Sunday's series finale of
Game of Thrones gives the surviving characters a fitting sendoff and wraps up their respective stories, but there is also some room to continue some of their arcs - Arya's, in particular.
At the very end of "The Iron Throne," the youngest Stark girl decides to set sail and explore "whatever is west of Westeros," and as divisive as the episode turned out to be, most fans agree that they would still return for the continuing adventures of the Night King-Slayer.
Well, that's probably never going to happen.
While speaking to
THR about the final season and HBO's plans for the future, HBO programming president Casey Bloys was asked of the idea of a direct sequel had ever been explored.
"Nope, nope, nope. No," was his rather definitive response.
"Part of it is, I do want this show — this Game of Thrones, Dan and David's show — to be its own thing. I don't want to take characters from this world that they did beautifully and put them off into another world with someone else creating it."
He continued,
"I want to let it be the artistic piece they've got. That's one of reasons why I'm not trying to do the same show over. George has massive, massive world; there are so many ways in. That's why we're trying to do things that feel distinct — and to not try and re-do the same show. That's probably one of the reasons why, right now, a sequel or picking up any of the other characters doesn't make sense for us."
Speaking of Arya Stark, actress Maisie Williams tells
EW that she was pleasantly surprised to find out that her character was getting a happy ending after being taken to such dark places over the years, but she does have one regret: not getting to kill Cersei.
“I just wanted to be on set with Lena again, she’s good fun. And I wanted Arya to kill Cersei even if it means [Arya] dies too. Even up to the point when Cersei’s with Jaime I thought [while reading the script], ‘He’s going to whip off his face [and reveal its Arya]’ and they’re both going to die. I thought that’s what Arya’s drive has been.”
Most fans probably expected something similar, to be fair!