Stranger Things has just one more episode left in the tank, which means, for the particularly fearful fans among us, one more chance for the show to make some big sacrifices in its final season to stop Vecna once and for all. The show has definitely been teasing the potential for some big tragedies to occur, but fear not, aforementioned fearful fans: you won’t necessarily spend your New Year’s Eve in horror as Hawkins’ finest get wiped out.

“It’s not Game of Thrones. We’re not in Westeros. I love Game of Thrones, but it’s just a very different type of show than that,” Matt Duffer recently flatly told The Hollywood Reporter about the fatal stakes coming into the final episode of the show. “There’s not going to be a Red Wedding situation.”

Instead, the showrunners want the show’s end to focus on a feeling of satisfaction, rather than necessarily shock value. “I think some things happen in the finale that are very surprising, but we’re not trying to shock or upset anyone,” Duffer continued. “I hope by the time people get to the end of the finale that it just feels like there’s something inevitable about what happens, and that it doesn’t feel painful but feels satisfying. We’ll see.”

But for all that talk of less pain and more resolution, that doesn’t necessarily mean there won’t be a final sacrifice by anyone on the show… and that it still won’t be a prominent character. The Duffer brothers are painfully aware that poor Steve Harrington has been getting death flag after death flag spotted by fans as the show’s progressed, making him an oft-dreaded candidate for most likely to die in the series finale—but naturally they’re still staying mum until the credits roll on if he’ll make it out of the show in one piece.

“But as for Steve’s fate. I don’t know. I can’t say. It would be the next logical step. He keeps getting beaten up more and more,” Matt Duffer joked. “The only way we could take it further is death.”

The final episode of Stranger Things hits both Netflix and theaters in a limited capacity this Wednesday, December 31.

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