'Game Of Thrones' Season 8 May Feature A Blazing Inferno And A Surprising Pregnancy Twist

Game of Thrones' eighth and final season doesn't hit the small screen until sometime in 2019, and when it does, it will only consist of six episodes. That means it'll have the fewest number of episodes of any season of the fantasy series (although each of those episodes could end up being feature-length). Still, a vague release in 2019 is still a long way away, which leaves plenty of time for rabid fans to uncover major spoilers.

And now it looks like a big leak from the new season has arrived, along with another significant spoiler that could change the game entirely. Read on if you're okay with knowing about some potentially huge Game of Thrones season 8 spoilers a year before the final season debuts.

Here's one last chance to avoid spoilers. If you're reading these words through halfway-closed eyes because you're on the fence about knowing what happens, look away now!

Okay, now that we're all on the same page, here's what you need to know. Esquire points us to an article from GoT fan site Watchers on the Wall, who have tracked down a video of one of the show's most beloved sets being engulfed in flames:

Despite the person's text in the video, that is indeed Winterfell that's on fire. And as you can see, this is not a "someone dropped a torch and a rug caught fire" mishap, but more of a "oh shit, this entire place is going up in smoke" inferno. Another site, Belfast Live, reports that the fire was part of a battle sequence that involved 400 to 500 extras, which would rival any battle scene in Game of Thrones history.

Now we're just left to speculate. We saw the Night King and an undead Viserion burning down The Wall in the season 7 finale, so has that dangerous duo continued south and turned their flames on Winterfell next? Or could this be the result of a battle between Daenerys and Cersei, with Jon's adopted home caught in the middle? Or, even juicier, might this be collateral damage in an epic breakup between Jon and Dany? We know Dany can be ruthless – could she be ruthless enough to turn her own flames upon Winterfell if the situation called for it?

There is one more possibility, however unlikely: this might also be one of the fake endings that the series is reportedly planning that are designed to throw people off the scent of the story's real conclusion. If that's the case here, that would be incredibly elaborate, but I'm not prepared to say the production team isn't capable of going to extreme lengths to protect the finale of one of the biggest shows in TV history.

Elsewhere, TVLine has a tantalizing report about a huge pregnancy twist. "The unlikely pregnancy will have more than a few implications, both dramatic and darkly comedic," they say, and though viewers will immediately make an assumption about the identity of the baby's father, that assumption may be misguided. The site doesn't specifically mention that it's Game of Thrones, but they do describe it as "a wildly popular Emmy-winning series on a premium cable network" that returns in 2019, so it's almost certainly Game of Thrones.

My first thought went to Dany and Jon's boat sex at the end of season 7, since the "dramatic and darkly comedic" implications could arise when the two discover that they're related. And it'd be an "unlikely" pregnancy because Dany is supposed to be barren after the curse put on her by the deceitful Mirri Maz Duur back in season one.

But I almost forgot about Cersei's reveal that she was pregnant in last year's finale. That could also be the pregnancy in question here, and if that's the case, the notion of the father not being who we think it is (read: Jaime) makes me wonder who the hell else Cersei would have been bumping uglies with. Qyburn? The Mountain? What horrors lie in store for us when Game of Thrones returns? I can't wait to find out.