Two years ago, in 2017, the last episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones Season 7 had left its fans perplexed, in anticipation of what will happen next. Will the Seven Kingdoms together be able to conquer the Knight King and his army? Will everyone’s dearest Jon Snow and Daenerys realize they’re related? Will the Mother of Dragons ever sit on the iron throne? As the finale season, 8 is set to be released on April 14, everyone seems to be speculating, discussing, judging and trying to predict the verdict of the show.

In the last episode of HBO’s fantasy epic TV series, the ‘army of the dead’ had marched and attacked the millennium-old great Wall of the North. The only barrier between the ‘alive’ and ‘dead’ was demolished by the Night King’s white dragon. At the end of that episode, many of the Men at the Night’s Watch and wildling fighters stationed there were likely to be killed in the dramatic bloodbath.

The fan’s favrourite wildling fighter, Tormund Giantsbane, a role played by Kristofer Hivju, also seemed to be running for his life from the wildling attack on the wall as well, leaving the audience with a question whether he would make it to the next season or not?

Speaking about this, Giantsbane had said in a 2017 interview to Elle: “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. Somehow, I don’t believe it. Somehow, it looks like it’s a fall you can’t survive. But people have asked me if characters like Beric and Tormund die, why wouldn’t they show that? And then, in another way, it’s a horrible way to end a season, by killing two people and showing that death. So they kept it in the air. But still, I don’t know! He may be dead.”

On the ending of the show, he commented this time that the audience would experience a wide spectrum of emotions after the season’s finale. “I think people will be everything: some people will be sad, some people will be happy because maybe their theory went right. Some people will cry and some people will destroy their TV. I think people will react in many different ways.”

Some reports even say visions of one of the main characters, Daenerys Targaryen, in the previous seasons in the House of the Undying might translate into the conclusion of Game of Thrones season 8.

Death looms large over Game of Thrones since the very beginning as countless characters died like flies. Still, some major players have felt untouchable along the way and some came back from their death. What fate awaits them? The last season of the show with its unpredictable storyline and larger than life characters might have the answer.