60 mins to 120 minutes.

Speaking about the end of the show, Isaac Hempstead-Wright (Bran Stark) has said: “It won’t go the way some people want. It will be too happy for some people, or too sad, or too whatever. That’s the nature of an ending… Nothing more is coming, and the certainty of it being over will definitely bother people.”

Talking about shooting the final season, Maisie Williams told NME: “It’s the end of an era. Everyone’s playing it cool, at the moment I’m focused on absolutely nailing it – I have an expectation in my head of how I want it to be, how I want this to go. I just really hope I achieve that. Because sometimes, looking back you can tell ‘yeah, I wasn’t concentrating enough’. I just want to live and breathe every minute of this season because once it’s gone, it’s gone.”

Addressing concerns that six episodes were not enough to complete the show’s storyline, Nathalie Emmanuel (Missandei) told Metro: “It definitely will not be a rushed conclusion. They’ve taken the exact number of hours to tell the story they want to tell and it will be brilliant. [Show bosses] will never leave the fans unsatisfied, they won’t leave the fans left short, it will go over and above the fans expectations as they do every season.”

Director David Nutter has also seemingly confirmed that each episode will be longer than 60 minutes. “Season eight episodes will all I think be longer than 60 minutes”, he admitted during a Reddit AMA. “They’ll be dancing around the bigger numbers, I know that for sure.”

When asked why fans had to wait almost two years for new episodes, he replied: Things take time my friends — they take a lot of time to create and GoT is the last place you’re going to find half baked work so it’s all about making sure they fill the frame with as much capacity as possible and making it as real and right as possible.

“Small price to pay for the amazing quality that comes out of that show.”

How long will the episodes be?

Then there’s the small matter of the runtime, which has now been confirmed for all episode. As the below shows, episodes one and two will clock in at 54 and 58 minutes respectively. Meanwhile, episode three has been confirmed at 60 minutes, episode four is 78 minutes, and the final two episodes are a huge 80 minutes each.

That’s largely in keeping with the rest of the show, but we strongly suspect that the episodes of cinema-esque lengths are on the way.

Which cast members are returning for Game of Thrones Season 8?

All the main characters will be returning for the show, so Jon Snow (Kit Harrington), Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey), Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner), Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead Wright) will all feature in the epic finale. It was also confirmed in March that Headey’s body double Rebecca Van Cleave, who stepped in for Lannister’s walk of shame in the season five finale, will return in season 8.

Littlefinger (Aidan Gillian) came to grisly end at the end of Season 7 at the hand’s of The Stark sisters – so he’s well and truly out.

The director’s commentary on the season 7 DVD and Blu-ray has confirmed that Benjen Stark – aka Coldhands – died in the final episode of season 7. Describing the scene when Benjen saves Jon from the army of the dead and heads into battle the wights, director Alan Taylor says: “He meets his end here.” However, some are speculating about whether or not Benjen could return as a wight.

Tormund and Beric Dondarrion – two of the heroes who went beyond The Wall to capture a White Walker – maketheira return in Season 8. At the end of Season 7 finale, The Dragon and The Wolf, we saw The Night King make his offensive on The Wall – and Eastwatch, where both characters were based. Neither character were killed on screen, leaving fans speculating about whether they survived. But both characters feature in the last series, enlisted to help the living fight the dead.

Meanwhile, Lena Headey aka Cersei Lannister has shared some behind the scene photos and video on her Instagram of some silly on set footage of her character alongside videos of brother Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and Euron Greyjoy (Pilou Asbæk).

Will Jason Momoa return as Khal Drogo?

Jason Momoa, who played Khal Drogo in the show, has confirmed that he won’t be returning for the final season, despite fan rumours suggesting otherwise.

Speaking about his time on the show, Momoa said: “I’m actually really, really happy with how it all turned out because, you know, you just can’t keep that character alive…even when I watch it, it just wouldn’t fit.

He said even now, people still comment about how much they liked his character. He added: “Even now, people just can’t stop [talking about the Khal] they love Khal Drogo.

“It’s unbelievable. Like, one season…I don’t know any other character that’s done one season out of eight or nine that people just go [wild]. I didn’t know it was going to be that big.”

Will there be any new characters in Game of Thrones Season 8?

The gigantic cast list for the show has been expanding season-on-season since its inception – and yet more are being added for season 8. According to fansite Watchers on the Wall, the first major casting for season 8 has been made for a character called Harry Strickland – who, in the books, is the leader of a mercenary group called The Golden Company.

You may remember in season 7 we learned that Cersei had sent Euron to fetch the Golden Company from over the sea in the eastern land of Essos, to help her conquer Westeros. Fans initially theorised that Daenerys’ old friend Daario Naharis might be leading this group, which might have challenged his allegiances to Cersei – but it looks as though this

theory has been scuppered, and Strickland will be a brand-new villain. Strickland is reported to be played by Marc Rissmann (The Last Kingdom, Into The Badlands) after his Thrones character’s name was added to (then deleted from) his CV and his agent’s website. He is expected to appear in two episodes.

Another actor has also been cast, according to Lisa Richards Agency. Seamus O’Hara will play Fergus, according to his Spotlight page. Fergus is not a name from the books, so there’s no knowing what his character will do yet. See a picture of him below.

According to Watchers, more castings are due soon: they are for characters currently referred to as ‘Northern farmer, 25-35’, ‘Sassy and attractive girl, 18-25’, ‘Northern sentry, 18-25’, ‘Sailor, 35-50’ and a couple of guards, in their 20s and 30s. See the full descriptions here.

Watchershas also reported that a new character from the Frey clan may appear. Danielle Galligan has been cast as character named Sarra, and Watchers have noted that the only Sarra to appear in the A Song Of Ice and Fire book series is Sarra Frey – one of Walder Frey’s granddaughters. Game of Thrones has been known to recycle common names for small characters – but this one seems too close to just be a coincidence.

Fans also think that a teaser trailer from HBO hints at the return of Catelyn Stark. In the books, Catelyn famously returns from the dead. Now, theories are emerging that the ice which covers the dire wolf in the teaser trailer – the famous symbol of the Stark family – could hint at the White Walkers making their way into the Stark crypt (they keep their dead in the crypt’s beneath Winterfell) and bringing their dead to life.

The Night King holds the power to raise the fallen and could therefore bring her back in line with Martin’s novels. However, there was no clue on whether Catelyn’s body made it back to Winterfell following her brutal death in Season 3. Oh, and *SPOILER* the Night King is supposed to have died at the end of Episode 3 anyway…

Not characters as such…but George R R Martin has revealed a picture of what the “giant ice spiders” look like – a creature that was mentioned all the way back in Season 1 when Old Nan is telling Bran a story. The timing of Martin’s tweet has led many to speculate that we might see the creatures appear in the final season of the show. The picture Martin revealed was from a 2020 calendar too – after the show’s finale – leaving people wondering if the spiders may appear in next year’s final season. You can see a picture of the spiders here:

Who’s directing Season 8?

It’s been revealed in Collider that David Nutter (who directed Red Wedding episode, The Rains of Castamere) will be directing episodes 1, 2 and 4. Miguel Sapochnik, who’s become known for action-heavy episodes like Hardhome and Battle of the Bastards, will be directing episodes 3 and 5. Showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff will be co-directing the sixth and final ever episode of the show.

What else has been said about Game Of Thrones Season 8?

Unsurprisingly, it seems things will be suitably epic. HBO boss Richard Plepler has likened the show’s final season to being like “six movies.” “It’s a spectacle. The guys have done six movies,” Plepler told Variety.

“The reaction I had while watching them was, ‘I’m watching a movie.’ They knew the bar was high. They’ve exceeded the bar. I’ve watched them twice without any CGI and I’m in awe. Everybody’s in for an extraordinary treat of storytelling and of magical, magical production.”

Meanwhile, in January 2018 Emilia Clarke told Access that the series is worth the wait. “Oh my god, it’s gonna be worth it,” she said, adding: “I don’t know if anyone’s ready. I don’t know if TVs are ready.” She continued: “I read the scripts this season and I, in some kind of a daze, walked out of my house… and about three hours later I came home and I still hadn’t taken it all in”.

However, speaking toThe Timesin January 2018 Maisie Williams has said viewers might not be shocked by the show’s denouement. “I don’t know if it’s gonna surprise people,” she said, “but it’s just different to what you think it’s gonna be.”

Producer Bryan Cogman also believes that the show will flip the vision of George RR Martin on its head. “[Season 8] is about all of these disparate characters coming together to face a common enemy, dealing with their own past, and defining the person they want to be in the face of certain death,” Cogman said.

“It’s an incredibly emotional, haunting, bittersweet final season, and I think it honours very much what George set out to do – which is flipping this kind of story on its head.”

A synopsis from HBO reads:

“The epic fantasy series Game of Thrones will return for its six-episode, eighth and final season in 2019.

David Benioff & D.B. Weiss, David Nutter and Miguel Sapochnik will be the directors for the new season. Writers for the new season are David Benioff & D.B. Weiss, Bryan Cogman and Dave Hill.

The executive producers of the series are David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, Carolyn Strauss, Frank Doelger and Bernadette Caulfield. Co-executive producers are Bryan Cogman, Guymon Casady, Vince Gerardis and George R.R. Martin.”

After the first episode aired on April 14, fans took to Reddit to share some of their theories about the fate of the Ice Dragon: Daenerys’ dragon Viserion that was turned into a wight at the end of Season 7.

One fan suggested that Bronn may slay the dragon, which is a valid theory. In episode 4 of Season 7, the skilled sellsword took a shot at Drogon while Daenerys was riding him.

Although Bronn didn’t kill the beast, his accuracy with the crossbow didn’t go unnoticed. In the Season 8 premiere episode he is seen bragging about his brave attempts to slay the dragon to a group of naked ladies.

The other theory is that Arya will be the eventual perpetrator (she is a trained assassin after all).

What was behind the delay for Season 8?

In January 2018, HBO boss Casey Bloys spoke to Entertainment Weekly to explain the long wait. “Here’s what I’ll tell you,” he said. “They take the time they need to do the show at its highest level of quality. As the show has gone on, it’s gotten bigger — big battle scenes, big special effects.”

He continued: “These things take time. Here’s the one thing I can assure you: Dan and Dave were not sitting around on a beach waiting to go back to work. They’re perfectionists and this is the soonest it can come back at a level of quality that they are comfortable with.”

Is Game of Thrones 8 the final season?

Alas, yes. The showrunners have opted to split the final seasons into a smaller runs, but will make lengthier episodes. But basically, it’s endgame for these characters and maybe Westeros.

In an interview with Metro Williams has explained the difficulties of shooting the final season. On seeing the script she said she thought it would be “an impossible challenge” to shoot. “For the final season as a whole it was just so impressive,” she said. “My first real thought was, ‘Oh god, we have to shoot this now. And it is kind of an impossible challenge. It will be really difficult’. I am currently on my way to a night shoot, which is week four of 12 weeks of night shoots. It’s just huge. The task is huge. But, there’s no better way to leave the show, to be honest.”

Sophie Turner recently revealed what each cast member was presented with once they finished filming. “I wrapped shooting in Spain – like, the whole of Game of Thrones,” Turner told Digital Spy. “But I remember the first time, when I wrapped in Belfast with the crew that we worked with so often, it was in the Winterfell courtyard.)

“I wasn’t even shooting there, but the director, David Nutter, called me into the courtyard, because he knew it was my last day on set. He said to the whole crew, ‘Sansa Stark is leaving Winterfell for the last time.’

“As you can imagine, I bawled my eyes out,” she added. “Then David and Dan presented each actor with their favourite scene of their character in a storyboard, with a little note on the back. That set me off as well. As soon as they brought that out… And the documentary crew saw me. It was just a nightmare, to be honest – I was just bawling.”

In an interview with GQ Australia on January 8, Kit Harington reflected on the draining process of filming season eight – remarking that “the final season of Thrones seemed designed to break us”.

“Everyone was broken at the end,” he recalled. “I don’t know if we were crying because we were sad it was ending or if we were crying because it was so fucking tiring. We were sleep deprived. It was like it was designed to make you think, Right, I’m fucking sick of this. I remember everyone walking around towards the end going, ‘I’ve had enough now. I love this, it’s been the best thing in my life, I’ll miss it one day – but I’m done.’”

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What’s happened behind the scenes during filming?

Filming began in Belfast late last year, and in January it was revealed that the show would be returning to Dubrovnik in Croatia to film part of the King’s Landing scenes for the final season, as reported by The Dubrovnik Times. Cast members including Gwendoline Christie, Emilia Clarke, Kit Harington, Kristofer Hijvu, John Bradley and Iain Glen arrived in Iceland in late January 2018 for filming, and in February it was reported that filming had begun in Dubrovnik, though it’s currently unknown which actors are involved in these scenes.

In June, a fan posted a video that appeared to suggest filming for the King’s Landing scenes in Belfast is still ongoing – and the new footage hints that much of the city could be destroyed in a fire, with its iconic dome being shown completely ablaze.

At the SAG Awards in January 2018, Peter Dinklage revealed to Varietythat the crew were “about halfway” through filming season 8, adding: “It’s the final season, and it’s a long one so we’re taking our time.”

In a post to Instagram last year, cinematographer Fabian Wagner posted a picture of himself alongside some of his colleagues, including director Miguel Sapochnik – with the caption “Back on Game of Thrones for prep of the final season and the team is back together”. The team behind some of the show’s greatest episodes – ‘Hardhome’, ‘Battle of The Bastards’ and ‘The Winds of Winter’ – are back for Season 8.

In September 2017, Variety reported that each episode of the new series is budgeted to cost at least $15 million, far surpassing Netflix’s The Crown as the most expensive TV show ever ($10m per episode).

Speaking to TV Guide, Liam Cunningham (Davos) revealed that the show will be filming until summer 2018. “When you think about it, up until last season we’d have six months to do ten episodes, so we’re [doing] way more than that for six episodes. So that obviously will translate into longer episodes.”

Emilia Clarke has revealed to the Telegraph that her and the cast will be on a social media ban as the show films. ”We have a very strict social media ban this year because people need to stop spoiling it for everyone. It’s really frustrating.”

Earlier in 2017, HBO president Casey Bloys said, “I know in Game of Thrones, the ending, they’re going to shoot multiple versions so that nobody really know what happens. You have to do that on a long show. Because when you’re shooting something, people know. So they’re going to shoot multiple versions so that there’s no real definitive answer until the end.”

The cast are clearly having a lovely time filming, if this tweet from Belfast pub Kelly’s Cellars – including Grey Worm actor Jacob Anderson – is anything to go by:

On March 9, new photos emerged of a potential filming location in Belfast’s Titanic Quarter. HBO have reportedly spent £1 million on the building of a new makeshift castle in the city, and it is reportedly now nearing completion, with images of the structure being released in March.

In an interview during March 2019, Kit Harington explained how relations became “frayed” during the filming of the final season.

“I was there the whole time this year,” he told Variety. “I felt a bit like people were coming in and out, and Jon Snow was just fucking there the whole time. You have these in-jokes, and these relationships that thrive for eight years. That’s a long time for those jokes to be going, and they never felt old or tired. “

He added: “In the last season, I was like, these are getting tired now. And I think they got tired because we could see the end coming. That’s a way of emotionally detaching from something – relationships very slightly starting to strain, just on the edges, just frayed. Now everyone loves each other again.”

What are the big questions that need to be answered in Game Of Thrones Season 8?

What’s going to happen with Jon and Daenerys?

Either way – it can’t end well. Bran Stark was adamant that the pair need to know the truth about their ancestry, and all was revealed in Episode 1 and 2.

That whole scenario begs a lot of questions – some we’ll never know the answer to. Does Jon want the throne? Probably not. Will Daenerys and Jon still feel the same way about each other when they find out? Hopefully not. And will it cause serious friction between the pair as they battle The Night King? Almost certainly.

Speaking to TV Insider in January, executive producer D.B. Weiss hinted at the possible impact that Jon discovering his true ancestry could have on events.

“From a dramatic standpoint, it makes things interesting, because the story is no longer about who Jon’s parents are. It’s about what happens when Jon finds out,” says Weiss.

“Jon is someone who plays by the book. He cannot lie,” Harington added about his character in season eight. “Finding out about Dany would be very hard for him.”

Emilia Clarke added: “Daenerys’s lifelong dream has been to avenge her family and claim her rightful seat on the Iron Throne. She truly loves Jon. Were she to find out about his title, it would cut deep.”

One fan on Reddit [reported via Daily Express] believes they’ve figured out exactly how Jon and Daenerys will find out about their relation. “Personally, I think in one of the major battles he’s going to get blasted with dragon fire and Daenerys will think he’s dead, only to see him emerge unburnt like herself.”

In season one, Daenerys emerged unscathed from a pyre since the Targaryens are seemingly immune to fire. Jon has not been attacked with fire so far in the show, but if he’s attacked with fire by the Night King’s undead dragon, then his true identity could be revealed.

But another fan challenged this theory, asking: “Why would he get blasted by dragon fire when [Jon and Daenerys] are on the same side?”

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Another Redditor believes they have found clues in past seasons of the show that point to Dany’s fate in season 8.User marisaann26 believes Dany will switch sides, based on a vision she had back in season 2. In that vision, she visited King’s Landing during winter and walked towards the throne. Just before she got there, she was drawn to go beyond The Wall and into the tent with Khal Drogo and their son. After hearing the sound of baby dragons crying, she leaves to be reunited with the animals.

According to the Redditor, two parts of the vision have already come true in Season 7 when she abandoned her plan to attack King’s Landing and take the throne, going behind the wall instead. Another part could also have come true when Dany heard the dragons crying beyond the wall after Viserion was killed.

What was Tyrion doing outside of their room? Will he die?

Perhaps the weirdest part of the whole scenario was Tyrion lurking outside of their room with a pretty confused look on his face. Throughout Season 7, Tyrion was adamant that Daenerys needed to begin thinking about a successor, much to her displeasure. Since her miscarriage early on in the show, Daenerys has repeated the prophecy that she cannot bear any more children. So Daenerys needs to start thinking about who will succeed her, Tyrion says, but Daenerys thinks its all a ploy for Tyrion to be named the successor.

Was Tyrion concerned about that whole situation because he’s worried a Dany child would be as obsessive, and potentially dangerous as she shows signs of being? Or did something happen between Cersei and Tyrion in that meeting room in King’s Landing? Tyrion was pretty shocked at the news at the news of Cersei’s ‘pregnancy’, and sounded distraught at the news of Tommen and Myrcella deaths. Could he be turning back to team Lannister? Surely not…

As for his final fate, it’s looking very foreboding. In a new interview with Vulture, he described his final day on set as “beautifully bittersweet”.

That in itself isn’t too telling – but he proceeded to give what appears to be a rather big hint. Or, perhaps, misdirection.

” “I feel very, very — I’m trying to find the right word,” the actor said of Tyrion’s ending.

“I think he was given a very good conclusion. No matter what that is — death can be a great way out.”

Is Cersei actually pregnant?

Well she says she is. But it’s been pretty conveniently timed. As Jaime’s loyalty appeared to wane, she revealed the news that she’s pregnant with their child. But during the Season 7 finale, Jaime abandoned Cersei and King’s Landing – and told her that “I don’t believe you” before he stormed out the room. This most likely refers to her order for The Mountain to kill him, which he didn’t, but nothing can be ruled out with Cersei.

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And, in a recent interview, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau appeared to confirm that this was the case.

He told Vanity Fair: “That’s, of course, said in a moment of passion. Who knows if it’s true? I’ve almost been married 20 years—June 6th will be our 20th anniversary—and I’m very, very lucky. I have a wonderful wife. But over 20 years, there are times where you have fights.

“You can be so angry that for a second in your passion and anger you can go, ‘Oh, fuck this.’ Of course, three seconds later, you go, ‘No, no, no. What am I doing? What am I thinking?’ . . . I think the fundamental emotions are the same in every relationship. As a setup for the season we’re shooting now, it was just amazing.”

Are we finally going to see Clegane Bowl?

The big throwdown we can all get behind. A fight between brothers Sandor Clegane, our beloved antihero The Hound, and his ghastly brother, Gregor Clegane, The Mountain, has been longed for by fans for a while now. In the Season 7 finale, we got a brief glimpse of what that could look like as the pair squared up at the Dragon Pit in King’s Landing.

Will some of the main characters turn into White Walkers?

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who plays Jaime, certainly thinks it’ll happen. “You know some of the main characters are going to get turned. There are going to be some blue-eyed main characters running around, ” he told Esquire. “And, god, I hope it’s not me. That’s three hours of make-up in the morning.”

Is Bran Stark actually The Night King?

This popular theory picked up a bit of steam in the last few months, as we learned more about Bran’s powers and saw more of The Night King. The crux of this theory is, basically, that Bran Stark is actually The Night King. The theory suggests that Bran warged into The First Man as he is turned into a White Walker by the Children of the Forest and became trapped in that body. It’s pretty full on, but definitely plausible. Take a look here for the full lowdown.

However, in March 2019, Isaac Hempstead Wright (who plays Bran) appeared to dismiss the theory in an interview with Radio Times.

He said: “I suppose Bran is quite an interesting character to theorise over because of his whole link to time travel and whatnot. Because you can kind of get away with anything theory-wise and make it sound convincing if you’ve got time travel involved.

“I mean it’s quite an interesting theory, the Night King one. I just think it seems a bit obvious. A bit cheesy.”

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Hempstead Wright told Digital Spy in April that he had grown tired of hearing the popular fan theory which posits that Bran is indeed the Night King.

“Not the one about Bran being the Night King,” he said in response to which of the GoT fan theories were his favourite. “I’m sick of that. Every time I post anything on Instagram, it’s just constant: ‘Hello Night King!’

“I’ve always liked the theory that there was this whole cyclical timeframe – a paradoxical timeframe – in which the Three-Eyed Raven from young Bran’s dream is Bran now. He had become the Three-Eyed Raven, so that he could go back in time to get Bran, so that he could continue that whole paradox. I thought that was quite neat.”

Keep checking NME.com for more Game of Thrones Season 8 information

Game of Thrones might well be one of the most popular television series of all time, and its impending conclusion has everyone wondering how the saga will end — and more importantly, which characters will be alive when the dust settles.

HBO isn’t revealing anything to that end, although a couple of new teasers indicate that many of our favorite Game of Thrones characters won’t be getting happy endings.

We know that some of you like to avoid spoilers and head in “blind,” so if that’s the case, you really should not be here. Turn back now! If you’re on the hunt for information and speculation, though, keep on reading.

With the final season of Game of Thrones premiering April 14, here’s a comprehensive collection of news and rumors for the hit show’s much-anticipated (to put it mildly) eighth season.

A glimpse of the future

With fewer than two weeks to go before Game of Thrones’ final season, HBO released a couple of short teasers hinting at how the series might end — and the future looks very, very grim. In one video, Westeros’ combined armies march to war, while a voice over explains that the upcoming battle isn’t about honoring lofty ideals like honor or loyalty. It’s about survival.

The second teaser implies that even surviving might be too much for our heroes. As snow falls over Winterfell, viewers can catch glimpses of Tyrion’s Hand of the King pin, Jon Snow’s sword Longclaw, Jamie’s prosthetic hand, and other iconic props from the series, all of which seem to be abandoned following Game of Thrones’ final showdown.

Everybody’s here

Winter might be consuming Westeros, but the hype for Game of Thrones‘ final season is still heating up, thanks largely to Entertainment Weekly. Not only has the magazine published a gallery of gorgeous portraits of all of Game of Thrones‘ main characters — all of the ones who are still alive, at any rate — but it also shared some behind-the-scenes details about this year’s big battle episode, which EW claims is the “longest consecutive battle sequence ever committed to film.”

Exclusive: See stunning portraits of the #GameOfThrones cast, plus get exclusive intel on season 8 storylines: https://t.co/dJNcaIaV0Epic.twitter.com/fLd36a07Fp

— Entertainment Weekly (@EW) March 4, 2019

The climactic fight, in which the Army of the Dead will face off against humanity’s combined forces, will take place at Winterfell, where the whole story began and will feature the largest number of Game of Thrones characters in one location since the series pilot. Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, Tyrion Lannister, Arya Stark, Sansa Stark, Brienne of Tarth, Samwell Tarly, Jorah Mormont, the Hound, and more or less everyone else will all take part in the conflict. Miguel Sapochnik, who previously brought Game of Thrones‘ “Battle of the Bastards” to life, directed the whole thing.

The fight promises to be rough on our favorite characters, and it was hard on the show’s cast and crew, too. The battle for Winterfell took 11 weeks to film and consisted almost entirely of night shoots in below-freezing temperatures and bad weather. Iain Glen, who plays Jorah, called it “the most unpleasant experience I’ve had on Thrones.” Rory McCann, aka the Hound, agrees. “Everybody prays they never have to do this again,” he says (given that this is Thrones‘ final season, they won’t).

Hopefully, all that pain will be worth it. “It’s been exhausting,” executive producer Bryan Cogman said, “but I think it will blow everybody away.”

Posterized

With the premiere of the final season fast approaching, HBO released a set of posters on Twitter featuring various characters from the season looking quite comfortable in the Iron Throne.

#DaenerysTargaryen
“My reign has just begun.” pic.twitter.com/j54Tfqs12M

— Twitter (@Twitter) February 28, 2019

#JonSnow
“We know no king, but the King in the North.” pic.twitter.com/cVF8IRbJ2j

— Twitter (@Twitter) February 28, 2019

While some of the characters’ appearance in the iconic throne makes sense — Daenerys, Jon Snow, and Cersei Lannister, for example — some of the individuals feel like a bit of a long shot to come out on top of the war looming in Westeros. Samwell Tarly? Really?

#SamwellTarly
“I'm tired of reading about the achievements of better men.” pic.twitter.com/6dslofsJ8F

— Twitter (@Twitter) February 28, 2019

#NightKing
“Fear is for the winter.” pic.twitter.com/2hvd9VUwas

— Twitter (@Twitter) February 28, 2019

You can view all of the posters on Twitter.

Photo parade

On February 6, HBO released a set of photos from season 8 of Game of Thrones featuring key characters from the series. Among the photos were shots of Kit Harington and Emilia Clarke as Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen, respectively, as well as Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister, among other familiar faces.

More photos can be seen at HBO’s official behind-the-scenes site for Game of Thrones, MakingGameOfThrones.com.

Mark your calendar

HBO finally revealed the exact date of the season 8 premiere in a cryptic (pun completely intended) teaser video (see above) that brings together Jon Snow (Kit Harington), Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner), and Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) in the crypts of Winterfell. The April 14 premiere date for season 8 is revealed at the end of the video.

In mid-November, HBO released a teaser for the eighth season of the series that first confirmed the show will return in April 2019 for its final story arc.

The final season of #GameofThrones returns in April.
Rally the realm and share your favorite moments using #ForTheThrone.https://t.co/enOCtvG54S

— Game of Thrones (@GameOfThrones) November 13, 2018

Every battle.
Every betrayal.
Every risk.
Every fight.
Every sacrifice.
Every death.
All #ForTheThrone. pic.twitter.com/WReVt473SH

— Game of Thrones (@GameOfThrones) November 13, 2018

The brief video features a montage of scenes from the past seven seasons, with the caption, “Every battle. Every betrayal. Every risk. Every fight. Every sacrifice. Every death. All #ForTheThrone.”

The premiere announcement aligns with an earlier comment from actress Maisie Williams, who first suggested an April 2019 debut for season 8 in January.

In an interview with Metro about her character’s return, Williams said, “We wrap in December and we air our first episode in April [2019].”

“That’s a four-month turnaround for these huge episodes,” she explained. “There’s a lot that goes into the final edit. You would not want to rush this season at all. We owe it to our audience and our fans to really do this final season to the best of our abilities.”

Six movies, one season

More Game of Thrones News

Any fans worried about being underwhelmed by the conclusion of Game of Thrones will be happy to hear that HBO is giving the show’s final arc something akin to the cinematic treatment — at least, that’s what the network’s CEO told Variety in January.

“It’s a spectacle. The guys have done six movies,” HBO CEO Richard Plepler said of Game of Thrones season 8, which he indicated he has seen all six episodes of — sans visual effects — in rough-cut format. “The reaction I had while watching them was, ‘I’m watching a movie.'”

“[Showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss] knew the bar was high,” he continued. “They’ve exceeded the bar. I’ve watched them twice without any CGI and I’m in awe. Everybody’s in for an extraordinary treat of storytelling and of magical, magical production.”

First footage

HBO kicked off the new year by releasing a teaser video for its 2019 slate of programming that featured some of the first footage we’ve seen so far from season 8 of Game of Thrones.

Around the 0:39 mark in the video, a scene featuring a dragon leads into another, even more epic moment: What appears to be the arrival of Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) in Winterfell. With Jon Snow alongside her, she’s greeted by Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner), who tells her, “Winterfell is yours.”

Fire and ice

It’s no surprise — given the overarching title of George R.R. Martin’s series of novels — that the final conflict in Game of Thrones will be one that pits fire against ice. Just in case anyone needs a reminder, though, HBO released a teaser for the final season that offers an image of rolling fire and ice colliding on a model of Westeros.

A premiere tease

In early November, Entertainment Weekly published a massive, sprawling preview of the series’ eighth season that — although slim on concrete details — offered the following description of the premiere episode.

Free Download Game Of Throne Season 8 Episode 1

Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) and Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage)”Season 8 opens at Winterfell with an episode that contains plenty of callbacks to the show’s pilot,” according to EW. “Instead of King Robert’s procession arriving, it’s Daenerys and her army. What follows is a thrilling and tense intermingling of characters — some of whom have never previously met, many who have messy histories — as they all prepare to face the inevitable invasion of the Army of the Dead.”

The preview then adds that Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) “isn’t thrilled that Jon bent the knee to his fancy new Targaryen girlfriend,” and that the final battle with the Army of the Dead will be “the most sustained action sequence ever made for television or film.”

A tease from Tyrion

Peter Dinklage isn’t revealing any concrete details about where his character, Tyrion Lannister, will end up when the dust settles on the final season of Game of Thrones, but he did make some cryptic suggestions in an interview with Vulture.

“I think [Tyrion] was given a very good conclusion,” he hinted. “No matter what that is — death can be a great way out.”

Dinklage added that one particular cast member’s final day was a bit more difficult than most, as it was one of the younger actors who essentially grew up on the set of the hit series.

“I won’t say their name or their character’s name, but one of the young people on the show wrapped this past season and everybody was a wreck,” he said. “This person had grown up on the show, you know? They were a child and now they were an adult. And then they’re done. It’s like we were witnessing this person saying goodbye to their childhood. I know Game of Thrones is just a TV show, la-di-da, but it was our life.”

A divisive finale?

In an interview promoting her role in X-Men: Dark Phoenix, Sophie Turner — aka Sansa Stark — indicated that the Game of Thrones finale is likely to polarize fans. This should come as no surprise, given the emotional investment fans have developed in the series, but it still offers an early indication that the show won’t unfold its final moments quietly.

“I think, you know, as an actor, it was really satisfying — I think for everyone, everyone’s storylines — to be able to act out the way that it all ends,” she told IGN. “It was really satisfying for us. Who knows if it will be satisfying for the fans. I think a lot of fans will be disappointed and a lot of fans will be over the moon, I think. I think it will be really interesting to see people’s reactions, but for me, reading the script, it was just like heartbreaking to read at the very final page of the script it just says, ‘End of Game of Thrones.’ That was really emotional.”

A reunion preview

HBO released the first footage from the final season of Game of Thrones in late August, but it was easy to miss. The brief scene from the series’ final season was shown during a highlight reel for HBO’s upcoming slate of projects.

Although most of the video pulls from prior seasons of Game of Thrones, a short clip that appears around the 1:10 mark shows Jon Snow (Kit Harington) embracing Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) against a backdrop of what appears to be Winterfell. HBO confirmed that the scene is from the upcoming eighth season, but declined to provide any context for it, of course.

The scene unfolds as — quite appropriately — the words “Final Season” appear on the screen.

Lasting flavor

Game Of Thrones Season 7 Free Download

Like the show’s fans, Game of Thrones stars are going through their own stages of grief as the reality of the series’ end sinks in. For months, cast members have acknowledged how strange it is to be working on the final season, and as they get further into production, the experience only seems to be getting more emotionally stirring. Emilia Clarke recently told Vanity Fair that she finished filming the final scene in Daenerys’ story, and it was very weird for her.

“It [messed] me up,” she told the publication. “Knowing that is going to be a lasting flavor in someone’s mouth of what Daenerys is…”

Grappling with her character’s stopping point and its impact may be a challenge, but the emotional roller coaster isn’t over for the actress yet. TV series often film out of order, and that is evidently Game of Thrones‘s plan of attack. Clarke recently clarified that her work on the show isn’t done, telling ET at a recent Solo: A Star Wars Story screening that she still has quite a bit more filming ahead of her.

“I’m about three-quarters of the way through filming it, if not maybe a little more,” she said.

Clarke added that she is “utterly heartbroken to be saying goodbye” to her character. She and Daenerys have had a good run, from her early days as an unwilling bride to her emergence as one of the most powerful people in the Seven Kingdoms. However the story ends for Daenerys, we hope we can savor the “lasting flavor.”

Battle royale

There has been a lot to awe us over seven seasons of Game of Thrones, but we suspect the best is yet to come. This isn’t just a hunch; a message from the show’s “producer types” recently made the rounds on social media, and it celebrated “something that’s never been done before.”

The message was posted by crew members on social media, including by assistant director Jonathan Quinlan, Watchers on the Wall reported. Although Quinlan’s Instagram post has since been deleted, the Game of Thrones site saved the photo for posterity. The image is of the thank you message directed to the crew, and it honors the extensive effort they put into shooting a supersized battle sequence. It reads:

This is for the Night Dragons.

For enduring 55 straight nights. For enduring the cold, the snow, the rain, the mud, the sheep shit of Toome and the winds of Magheramorne.

When tens of millions of people around the world watch this episode a year from now, they won’t know how hard you worked. They won’t care how tired you were or how tough it was to do your job in sub-freezing temperatures.

They’ll just understand that they’re watching something that’s never been done before.

And that’s because of you.

Thank you

The Producer Types

Quinlan underscored the hard work on Instagram, writing (via Watchers on the Wall), “Says it all. 55 consecutive nights. 11 weeks. 3 locations. You’ll never again see anything like it.”

What this makes clear is the fact that the magnitude of the shoot was absolutely enormous; 55 nights is reportedly more than twice as long as Game of Thrones‘ next longest battle shoot. And perhaps the craziest part is that it sounds like these new battle scenes are all for one episode, considering the producers specifically mentioned fans watching “this episode.” It certainly explains why the final season of Game of Thrones won’t premiere until 2019. TV magic isn’t made overnight.

As for the show’s triumphant return, the “producer types” did also mention that the battle episode will be seen “a year from now,” so that’s a good sign that the show will return in April 2019, as Maisie Williams (Arya Stark) previously said. Until then, the cast and crew have more work to do.

The Baratheon factor

Even after seven seasons of Game of Thrones have wreaked havoc on the population of the Seven Kingdoms, there are still several characters with familial ties that could embolden them to at least try to claim to the Iron Throne, should they so desire. Among them is Gendry (Joe Dempsie), the bastard son of the late Robert Baratheon who returned in season 7 after multiple seasons of not being part of the story. The young blacksmith is sticking around and will be part of the show’s final season. Dempsie recently discussed his season 8 role with Digital Spy, and based on what he said, we could see a lot of him in the last six episodes.

Specifically, Dempsie said he has been filming “a fair bit” this season and that he’s “done well out of it this season.” Of course, he wasn’t willing to share whether or not that means Gendry survives until the end and did his best keep fans from reading too much into what he said.

“As with all these things, we never shoot in chronological order — so you might have people coming in at the beginning and at the end, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they make it all the way through!” he told Digital Spy.

Since returning, his character has come to ally himself with House Targaryen, in spite of the fact that he himself is the descendant of a former king (the usurper, at that). So far, he hasn’t shown any signs of envisioning himself in power, but we hate to rule anything out in this fictional world. As we all know, loyalty isn’t exactly a universal trait among the show’s characters. Whatever the case, though, the fact that Dempsie has done “a fair bit” of filming makes us think he will have an interesting arc in season 8.

A loose end

Perhaps not every Game of Thrones storyline will be wrapped up nicely by the end of the series. Actor Tobias Menzies made us wonder when he shared that he doesn’t expect to be included in season 8. His character, Edmure Tully, was last seen as a prisoner of Walder Frey (David Bradley) in season 6, but even after Edmure’s niece Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) took her revenge on House Frey, we never saw what became of the man or his wife and son. Even Menzies himself admits he has “no idea” what became of his character afterward.

“He’s obviously somewhere in a prison,” he speculated, according to Digital Spy. “He’s still around alive somewhere.”

The actor doesn’t know for sure, though. He described the show’s creators as “pretty stingy with their information.

“I’ve not heard anything from them,” he said, adding, “I feel like they have so many stories to tie up, whether that’s a story they’ll want to go back to, I don’t know.”

Making over a knight

It took Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) longer than anyone to see what a truly terrible person his twin sister-slash-lover is, but with his eyes finally opened in season 7, he left her and went to join the battle against the Night King. That marks a big shift as Jaime has long been loyal to House Lannister and Cersei (Lena Headey) herself. And in case that much wasn’t already clear, the turning point will be reflected in his appearance in season 8, according to Coster-Waldau.

“There was a big change in the character, so a haircut is a way to signal that,” he told Short List.

Be ready for a new version of Jaime in season 8, in more ways than one.

Finale feelings

During the INTV conference in Israel in March 2018, HBO revealed that a table read of the final few episodes of the series occurred with the Game of Thrones cast. The reaction to the reading was, as fans might expect, quite dramatic.

“[It] was a really powerful moment in our lives and our careers,” recalled Francesca Orsi, HBO’s senior vice-president of drama, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “None of the cast had received the scripts prior, and one by one they started to fall down to their deaths. By the end, the last few words on the final script, the tears just started falling down. Then there was applause that lasted 15 minutes.”

Only time will tell if those episodes prompt a similar reaction from fans.

Ending, not endings?

In September 2017, Casey Bloys, HBO’s president of programming, claimed Game of Thrones would shoot multiple endings to try to prevent spoilers. Supposedly, even the show’s stars wouldn’t know which was the real conclusion until the series finale aired. It seemed like a drastic plan, but perhaps not an unwarranted one, given the show’s history.

Now, however, star Maisie Williams is causing fans to question Bloys’ information. When asked about it during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, she seemed to discredit it.

“Well, I heard this, and I immediately thought, ‘I don’t think we’ve got the budget to shoot lots of different endings,'” she told Kimmel.

When the late-night host countered that Bloys’ role at the network puts him in a position to know if they can budget for it or not, Williams responded that “as we know, sometimes presidents don’t always tell the truth.”

Of course, we can’t necessarily trust the actors, either. Remember how Kit Harington insisted that his character Jon Snow was really dead? The people connected to Game of Thrones will do whatever it takes to maintain secrecy, including lie to fans.

That said, we wouldn’t be surprised if Williams was telling the truth. She also told Kimmel that they still have “endless amounts” of filming left to do, so it might not be realistic for the network to have the cast and crew take on even more scenes on top of that.

The gap between now and season 8 is dark and full of terrors

HBO kicked off 2018 by officially confirming that season 8 will air in 2019, skipping 2018 ostensibly due to its lengthy production schedule. The confirmation was made by HBO’s public relations Twitter account.

It's official: @GameOfThrones will return for its six-episode, eighth and final season in 2019.

— HBO PR (@HBOPR) January 4, 2018

However, this timing was expected. Despite Bloys, HBO’s president of programming, being noncommittal as to whether season 8 would premiere in 2018 or 2019, Sophie Turner, who plays Sansa Stark, was adamant in an interview with Variety that the final season wouldn’t be airing until 2019.

Turner made it clear that production still has a long way to go, initially joking that they’re only 10 percent of the way through shooting the six-episode final season. In actuality, they’ve made more progress than that. Production began in October 2017 and they have “six or seven months left,” according to the actress.

Season 8 will be filming into the summer, based on the information from Turner, and that is not the end of the important work that remains. Game of Thrones is famous for its special effects, meaning it will need a lengthy post-production period (those dragons have to be added somehow). Even though it will take a long time, we expect to be grateful for the wait when we see it all come together.

Tears already

Based on how Game of Thrones has gone to this point, we’re not expecting to get through season 8 without losing some fan-favorite characters. Yet no matter how the series ends, it’ll be emotional, both for its longtime viewers and the people who have brought it to us for so many years. Turner (Sansa Stark) told EW that the cast got together “a while ago” for a read-through of the final season, and they all ended up in tears.

“At the end of it, we were all on our feet, applauding and crying,” she said. “We had everyone there, everyone who’s had any part in this. It was amazing.”

The read-through sounds like it was an intense experience. They were all secluded in a room together for six hours, Turner said, and they laughed and cried their way through season 8. No wonder they were so keyed up by the finish. Once they got their tears in check, though, they realized they had a lot more work to do.

“We had our emotional bit and then we thought, ‘Well now we’ve got eight months. We’ve still got a while to get through!'” Turner said.

And unfortunately, that means eight-plus months we’ll be waiting …

A covert casting

Weeks after sharing a batch of casting notices for season 8, fan blog Watchers on the Wall is reporting that the role of Harry Strickland — leader of the Golden Company mercenaries — has been cast, with German actor Marc Rissmann tapped.

Fans will remember that Euron Greyjoy (Pilou Asbaek) departed King’s Landing on Cersei’s orders in the final episode of season 7, intending to meet with the Golden Company and escort them back to Westeros, thanks to a large donation from the Iron Bank. Those who read the books know Strickland as a portly coward who lucked into his command; we don’t have any clue how he’ll be portrayed on screen, but Rissmann is … um, neither portlynor cowardly looking.

Watchers’ source was Rissmann’s Spotlight CV and his agency, Hatch Talent. Interestingly, neither page now includes any information about Game of Thrones, which is unsurprising, given the massive effort put into preventing spoilers for HBO’s current crown jewel. Rissmann recently finished shooting for J.J. Abrams’ upcoming World War II horror story Overlord for Paramount.

A survivor from the Wall?

In the finale of season 7, the Night King made excellent use of his newly resurrected dragon, blasting down the easternmost segment of the Wall and allowing his undead army to march southward. Two prominent characters — Tormund Giantsbane and Beric Dondarrion — happened to be on top of the Wall as the dragon attacked, leaving us in the dark as to their whereabouts (or whether they even survived).

We still have no idea about Beric, whose get-out-of-jail-free card disappeared when Thoros of Myr took an icy, permanent nap in the Beyond the Wall episode, but it does look like Tormund may have survived — if some sneakily-captured photographs are any indication. Fans noticed Kristofer Hivju, the actor who portrays Tormund, arriving in Belfast, Ireland, earlier this week (along with several other cast members, whose characters are definitely not dead yet) for a table read.

Kristofer Hivju, Ben Crompton, Iain Glen, Isaac Hempstead, Kit Harrington, Emilia Clarke, John Bradley arrive in Belfast for the table read. pic.twitter.com/GJrZnhWN4X

— Saitama (@iDexterDisciple) October 9, 2017

Some of the photos were quickly deleted from Instagram, but you can view the others in a tweet (see above). We don’t know what this means for Tormund — maybe all his “lines” are just White Walker grunts now — but at least it provides some hope for those anticipating a Tormund-Brienne… uh… union.

Steady hands

HBO is putting the final season of its most popular series into the hands of four prominent directors with close ties to the hit show.

The episodes that will make up Game of Thrones Season 8 will be directed by David Nutter, Miguel Sapochnik, and showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, according to Mashable. Benioff and Weiss are expected to co-direct the series finale, but it’s unknown how many episodes — or which episodes — each director will handle.

All four directors have helmed earlier episodes of the series. Nutter has directed six episodes, including the infamous The Rains of Castamere episode (also known as the “Red Wedding” episode) and the season 3 and season 5 finales, while Sapochnik has directed four episodes, including Hardhome, The Battle of the Bastards, and the season 6 finale. In addition to serving as the showrunners on the series, Benioff and Weiss have each directed one episode of the show, with Benioff responsible for season 3’s Walk of Punishment, and Weiss directing season 4’s premiere, Two Swords.

A mysterious ending

HBO is hoping to keep fans guessing about the conclusion of Game of Thrones season 8, and one way to do that, as mentioned above, would be by filming multiple endings.

Bloys, HBO’s president of programming, claimed that was the plan while speaking to The Morning Call in September 2017. He indicated that even the show’s cast members wouldn’t know which ending is the real one until the episode airs.

“I know in Game of Thrones, the ending, they’re going to shoot multiple versions so that nobody really know what happens,” Bloys said. “You have to do that on a long show. Because when you’re shooting something, people know. So they’re going to shoot multiple versions so that there’s no real definitive answer until the end.”

Game of Thrones not be the first show to make use of such a strategy. The popular prime-time soap opera Dallas famously filmed multiple versions of the conclusion to its “Who shot J.R.?” story arc in the 1980s, while more recent shows such as Breaking Bad and The Sopranos also filmed several different endings for their respective series-ending episodes.

Given that episodes from the last few seasons of Game of Thrones and other popular television series have also been leaked early by hackers, there’s reason for HBO to be concerned about the details of the show’s conclusion being revealed earlier than intended. Whether the multiple-ending strategy will actually be able to prevent story details from leaking in such a scenario remains to be seen.

Spinoff city, baby

Fortunately, the end of Game of Thrones isn’t expected to mean the end of shows set in the world of novelist George RR Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series. Multiple spinoff series are in various early stages of development for HBO, although it’s uncertain how many will go into production for the network.

Updated on April 2, 2019: Added two new teasers.