What the Game of Thrones Finale Means for Season 8

Though it contended with the VMAs, Game of Thrones was the clear winner Sunday night

—because when it comes to Game of Thrones, everything is a competition in which, as they say, you win, or you die.

The series closed out a record-making seventh season with its most-watched episode so far, bringing in 16.5 million viewers for the season finale. It’s all the more impressive considering the commitment: Episode 7 was practically a feature film, clocking in at an hour and 20 minutes and with a gnarly plot that primarily served as exposition for the eighth and final season.

Here’s where we’re at. In the first hour, Jon Snow unveiled his high school science project—a wight he had transported from north of the Wall as proof the White Walkers are roaming free and out for human blood—to much success. A gold star for Jon Snow, who succeeded in unnerving the notoriously unflappable Cersei Lannister. 

But it wasn’t until the last quarter of the show that the real action began. First, Sansa and Arya Stark unmasked the thirsty, and power-thirsty, Lord Petyr Baelish. (Then, Arya cut his throat.) That was followed by a not-entirely-unexpected tryst between Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen. (Once more for the people in the back: They’re related.) And as the season drew to a close, it ventured north to the Wall once more, where Beric Dondarrion and Tormund Giantsbane stood watch over the north. A horde of White Walkers began to emerge from the forest—and then the newly reanimated zombie-dragon Viserion swooped in with the Night King on his back. In a burst of blue fire, he took down the Wall, and the White Walkers began marching through. The end.

“The Dragon and the Wolf,” as the episode was titled, didn’t resolve as many plot digressions so much as it set up for Season 8. As a result, many of the hypotheses we anticipated for the finale remain possibilities for the final six episodes. The show has a lot of wrapping up to do in those last hours. But the finale also presented even more evidence for convoluted theories, conspiracies, and fan predictions—so here’s where we’re anticipating Season 8 of Game of Thrones to be heading.

Jon Snow: Soon to find out he’s boning his aunt. But it’s okay, because he’s a Targaryen. (His name, as revealed in the finale, is Aegon Targaryen—quite a namesake, considering the most famous Aegon was the one who constructed the Iron Throne in the first place.) They just do that. Anyways, as far as degrees of related-ness go, their romance is certainly not as bad as Cersei and Jaime Lannister’s own sibling-incest relationship.

Daenerys Targaryen: There probably wasn’t any rule that Daenerys can only have three children at any one time, but with the death of her dragon Viserion specifically, some are speculating she is not as infertile as she believes—and she might end up having her nephew’s child.

Sansa Stark: “I just wanted to give the impression, as much as possible, that one of them is going to die. But you’re not sure which one,” Game of Thrones director Alan Taylor told the Huffington Post the week before the seventh season finale. “Something is coming very soon between them, and it will be violent but surprising.” He may have been alluding to the finale’s sudden reversal—with Arya’s murder of Littlefinger—but it’s been a while since a fan-favorite character departed the show. One of the Stark sisters’ time might be running out.

Arya Stark: While Arya’s fate might be just as uncertain as that of her sister, now that she’s killed Littlefinger, we’re hoping she will add his face to her collection of serial killer mementos. Perhaps a Petyr Baelish-shaped disguise will come in handy when it comes to crossing off the rest of the names on her kill list—which she’s got to complete before the show can write her out. (Other Reddit users propose Arya will kill Jaime—perhaps after he’s finished off Cersei—and use his face to advance her violent ends, but that’s not quite so poetic.)