Interesting phenomena have sprung up around Game of Thrones final season.
The first phenomenon was the defiant declarations of non-watchers who seemed to be personally offended by devotees of the show speculating and theorizing on social media.
As in, “Never watched the show and don’t care to.” Take that!
I was late to the Game. This is the first time I am watching in “real” time. After season seven I decided to take a look and got hooked, binging seven years in about three weeks.
In all those seasons of non-viewing, I never felt the calling to disparage GOT watchers.
There are approximately one million shows that I have not watched, but I don’t get the urge to jump into threads and declare that I don’t watch your show.
And you’re going to seem pretty hypocritical if you ever get immersed in the series after disrespecting current fans through your dismissive snobbery.
Francesca Serritella recently wrote an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about her discovery of The Wire–double-digit years after its final season.
“I was home sick, decided to give The Wire a shot, and now I’ve watched 21 episodes in three days. I pause only to adjust the volume so my neighbors don’t think I have guests who swear this much, or, you know, shoot each other,” she wrote.
(Disclaimer: The Wire is the only series I rank above GOT on my personal Awesome List. And to my knowledge Serritella never disrespected the show!)
The other phenomenon is tweeting, blogging, screaming about your disappointment with Season 8 because…well, apparently, because you know the show better than the writers, there is too much/too little CGI, lighting, battle tactics, and Jon Snow didn’t pet his wolf.
And the damn coffee cup.
Some fans were livid that Daenerys Targaryen (SPOILER ALERT) strayed from her character arc and dragon-bombed thousands of innocents in Episode 5. A studious GOT fan, however, compiled video from the seven previous seasons showing that Daenerys committed crimes against humanity, savagery, and violent impetuousness in every single season! That is her arc. She wants to be feared. And she wants the damn Iron Throne at any cost.
And poor Jon Snow still can’t do anything right. Neither can most of the other characters still alive.
And Arya’s white horse. How did that get there? How did the horse survive the carnage? Unbelievable.
These are deep, insightful questions from people who accept the existence of dragons and the undead but question a horse’s improbable good fortune. Or deliberate placement for the purpose of foreshadowing.
(And after reading the critiques of Episode 5, “arc” and “penultimate” are two words I hope to never see again. And when did “showrunners” become a common word?)
Sigh.
So, let me begin my criticism of the final episode–which I have not seen and which is still several days away–because I want to seem erudite:
It was ludicrous that Jon Snow _______.
The dragon ______.
I would have had Bran ______.
They really expect us to believe that Sansa_______?
The showrunners (heavy sigh) weren’t true to Arya’s/Tyrion’s/Briene’s/Bronn’s arc because______.
_________ was so obvious.
Impressed?
On second thought, maybe I’ll just watch Episode 6 and enjoy it for what it is: the writers’ vision of how the story should be concluded.
The Q-View 