Game Of Thrones: 8 Clues For How It Will (And Won't) End

Many have speculated that, after all that build-up, it’s just too easy for the Mother Of Dragons to arrive from over the ocean and retake her kingdom. Game Of Thrones delights in subverting that kind of traditional fantasy trope, right?

Last year’s decision to end the show in thirteen episodes left Benioff and Weiss with a ton of loose strands to tie together before the end game. By season six the Stark children were still adrift from one another, Daenerys had only met one of the other major players, and the White Walkers were still trapped behind the Wall. Political scheming and manoeuvering aside, this show isn’t famous for shifting a whole lot of plot.

Season seven’s abrupt shift in pace meant more than just bringing scattered characters together. It signified that Game Of Thrones no longer has the storytelling elbow room to mess about. With thirteen episodes left and counting, there’s no way that Daenerys was going to be fridged, and that ‘Mad Queen’ fan theory was nuttier than a squirrel’s turd.

No, the final six episodes will concentrate on delivering that most time-honoured of fantasy plot devices: chosen one takes the throne. Whether she has any dragons left by the time the credits roll is another thing entirely...