Game of Thrones' final season doesn't have an official release date yet, but we may have some idea when it will come around. We know for sure that it will come out in 2019, but what month or day is up for debate.
In an interview with Metro, Maisie Williams (who plays Arya Stark) reportedly said that they wrap in December and will "air the first episode in April". Later, she tweeted that this entire quote was "completely false and taken from an interview I did years ago," but the April date wouldn't be out of the ordinary for the show, which has premiered seasons in that month five out of seven times.
So that makes for a minimum of... eight and a half months - or 257 days - of speculation before we sit down and return to Westeros for its final episodes. And that speculation means analysing every detail of every interview with every actor and actress on the show, because - for the obsessives out there - they've got to let slip something eventually.
Earlier this week the internet discovered that actress Lena Headey may have confirmed a theory about Tyrion, and now they are making connections between the upcoming season and comments Sophie Turner made in a recent interview. Speaking to Digital Spy, the actress spoke about how her character, Sansa Stark, has changed over the course of the show.
"It is just such a drastically different Sansa that the one that I play today – I almost don't recognise her," she said. "Every single season, she just – for me – gets better and better and better." But things soon changed for the redheaded Stark, who went from a bad situation to even worse situation, gaining new fans along the way:
"I very much remember the first couple of seasons, people really loathed her. They really hated her. They found her quite stuck up and a really frustrating character.
"Then they started feeling sorry for her, because it seemed like the next few seasons were her being beaten and bruised and raped and married – forced marriages – and all of these horrific things happened to her.
"It's interesting, because it really wouldn't have made Sansa the Sansa she is today had she not gone through those things, and had been subjected to so much torture and trauma. It's made her the strong, passionate woman that she is."
Now, Sansa has become an entirely new person, learning from the people who have sought to exploit her over the years - including Littlefinger, who she tricked and had executed at the end of last season:
"She’s used Littlefinger for all he has. As she said, 'Thank you for all your lessons.' He has nothing left to give her. So she is so empowered. She has a family behind her. She has Littlefinger, Cersei, Margaery, everyone’s wisdom and teachings all behind her. She’s a real, true leader of Winterfell now.
"It’s the first time you ever see her like that, and it’s so amazing to see her like that – kind of owning her destiny."
Many fans are interpreting this to mean that she is going to be fully taking on the throne of Winterfell and leading the North - something Jon Snow is meant to be doing. Given the fact that Littlefinger warned her about Jon before his death, it seems that there may be some conflict between the half-siblings (who aren't, in fact, related at all).
Kit Harington recently confirmed there is "definite tension" between the two of them "from the very first scene". "She questions his decisions and command; he doesn’t listen to her," he told Entertainment Weekly. "But as far as where that goes or takes them or how dark it can get, we’ll see. It gets past sibling squabbling, it gets into two people power struggling."
So - does this mean that we'll be seeing another power struggle between family members? With Tyrion, Cersei, and Jaime betraying one another, it wouldn't be the first time.
