Game of Thrones season 8 first photo and details: 'It's about defining the person they want to be in the face of certain death'

The first set photo from Game of Thrones season 8 has arrived, and it's sexy, tense, and - depending on your tolerance for incestuous relationships - a bit gross. Just like the rest of Game of Thrones! Entertainment Weekly shared the new image, the cover for its November 9 issue, which shows Daenerys and Jon embracing as they look out at something rather ominously. Maybe an army full of frozen dead people or something? Just spitballing. 

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I'm going to talk a bit about what this image could mean, so beware, spoilers for Game of Thrones season 7 lie beyond this point. We left Jon and Daenerys soon after they'd consummated their budding romance, a sex scene that was mercilessly intercut with Sam and Bran discussing just how closely related the pair is. You know, by blood. Because they're actually aunt and nephew. But this photo seems to show the two still romantically interlinked, so either they haven't found out yet or they have and just figured, "eh, at least it's less weird than Jaime and Cersei."

Unfortunately, aside from the fact that those two characters are very much still in the snowy north, there aren't too many other details to draw from the image as we wait for the final season to begin next year. Co-executive producer Bryan Cogman was kind enough to share a little more insight about season 8 with Entertainment Weekly, thankfully.

“It’s about all of these disparate characters coming together to face a common enemy, dealing with their own past, and defining the person they want to be in the face of certain death,” Cogman said. “It’s an incredibly emotional haunting bittersweet final season and I think it honors very much what [author George R.R. Martin] set out to do - which is flipping this kind of story on its head.”

While you wait for more confirmed details, check out the best Game of Thrones theories to get your own speculation engines firing.

Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.