The Old Thrills of <em>Game of Thrones</em> Might Be Gone for Good

This story contains spoilers for all seven seasons of Game of Thrones.

So here we are: Seven seasons and 67 episodes of Game of Thrones are in the rearview mirror. Only a half a dozen are still ahead of us, with the eighth and final season starting Sunday. Where do things stand?

The Night King and his army of the dead have breached the Wall, thanks to a conveniently mislaid and , and they’re headed south to kill everyone. Jon Snow has pledged fealty to would-be Queen Daenerys Targaryen, and the two have united to face the encroaching undead threat. What we know, though they don’t, is that Jon is himself (a) a Targaryen, (b) the rightful heir to the Iron Throne, and (c) Daenerys’s nephew—which makes the fact that the two jumped into the sack in last season’s finale simultaneously awkward and a very Targaryen thing to have done. Jon’s presumed (but not actual) half sisters, Sansa and Arya Stark, are running Winterfell in his absence and have yet to be