The Death of GoT

George R.R. Martin wrote the first book of the series, A Game of Thrones, in 1991 as a kind of jab-in-the-eye to Hollywood. He had been a television writer for many years and had grown heartily sick of the way showrunners always channeled every single story into the same funnel to produce the bland, predictable, mush-minded pap that they believed the public wanted. So he set out to show them they were wrong, that people would flock to a more edgy and interesting story. That your story could even survive the death of major characters.

The books sold by the millions. It's the best-selling fantasy series behind only Lord of the Rings. So HBO picked up the rights, but only because Martin insisted on absolute creative control of what is, after all, HIS story. They agreed. And, as you know, it was a roaring success. But if there's one thing a Hollywood showrunner can't stand, it's seeing someone else do it better than they can. So they started finding ways to marginalize Martin's influence. They began inserting all the old tropes, such as the last minute rescue of a major character as the cavalry came over the hill -- literally, in this case. (You would not have wanted to be in the same room with me when I saw that stupid shit on the screen; I blistered the paint off the walls.) They had put all the things back into the story that the story was written in protest against. That combination of arrogance and lack of awareness is truly breathtaking. You'd have to be a narcissist of the highest order to pull off something that profoundly dumb -- but they were up to the task.

As the Hollywood maggots began gouging huge chunks out of the meat of the story and moving beyond the existing books, Martin had ever-dwindling control over creative development. Things began to go sideways really badly in season six, and viewers started leaving the show by the millions. Many have confessed to not even bothering with the final season, me included.

So what's the moral of this forced implosion of a billion-dollar franchise? That most showrunners are fucking morons? Well, yes... but that's hardly a revelation. No, the real moral is this: if you think you understand someone's creation better than the person who created it, YOU ARE WRONG.