'Game of Thrones' star Kit Harington thinks Season 7 will get 'very dark'

Warning: Game of Thrones Season 6 spoilers below.

LONDON -- The Game of Thrones calendar has come round full circle.

We had the steady, tense build-up to Season 6, the explosive joy of the 10-week season itself and then the instant, crushing emptiness that followed the final episode and the grim realisation that it's another 10 whole months before we can find out what happens next.

Now, though, we're back to the beginning of the cycle: the bit where the cast start to share their thoughts about what the upcoming season might have in store ahead of filming.

Kit Harington (a.k.a. everyone's favourite bastard, Jon Snow), recently spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about what he thinks the future might hold for the Thrones gang (spoiler: he reckons there's going to be even more misery).

"It's important to stress at this point that I haven't had any scripts, so this is all guesswork for me," Harington told The Hollywood Reporter.

"I think it's going to get very bleak before if there is a happy ending. If there's any sort of win or heroic moment for Jon and everyone else.

"I think it's going to get very dark before it gets better."

Harington finished by saying that he thinks we'll see the white walkers and their army of the undead coming into force in Season 7.

"That's going to be exciting to see," he said. "I don't know what it means.

"I think the whole 'winter is finally here' business, it means everyone is going to have a really bad time."

So there you have it. If you were under the impression that things might finally be looking up for Jon Snow & Co., maybe it's time to lower those expectations.

Then again, anyone who has seen the first six seasons of the show will know that cheerful optimism is a dangerous thing in George R. R. Martin's world; just when you think things might finally be looking up (ie. when Jon Snow finally kills Ramsay and the Stark family begin to re-unite at last), that's when something horrendous comes out of the blue and takes you by surprise.