Game of Thrones Season 7 is breaking the rules in every way. It's long since departed from George R.R. Martin's books, not least because there are no more books to draw from (write The Winds of Winter, GRRM), and it's releasing in summer instead of spring (we're going insane!!!).

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, several key cast members said that Season 7 will break from tradition as the show builds momentum for the Season 8 conclusion -- and that it's going to shock fans around the world.

“I feel like I’d been lulled into a different pace,” Nikolaj Coster-Waldau told EWof reading the Season 7 scripts. “Everything happened quicker than I’m used to…a lot of things that normally take a season now take one episode.”

That's sensible on the writers' part since the've got seven episodes to work with instead of the usual 10, but also means the show will abandon any illusion of having chill (see also: "Hold the door" was Season 6 episode 5, and the infamous "Purple Wedding" happened in Season 4 episode 3).

“This season is really different than any other season because it’s accelerating toward the end, a lot of stuff collides and happens much much quicker than you’re used to seeing on Thrones," Kit Harington also told EW. "It’s so different than what everybody is used to. It’s quite exciting.”

“For a long time we’ve been talking about ‘the wars to come,'” added showrunner David Benioff. “Well, that war is pretty much here. So it’s really about trying to find a way to make the storytelling work without feeling like we’re rushing it."

We're not in a rush, but we can't wait.

Game of Thrones returns July 16.