As the Wall came tumbling down in a roaring shower of ice, Tormund and Beric ran for their lives and stared in horror at the power of the White Walker army in the Season 7 finale of Game of Thrones. Despite the focus on those two characters, their fate was left up for interpretation, leaving some Game of Thrones fans worried about their status in Season 8.
Fans can probably put their worries aside, though. Tormund, portrayed by Kristofer Hivju, has become something of a superstar amongst GoT fans in the past couple of seasons, worming his way into people’s hearts via his gruff charm and love for Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie). And showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss already pulled this kind of “did they or didn’t they live” with Jaime Lannister earlier in Season 7, throwing him into the river and letting fans worry for a whole week about his fate.
Of course, Jaime made it out alive. So, while Tormund and Beric aren’t as vital to the story as Jaime has been for the past seven seasons, it seems unlikely that Benioff and Weiss would just kill them off. As popular as they are, and as invested as fans are in Tormund’s enormous crush on Brienne (“I want to make babies with her.”), it’s unlikely that either of these characters would make it out with such a simple death.
Plus, we saw an easy way they could have survived. As Insider’s Kim Renfro noted, there’s a section of the Wall that didn’t fall, where you can still see the Night’s Watch’s barricades. If Tormund and Beric were on that section of the Wall, they’re probably safe — for now. They’re still surrounded by hundreds of thousands of undead soldiers, but that’s a problem for Season 8.
If they magically show up gasping for breath at Winterfell to warn Westeros of its impending doom, then more power to them.
Game of Thrones Season 8 does not yet have a premiere date.
