Who Wins ‘Game Of Thrones?’ 7 New Things We Know About Season 8

While fans are still waiting to find out when exactly the final episodes of “Game of Thrones” will air on HBO next year, they don’t have to wait as long for some details about what may occur on those episodes.

While HBO has been doing everything within their power to keep spoilers from leaking for the show’s final season, some small hints and clues have been dropped along the way. While nothing is necessarily a massive hint at what’s to come, every little thing helps and could be a clue at what will unfold. Here are seven newer pieces of information we’ve picked up about “Game of Thrones.”

Sansa Will Be More “Empowered” Than Ever Before

Sansa (Sophie Turner) proved to be much stronger and more capable than anyone ever gave her credit for at both the end of Season 6, when she got the Knights of the Vale to come and help Jon (Kit Harington) win The Battle of the Bastards and take back Winterfell, and in Season 7, when she ran the North as Wardenness in Jon’s place when he went to meet Daenerys. In an interview with Digital Spy back in July, Turner revealed that it wasn’t even the half of Sansa’s capabilities as a leader and that fans could still see the best of her in the show’s final six episodes.

“Finally, she has the strength of her family behind her,” she said at the time. “She’s used Littlefinger [Aiden Gillen] for all he has. As she said, ‘Thank you for all your lessons.’ He has nothing left to give her. So she is so empowered. She has a family behind her. She has Littlefinger, Cersei [Lena Headey], Margaery [Natalie Dormer], everyone’s wisdom and teachings all behind her.”

“She’s a real, true leader of Winterfell now. And that’s where we first see her—as a very protective, empowered lady in charge. It’s the first time you ever see her like that, and it’s so amazing to see her like that—kind of owning her destiny.”

Someone Will Be Betrayed

Turner once again spilled some vague details about the final season in an interview with 1883 Magazine (via ET), revealing that there are three things the season will be full of.

“This season is bloodier than ever,” she revealed. “it’s full of betrayal, full of war, full of danger. That’s all I can say without giving too much away.

As for who gets betrayed? Well, we’re going to have to watch to find out.

This Time, CleganeBowl Seems Like A Sure Thing

Fans have been waiting and waiting (and waiting) for the highly anticipated face-off between brothers Gregor “The Mountain” Clegane (Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson) and Sandor “The Hound” Clegane (Rory McCann). Now, however, it seems more likely than ever that it will happen. While it can only occur during these final six episodes (if it happens at all), Björnsson himself is the one who fans think spilled the beans about the battle finally going down.

During an Instagram Q&A, the actor revealed that his favorite scene of the series was going to happen in Season 8, which meant he couldn’t talk about it. While that certainly isn’t any sort of concrete clue that the scene would be the dubbed “CleganeBowl,” it did get some fans excited that it was a possible hint it was finally coming.

Some Of Those Security Measures Aren’t Real

HBO has taken notorious measures in the past to combat script leaks, though there hasn’t been a complete success. However, some of the things that have been said about ways they’re keeping everything a secret aren’t actually true. Among some of the things that have been debunked by Digital Spy? The cast was not fed their lines through earpieces, nor did the show shoot multiple endings to avoid spoilers.

However, their digital scripts vanishing after a scene wrapped? That one is actually somewhat true, as it was repeated by both Turner and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.

Beric And Tormund’s Fates Aren’t So Depressing

The last time fans saw favorite characters Beric Dondarrion (Richard Dorner) and Tormund Giantsbane (Kristofer Hivju), they were on top of the Wall at Eastwatch-By-The-Sea when the Night King (Vladimir Furdik) took his reanimated Viserion Ice Dragon to it and caused it to fall, melting it and officially giving his army of the dead the ability to cross into Westeros. We never saw the two heroes after they started to run, and it was unclear if they had managed to pull off an impressive escape—or if they had died as the wall began to melt.

Now, the release of the full episode’s script in preparation for potentially winning an Emmy seems to shed light on their fates—and, for now, they seem to be okay.

A description of the action in the scene that was seen in the released script suggests that the two may have gotten away.

“Tormund and Beric lead their wildling comrades to the stairs carved in the ice—Eastwatch has a massive zig-zag stairway, not an elevator like Castle Black,” the direction reads. “They run for their lives and disappear from view.”

While it doesn’t necessarily mean they did survive (their bodies could be found under the rubble later), or that they’ll be in their best fighting conditions if they did, it is the only positive sign fans have received since the season 7 finale last August that the two characters are still alive and well.

Episodes Won’t Be Two Hours Long

HBO Exec Casey Bloys has infamously said quite a few things about the show’s final season that weren’t necessarily right (like the multiple endings thing), and he recently admitted to Entertainment Weekly that he wasn’t quite right when he said there was a chance the episodes would run two hours each either.

“Not two hours? Yes, they are not going to be. Not that I’ve seen, anyway,” he said.

The Show’s End Isn’t Ruining Kit Harington’s Marriage

Naturally, members of the show’s cast have found the end of the show to be a little bittersweet, as they look forward to new adventures in their careers, but also are forced to contend with saying goodbye to a huge piece of their lives. However, reports that Kit Harington, who portrays Jon Snow, is so depressed by the show’s end that it’s already affecting his brand-new marriage to former co-star Rose Leslie are very much false.

“Game of Thrones” will air in early 2019.