***THIS POST IS DARK AND FULL OF SPOILERS***
One of the biggest television and cultural phenomena came to an end last Sunday. Throughout the final season, critics and long-time "fans" have taken to social media to post their dissatisfaction. The complaints and criticisms ranged from the "poor lighting" during the epic NIGHT BATTLE of Winterfell, Starbucks cups in the Great Hall of Winterfell, plastic waterbottles in King's Landing, Jon Snow not petting Ghost, and supposedly poor writing and plot twists.
At one point, a bunch of entitled, self-indulgent fans decided it would be a great idea to sign a petition asking the show to create a do-over of season 8. You know, because their favourite characters aren't doing what they expected them to do. As it stands, there are over 1 million people who signed this petition.
While the season certainly wasn't perfect you can't deny the success of the show. If I were the writers, cast and crew of Game of Thrones, I would point out the following to the critics and haters.
Weekly Success in the Age of Streaming
Television as we know it is now dominated by the on-demand, streaming model. Even the larger cable and satellite providers now have no choice but to provide more and more on-demand options to compete. TV ratings overall are down. Fewer people are sitting down at an exact time every week to watch a show that's constantly interrupted by commercials that take you out of the viewing experience.
In that environment, Weiss, Benioff, the cast and the crew should point out that Game of Thrones is probably the only show that people worldwide anticipate, wait for, and run home to watch at the specified time every Sunday night that it's on. It's a phenomenon that isn't matched any where. As a premium HBO show, it gets somewhere between 10 to 16 million LEGAL views per episode. If you add illegal streaming and pirating, some estimates bring that up to close to 44 million viewers per episode on season 8 alone.
As a point of comparison, the final season of The Big Bang Theory, the most watched network sitcom in the binge-watch/streaming era, got about 18 million viewers for their final episode.
No other show comes close. Game of Thrones, by that metric alone, is a phenomenon.
Not Meant to be Allegory
Some of the "disappointment" that many fans expressed might also have to do with viewers mistakenly attributing allegorical aspects to the story that the author of A Song of Ice and Fire book series never intended to be there.
Some fans made a decent case for saying that the Night King, his White Walkers and the army of the dead as being an allegory for climate change. It's being largely ignored by those in power because their priority is to fight wars against each other. The White Walkers were always presented as a looming threat that was being dealt with by a small, understaffed, underfunded, minimally-trained team who are desperate for help.
Despite thousands of losses during the epic battle of Winterfell, the fact that the Night King was killed in relatively easy fashion by super assassin Arya Stark effectively ruined this allegory.
Another potential allegory was the feminist angle of the show. Yes the show depicted a lot of physical and sexual violence against women. However, the show had very strong female characters flouting the norms of both Westeros' and Essos' patriarchal societies.
At the end of season 7, three women were positioned to be contenders of the battle to come: Cersei Lannister at King's Landing, Daenerys Targaryen was getting ready to land with her dragons and armies, and Sansa Stark was pretty much on her way to becoming Queen in the North.
Understandably, feminist viewers have been given a reason to believe that the future of Westeros will be female. So what happened? Well, the "evil queen" Cersei was killed by falling bricks in anti-climactic fashion. Not exactly the glorious end for such a power player. Dany, the "queen of the ashes", defeated her enemies to win the Iron Throne only to have a man stab her in the heart before she could even sit properly on said throne.
Sure Sansa ends up becoming the Queen of the newly independent North, but it's a comparatively minor kingdom when compared to the remaining six kingdoms to be ruled by her younger brother. With the show ending with "Bran the Broken" as king and his small council made up mainly of men, it's not surprising that the feminists want to criticize the show's conclusion as well.
The truth of the matter is, George R.R. Martin didn't intend to create a feminist novel. If anything, he was actually tried to base his books on medieval history. Sure, the period mostly had male leaders but women played much more important roles than what we stereotypically think in shaping the time period. And that's what the author (as well the cast, crew and writing team) managed to portray in the series.
"Bad/Rushed" Writing and Plot Holes?
Many fans seem to lay the blame on Benioff and Weiss for the seemingly rushed writing that supposedly left a bunch of plot holes. That just seems strange to me considering that these guys, along George R.R. Martin, have worked on the show since the beginning to critical acclaim and multiple awards. All of a sudden the greatest tv-screen storytellers of the past decade are now garbage?
Maybe additional episodes were needed to "build" the character twists. Or maybe as an audience we weren't paying enough attention to 8 SEASONS WORTH of "character development". Dragons, undead soldiers, and bare breasts can be quite distracting after all.
Unexpected character twists and deaths are the norm for this show: be it the Dany heel turn, Tyrion actually makes a misjudgement, King Bran, Jon Snow back in The Black, Arya sailing west to discover "Amerikos", etc.
It's very possible that this is a case of overly high expectations. Or fans are just pissed off that they didn't get the ending they hoped for. Let's face it, a lot of people were interested in seeing more aunt/nephew incest action.
But more likely, it's simply the case of piling on hate on people who are more successful than them has become the cool thing to do for Internet users. A quick look at any video's YouTube comments section certainly shows that.
I would refer the entitled fans and critics who haven't accomplished even a fraction of what the Game of Thrones writers, cast and crew have done for nearly a decade to the following:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
(It's an older quote, so "man" can also be substituted for any other gender-neutral term you deem appropriate, but the point remains the same.)
At the end if I were Benioff, Weiss, the cast and the crew, I would repeat the above quote, drop the proverbial mic, raise both middle fingers in the general direction of the haters, then go to sleep on the large piles of HBO money I've amassed over the last 8 years. I would just be careful not to trip over the pile of Emmy's lying around next to my money mattress.
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