Hooooo boy, you can feel the escalating hype for Game of Thrones season 8 in the air today, with the news of the exact release month (lol) dropping now joined by a reddit Ask Me Anything with longtime director David Nutter.

Nutter is the man who has brought some of the most scintillating and WTF moments of GoT to your screens including the Red Wedding and the death of Jon Snow and also directed half of the impending final season meaning there was a LOT to discuss on his AMA last night.

Below are seven of the spiciest takeaways from the lengthy online chat including tidbits on season 8’s premiere episode and how this whole shebang will conclude:

Direwolves Are Back Baby Awooooo!

Over the past few seasons of GoT, the beloved direwolves of the Stark fam have become featured less and less. Partly due to a lot of them straight up being murdered but also because the GFX budget has needed to increasingly be used on such necessities as giant dead zombie dragons, which, fair!

Fans absolutely froth the furry little angels though so in great news from the AMA, Nutter admits that at least one will be around writing “I have to say that you will see a direwolf in season 8. That’s all I can say”.

Yesssssssss. Now it will almost definitely be the noticeably absent direwolf of one Jon Snow, Ghost, who is pretty much the only one left in the playing field but still. Good Doggo News!

Who’s a little cutie pie?

Season 8 Spoiler Security Was Insane

We’ve already heard about some of the lengths HBO went to keep S8 spoilers out of the publics eyes, including drone guns on set and supposedly shooting multiple fake endings. Nutter expands on how tight security was on set revealing they didn’t even use paper scripts:

“It was limited viewing on many things. Not a lot of paper on the set, like none. No scripts were printed, we only used iPads and things of that nature. It was much more serious than in the past”.

The Season Premiere “Resets The Table”

His first time directing a premiere episode, Nutter discussed wanting to make a “splash” in the first entry of season 8, but that he was also aware of his responsibility to establish the playing field for the episodes ahead: “You have to reset the table, put everyone back in their place, you have to take them to their next position. But you have to entertain that’s what’s most important.”

From what we know about the opening of next season, self-appointed Queen Daenerys and her accidentally incesty new boo Jon Snow are arriving back to Winterfell to prepare for the oncoming fuck tonne of ice zombies. It makes sense that Nutter approached the premiere as very much a reset, as with only 6 episodes left there’s a lot to tie up.

“Let’s get that bread Jon!”

The Books Have Very Little Impact On S8

Ok so yes, I know that George R.R. Martin’s A Song Of Ice and Fire series got lapped by the TV version a couple of seasons back, so OBVIOUSLY there’s no exact source material that exists yet for season 8 to follow. More so than just that though is the reveal from Nutter that he’s never actually read any of the books as he prefers to work purely from the scripts.

“To me, the script is the beginning, middle, and end. I don’t read the books because I don’t want to have a different opinion or different approach from something that actually is written”, he writes, also admitting that taking on such epic book moments as the Red Wedding, was all the easier without the pressures of imitating the written scene.

Time Travel Isn’t Off The Table

Ugh, now personally I’m not a huge fan of the whole time travel trope in TV shows as I find it too often used as a lazy deus ex machina but admittedly the small amount we’ve seen so far in Game of Thrones hasn’t been too dramatic. Whilst we’ve seen Bran uses his powers as the Three-Eyed Raven to alter the future/present once (being responsible for Hodor’s… Hodorness) he mostly revisits the past just to so some light historical reading, which is fine really.

Nutter doesn’t go into detail but he did mention in his AMA “I’ll be the first to tell you that I have no time travel in my episodes. That’s the only clue I’m going to give you.” Very inconclusive! Thanks, Nutter!

The Reason For The Year Off Was Due To All The Bloody CGI

2018 has been a hellish non-stop nightmare for many reasons and definitely on that list is the lack of a new GoT season. HBO has released several reasons for the delay, all around the line of “doing what’s best for the show” whereas Nutter cuts straight to the point saying its all due to the insane amounts of visual effects.

Responding to a question on why we had to wait two years for S8, Nutter says “Visual effects! Things take time my friends — they take a lot of time to create and GoT is the last place you’re going to find half-baked work so it’s all about making sure they fill the frame with as much capacity as possible”. The takeaway from this? Expect unprecedented levels of everything GFX-related i.e. dragons, zombies, wildfire, magic, direwolves, explosions and more.

What he said.

The Series Finale Takes Fans Into Consideration

Asked about the final Game of Thrones episode ever Nutter reveals the showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss have absolutely nailed it and that fans will froth it. Whilst he doesn’t direct the last ep, he’s read the script and reckons you’re all gonna lose your god damn minds:

“I think that David and Dan did a tremendous job, and they took into consideration what the fans want, as well as what is right as far as storytelling is concerned. I guarantee there’s going to be lots of surprises and shocking moments, but it’s really very compelling stuff.”

My body has never been more prepared for anything. Game of Thrones returns to destroy us all April 2019.