“Bittersweet.” That's the word that George R.R. Martin has repeatedly used over the years, whenever he's asked to describe the ending to his unfinished series of novels, A Song of Ice and Fire, which has served as the basis for its hit TV adaptation: Game of Thrones. And going into the eighth and final season of the HBO series — which returns after a gap of 20 months this weekend and then wraps up in just five weeks — that's the biggest clue we have for the ending to Game of Thrones, given the show passed the books a while ago. Martin has been hard at work on the penultimate one, The Winds of Winter, since Thrones began eight years ago but only a dozen chapters have seen the light of day.
In the paraphrased, borrowed words of the famous jab delivered to a younger, less wise Jon Snow: we know nothing, essentially. (For what it's worth, that's on par with the previous two seasons, much of which were also set after the events penned down by Martin.) All we do have to go off are the story threads left hanging at the end of the seventh season. Given the size of the main ensemble — Game of Thrones has killed off more than a dozen across seven seasons, but we still have another dozen left — it makes sense to concentrate on the big-picture arcs.