HBO has just confirmed everyone's worst fears about the final episodes of 'Game of Thrones'

A show as monumentally big as Game of Thrones has its fair share of obsessive fans. It makes it practically impossible for the cast and crew to make it through the entirety of the production without any information about the upcoming season getting out onto social media and Reddit threads. And with the final season set to air next year, people are even more intent to find out exactly what will happen to their favorite characters.

Despite this, there isn't much that we know about the HBO fantasy series' final season. We know the basics after the way that the last season ended, but the storylines could branch in all sorts of directions.

At the end of season seven we saw the North uniting with Daenerys' armies (and dragons) to fight the hoards of zombified soldiers from beyond the wall. Yet, in typical Game of Thrones fashion, things did not go so smoothly. A shaky alliance was made with Cersei, but she then planned her betrayal. Then Daenery's dragon Viserion was killed by the Night King, only to be brought back to life as an undead beast and destroy the wall keeping those armies out.

So, it may not come as a surprise to learn that the next season is going to be packed full of tragedy once more, with no characters safe from Game of Thrones' trademark deaths and dismemberments.

Speaking at a panel titled 'The Best of HBO' at the INTV Conference in Israel recently, HBO executives opened up about the new season and the script reading they had with the cast. As many have feared, not many are going to be making it out alive. Francesca Orsi, the Senior Vice President of drama for HBO, said:

"It was a really powerful moment in our lives and our careers.

"None of the cast had received the scripts prior, and one by one they started falling down to their deaths."

The show is known for killing of fan-favorites at the most unexpected of times, and that was when things were going fairly well in Westeros. Now there are far more threats out there with the wall destroyed, leaving civilization in peril.

Orsi also called the final six scripts "a dream opportunity", claiming that after the reading everyone stood up and applauded for 15 minutes. “It was amazing,” she said. “By the very end, everyone looked down and looked up and tears were in their eyes.”

In addition, she promised that the spin-offs will live up to the original series. If you didn't already know, they are currently developing five (yes, five) spin-off shows to follow up on the success of the original show:

“It feels like corporate malfeasance to not continue it. That's why it spawned three, four, five spinoffs. We’re going big.”

I'm all for more Game of Thrones stories, but I can't imagine what ideas they have for five more shows. Maybe a buddy cop series with Brienne and Podrick?