Hundreds of thousands of disappointed Game of Thrones fans have signed a petition calling for the show’s final season to be remade.
The to program makers HBO was started last week after widespread anger at how the last six-episode season of the smash hit show is unfolding. It had garnered 767,794 names as of Friday morning.
“David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have proven themselves to be woefully incompetent writers when they have no source material (i.e. the books) to fall back on,” petition organizer Dylan D wrote.
“This series deserves a final season that makes sense. Subvert my expectations and make it happen, HBO!”
Much of the fan anger is centred on what they feel is a rush to wrap up complicated storylines as the shows writers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss write their own conclusion to the fantasy epic.
The show departed from its source, the “A Song of Ice and Fire” book series by George R.R. Martin, around season five. The author has promised two more novels in the run, but they have not been finished.
The petition, headed “Remake Game of Thrones Season 8 with competent writers,” is aiming for half a million signatories.
While some on social media supported the petition idea, it also received some pushback with commentators calling signatories “entitled.”
“Even if a show I loved and was emotionally invested in ended in a way I thought was terrible, I can't imagine being so entitled that I would demand they remake it,” .
“Look, I despise S8 of #GameofThrones as much as anyone, but this kind of stuff is so stupid,” .
“This won't do anything, and there's no way to ‘fix’ it. Just hope that maybe someday there will be another adaption that can end better.”
Joanna Robinson, a co-host of three different podcasts devoted to TV’s biggest fantasy series, told the she is “dreading the finale landing and the firestorm that might come from it.”
“It’s not all or nothing on the finale. Let’s not neglect how many seasons before this of quality ‘Game of Thrones’ we got,” she said.
Last Sunday’s penultimate episode drew 18.4 million viewers across HBO’s various viewing platforms, according to the WSJ.
A number of Game of Thrones spin-off series, including a prequel which has received the green light, are in development.
Meanwhile in Spain, a doctor who was dropping unaired spoilers for the show in YouTube videos has been approached by HBO on multiple occasions to take them down, .
Jose Señarís Romay, 47, from Madrid, was supposedly fed the top secret plot points by a source in the production crew.
He ultimately signed a non-disclosure agreement on March 30.
