HBO boss thinks Game of Thrones backlash was inevitable

Game of Thrones wrapped up a few months back, but people are still debating a controversial final season full of unexpected twists and turns, many of which did not please longtime fans of the series.

Did we think we’d still be talking about season 8 this long after the show ended? HBO executive Casey Bloys isn’t surprised. “I think the entire show — and specifically the final season — will be debated for years to come,” he told TV Line in a new interview.

I can’t argue with him there. If we’re still talking about The Lord of the Rings movies 20 years later, Star Wars 40 years later and Star Trek 50 years later, I don’t see why Game of Thrones should fade from the public consciousness anytime soon. It’s changed TV and will be part of the pop culture landscape for a long time to come. Game on.

As for what’s behind the backlash, Bloys thinks it was pretty inevitable. “I do not think the media is responsible for this,” he said, possibly referencing something Conleth Hill (Varys) said on the Game of Thrones panel at San Diego-Comic-Con about the hate online being “media-led” — I think we can all agree that the backlash was alive and well in various fan spaces like Reddit, although sure, the media got in on the spread.

"That’s the good news/bad news about a show that was so popular — when you go to end it people have very specific ideas about how it should end. And, truly, the only thing that really matters is that the creators told the story that they wanted to tell."

Now, if I can get preemptive for a moment, I know there are fans out there who want to counter that the backlash to season 8 was about more than people’s pet theories not panning out, and that the character turns were rushed and the pacing was off and so on and so forth. All opinions are valid. But this is the programming president for HBO talking — he’s not going to put the network’s most popular show on blast like that.

And I agree with him that it’s important that showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss got to tell the story they wanted to tell, even if some fans have problems with the way they told it. That’s when we get into that never-ending debate Bloys talked about.

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Speaking of Benioff and Weiss, Bloys has “no idea” why they pulled out of their scheduled appearance at Comic-Con at the last moment. “But I will tell you that, personally, I will sometimes commit to something and then as it comes closer I’ll go, ‘Oh, I don’t want to do that.’”

That’s probably not the best cover Bloys could provide for the pair — panel cancellations are pretty common — but I suppose he’s not obligated to be in the know; Benioff and Weiss are currently shopping a deal for their services around Hollywood, and for better or worse, won’t be making a new deal with HBO.

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