'Game of Thrones': Winter is finally here

"Game of Thrones" returns for its penultimate season on July 16, presaging the end of a saga of sex, violence and political intrigue that has become the world's most popular TV show.

The R-rated fable of noble families vying for control of the Iron Throne has just 13 episodes left, split across two shortened seasons which will bring the curtain down on a ratings juggernaut that made television history.

One of the darkest and most controversial primetime series ever made, it has been the target of criticism over the years for senseless violence and its repeated use of rape as a dramatic device.

The scriptwriters have brutalized women, killed children, depicted graphic sex and had their characters hacked, stabbed, flayed, poisoned, decapitated, burned alive, eye-gouged and eviscerated -- all in glorious, close-up detail.

The adult themes have not deterred fans, however, and the audience has grown in the US to more than 23 million per episode.

"Game of Thrones" has more Emmy Awards than any narrative show in history and airs in 170 countries, with viewership figures shattering records across the world.

Season six was the first to move beyond George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" novels and carve its own path.

Critics said it marked a return to form, with the narrative allowing female characters to demonstrate complexity and moral agency lacking in some of the earlier seasons.

Viewers saw hero Jon Snow (Kit Harington) resurrected and declared King in the North, while Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) staged a coup in King's Landing, murdering most of the royal family and her religious opponent, the High Sparrow.

Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner), raped in a controversial off-book episode in...