Game of Thrones actors say that, after Season 6, “the end is in sight”

All discussions about how many seasons of Game of Thrones are left should be prefaced by the following statement: currently there are none. Until a season is actually officially declared as a “go,” everything is speculative. Even if production designers mention how they are already focusing on pre-production for Season 7 doesn’t mean there will be a Season 7 until HBO puts that press release in our inboxes.

Now, with that legal disclaimer out of the way, for a while now, HBO has been maintaining that the show would run for eight seasons, despite the showrunners previously chanting “Seven Gods, Seven Kingdoms, Seven Books, Seven Seasons.” Apparently, HBO had won the battle for more content. Then, last week, we learned that although there would be eight seasons, they would both be abbreviated. At the moment, the showrunners are contemplating 73 episodes to total.

That wasn’t a big shock to me. The fact is, if the show was going to run eight seasons, that probably would have had to have been decided back in Season 4, in order to spread the plot out more evenly. Part of the problem with Season 5 was that the show was trying to cover too much ground (two full novels) in ten episodes. Now that the ground has been covered, there’s no stretching. The milk, as Lady Olenna would say, cannot be put back up the udders. This was a show that was only plotted to run 70-ish hours. And from the sounds of what the actors on the show are saying, hours 51-60 were written and plotted that way, claims of an eighth season be damned.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, several cast members confirm that, by the end of Season 6, the conclusion will be in sight. According to Maisie Williams (Arya):

"We’re building up to a massive downhill sprint. That’s what it feels like. We’re getting more riled up. At the end of this [season], people will obviously be waiting for the next season of the series, but it will feel like the end is in sight."

Michael McElhatton, who plays Roose Bolton, agrees.

"Definitely, yeah. They can move so fast as writers. They can cut swathes of people, just killing people off. Suddenly, a person’s gone, and that journey’s over, and that journey’s over … with all these characters, [the writers] can move incredibly fast with the storytelling."

Kristofer Hivju, who plays wildling Tormund Giantsbane, compares this upcoming season with those on TV shows designed to go for 10 or 20 seasons.

"In many TV shows, season six is the season where you really start rebooting the same conflicts over and over again. (But t)his is a big journey for all the characters. It’s one big story. We don’t have to redefine the essence of the show. We’re just continuing."

John Bradley (Samwell Tarly) makes the comparison explicit with Breaking Bad, another show that was designed to go a specific amount of seasons, and found itself at the end doing two shorter half-seasons in order to please AMC, which wanted more content.

"Even great shows find it hard to sustain over time. One of my favorite shows is Breaking Bad, but I do feel like with that last season, there’s a new starting point. I think season four wrapped up really nicely, and season five [felt] almost contrived to get to another season. I don’t think that’s going to happen here. Everybody’s through-line is so complete and direct…You get the sense that stories are coming to a conclusion."