Winter is Here in Game of Thrones: A Longer Wait for Season 7

In case you haven’t heard that Game of Thrones Season 7 (and the one after that) will be shorter than normal, consider yourself informed.  So far each season has been 10 (beautifully theatrical) episodes, but in the coming seasons they’ll be around 6-7. Given the breakneck pace they’ve set during Season 6, it’s not even that surprising that they’re running out of story.

What might be surprising, or annoying, is that the coming season won’t premier in April, like it has in the past. The co-creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss revealed on the podcast UFC Unfiltered (because a wrestling podcast is where all important GoT announcements should happen, obviously) that, in their own words, “Winter is here.”

“‘Winter is here’—and that means that sunny weather doesn’t really serve our purposes any more. So we kind of pushed everything down the line, so we could get some grim, grey weather even in the sunnier places that we shoot.” – Co-creators Benioff and Weiss, in between discussions on pro wrestling

Reading the headline that there’ll be a longer wait for Season 7, you may have guessed that it was budget or some other B.S. red-tape, but the reason is actually pretty understandable – it’s winter now, so summer filming is out. You gotta hand it to them for wanting a little realism amidst all of the (amazing) digital effects. Also, we’re assuming it takes a while to make digital dragons, and we’re hoping there will be LOTS OF DRAGONS.

I will patiently wait if you promise me there will be LOTS OF DRAGONS, guys. And ffs – more Ghost, please. Giants are nice and all, but is Jon really Jon without a direwolf?

What can we expect in Season 7? (Spoilers Ahead)

L + R

One thing we KNOW we’ll see  the reveal of Jon’s father as being really and truly Rhaegar Targaryen, since HBO let it slip in a seemingly innocent infographic released the week after the Season 6 finale to help folks be a little less confused about everyone’s parentage familial relationships (not less confused because of the graphic, by the way, but I love you for trying, HBO.)

That’s what they get, by the way, for trying to explain the twisted family trees of Westerosi nobility to show watchers, since having a good grasp on lineage is a point of fierce pride for book readers.

Anyway, this is a pretty huge (accidental) reveal that Jon is in fact a Targaryen (although still a bastard, since his pops was still married to Elia Martell when he decided to stash Lyanna Stark up in the Tower “of Joy.” That still means Daenerys is Jon’s auntie! Cool.

Tyrion & Dany

Not sure about you guys, but when these two met up, it was pretty much the greatest thing that could have happened. Talk about an unstoppable force – Tyrion’s smarts and Dany’s dragons? COME ON.

There’s a lot of chatter about them being more than just friends – no, not like that – that they’re in fact brother and sister. It makes sense, because Tywin’s wife Joanna definitely could have had an affair with the Mad King Aerys II, who was also Dany’s dad. Lots of foreshadowing happening for this one, considering Tyrion mentioned dreaming of dragons when he was younger, and seemed to have a pretty good connection to them when they were in chains under the pyramid.

Jon’s a Twin

A lot of people scoffed when folks postulated that meera Reed and Jon Snow could be twins (why? just because they have curly hair?) but now it seems like that one could actually be true, since Howland Reed was also at the Tower of Joy when Ned first held Jon.

Bran Caused Everything

As soon as it was revealed that Ned could (sort of?) hear Bran during Bran’s Tower of Joy vision, everyone went nuts speculating what kinds of other timeline-ruining trouble Bran might get himself into. My personal favorite is that the Mad King heard Bran whispering to him (presumably in an attempt to stop EVERYTHING from happening), which is what made him mad in the first place and got the whole ball rolling.

Another Bran theory is that he’s also simultaneously Brandon the Builder, which means he went back in time and built the wall, which consequently shaped the entire civilization of Westeros.

There are many, many other theories – did we miss your favorite? Tell us in the comments.


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Winter is Here in Game of Thrones: A Longer Wait for Season 7