Game of Thrones season 8: First picture proves it’s a cold world

Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen look like they’re sharing body heat to survive on the first official season 8 photo for Game of Thrones.

Do you remember how so much of season 7 promotions for Game of Thrones were about how winter had finally arrived, after six seasons of promises that it was coming? If season 7 is “winter is here,” then season 8 is “winter is so here that you will want to bundle up even if you’re just watching from the comfort of your couch.”

To prove this point to us mere fans of the show, Entertainment Weekly‘s cover to this week’s issue gathered up Kit Harington and Emilia Clarke, put them in costume, and made them hug each other and look at the camera.

In other words, Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen are still going strong for at least part of season 8. Then again, it could all be a fakeout. (Who are we kidding? This relationship, incest though it may be, seems like it’s going to be one of the key storylines of season 8.)

Here’s the photo:

Intrepid fans immediately noticed some differences in Daenerys’ coat. “So white coat got more fur, reddish lining and kind of a cape?” one fan tweeted. To read into this, they added that it’s a stronger nod to her Targaryen heritage, to paraphrase. That’s so. Moreover, since Jon has the back side of the Targaryen house colors covered in this image — although he still doesn’t know he’s a Targaryen — it only makes sense that Daenerys would take the red.

However, it also brings blood to mind. After season 7, where Daenerys burns people alive quite frequently with the help of her dragons, it only makes sense that she’d have metaphorical blood on her coat. Could it also foreshadow darker turns to come in season 8? That’s not clear yet, and the spoilers that we do have tend to focus more on other characters anyway. It would also be a neat reversal; Jon wears black and is still basically a good guy, but Daenerys, who wears white, might be more villainous than ever.

EW pointedly noted that they’re in the snow as well, which probably doesn’t mean as much as EW thinks it means. After all, snow starts falling on King’s Landing in the season 7 finale. The article does not say specifically where the photo was taken, to be fair, but again, snow’s not the important sign it used to be, especially with such a blurry background.

What do you see in this photo? Tell us in the comments below.