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Game of Thrones and the Disappointment of ‘Event TV’
For the First Fans of George R.R. Martin’s fantasy epic in Westeros, tonight’s season finale will bring about an ending (of sorts) they’ve been waiting for since August 1996. Yet, the ending that we all think is coming — either from foreshadowing on the show or from the any number of series finale leaks online — seems destined to disappoint not just book fans but almost every viewer of the series.
Even if none of the leaks are true, the ending will likely disappoint a significant portion of the audience, save for the most enlightened. Now, I don’t mean that people who hate or like this current season are objectively right or wrong. Rather, when I say “enlightened,” I mean very specifically the sort of viewer/reader who accepts precisely the story they are given instead of the story they want or expect. There is a metaphorical Grand Canyon’s worth of distance between a piece of art being objectively “bad” and simply not liking it on an individual level. It’s this distinction that suggests that the era of the “television event” is over and that’s a good thing for stories.
Game of Thrones might legitimately be the last true nationwide (hell, worldwide) television event, at least where scripted series are concerned. To be fair, this has been said about many shows from The Sopranos to LOST to many others. Naturally, the melancholic…
