& # 39; Game of Thrones & # 39; and the end of the last big Watercooler show

HBO wants you to know that it will be fine without Game of thrones. Leaders insist that many exciting new shows will delight viewers. It is unlikely that the network will lose the entire population of King's Landing with canceled subscriptions once someone sits on the iron throne. They have a lot of programming and even a Game of thrones prequel in the works. Everything will be alright.

But I'm not sure I'll be. I am deeply saddened by the end of the series, what will be missed in my life and in the collective culture once it runs on Sunday. Even with the mediocrity of this last season, I do not want to say goodbye. I am not alone. Due to the very specific circumstances that prevailed during its first broadcast in 2011, the group has developed intense relationships with millions of fans and I doubt that any subsequent television program can reproduce it.

HBO knows it, no doubt. Although the network has a plan to survive without Game of thrones (Do a lot, a lot, a lot of new shows, something for everyone, and take them out every three weeks!), the executives deeply understand that, no matter when, when Game of thrones ends, it takes a television era with it. "The television landscape has changed since the broadcast of this show and it's probably a further challenge for any platform – network, cable – to achieve this great success," said the head of programming from HBO, Casey Bloys, last month. This is nothing if it's a euphemism.

When Game of thrones debuted eight years ago, the era of entire series of television series has not yet begun. All-in-one experience of Netflix Room of cards was still two years old and although it was possible to stream continuously Eu with a HBO Go account, viewers had to wait until Sunday night to see it. This is done Game of thrones event television. Appointment TV. And since everyone did not have an HBO subscription (or HBO Go account), it was possible to mooch, people had gathered to watch it together. Game of thrones the parties were immediately a norm, and with its shocking inversion of television tropes – killing its most beloved characters, plunging into foolish politics for a long time – people often sat next to tell what had just happened. Mondays have become a collective debriefing. On Twitter. At work. More drinks. Even non-voters have endured enough of these discussions to speak in the jargon of the show. Huge layers of the population can use the phrase "Red Wedding" even though they have never watched an episode.

I felt the pain of the red wedding at least three times. First, when my husband read it in the book in front of me. We were young – oh so young! – and he was reading up when suddenly I heard a gasp and what seemed to be stuffy. Before I could see where he was dying, the book passed by the apartment, barely missing. a cat and slip on the floor.

He did not want to tell me what he had just read. He was just sitting there, stunned. We both lived in the Game of thrones universe for weeks. At work, if I closed my eyes, I was at Winterfell. I traveled San Francisco in search of Meade. I started making pies with meat, with zero irony. But he was way ahead of me in books, having started before the broadcasts. I, however, did not plan to read them. I had never read a fantasy series before; why the hell should i start now in anticipation of a new tv show?

But then the show started and I was immediately one of his biggest fans. That surprised me and everyone who knew me, since genre fiction – in writing, on the screen – has never been my passion. I loved everything about this period, the drama of the period, the weirdness, the rich dialogue and the conversations that it triggered, IRL and online.

What I hated was that my husband knew what was going to happen before me, since this first season almost followed the first book. So after four episodes, I started reading. I went to the Red Wedding myself in a few months. I remember sitting on a train while the Starks, the heroes, were decimated. I closed the book and looked up at the poor idiots around me who did not know the whole world had changed. I realize that this was my first true fandom experience.

At the time the show took place at the third season massacre, it was a trauma that we all lived together. We, book readers, filmed the faces of our friends and family as they looked innocently without knowing what was going to happen. For me, knowing what was going to happen did not make it any less disturbing to watch on screen.

In season 6, the show changed irrevocably when he started to overtake books. There were more those who had special knowledge of history and those who did not – we were all together. And by that time, streaming television had completely upset the behavior C & # 39; was in 2016 and we were used to being able to watch the new season of Orange is the new black during a weekend. The ensuing conversation was strong and interesting, but limited to a few days or weeks. It was a blow to the system that quickly emptied. Game of thrones still unfolded slowly, a titration in the blood of the culture. It continued to be a reason to gather, a reason to debate constantly.

Cut up to now, when the show ends, and even the days when the news of the real world breaks, Game of thrones can dominate online speech and group discussions everywhere. This power is vestigial, emanating from an earlier era, preserved in our culture by virtue of beginning in another era. If the new science fiction dramas or even the Game of thrones prequel manages to make huge hits for HBO, they probably will not have the same impact. They will have their fan base and lively discussion, but I'm not sure that in this fractured streaming environment they can be as important as ever. The Thrones.

And maybe that partly explains why everyone seems so upset by this last season. Yes, it's hasty. Yes, the twists and turns of the plot are not appreciated. Yes, it is infuriating to learn that HBO would have given viewers millions and millions of dollars to keep the show going. Yes, frankly, I grumbled when I read that Martin thought the only way the show could be true to his vision would be to have five more seasons, and HBO would have been ready to pay them, but the spectators refused. All this is a reason to worry about the show on Twitter. But the main reason, really, is that in closing, the show forces us to leave the world that Game of thrones linked us to the world of community television. The only way to defend against dawn is to complain about it one last time.

The long night just was not long enough.

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