HBOIf we had our way, Game of Thrones would go on forever.
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and according to a Variety interview with executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, Game of Thrones is approaching that end more quickly than any of us would like.
"We could go another four years," Benioff said, getting our hopes up...only to crush them immediately after. "But the one thing that really got us excited when we pitched this to HBO was that this isn't just a regular series. It's a real story with a beginning, a middle, and an end.
"We know what the end is, and we're barreling towards it," he continued. "So the idea that we're going to try and stretch it out by an extra couple years just because we're all having a good time doing it and people are making money off it just feels like it would be a betrayal."
It also doesn't help that if the show continues much longer, Weiss and Benioff will no longer be able to use the framework from the books as the show is on-pace to catch up sooner rather than later.
"We've had a lot of conversations with George [R.R. Martin], and he makes a lot of stuff up as he's writing it," Benioff revealed. "Even while we talk to him about the ending, it doesn't mean that that ending that he has currently conceived is going to be the ending when he eventually writes it."
While in theory, we would love to have nine seasons of Game of Thrones, it also makes a lot of sense for the show to end after six or seven seasons. We'd rather have six seasons of excellent television than six seasons of excellent television followed by three seasons of a show that has run out of steam.
So even was we're all praying to the old gods to never have to say goodbye to one of the best shows on TV, ending it sooner rather than later might be best for all of us, as illustrated by Weiss' ridiculously perfect analogy:
"It's like sometimes you'll be at a party, and you're surrounded by people you love and you're having a great time and it's late and you're like, ‘I should go home, but man, this is a great party,'" he said. "And then you have another beer and you have a martini, and then it's 6:30 in the morning and you're like, ‘Why the f---k am I still at this party?'"
"You wake up ashamed and covered in your own feces," Benioff added.
"We want to go home before that happens," Weiss continued.
Who wouldn't?
Game of Thrones airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO.