Ahead of that, HarperCollins Australia — who publish the juggernaut that kicked it all off, George RR Martin’s epic fantasy saga — invited four of his fellow authors to write how they think the story will end.

Vote for your favourite option or write your own version and share it with us.

VOTE: Choose your favourite ending in the panel at the bottom of the story

SUBMIT: Give us your ideal Thrones ending. Email it to GameOfThrones@news.com.au

Game of Thrones Season Eight: Each new episode on Monday at 11am AEST, only on Foxtel.  

DAN O’MALLEY

And so the armies of the living and the dead came together in battle.

Brienne of Tarth and Jaime Lannister took mortal wounds defending Sansa Stark. Unable to bear the thought of rising as white walkers and turning on their fellows, Brienne beheaded her comrade, and then buried her Valerian steel blade in her stomach. She died true to her oaths.

The Lady Sansa fell shortly after.

Bran Stark died on a hill overlooking the battlefield. His guards reported that he had snarled in his palanquin, and at that moment, hundreds of wights shattered.

Daenerys Targaryen and her dragon Drogon tore the revenant Viserion down from the skies, dying in fire and blood. Before they could be resurrected as enemies, Jon Snow killed the Night King with his sword Longclaw, and then succumbed to his wounds. The army of the dead fell.

Cersei Lannister died in King’s Landing, waiting for news of the battle. The last words she heard were, “Lord Varys and I are so sorry.”

The houses of Stark and Targaryen had led the united armies of the seven kingdoms, and of those two houses, only Arya Stark survived. She refused the throne.

“That’s not a mask I want to wear,” she said, a raven preening on her shoulder.

Tyrion Lannister, the third head of the dragon, had been the next choice for the throne, but he also refused. He was not fit, he said, and since he said it from the back of a hissing Rhaegal, the last dragon in Westeros, no one questioned him.

It fell to the last member of the Court of Fire and Ice. Born into poverty in Flea Bottom, he had been a smuggler, a knight, a lord, an admiral, and Hand to two kings and a queen. Davos Seaworth. The Onion Knight.

Seaworth knew from personal experience the cruelties of the nobility and the hardships of the smallfolk. He came to the throne as a man who did not look to what the kingdom owed him, but how to make it work, for everyone.

His plump wife, Marya, the daughter of a carpenter, proved an unexpectedly able queen. She brooked no nonsense in her court. She decided the King’s Hand needed a bride, and she matched Lord Tyrion to a clever, lusty lady. Their first child, a daughter, had Lannister-golden hair and grew to be long and strong of limb.

Melisandre, the red woman, whom Seaworth had always loathed, could not be denied a place on the small council. Her magic against the white walkers had inspired a sizeable following.

“You didn’t see this in your flames, did you, woman?” Seaworth asked her from atop the iron throne. She smiled, and said nothing, and he suddenly wondered how events had conspired always to place her near him.

Seaworth ruled the kingdoms as he’d captained his fleet, practical and fair, with no tolerance for backstabbing or politicking.

“Aye. The best way to win that game of thrones is not to play.”

Dan O’Malley is the author of The Rook and Stiletto, published by HarperCollins Australia.

JO SPURRIER

After the fall of Eastwatch Winterfell is braced for conflict, but the Night King’s army has another target in mind. In King’s Landing, Cersei awaits Euron’s mercenaries, far more focused on holding Westeros than preparing for any threat from the north --- after all, the Night King’s army must go through Winterfell before it gets to her. The mercenaries arrive in flurries of snow, while blue-eyed monstrosities advance through the drifts and the wight dragon glides silently overhead.

Some in the north are very concerned with Cersei’s fate. Jaime has deserted his sister but she remains the only woman he has ever loved. Tyrion is deeply conflicted, feeling the pull of kinship to his unborn niece or nephew, and once he realises where the army of the dead are going he is compelled to act. A small expedition heads south, Arya using her skills to infiltrate the Red Keep. Jaime hopes to make Cersei see reason, but Arya has a different plan: someone has to make sure the people of King’s Landing don’t join the army of the dead …

While Arya and the Hound draw Zombie Mountain away to his death, Jaime pleads with the queen; but she can’t conceive of giving up the throne that has cost her so much. With the dead swarming the walls Cersei utters words that Jaime has heard before: Burn them all. Cersei dies by Jaime’s hand, her unborn child with her, and to save them from icy undeath he lays her on a burning pyre, and as the dead storm through the keep he joins her there. The city burns with Wildfire, flames consuming the living and the dead alike. Arya and whoever else survived escape on one of Euron’s ships.

At Winterfell, Dany and Jon are married, and her belly swells bigger by the day. She’s carrying twins, boy and girl, born as the armies of the dead close around Winterfell. Daenerys rises from her bloody bed and takes Drogon to meet the threat, fighting Viserion in the skies. The wight dragon is destroyed, but at great cost, as Drogon falls, dying, with Dany still on his back. Jon cannot help her, though, as the Night King has survived the aerial battle and Jon must go to face him.

But as Jon and the Night King fight, Bran has a vision. Casting back thousands of years to the last time the Night King and his kind marched on the living, Bran witnesses the truce that was made to halt that conflict, and sees what must be done to end it now.

As the battle rages at the gates of Winterfell, a figure emerges with a tiny bundle in its arms -- Sam, his eyes cast white as Bran guides him, carrying Jon and Dany’s infant son. ‘It’s the only way,’ Bran says with Sam’s voice. ‘He is the Prince who was Promised, the Night King’s heir. He belongs to them.’ Jon fights and rages, but he cannot prevent the child from being delivered to the White Walkers and becoming the new Night King.

Dany, mortally wounded, lives long enough to see the army of the dead retreating. She dies knowing they were victorious, but with no idea what it cost to win. In cold fury, Jon exiles Bran, who returns to the cave where he met Bloodraven, taking his teacher’s place among the roots of the weirwood trees. Haunted by the cost of victory, Jon renounces any claim to the throne, and once again takes up the mantle of Lord Commander of the Nights Watch, standing guard upon the wall.

In King’s Landing, Sansa becomes regent for the infant queen, with Tyrion as her hand. Nearby, Rhaegal broods over a clutch of new-laid eggs.

Jo Spurrier is the author of A Curse of Ash and Embers, published by HarperCollins Australia.

KIM WILKINS

When trying to predict what will happen in the Martinverse, the one thing we can say for sure is that it will be unpredictable. But I’m betting on the final season proving the old saying ‘There must always be a Stark in Winterfell’.

The Wall has been breached and the White Walkers and Army of the Dead are definitely coming. Remember when we first started seeing the White Walker army pushing more violently forward? It was after Theon Greyjoy and then the Boltons took over the Stark ancestral home. Remember how Bran “spoke” to his own young father while warging through the past? So time does not always flow in one direction. Now watch …

The war will start in the north and Winterfell will be the first stop for the Night King. The crypts are deep and rambling underneath the castle, with plenty of places for Sansa, Arya and Bran (and everyone else) to hide from the icy invaders during the siege. Bran will do some Three-Eyed Raven magic to try to warg back in time and stop the Night King raising his zombie army. Jon and Daenerys will lead their combined armies against the White Walkers, despite having just found out (awkward!) that they are aunty and nephew, thereby killing all passion or perhaps inflaming it because this is Game of Thrones. The Night King will head into the crypts to find Bran because (big reveal) the Night King is Bran Stark! He warged too hard, got stuck, and the Night King’s arrival at Winterfell simply closes the loop when they physically arrive in the same location and become the same person.

As their armies start to fall and Daenerys says they must pull back, Jon goes to the crypt to find his family. He has an opportunity to kill Bran/the Night King, but can’t because it’s his brother. Big mistake, Jon Snow! Winterfell falls.

The battle front now moves to King’s Landing. Cersei is forced to accept Jon and Daenerys’s help, and the help of everybody else who has an army or a bastard son who can hold a spear. The battle will be spectacular, with dragons fighting zombie dragons, and lots of characters we love and love to hate dying in interesting cruel and medieval ways. For example, an arrow in the eye (like King Harold 1066); a tooth wound from the severed head of a foe (like Sigurd Eysteinsson 892); or having a red-hot iron crown shoved on one’s scalp (like Ambassador John Patrick of Scotland 1384).

Cersei will kill the Night King and die spectacularly doing so: perhaps falling gracefully off a turret into a raging fire. Which reminds me, iron melts in fire. If those dragons really get heated up, we might see the iron throne reduced to a puddle.

In the end Daenerys will take the throne and set her dragons free. Jon will head back to rebuild Winterfell. Brienne will marry Tormond (I WILL MAKE THIS HAPPEN SO HELP ME!). Sansa will marry someone nice. Arya will get a new dog. The end.

Kim Wilkins is the author of many novels including Daughters of the Storm and Sisters of the Fire. Her new book, Queens of the Sea, published by HarperCollins Australia, will be on sale in August.

ALAN BAXTER

There are two obvious endings for Game Of Thrones: Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen rule together. Good because dragons, bad as it’s too easy. Or Jaime and Cersei Lannister rule together. Historically viable, but boring. If I were writing it, I’d go with the Starks.

Sansa has had enough and refuses to take it anymore. She insists the only way to survive is together. Daenerys knows the threat is real, her hubris cost her a dragon. Sansa will convince Daenerys to bring her dragons, thereby rallying all of Westeros. Between them they’ll destroy the Night King, and halt the white walkers while Cersei sits on an impotent throne. She expects to continue ruling after the war.

However, as Sansa rises into her role as leader, Arya travels south. Changing faces, she’ll assassinate everyone in her sister’s way. Tyrion sees what’s happening. While a good fit for the throne himself, and though he vouches for Daenerys’s claim, he’ll see the lay of the land and preserve his life rather than challenge Arya. He hopes Daenerys will take her dragons south after the Night King is dead and take the throne. But Tyrion loves Jaime and will get word to him to run. Arya kills her way to King’s Landing, taking out Gendry Baratheon and Varys along the way.

Reaching the Iron Throne, she finds Jaime has vanished, taking his infant son from Cersei’s breast, right after the incestuous child was born. No one knows where they are. So Arya puts on Jaime’s face and assassinates Cersei, fulfilling the Valonqar prophecy.

During the last efforts of the campaign in the north, Sansa gets word from Arya that the throne is ready. Arya, wearing Cersei’s face, will keep it warm. Sansa follows her sister’s bloody path and seats herself upon the throne.

Daenerys comes to challenge and Sansa suggests she take the throne if she really wants it. Jon Snow reminds Daenerys that all the work she did freeing slaves could make her an empress. She’s never properly known Westeros, what’s left for her there? She could be Supreme Ruler of everything from Braavos to Qarth, with Jon Snow her husband and Hand. But she refuses to give up the claim she’s fought her whole life for. Jon Snow slits Daenerys’s throat right there in the throne room, then Arya removes her Jon Snow face. The real Jon Snow, in a King’s Landing dungeon, will be released by his sisters later. The dragons leave.

We finish with Sansa Stark, Queen of all Westeros, on the Iron Throne, Arya Stark her Hand. Sansa, keeping enemies close, offers to remarry Tyrion as she suspects only he knows where Jaime and the heir are (and he was the only one decent to her). So they don’t have to actually be together, she gives him the position of Warden of the North. Until Bran returns to take his rightful legacy.

For a while, perhaps peace will reign in the land. But probably not. After all, Azor Ahai is yet to be reborn.

Alan Baxter is author of The Alex Caine Series and Devouring Dark, published by HarperCollins Australia.