Game of Thrones fans are in waiting. The forthcoming Winds of Winter novel has yet to find a release date and the acclaimed HBO show based off George R.R. Martin’s epic series is between seasons.
The future of the show is also in a weird kind of flux that may be better attributed to hype than hard facts. According to Entertainment Weekly, which reached out to HBO programming president Casey Bloys, Game of Thrones will conclude after season 8.
Hours later, BuzzFeed reported that an HBO rep confirmed the existence of season 8 but not that it would be Game of Throne‘s last, instead stating that “Casey [Bloys] did confirm Season 8, but didn’t really say for sure that’s the end.” EW has yet to address their initial report in light of BuzzFeed’s news and outlets like the New York Times have picked up on the final season as fact.
So, what’s a fan to believe?
If you dig into the semantics of Bloys’ initial comment, that “yes, they have a very specific plan about the number of seasons they want to do,” then yes, there’s a chance that Game of Thrones could continue well past its next two truncated seasons. The current plan appears to make season 8 the end of the show but anything could happen, right?
That makes the news of Bloys being open to a spin-off show even more exciting. “It’s something I’m not opposed to, but of course it has to make sense creatively,” Bloys told Entertainment Weekly, adding that showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss were more focused on the forthcoming season of Game of Thrones than a future spin-off of the show. “The guys weren’t opposed to it, but there’s no concrete plans for it at this point.”
Here’s hoping.