Game of Thrones is probably still going to have spoilers, but at least it’s trying

Game of Thrones and HBO do not seem happy about how much of season 7 was online before it started airing, so much so that season 8 might have a change.

If you knew where to look, Game of Thrones had most of its seventh season’s plot points — down to Viserion’s becoming a zombie dragon — put up on Reddit long before the episodes themselves started airing. We here at Culturess referred to them and other photos throughout the off-season and into the actual season itself. Apparently, according to Entertainment Weekly (itself citing a report from The Morning Call), HBO is ready to foil those nefarious spoilers from letting the biggest secret of them all slip.

Yes, we’re talking about the final scenes of the show. Now, EW points out that HBO hasn’t actually said one way or another whether or not this is happening, and it’s important to also note that this is supposedly coming from Casey Bloys — who works for HBO and isn’t part of the show’s actual crew. He’s still in a place to know, but the point remains that he’s a step removed.

This plan to shoot things in different ways to foil people also doesn’t prevent, say, the rest of season 8 from being completely spoiled. It just seems like prioritizing the final scenes over everything else might let more things from earlier in the season slip through.

If the goal is just to make people more determined to figure out what’s going on in season 8, then mission accomplished, HBO. Everyone has now just gotten a little more hype because there’s an extra layer of things to figure out, which means they will likely be even more willing to dig into everything, including social media posts, to find out who is where and when they are there. Even if they’re not in costume, fans know what places stand in for where, and they’re very good at guessing if it’s a new place.

Next: Will Tyrion Lannister stay Hand of the Queen?

There will be people taking selfies with cast members as production starts up again, and there will probably be people willing to get their hands on scripts, even with the multiple scenes there to throw them off. HBO seems like it might just be underestimating the power of a fanbase that has had years upon years to hone its spoiler-hunting skills.

Sorry, but my money’s still on the spoilers.