Finally, some news that Game of Thrones fans can actually get properly excited about.
After countless teasers of tattoos, cast photos, meet-ups and even weddings, we now have substantial news about the what made us all fall in love with GoT in the first place – the series itself.
While the show has always promised to go out with a bang – with more deaths, more battles, and (hopefully) some final resolution to the stories of the Starks, Lannisters, and just about everybody we want to see survive or meet their gruesome end – there’s one question that has always been met with vague answers – when.
When will we get to see this monumental finale actually happen?!
Though fans have known for a while the final series would air in 2019, it has now been revealed season eight will premiere in the ‘first half’ of 2019.
That’s good, right?! At least it’s closer than the second half of 2019!
Most series so far have aired between March and April, as Entertainment Weekly reports, so it’s probably safe to presume season eight will also air around then. Then again, this is GoT, so you never know.
All I know is, all other television in the first half of 2019 will inevitably pale in comparison. Even if Love Island somehow reappears, the only re-coupling I want to see is the surviving Starks reuniting, and perhaps a de-coupling of Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen because, y’know, they’re kinda related, weird…
For those already mourning the end of one of the greatest television series ever (can you tell I’m a fan?), fear not – a Game of Thrones prequel is already in the works, and as GoT itself comes to an end in 2019, the prequel is to start production the same year.
According to George R.R. Martin himself, the prequel is going to be even darker than the original.
Details on which lore of Westeros will be dramatised has remained under wraps. Thankfully though, Martin has given fans a small idea of what they can expect.
In a recent blog post, he wrote:
Yes, this is a prequel, not a sequel. None of the characters or actors from GAME OF THRONES will appear in the new show. All of the successor shows we’ve been developing have been prequels, as I have mentioned before.
This one really puts the PRE in prequel, since it is set not ninety years before GAME OF THRONES (like Dunk & Egg), or a few hundred years, but rather ten thousand years (well, assuming the oral histories of the First Men are accurate, but there are maesters at the Citadel who insist it has only been half that long).
We’re very early in the process, of course, with the pilot order just in, so we don’t have a director yet, or a cast, or a location, or even a title.
(My vote would be THE LONG NIGHT, which says it all, but I’d be surprised if that’s where we end up. More likely HBO will want to work the phrase “game of thrones” in there somewhere. We’ll know sooner or later)
So, if you’re a Game of Thrones fan, it seems there’s still a lot to be excited about.
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.