It’s been almost two years, but the big day is almost here! The final season of Game of Thrones starts in just a couple of days
Let me just say upfront, I don’t watch Game of Thrones. Don’t hold it against me. But I had some help writing this episode, and that was from JR, who is an Game of Thrones fan extraordinaire. And there will be no spoilers—I won’t talk about the plot or what happens or anything like that. But today we’ll talk about this mega hit show and how crazy people are over the final season, which starts on Sunday.
Thanks for joining us for Plain English. This is episode 145, so you can find the transcript online at PlainEnglish.com/145. I think I promised a Japan-themed episode for today, but JR put his foot down and said we had to do Game of Thrones today since the finale starts on Sunday. So we’ll do the new era and the new emperor of Japan on Monday’s episode.
As you all know, Plain English is a great program for practicing and learning English. We have episodes every Monday and Thursday, and the full transcript, like I mentioned, is always available for free online at PlainEnglish.com.
Before we get started on today’s main content, I wanted to let all you Game of Thrones fans know there are lots of George R. R. Martin novels, including the books that formed the basis of the TV show Game of Thrones, available on Audible as audiobooks. So if you just can’t get enough of the show, you can listen to the books. I’ll tell you more about them later, but if you just can’t wait, head on over to PlainEnglish.com/book , read the details of how to sign up for your free trial, and start browsing the options.
Game of Thrones: the drama concludes this year
The international hit drama Game of Thrones is about to enter its final season. After waiting one year and eight months, fans will finally get to see how the series concludes.
The show is an adaptation of a series of fantasy novels from the 1990s called “A Song of Ice and Fire” by George R. R. Martin. The fantasy series has garnered a wide following both in the United States and abroad. It’s a fantasy novel set in medieval times on two fictional continents, Westeros and Essos. The main conflicts are between noble families, each vying for control of the Iron Throne—or independence from ruling families. Everyone wants to be the king or queen of the land called the Seven Kingdoms. And viewers take sides. JR is rooting for someone with a really long title. I’ll tell you who JR is rooting for, but I’m warning you in advance I don’t know what this means, but here we go. He’s rooting for Daenerys Targaryen, whose full name is Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, First of Her Name, the Unburnt, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Chains, and Mother of Dragons. That’s a mouthful. Game of Thrones includes its own fictional language called Dothraki, which has over 3,000 words in it.
In addition to comical titles, the show is high on battles, political intrigue, and complicated characters. There’s also a lot of death. JR’s advice is not to get too attached to any one character, because chances are that character is going to die.
The show has received 47 Primetime Emmy Awards, more than any other television drama. Game of Thrones has a cult following. That means, the people who like it—they love it! There’s no such thing as being indifferent about Game of Thrones. The fans, including JR, are extremely devoted to the show—I’ve never heard of anyone who just watches Game of Thrones once in a while. In Among the people who are enthusiastic fans are ex-US President Barack Obama, the singer Madonna, Prince William, Tom Brady, and Jay Z, who even bought a dragon egg for his wife Beyoncé. How romantic!
In the US, there are Game of Thrones theme nights at stadiums and right here in Chicago there’s even a bar that is turning itself into Westeros. At Replay in Lincoln Park, there’s a dragon, the drinks are on fire, and there’s even a replica of the Iron Throne. One brewery in New York State created a whole series of craft beers inspired by the show, so if you’re in the States, you can look for a beer called King in the North or Queen of the Seven Kingdoms by Ommegang Brewery. Last year, a hotel made of ice in Finland—yes, there is a hotel made of ice—that hotel worked with HBO to create Game of Thrones hotel rooms. People have even named their children after Game of Thrones characters. Some people are crazy for this show!
The season that begins on Sunday will be the eighth and final season. Fans have been waiting a year and eight months since the conclusion of season seven. The head of programming for HBO, Casey Bloys, said that the showrunners had a very specific vision for how long the series would go on. He joked that he would want another ten seasons for HBO, but the show’s creators wanted to stop after eight.
There will be only six episodes in this final season, but that doesn’t mean fans will be lacking for content. The first two episodes will be just under an hour each, but the final four episodes will be about an hour and twenty minutes each—almost the equivalent of a full movie, four weeks in a row.
HBO has been extremely tight-lipped about the final season. That’s because last year, they suffered a hack and some footage leaked on the internet before it aired. An anonymous user on Reddit leaked details of the entire plot of Season 7. Most of what leaked turned out to be accurate. So this year, they’re not taking any chances. They have only released a few promotional images of the show. One image shows a dragon’s face fused onto the Iron Throne; another shows all the characters as corpses lying half-buried in the snow. No footage has been released.
Producers have been so paranoid that they have taken extreme measures to keep the plot and ending a secret. HBO said that they filmed multiple endings to the series. They didn’t want to take any chances that the true ending would leak before the show airs. So they filmed multiple endings, and even the show’s actors don’t know which ending is the real one. They’ll have to wait until they watch it on TV like everyone else.
Security on set was extremely tight—they were not taking any chances with scripts being left around on set. Instead, the actors did final read-throughs of their lines on a super-secure app, which one person described as “triple locked.”
There were reports that paparazzi, celebrity photographers, were everywhere trying to get a view into what was happening when GOT was filming. To throw them off, the creators went so far as to film fake scenes.
I mentioned that I don’t watch Game of Thrones, so I can’t pretend to give you my opinion about what will happen. But we do know there will be a big battle scene—that’s pretty obvious to all GOT fans. The cast reportedly spent 55 nights shooting one battle scene outdoors, and then spent weeks more filming parts of it in a studio.
Here are a few more facts about this last season, in no particular order. Filming started in October 2017 and ended in July of 2018, so they spent almost a full year filming it. The budget was $15 million per episode; season 2 cost just $6 million per episode. All the episodes have an “Adult Content” warning except the first one. The calm before the storm, one writer suggested.
There is already talk of a spinoff. HBO confirmed that they are working on a pilot for a prequel to Game of Thrones, which would take place before the War of the Five Kings. HBO has said that the prequel won’t be on screens for a long time—good thing GOT fans are used to waiting long periods in between seasons.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The final season of Game of Thrones starts at 9:00 New York time on Sunday night, April 14 on HBO and will conclude on Sunday, May 19.
You’ve heard me mention Audible before. That’s the company that has all the audiobooks, which you can find at PlainEnglish.com/book . I went on the web site just to see if there was any Game of Thrones content on there. I had no idea George R. R. Martin had written so many books! Not only can you get the original book, called A Game of Thrones, but you can also get the others in the Song of Fire & Ice series. A Clash of Kings, Fire & Blood, A Storm of Swords, and on and on. And these are not short books, either. A Storm of Swords is 47 hours and 37 minutes. And many of you might like to listen in English, but they are also available in Spanish and German, too. So if you’re into Game of Thrones and want to listen to one of the books, just sign up for a free trial of Audible by going to PlainEnglish.com/book . In your first free month, you’ll get one audiobook to keep forever, for free. After that, if you remain a subscriber, you’ll get one audiobook every month. Try it out at PlainEnglish.com/book .
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