14 DAY TRIAL // “Game of Thrones” isn’t just one of HBO’s most successful series, it’s also one of the most successful series ever in the history of television. The frenzy around each new season is comparable to the hysteria around “Twilight,” the nerdy excitement around “Star Wars” or the anticipation surrounding a new installment in one of the most popular superhero franchises, you name one.
The bottom line is that “Game of Thrones” is huge. Huge! We talked in a previous piece about the series’ appeal and how it relies on a very fortunate combination of clever writing, brilliant acting, high production value and, last but not least, a blatant disregard of TV conventions, from the amount of skin shown on camera to the way certain characters are treated in the narrative.
None of that would have been possible without George R.R. Martin, that brilliant man who came up with the first 5 novels in the “Song of Ice and Fire” series, on which the show is based, “A Game of Thrones,” “A Clash of Kings,” “A Storm of Swords,” “A Feast for Crows” and “A Dance with Dragons.” He still has to write and release 2 more novels and thus bring this amazing story to an end.
Martin is 65 years old and, for years, he’s been under a lot of pressure from fans to hurry to finish the last two novels in the series, “The Winds of Winter” and “A Dream of Spring.” “Write George, write like the wind” is actually a very humorous viral song in which fans tell Martin that he might die before he comes out with the books, and thus break the hearts of millions of fans who are still waiting to hear what happens at the end.
Just recently, Martin went on the record to tell these “worried” fans that they can go “[expletive] themselves” if they think he’s in any way moved to write faster by their telling him he might die soon. That’s just hurtful, not particularly motivating in any way.
However, it wasn’t until this week that I truly understood the immense pressure he must be all the time, from all sides, to deliver an ending that would please everybody and, just as importantly, to do so quickly. It’s an impossible task but, even so, millions of fans believe Martin should be able to carry it out either way.
First off, Martin said in an interview that fans were pressuring him to write more gay storylines. Secondly, he admitted that he considered changing the way the series ended after reading fan theories that were accurate in their estimates on the end.
We need to let Martin write the book he planned on writing since the first day he sat down at his desk, pen and paper in hand (he’s famously old-school like that). No true fan can make this kind of demands of their favorite author, expect him or her to see that they come true, and still call himself a fan of that author’s work.
I have in mind that image of the author locked in his ivory tower, toiling to deliver a work of art that the world can enjoy. His reasons for creating said work don’t matter, even if they’re purely selfish, because of the pleasure we derive from it.
In today’s world, it has become easier to breach that ivory tower and establish contact with our favorite authors. In fact, in many cases, they came around to it because more interactions with the audience usually translate into better sales.
But I still can’t imagine where this sense of entitlement comes from, as to ask that one author include elements we think would fit in a story that is not ours to begin with.
From the violent reactions to certain plot twists in “Game of Thrones,” the TV series (boycotts, outrage, controversy), it’s clear that fans expect Martin to create a world that fits the pattern and, ironically, still be as surprising at the same time. Play by the rules but still challenge the established order. Don’t kill off characters they love but still keep it fresh and interesting. Don’t change but progress.
In their love for Martin’s work, fans have come to believe themselves the rightful owners to it. They feel entitled to tell him what to do and when to do it, and to make him feel bad if he doesn’t comply.
Things don’t work this way. The author is the sole master of the world he’s created, which he rules independently of the wishes of his readers. So whether we like it or not, Martin can kill off whoever he deems necessary to tell his story and we have no right to complain, not if we’re real fans.
If we want things done differently, we should probably pick up the pen and paper and write another novel on our own. It’s not easy, I hear.
So we should just leave George R.R. Martin be, allow him the time he needs to finish his books, and then enjoy them when they’re done. And, instead of causing a ruckus online because he killed Ned or Robb or Joffrey (OK, no one actually complained about that) or Catelyn or whoever, we should praise him for having the guts to go against the norm in order to deliver to us first-grade entertainment, solid writing, a challenging piece of art.
If he and others like him didn’t do this, we’d all be stuck reading “Fifty Shades of Grey”-type of literature, and I use the term lightly. Remember this.
