There Are Season 8 Clues in Nathalie Emmanuel's Emotional Farewell to the Game of Thrones Cast

Updated on 7/8/2018 at 7:20 AM

Editor's note: the following contains serious spoilers for Game of Thrones.

While the world laments the struggle having to go more than a year without Game of Thrones as its eighth and final season films, the show's cast and crew are experiencing an entirely different sort of sadness. Series stars who have spent nearly a decade of their lives filming the epic fantasy show are now faced with life after Game of Thrones — and it's an exceptionally emotional prospect. For actress Nathalie Emmanuel, who plays Missandei, wrapping the series and saying farewell to the GOT cast and crew warranted a tearjerker of an Instagram post, which, luckily for us, is littered with potential hints about season eight.

Grab your tissues and your tinfoil hats, because we're diving deep into the implications of Emmanuel's sweet-yet-devastating post. Spoiler alert: one of your favorite characters is almost certainly going to die.

Her emotional farewell post.

To celebrate wrapping the series, Emmanuel posted a photo of several castmates watching the sunrise together in Belfast, Ireland. "When you see the sunrise over Belfast with the people who, over the last 6 years, have become family . . . in a city that now feels like home," she captioned the image, continuing, "A new day marks new beginnings. Ain't that the truth . . . Love you all you crazy kids."

Several of her costars have also shared their sorrow about the series ending, including onscreen-BFF Emilia Clarke. The finale isn't even here yet and we're already ready to weep! (But that won't stop us from speculating about a few of the details about Emmanuel's special goodbye post, of course.)

The cast and crew whom she tagged are significant.

So, who'd she call out in her post? Some of the cast, like Kit Harington and Peter Dinklage, don't have social media and therefore were left out of the mix. But among those who do, Emmanuel highlighted an extensive list:

Raleigh Ritchie, aka Jacob Anderson — Grey Worm
Maisie Williams — Arya Stark
Sophie Turner — Sansa Stark
Emilia Clarke — Daenerys Targaryen
Alfie Allen — Theon Greyjoy
Nickolaj Coster-Waldau — Jaime Lannister
Lena Headey — Cersei Lannister
Issac Hempstead Wright — Bran Stark
Joe Dempsie — Gendry Baratheon
John Bradley — Samwell Tarly
Liam Cunningham — Ser Davos Seaworth
Gwendoline Christie — Brienne of Tarth
Kristofer Hivju — Tormund Giantsbane
Sibel Kekilli — Shae
Gemma Whelan — Yara Greyjoy
Daniel Portman — Podrick Payne
Pilou Asbaek — Euron Greyjoy
Finn Jones — Loras Tyrell
Bella Ramsey — Lyanna Mormont
Bryan Cogman, a writer for the show

While some of these shout-outs are expected — of course she'd tag Emilia Clarke — others are a bit out of left field.

So far, Missandei has not shared any screentime with Lyanna Mormont, so the shout-out might mean that the feisty young character will become a more prominent figure in season eight. Plus, Emmanuel tagged a few actors whose characters have been killed off of the show and never shared any screentime with Missandei, such as Shae and Loras Tyrell . . . so what does it all suggest? Perhaps there will be significant flashback sequences in the final season!

Cogman, the writer tagged in Nathalie's post, has directed several Daenerys-heavy episodes, such as "Stormborn" in season seven. (You might recall the significant sex scene between Missandei and Grey Worm from the same episode.) While Cogman isn't set to direct during the eighth season, he might have had a significant hand in writing it — plus, Cogman is writing the script for one of the highly anticipated GOT spinoff series currently in the works.

"We shall never see your like again."

At the end of her emotional Instagram caption, Emmanuel added a hashtag reading: "We shall never see your like again." If this rings familiar, that's because it's not the first time it's been said by a GOT cast member — it's a part of the Night's Watch funeral eulogy spoken before burning a fallen brother's body. Dark, eh?

While this may simply be a reference to the incomparable experience of working with such a great cast and crew for nearly a decade, we can't help but wonder: does it hold any dark foreshadowing for deaths in the finale? Well, now that you mention it . . .

The timing of this goodbye post makes us seriously scared for Daenerys.

Is anybody else concerned about the two-week difference between Emilia Clarke and Nathalie Emmanuel's goodbye posts? Clarke posted her own heartfelt message about wrapping the show on June 17, while Nathalie didn't say her own goodbye to the series until July 1. The discrepancy between these timelines could mean that Emmanuel had more scenes to shoot after Clarke wrapped . . . which makes us seriously concerned that Daenerys, who is rarely apart from her right-hand woman Missandei, could meet an unfortunate end during the final season.

Guess we'll have to wait until 2019 to find out. Catch us overanalyzing every possible plot hint until then!