Game of Thrones Has Thirteen Episodes Left, Officially, Probably

To the surprise of no one, there will only be six episodes in the final season of Game of Thrones, something we’ve presumed for quite a while.

Season 7 of Game of Thrones has seven episodes. However, hope remained high that season 8 would be just as long or perhaps even longer, based on Iain Glen’s comments on how there were more than 13 hours left of the show. Additionally, HBO programming president Casey Bloys had said HBO hadn’t worked out how many episodes there would be in season 8. Alas, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have worked it out.

Per Entertainment Weekly, the two announced at SXSW this weekend that yes, there will only be six episodes of season 8. Before you start pointing back to the Glen comments, though, here’s what they also said:

"““From the beginning we’ve wanted to tell a 70-hour movie. It will turn out to be a 73-hour movie, but it’s stayed relatively the same of having the beginning, middle and now we’re coming to the end.”"

That means that even the hopes of having huge episodes may just have died completely. Then again, they could be rounding down a bit. Who knows? We might have a few more minutes of Game of Thrones here and there that may add up to something vaguely significant.

However, for now, it appears we’ll have to settle for the seven-six split we’ve prepared for ever since they started talking about it last year. We’ll have 73 hours of the show, and no more, no less. At the same time, though, is that really such a bad thing?

Let’s face it: a show can’t run forever. For example, Supernatural should have ended after season 5. We’re now looking at season 12 and even a season 13 at this point.

Next: Game of Thrones Season 7: Objectionable Spoilers

Game of Thrones probably shouldn’t carry on beyond the end point that the producers have planned this whole time, not unless we want to have a serious drop in quality.