Warning: This article contains a potential spoiler for the eighth and final season of Game of Thrones.
Set pictures teasing a potentially huge spoiler for the eighth and final season of Game of Thrones have leaked online.
The HBO saga won't return to screens until 2019, but filming for the final season is already well under way in Northern Ireland and fans may have just spotted something that will truly change the game.
The set for Winterfell is built on the Moneyglass Estate in County Antrim, and yesterday (January 31), the whole thing was pictured up in flames, along with reports of "200+ extras in a big battle scene".
Yep, it looks like Winterfell will burn – and may even be destroyed – in season eight.
Winterfell is the ancestral home of House Stark and also where the whole Game of Thrones actually began, with Littlefinger effectively triggering the War of the Five Kings within its very grounds.
Season seven left off with Winterfell being ruled by Sansa, alongside her siblings Arya and Bran.
Perhaps crucially, the location is also where Daenerys, Jon and pretty much every major GoT character excluding Cersei and Jaime (and possibly Tormund and Beric) were heading at the end of the last season, leaving all of them at risk of perishing.
So, if Winterfell truly is burning, then why?
Well, it's simply too early to say, as there are a variety of possible explanations.
Given that Game of Thrones used real fire whilst filming both the sixth and seventh season finale (and altered the images using CGI in post), both wildfire and those ice dragon blue flames are on the table for possible causes of the (still hypothetical) Winterfell fire.
Although, with Daenerys and her dragons also en route, it's more than possible they are responsible for starting the fire.
Whatever the reason, it's going to be quite a long time before we get confirmation, so let the speculation continue.
