Game of Thrones season 8 spoilers: A Lannister rumor might just be true

A legal award, of all things, may have just given Game of Thrones fans the biggest season 8 spoiler yet, possibly confirming previous rumors.

Warning: Here there be Game of Thrones season 8 spoilers, a little bit of math, and plenty of speculation on what everything means.

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau’s court battles over his agent change may have just revealed if Jaime Lannister survives Game of Thrones season 8. It all comes down to a very strange-looking interim award in the arbitration, a look at the now-final agreement, and some careful checking on which episodes Jaime appears in when it comes to season 7.

Deadline has published both the interim and final awards. For the actual numbers, the interim award is more interesting. Scrolling all the way down to pages 22 and 23, there’s an itemization of how much and from what Coster-Waldau made money on. There are three key things to look at here.

First is that the itemization on page 22 only lists pay for four episodes of season 8. Second, page 23 lists the other two episodes separately. To confirm that he was paid for all of them, the final award states that Coster-Waldau must pay about $1.75 million to his former manager, which is a total you can only arrive at if you include all six episodes of season 8. Third — and perhaps most telling — is that his season 7 pay includes all seven episodes. If you’ll recall, Jaime does not appear in an episode of season 7: “Beyond the Wall.” He is, however, in the other six, but was paid for all seven.

Although there’s no way to definitively state what’s going on here, it seems possible that Jaime might actually die at some point in season 8, perhaps even in episode 4 (since that would satisfy the first count given in the interim award). That rumor surfaced back during production, and with the weird split of Coster-Waldau’s pay, it would seem that it’s looking closer to true than ever.

Yours truly talked about this on Take the Black’s bonus episode for WiC Club members, but it’s believed that the Winterfell battle occurs in episode 3. (Don’t worry: we talk about a lot more in that episode.) The four-episode count would suggest Jaime survives the battle, but dies at some other point in the season. If episode 4 includes some sort of attempt by the survivors to flee the Night King, my old theory about Jaime dying to protect someone would probably still hold up.

Alternatively, the Winterfell battle could be so big that it spills over into episode 4, but that seems a little less likely. Game of Thrones has certainly extended fallout of battles into the next episode, but not really the fighting itself.

What’s your theory for what this could all mean? Tell us in the comments below.