Game of Thrones season 8: Secrets from Winterfell

Entertainment Weekly’s exclusive set visit reveals what HBO wants Game of Thrones fans to know. We’re ready to contextualize some of the big cover story with spoilers.

This morning, Entertainment Weekly dropped what ultimately looks like a lot of smoke, but no actual fire for Game of Thrones season 8. Fans who have been deep in spoilers have known about the night shoots for the battle of Winterfell for months now, but for those who are just waking up to the possibilities of what all of this could entail, Culturess is here to give you a few extra secrets. In short, be prepared for spoilers.

Let’s start with who isn’t mentioned in that article from James Hibberd. If you scroll through, you have a significant part of the cast, especially those who are expected to be there like Kit Harington and Maisie Williams, offering quotes up.

Who isn’t mentioned, though, is Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who plays Jaime Lannister. Rumor has it that Jaime and Brienne will fight together during the battle for Winterfell, and we can see why that may not have made it into the report. It’s a huge spoiler, and as we’ve previously discussed, it has some strong character beats involved. With director Miguel Sapochnik apparently focusing on telling everyone’s story, expect that scene to have a lot of oomph.

(Possibly a death, too, as one of the most persistent rumors suggests that Jaime will die by episode 4.)

As for the rumor that Sophie Turner puts forward about the episode being 90 minutes long, we can’t confirm or deny that either way. Iain Glen has spoken a lot about the length of the episodes, and with an 11-week shoot for just this battle, it wouldn’t be that much of a surprise. Watch HBO’s schedule — this episode will air April 28, so it might pop up sooner rather than later, and we’ll know how much we need to prepare for the episode.

Finally, even the opening for the article, which makes jokes about dragons, is probably a spoiler. That’s because what’s believed to be the Winterfell set? Got set on fire. Twice. Possibly more than twice, considering how much effort went into all of this.

We also know about a possibly flaming catapult that was used, and there’s a distinct possibility of flaming swords, in the plural.

Even though the story focuses on this battle, the covers are essentially just new portraits, mostly picking up on some of the costume stories we found in last week’s posters:

Of course, the cover featuring the Clegane brothers might finally tease the long-awaited battle between the two. It’s been rumored for years, but it still keeps popping up now and then in the run up to season 8.

Don’t get too excited just yet, fans; it may be just another tease. But here’s hoping we get a little one-on-one fighting, even if it has to wait for the Battle of Winterfell.

Game of Thrones premieres on April 14.