After enduring a protracted, borderline self-parodic training montage covered in hessian in Game of Thrones season 6, season 7 is set to see Arya Stark return to Westeros, vision restored, and reunite with what is left of her family.

Maisie Williams is understandably excited to get away from Braavos, and received the scripts for the new episodes this week.

In series of tweets she wrote (sic):

“just finished reading season 7 … shit gets REAL … i'd start preparing yourselves now … scratch that, nothing will prepare you for this … holy BALLS.”

You’d kind of hope that “shit gets real”, given that there are only 13 episodes of the show left.

Season 7 is expected to consist of seven episodes and will likely focus on the White Walker threat.

Kit Harington theorised as much with The Hollywood Reporter this week, saying:

“It's important to stress at this point that I haven't had any scripts, so this is all guess work for me. 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. I think what we might see this season is those White Walkers and that Army of the Dead really come into force. So that's going to be exciting to see. I don't know what it means. I think with the whole "winter is finally here" business, it means everyone is going to have a really bad time.”

Game of Thrones will return in 2017, albeit later than usual.