How Many Seasons Will HBO's Game of Thrones Receive?

By any metric, HBO's Game of Thrones is one of the most popular shows on television. The Season 5 premiere last Sunday set a new ratings record for the series, and buzz continues to grow about the happenings in Westeros.

But how many seasons can this show realistically receive? "We could go another four years," showrunner David Benioff told Variety.

Don't get excited, though.

"But the one thing that really got us excited when we pitched this to HBO was that this isn't just a regular series. It's a real story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. We know what the end is, and we're barreling towards it," he continued. "So the idea that we're going to try and stretch it out by an extra couple years just because we're all having a good time doing it and people are making money off it just feels like it would be a betrayal."

There's also the issue of the source material, which has been a headache for fans for more than a year now. Author George R.R. Martin is notoriously slow at publishing the books in A Song of Ice and Fire and it seems almost certain that the series will pass the books sooner or later.

"We've had a lot of conversations with George, and he makes a lot of stuff up as he's writing it," Benioff said. "Even while we talk to him about the ending, it doesn't mean that that ending that he has currently conceived is going to be the ending when he eventually writes it."

But if you're upset about the impending end of the series, perhaps this analogy from Benioff and fellow showrunner D.B. Weiss will help you feel better.

"It's like sometimes you'll be at a party, and you're surrounded by people you love and you're having a great time and it's late and you're like, ‘I should go home, but man, this is a great party,'" Weiss said. "And then you have another beer and you have a martini, and then it's 6:30 in the morning and you're like, ‘Why the f---k am I still at this party?'"

"You wake up ashamed and covered in your own feces," Benioff added.

"We want to go home before that happens," Weiss concluded.

What do you make of the showrunners' remarks? When would you like Game of Thrones to end? Let us know in the comments section.