Aside from batches of mere seconds of new footage that were sprinkled into recent HBO montages, fans have been predictably met with a palpable lack of Game of Thrones trailers ahead of next month's Season 8 premiere. Tuesday, that dedication to mystery was temporarily paused with the release of the first full trailer for the beloved show's final season.
"I know death," Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) says in the trailer's opening moments. "He's got many faces. I look forward to seeing this one."
Up top, catch the new two-minute glimpse while meticulously pausing and screenshotting in search of plot clues and/or new desktop backgrounds. As fans noted ahead of the trailer's debut, timing its release for early March was a bit of a no-brainer given the fact that HBO has previously employed basically this exact same rollout schedule for Thrones.
Monday, viewers were inundated with a massive 16-cover Thronesdrop from Entertainment Weekly. Tucked into the accompanying interview was some stokedness-inducing insight on the ambition showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss are putting to use with the series finale, which they co-directed.
"It matters a lot to us," Weiss said. "We've spent 11 years doing this. We also know no matter what we do, even if it's the optimal version, that a certain number of people will hate the best of all possible versions. There is no version where everybody says, 'I have to admit, I agree with every other person on the planet that this is the perfect way to do this'—that's an impossible reality that doesn't exist."
For a model of how they hope the finale discussion goes down, Weiss pointed to a recent AMC closer that's certainly worth studying: Breaking Bad. "A good story isn't a good story if you have a bad ending," Benioff added.
Thrones is back on HBO April 14.
