As these words are typed there are three-quarter-of-a-million individuals who have taken a few minutes out of their schedule of pounding the floor with their fists to demand HBO re-shoot the entire final series of Game of Thrones, to suit their personal interpretation of what George RR Martin meant to write.
In this time of intense personalisation preference settings, Thrones did well to reach the final series without a punch-typing uprising. " Remake Game of Thrones season eight with competent writers," honks the petition and its signatories, who must have been peachy keen with the majority of the series up until a vengeful tyrant sacked a city she despised.
This is not a series without its glaring flaws (and an even more glaring coffee cup); its treatment of female characters and people of colour have jarred, individuals reduced to wordless catalysts or stripped of their defining characteristics. That's not what has driven more foot-stamping than you'd see in supermarket aisles during half-term.
What has most irked is that Daenerys Targaryen, a strong and stable ruler who has named herself 'Daenerys of the House Targaryen, the First of Her Name, The Unburnt, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Queen of Meereen, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Protector of the Realm, Lady Regent of the Seven Kingdoms, Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons', should be so vicious. A woman who has had enemies barbecued by her children's breath for refusing to support her. What the show managed to do - to the irritation of these viewers - is seduce the audience into supporting her cause while presenting her cruelty, which most chose to overlook as regrettable collateral damage.
That modern veil to render carnage more palatable is a relation to another pair of phrases at work in this contentious episode - 'shock and awe' and 'pre-emptive strike'. In the past, DT has shown what she considers to be mercy and now she has the world within fingertip reach and the most awesome weapon at her disposal to secure her reign. Well, duh.
What is considered incompetence is an inability to process how the general perspective has shifted from heroine to villain, to be a random King's Landing citizen all of a sudden regretting wearing their big coat. And being so flammable. Who then, are these 'competent writers'? How will over 750,000 people all agree that their choice of writer is the most competent? How will a consensus be reached over whose vision is the 'most right', when everyone of these 750,000 has their own bespoke version of the story they want to watch?
Furious disagreements, pan-continental plotting, and backroom deals is what would follow. Which makes this the perfect replacement for Thrones itself. Film the conflicts and factional disputes as groups ally or betray one another in search of their true competent writers, who will occupy the Iron Keyboard Throne while a million anonymous Twitter accounts stand ready to kingslay with thick ropes of rage saliva should a single line be met with disapproval. Thank you, the internet, for giving us hope.
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