For Game of Thrones fans, winter is looking especially dark this year.
HBO on Sunday released the first teaser trailer for the series' eighth season, which features Jon Snow (Kit Harington), Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner), and Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) visiting the crypts of Winterfell and encountering statues of themselves that signal their own future deaths.
This being Game of Thrones, the cryptic teaser naturally spawned tons of fan theories. For instance, viewers immediately noticed that Jon's statue appears to age him, whereas Sansa's and Arya's come closer to capturing their present-day likenesses. Perhaps Harington's face was just difficult to accurately chisel, but could this alternatively symbolize the fact that Arya and Sansa will perish in Season 8, whereas Jon will live much longer?
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There's also the question of Bran Stark's absence in the trailer, which some fans are taking as evidence of a particularly wild long-standing theory: that Bran will actually become the Night King after getting stuck back in time at the end of the series. Of course, it could also be that Bran isn't here simply because he has fully become the Three-Eyed Raven and will never truly be a Stark again.
The teaser certainly shouldn't be taken as gospel, as the footage is really meant to symbolize what lies ahead rather than depict a scene from the show. But with three back-to-back clips being played that all tie into Jon Snow's parentage in some way, expect his realization of his lineage to be a massive turning point in the series.
Game of Thrones will return for its eighth season on April 14. Watch the teaser below. Brendan Morrow
