Tony Black on talk that Game of Thrones may only run for a further two truncated seasons…
On the eve of Game of Thrones returning, HBO and its show runners have been quite vocal about the show’s future this week, recently suggesting there will be no spin-offs or prequels to the series for the time being, and before that David Benioff & D B. Weiss explaining how the show probably has roughly “13 episodes or so” left in the run after season six. In real terms that means seasons seven and eight will have thirteen episodes overall. Count that. THIRTEEN. Over two seasons. Considering there have been for years many valid arguments that Game of Thrones always delivers too little a season with just ten episodes each year, this news may come as something of not just a shock but a concern to fans. How exactly can Benioff, Weiss and HBO conclude this mammoth undertaking in just twenty-three more hours? That’s a hard question to answer but we can speculate, partly on what may have driven them to this decision and indeed creatively over how the last two Game of Thrones seasons may play out.
For the last couple of years, HBO’s president Michael Lombardo has seemed to veer across the map when it comes to the longevity of the song of ice and fire. On the one hand, he talks about how ideally HBO would want ten seasons of the show, knowing how wildly popular and beloved it is. That makes a lot of financial sense. Yet on the other hand he appears aware of the narrative side of the coin, where Benioff & Weiss are coming down the hill determined to set an end date on George R.R. Martin’s vast saga, but are HBO’s apparent decisions based purely on trying to tell the story in the best way possible? Arguably that is a factor, given how much creative freedom they’ve given Benioff & Weiss, and it’s likely they alongside Martin have done what Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse did almost a decade ago with Lost and set an end point they can work towards, building anticipation for what could likely be a definitive closed book on the game being played. The other factor is most likely financial but not in terms of making money, rather saving it. How? The tricky matter of contracts.
You see when Game of Thrones began, its biggest star was undoubtedly Sean Bean. Because he’s Sean Bean he didn’t last long of course and as the show became a global success, stardom was foisted upon the relatively unknown stars who had been signed up for the standard seven-season show contract which most actors never see out, because the shows don’t last that long. Kit Harington, Emilia Clarke, Peter Dinklage, Maisie Williams, Sophie Turner, Gwendoline Christie – all of them are now hot property, many tied up in some of the world’s biggest film franchises such as Star Wars, X-Men, Terminator or err… Spooks. Anyway the point is, their contracts will be done at the end of filming season seven, which will likely shoot in GoT’s Europe-spanning locations later this year – and this is after getting huge raises to stick around for seasons five and six. Benioff & Weiss likely concluded there was no way they could wrap the show up by the end of season seven but HBO are well aware signing all of the names above, and other major players such as Lena Headey, will cost them a lot more for season eight. A *lot* more. That’s money they likely wouldn’t want to pay for a theoretical ten more episodes, so have HBO suggested a deal in which Benioff & Weiss get thirteen more episodes rather than twenty, allowing them to film one more slightly longer season and play out the actors contracts without renegotiating? If that’s true, what will losing seven episodes mean for the conclusion of the series over a presumed seven episode season seven, and six episode, final season eight?
It could have a significant effect, if you try and imagine how much ground they have to cover over those thirteen episodes. Let’s assume that season six ends with, as theorised from the two released trailers, the defeat of the Bolton’s by a combined army of northern houses, possible Greyjoys, wildlings and restored Starks. That frees up a presumably-revived Jon Snow to become King of the North, if perhaps Bran Stark flies in with the Children of the Forest to confirm his royal lineage, or alternatively Sansa Stark becomes Queen of the North, united with the wildlings, convinced by them and believers such as Davos Seaworth that the White Walkers’ invasion is imminent. Let’s assume Winter begins to fall, and perhaps even Winterfell & the entire north is swamped by the dead after they mount or even destroy the Wall, laying waste to the treacherous Night’s Watch. In King’s Landing, let’s assume a Tyrell-backed Lannister revived army beats down the High Sparrow and his devotees and, taking no more prisoners, Queen Cersei seizes absolute control, possibly aided by Walder Frey and his hosts from Riverrun. Let’s also assume that Daenerys Targaryen *finally* manages to gain enough of an army, backed by the Dothraki alongside the Unsullied, with her court of dragons, Tyrion, Varys, Missandei, Daario and if he’s lucky a dying Jorah, to launch her invasion on Westeros. Lets assume season six gets us there.
That means in thirteen episodes, Benioff and Weiss potentially—if Martin’s story in his upcoming novels The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring plays out on relatively predictable lines—have the following to wrap up…
– An invasion on all Westeros by the White Walkers. Remember Dany’s visions – Winter reaches a bombed out Iron Throne in King’s Landing.
– A probable, dragon-fuelled siege by the new Targaryen forces on King’s Landing. Dany vs Cersei – again the visions showed dragons over the sky of King’s Landing.
– The Stark’s restored to presumed power in the north, leading the charge against the dead.
– Arya becoming perhaps a Faceless Woman and taking out everyone on her list at last. There’d be a perverse irony in Cersei winning the game of thrones, sitting on that throne, only for Arya to slit her throat and then vanish.
– The fates of whoever remain left by the end of season six. Likely a few of these will die this season but the amount of characters to service stands right now at… Jon (surely?), Dany, Tyrion, Arya, Sansa, Cersei, Bran, Jaime, Theon, Davos, Melisandre, Brienne, Samwell, Gilly, Varys, Margaery, Loras, Littlefinger (let’s not forget him in a hurry…), Missandei, Jorah, Daario, Grey Worm, Bronn… and those are only the credited main regulars. Add on several dozen more.
– Either the crowning of the rightful Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, or the destruction of the Iron Throne – the ‘breaking of the wheel’.
In other words, it’s likely that from a creative perspective, the Game of Thrones will be bloody hard won in just two truncated, short seasons which may well be more of a financial decision than one truly giving one of TV’s biggest, most epic sagas the conclusion it deserves. Then again, maybe everything theorised above won’t happen at all. Maybe Martin, Benioff & Weiss have been playing one big misdirection, and they have a far different conclusion mapped out for the fate of Westeros that will make sense over thirteen short episodes. We may even yet find the last two series *will* be ten episodes. This is all just supposition.
Whatever the case, one thing is certain – valar morghulis. Or to paraphrase, “all shows must die.”
Tony Black is a freelance film/TV writer & podcaster & would love you to follow him on Twitter.
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