In an interview with the New York Times, Game of Thrones actor Peter Dinklage responded to fan backlash of the final season by telling them to move on.
The final season of Game of Thrones still inspires rage for many fans after all these years for different reasons. The showrunners wanting to move on to other projects made many people feel that they had given up and sold out especially as the season was short. Many episodes felt rushed as a result.
And then of course there is the Daenerys ending that shocked everyone. Whilst I still contend that she was always going to be the mad queen, many would disagree.
According to Peter Dinklage who played Tyrion in the series “They wanted the pretty white people to ride off into the sunset together.”
“By the way, it’s fiction,” he added with a laugh. “There’s dragons in it. Move on.”
Dinklage, who won four best-supporting-actor Emmys over the show’s eight seasons, told NYT “The show subverts what you think, and that’s what I love about it,”.
“Yeah, it was called ‘Game of Thrones,’ but at the end, the whole dialogue when people would approach me on the street was, ‘Who’s going to be on the throne?’ I don’t know why that was their takeaway because the show really was more than that,” he added.
Dinklage said one of his favourite moments from the finale was when Daenerys Targaryen’s (Emilia Clarke) dragon burned the throne.
“Because it sort of just killed that whole conversation, which is really irreverent and kind of brilliant on behalf of the show’s creators: ‘Shut up, it’s not about that,'” Dinklage added, referencing David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.
“They constantly did that, where you thought one thing and they delivered another,” he said. “Everybody had their own stories going on while watching that show, but nobody’s was as good as what the show delivered, I think.”
Dinklage also said he felt audiences were angry about how the show ended because the show was simply coming to an end in general.
“They were angry at us for breaking up with them,” he said. “We were going off the air, and they didn’t know what to do with their Sunday nights anymore. They wanted more, so they backlashed about that.”
“We had to end when we did because what the show was really good at was breaking preconceived notions: Villains became heroes, and heroes became villains,” he added.
“If you know your history, when you track the progress of tyrants, they don’t start off as tyrants. I’m talking about, spoiler alert, what happened at the end of ‘Game of Thrones’ with that character change,” he said, hinting at a brutal scene with Daenerys.
“It’s gradual, and I loved how power corrupted these people,” Dinklage said. “What happens to your moral compass when you get a taste of power? Human beings are complicated characters, you know?”
I disagree with him on the matter of ending when they did. The show could have done with another five or six episodes at least to flesh out some of the stories especially the third episode, The Long Night. The preparation for the battle and the battle itself could easily have been told over two or three episodes.
I also think fans have moved on for the most part as they attempt to wipe the series from their collective memories. It’s only when asked about the final season that the pain and rage are brought to the forefront or when actors tell them to shut up and move on.
For those of us who still enjoy power struggles, the Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon is expected to air in 2022.
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