The end of Game of Thrones season 6 set up the final two seasons of the popular HBO series: Daenerys Targaryen is headed to Westeros, the White Walkers are headed south, Jon Snow is now King in the North in Winterfell, and Cersei Lannister has taken her place on the Iron Throne in King’s Landing.
It seems the seventh and eighth seasons of the series will be comprised largely of conflicts among those four entities, probably manifesting themselves in a major battle or two. And because there are just two seasons remaining, chances are things will go back and forth a bit, and it won’t be all happy endings from here on out, or possibly even at all. One actor on the show explored that very dichotomy in a new interview.
Kit Harington, the freshly Emmy-nominated actor who plays Jon Snow, spoke with THR about his season 6 experiences. In the interview, Harington offers a glimpse of what might be coming to Game of Thrones, plot-wise, in the remaining seasons:
"It's important to stress at this point that I haven't had any scripts, so this is all guess work for me. I think it's going to get very bleak before if there is a happy ending. If there's any sort of win or heroic moment for Jon and everyone else. I think it's going to get very dark before it gets better. I think what we might see this season is those White Walkers and that Army of the Dead really come into force. So that's going to be exciting to see. I don't know what it means. I think with the whole "winter is finally here" business, it means everyone is going to have a really bad time."
Of course, as Harington points out, that he’s just guessing and not going on any inside information. But yes, it’s pretty clear from past plots, as well as basic geography, that the White Walkers are coming across the Wall, they’re coming to the North first, and Jon Snow is going to have to deal with it somehow.
Will this lead to another sack of Winterfell? To Jon Snow in exile for some period of time, before Sam Tarly or someone else comes up with a plan to defeat the White Walkers, probably as part of the series’ endgame? Or even another death and resurrection? We don’t know, of course, and it’s possible that no one does besides George R.R. Martin and the show’s co-creators.
Even so, it remains a pretty safe bet that Jon Snow ends up alive, if not triumphant, at the end of the series. Otherwise, once more pulling the rug out from under the audience's feet regarding his resurrection might feel like nothing more than a dirty trick.
Game of Thrones returns for season 7 on HBO in the summer of 2017.
Source: THR