{"id":47402,"date":"2019-06-22T15:51:37","date_gmt":"2019-06-22T19:51:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=47402"},"modified":"2019-06-22T15:52:36","modified_gmt":"2019-06-22T19:52:36","slug":"game-of-thrones-epilogue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=47402","title":{"rendered":"Game of Thrones: Epilogue"},"content":{"rendered":"

This series analyzes the show, but sometimes references the books as well. If you read it, expect spoilers for both.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After finishing my review of season eight, I decided to give the internet a week or two to cool down. Sure, they’re sour on the show now, I thought, but this may be the worst of it. This will be a valuable thing to study. I’ve seen fandoms turn on things before – Lost, Dexter, Mass Effect, The Walking Dead<\/em> – and was starting to fancy myself an expert. My ambitions! Perhaps I would be the first one to develop a workable Grand Unified Theory of Internet Meltdowns!<\/p>\n

I’ve since scaled those ambitions down. Near as I can tell, people get cranky when they’re made to expect a quality product and then don’t recieve it, and with the advent of the internet the effective broadcasting range for crankiness is measured in the thousands of miles. The subreddit r\/freefolk<\/a>, which is probably the densest concentration of dissatisfaction, is still going strong, strong enough that they may see out the end of the summer before petering off.<\/p>\n

Like its predecessors, I don’t expect it will have much tangible effect on the property itself. Some have mused if Disney will reconsider giving Star Wars<\/em> to Benioff and Weiss. I doubt it. From management’s perspective, Game of Thrones<\/em> did its job, in that it made a lot of money and drew a lot of subscribers and attention to HBO. Disney might even like this, on the “any publicity is good publicity” principle, though I would advise them to keep an eye on the writing process for the upcoming movies. The first in their Star Wars<\/em> series is supposed to come out in 2022, which won’t be long enough to recycle their reputations. And the fact that they submitted “The Iron Throne” for a writing Emmy doesn’t suggest they’re eager to learn from this experience. (God, it’s going to win, isn’t it? The “bad pussy” episode won a writing Emmy, remember.)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

So will all the sound and fury, in the end, have signified nothing? Not the way I see it. These sorts of things always gave the impression of a storm to me. As a storm is chaotic activity meant to correct a meteorological imbalance, the internet backlash is chaotic activity meant to correct a collective emotional imbalance. People invested in the show, and when they don’t get the return they feel they were promised, they look for it elsewhere. There’s comraderie to be found in collaborative griping, not to mention entertainment value. There’s an entire library of people dissecting season eight. I’ll just post the pitch meeting as a sample, because I happen to like these things:<\/p>\n