Here's all of the worthless shit Game Of Thrones stars have said about the finale
You know the deal at this point: There are exactly six episodes of Game Of Thrones left. It’s been a long time since the last one aired (August 2017!) and it’ll be a long time until the next one does (sometime next year). You already know people are going to die. Lots of them! This is, at least partially, the “Game Of Thrones thing”: people die in surprising ways, typically at the end of the season, and therefore the end of the show promises to be downright apocalyptic. The entire series thus far has sometimes felt like a freight train barreling toward this climactic moment, a series of armies and plot lines and prophecies converging in one massive battle.
All series finales are hotly anticipated, but few have ever felt so rich with possible incident as this one. Accordingly, people cannot stop fucking talking about it. This intense amount of scrutiny has only been bolstered by the stars of the show, who are asked about it constantly but also all have a weird thing for Instagram. And so we invite you to please slake your thirst for Game Of Thrones non-news with this compendium of all the cryptic, unhelpful, and vaguely forbidding things the show’s stars have said about the finale, arranged in ascending order of newsworthiness.
Kit Harrington’s Jon Snow has gradually moved from the periphery to the very center of the show’s narrative. He told BBC Radio 2 shortly after wrapping filming that, “It’s just been this amazing journey, and I kind of said to them in my wrap speech that it’s always been more than a job. It’s like they were a family and it was my life. I’ve loved every minute. I’ve been quite emotional the last week, thinking about having ended—having finished it.”
Translation: Kit Harrington has completed filming Game Of Thrones and thought it was nice.
Peter Dinklage, who brought the silver-tongued strategist Tyrion Lannister to life, told Variety, “It’s time,” when asked about the conclusion of the show. “Story-wise, not just for all our lives. It’s the perfect time to end it. Sometimes shows stay on a little too long, the jumping-the-shark thing.”
Translation: Please stop asking Peter Dinklage about Tyrion Lannister.
Nathalie Emmanuel, who plays Missandei, trusted handmaiden to Danaerys Targaryen, told the Hindustan Times: “I think what we can expect from the final season of Game Of Thrones is just a real push. Like in the last couple of seasons, we have seen the pace of the show increase with the stakes getting higher and higher. There are so many storylines that have to come to conclusion. We have to play them out, so the pace of the show is continuing on that sense … So, this season is going to be incredibly satisfying for people. It is going to be incredibly exciting and heartbreaking. … All of the things that you expect from Game Of Thrones, but at the same time since it is the last one, the emotions will be so much more intense. I am very excited for people to see it. We have been working so hard on it. The production is finished now.” She concludes: “I feel like people will have their mind blown when they watch the final one.”
Translation: Emmanuel should pursue a career in public relations. This is a consummate stretch of non-information.
Ian Glen, actor behind the handsome and heartbroken permanent-friend Jorah Mormont, told Indian Express about the finale: “When I read it, I thought it was rather brilliant. I am a bit of a fan of the series as well, and it satiated my expectation and hopes (…) All I can say is that we will be doing what we have done before and the writers have written great episodes. They have had a great strike rate up to now and I am sure that will continue.”
Translation: Jorah Mormont gets killed while talking to a horse about honor or something. He resolutely does not get to do something cool.
Lena Headey, a.k.a Cersei Lannister, told Mashable: “I can tell you that we had a giant read-through with all the cast in October. And I think pretty much everybody cried at one point. And it was … pretty surprising.”
Translation: Several main characters will die in the finale.
Sophie Turner, who plays Sansa Stark, got a tattoo that says “the pack survives.” This wasn’t her own post, but that of a tattoo artist in Sydney, Australia, so technically Turner isn’t letting much slip personally. It’s a nice tattoo!
As for her own personal statements, she told The Hollywood Reporter, “At the end of the very last script, they read aloud, ‘End of Game Of Thrones.’ As soon as they read that out, pretty much everyone burst into tears. There was a standing ovation for [the showrunners]. We were all clapping and cheering. It was amazing.”
Translation: The quote doesn’t say that much, but the quote and the tattoo? Sansa lives.
Emilia Clarke, probably the show’s biggest breakout star, posted the following farewell on Instagram:
Cool, definitely. She’s been more revealing in other interviews, like when she told Vanity Fair that the finale, “Fucked me up… Knowing that is going to be a lasting flavor in someone’s mouth of what Daenerys is.” Take anything she says with a grain of salt, though. Earlier, in a more guarded moment, she told The Hollywood Reporter that she didn’t even know how the show ended, saying they were “filming a bunch of stuff and they’re not telling us.” But this was a party line also used by HBO execs, which was summarily debunked by Maisie Williams, who adroitly pointed out to Jimmy Kimmel that filming a bunch of different endings would cost a shitload of money.
Translation: Things are not going to end well for Danaerys Targaryen.
Joe Dempsie, who plays Gendry, the bastard son of Robert Baratheon and arguable heir to the throne of Westeros, told Digital Spy: “For me personally, the only real hope I had for the character was just that he would be there when the reckoning came. You got the sense—even back in season 3—that this was a show that was building towards some incredible climax, so you just wanted to be there when it all happened… Not even necessarily just from a character point-of-view, [but] from a personal point of view—to be stood there on the set when they’re making that ending… that end game.”
Translation: This is about as helpful as Clarke’s comments, in that you can make out the rough shape of their arc. Gendry is lasting until the end, and he gets to do some real shit. Also, Joe Dempsie is the type of guy who whispers “end game” forbiddingly.
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who plays conflicted sister-fucker Jaime Lannister, waxed poetic about his character’s final arc to Vanity Fair: “Can we redefine ourselves? Most people have moments in their life where you go, ‘Can I really, fundamentally change?’… The core of him has always been Cersei. When that’s taken away, what are you then? What’s left? Is there anything left? When he leaves, obviously he has no idea. He doesn’t know the answer to that question.” Later in the interview, he seemingly recants Jaime’s condemnation of Cersei at the end of season 7. “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.”
Translation: Jaime’s getting back with Cersei. Also, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau celebrated his 20th anniversary this summer, and you didn’t get him and his wonderful wife anything.
Wilf Scolding, who popped up just last season in order to play Rhaegar Targaryen, posted and then deleted on Instagram an image of himself in front a hotel in Belfast. As if to confirm that there would be more flashbacks, he wrote, “More flashbacks!”
Translation: There will be more flashbacks in the next season. Rhaegar Targaryen will be in them.
Maisie Williams told the BBC that she “bawled” upon the conclusion of filming, and that it was “like cutting off an arm.” She also revealed that she kept her character’s brown jacket, which would be a nice enough keepsake if she hadn’t already gotten a much more permanent one in the form of a “No One” tattoo. (This is a reference to the name Arya gives herself during her training in the House Of Black And White.) Upon finishing filming, she posted a picture of her bloody-ass shoes along with an extremely telling hashtag #lastwomanstanding.
Translation: Arya kills everyone. She will do a bunch of badass shit in the finale.
Mark Gatiss, who Google informs us plays an employee of the Iron Bank named Tycho Nestoris, told Short List, “I’m not in it, so I guess I survive. Although they might just mention offhand that I’ve had my head bitten off by a dragon off-screen or something.”
Translation: Whoever this character is, he’s not in the finale, which, in an upset, is the most solid news anyone has given on the show yet. All your Tycho Nestoris fan theories have been blown to shit, Reddit.
(We will update this post when and if other Game Of Thrones stars give non-revealing tidbits about the show’s finale.)