HBO

In the wake of the Game of Thrones  season six finale, creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are talking about the upcoming seventh season and how close they are to mapping out the series’ end. As they have previously done, the duo cited a total episode count of 73 episodes, telling Deadline, “Call it 73 for now.” That is, it sounds like HBO will give them the wiggle room they need to properly wrap up the hit fantasy drama.

The pair also addressed the upcoming seventh season, specifically mentioning Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey); what Benjen (Joseph Mawle) told Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead-Wright), before he took his leave; as well as Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) and Jon Snow (Kit Harington).

Here is more, from Deadline.

 

DEADLINE: [Cersei] has lost all her children. Is her mindset now to just be a ruthless ruler?

WEISS: Not to give a frustrating answer, but that’s what so much of next season is going to be about; finding out what Cersei’s mind-set is. Who is she? While Cersei has certainly done a lot of horrible things in her life and she could be a very cruel person, the one thing that was redemptive about her was, she genuinely loved her children. Now they’re all gone, and I think that is very interesting for us. Who is she without her children? The answer is something you’ll find out next season. That’s so much of what is to come that I’ll just give it away if I start delving into it now.

[…]

DEADLINE: Bran’s half uncle who rescued his nephew from the White Walkers, left the boy because he’s half undead and couldn’t go further. He said the wall wasn’t just ice and rock, but contains spells that keep the dead in the North. The fans talk about the Horn of Joramund, which was said to have the power to topple the wall, and which the Wildlings searched for at one time. Any hints on where this is going?

BENIOFF: We don’t want to give away too much. There are the books, and the show, and it would be a disservice to both if we went into too much detail on whether we’re going to use this or that. What is laid out in this season is, very clearly, that the wall isn’t just a physical structure keeping the army of the dead out. If the Wildlings managed to make it over, which they have, and the Night King has so much more in the way of both power and troops who’ll do literally anything he says…we’ll keep it at that for now.

[…]

DEADLINE: There is a lot of story left to tell. How far have you mapped it out

BENIOFF: We’ve been talking about the ending, from the beginning. It’s a strange phenomenon, we’re in this territory where you are walking on your own and can’t rely on the written material anymore. As we get close to the ending, we’ve been talking about that for so long, things come into better focus. Once we get to the final end game, we’ve got very specific ideas that have grown organically over the past six plus years about where everything will end up.

DEADLINE: When you have President Obama asking about plot points and whether Jon Snow would stay dead, it indicates you haven’t overstayed your welcome. You could continue this struggle for a long time.

WEISS: Like President Obama, we want to leave while all the people watching this show are really into it. Get out at a high point and not have it be, well thank god that’s over.

BENIOFF: It’s two more seasons we’re talking about. From pretty close to the beginning, we talked about doing this in 70-75 hours, and that’s what we’ll end up with. Call it 73 for now. What Dan says is really true, but it’s not just trying not to outstay your welcome. We’re trying to tell one cohesive story with a beginning, middle and end. As Dan said, we’ve known the end for quite some time and we’re hurtling towards it. Those last images from the show that aired last night showed that. Daenerys is finally coming back to Westeros; Jon Snow is king of the North and Cersei is sitting on the Iron Throne. And we know the Night King is up there, waiting for all of them. The pieces are on the board now. Some of the pieces have been removed from the board and we are heading toward the end game. The thing that has excited us from the beginning, back to the way we pitched it to HBO is, it’s not supposed to be an ongoing show, where every season it’s trying to figure out new story lines. We wanted it to be one giant story, without padding it out to add an extra ten hours, or because people are still watching it. We wanted to something where, if people watched it end to end, it would make sense as one continuous story. We’re definitely heading into the end game now.

 

What do you think? Did you watch the Game of Thrones sixth season finale? Do you think 73 episodes feels like the right length for the drama? How would you like the Game of Thrones TV series finale to play out?