Thursday morning, HBO received 9 Golden Globe nominations for prestige offerings such as Sharp Objects, Succession, and Barry. To this, the network said, "Thank U, Next." Thursday night, HBO went nuclear and dropped the first teaser for the final season of Game of Thrones, which premieres in April 2019.
No, there's not much to see in the teaser — what, you thought they'd make predicting the finale easy? — and we certainly have zero ideas who'll be left on the Iron Throne at the end of the show. A quick thought: What if it's no one? What if the Iron Throne is melted down to make weapons for the impending battle against wights and White Walkers, where humanity will fight the Night King's army? What then of Westeros? Conversely, what if the series ends with Jon Snow (Kit Harington) sitting on his aunt Dany's (Emilia Clarke) lap, and we all say "aww" because Kit Harington is small?
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Anyway, what we can see are ice and fire rapidly consuming the map in the show's iconic opening credits. The ice consumes the Stark direwolf. A dragon, possibly Viserion, who was turned into a zombie dragon by the Night King at the end of season 7, is also engulfed by ice. Although since Viserion is already an ice dragon, it could be one of Daenerys' two remaining children, Drogon or Rhaegal, or a symbol for the dragon queen herself being defeated.
The fire turns the Lannister lion to ashes as it creeps across the map of Westeros.
Finally, the two collide, harkening back to the book's original theme: a song of ice and fire. Sharp black crags rise when they meet. The camera zooms out. Cut to: Game of Thrones, the final season, April 2019. The ice slowly disappears on the left side of the screen. The fire fades out on the right. We're left counting down the days until April.
Watch for yourself and try to make sense of it all: