Game of Thrones celebrates 10th anniversary, but does anyone care more?

To remember Game of ThronesThat little niche show that reached 44 million people in eight seasons? It started exactly 10 years ago on Saturday, but HBO and author George RR Martin hopes upcoming prequels and novels will reclaim GoT’s pop culture throne.

Except winter came and went, and it may not come back.

Based on Martin’s already best-selling fantasy novel series A Song of Ice and FireTV show Game of Thrones began on HBO April 17, 2011. No one could have predicted the show’s highly seismic cultural impact. Even if you hadn’t seen the show, you knew winter was coming and weddings were red.

Even if you didn’t know anything, you knew Jon Snow.

Crucially, Game of Thrones proved that even in the age of streaming and constant distraction on YouTube and social media, TV can still delight large audiences. The last episode had 13 million viewers tuned into HBO, and more than 44 million people in 173 countries watched every episode by the end of Season 8. For eight glorious seasons, GoT showed that appointment viewing still existed. The show won 59 Emmys among hundreds of award nominations, defining this fragmented era of television and media.

Then it all went wrong.

The collapse of Thrones’ legacy is summed up by the second most popular Thrones-related post on Reddit, a discussion sparked by a (now deleted) tweet about the show’s finale. “GoT was on TV for ten years and had a stranglehold on popular culture,” said Twitter user MusketAnna, “and it ended so badly that literally the moment it ended its cultural influence dissolved. It’s amazing.”

Eight years of memes, references, a presence you couldn’t get out of even if you tried and didn’t care and all this, EVERYTHING, so undone I can’t even remember the last time I saw GoT referred or discussed.

– Windlass. (@MusketAnna) January 18, 2020

Of course, Reddit hardly reflects the wider viewing audience. It’s pretty clear that the end of the series caused a backlash, but that doesn’t mean the show was tarnished for all viewers. Thrones inspired endless memes and merchandise, tattoos and Twitter handles – that cultural influence certainly can’t just go up in flames like an iron chair remodeled by an evil dragon.

Let’s take a look at how many people have searched the Internet for news or information about the series, a rough but fairly reliable indicator of mass popularity.

According to Google Trends, between 2012 and 2017 “Game of Thrones” narrowed down “Harry Potter” as a search term when the show was on air. But by 2020, barely a year after GoT ended, 13 years since the last proper Harry Potter novel, Potter was once again a hugely popular search term. In terms of people googling the show, Thrones is roughly equivalent to Friends, a sitcom that ended 17 years ago.

We’re not going repeat the rage over the finale, except to say that many viewers were stunned and upset to see their favorite characters end their journey in a less than satisfying way. More than 1.7 million disgruntled viewers signed a petition to remake the last season, and HBO’s 10th anniversary to be overshadowed by season 8’s lingering bitterness

They gave Zack Snyder something million dollars to “fix” Justice League.

Fix Season 8. You could probably do it in three episodes. https://t.co/27qMD3iFjC

– John Hornor Jacobs (@johnhornor) April 14, 2021

In defense of showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss – who didn’t really help their cause with tone-deaf commentary after the finale – there’s always pressure on a final episode to capture sprawling stories in satisfying, believable ways. The Sopranos notoriously evaded that responsibility with its abrupt ending (which in itself annoyed many viewers). Lost’s ending annoyed pretty much everyone who was still watching it. Dexter and The X-Files are just a little bit exhausted. Roseanne and St. Elders went nuts.

Recently, Supernatural came to an end after 15 years and delighted viewers with a fan-favorite romantic combination – only to instantly kill one of the characters and sour the experience for some super fans. You just can’t always please Twitter.

HBO must fervently hope that the finale didn’t burn the gold crown completely. The network still wants to sell GoT DVDs and Blu-rays and T-shirts, not to mention subscriptions to streaming service HBO Max. But disillusioned fans are unlikely to recommend the series to newbies or pay themselves to watch again and be disappointed again.

And HBO is betting real money on Thrones’ ongoing appeal. Reports indicate there are at least five “sequel shows” in development, not to mention a Broadway show (hey, it worked for Harry Potter House of the Dragon now filming with Olivia Cooke, Paddy Considine and Matt Smith as old school Targaryens. An animated show is in development. Deadline reports multiple other Game of Thrones spin-off projects: 10,000 Ships, about warrior queen Princess Nymeria; 9 Journeys, about the journeys of the sea serpent, Corlys Velaryon; and a story set in Flea Bottom, the poorest slum in King’s Landing. There is also a series that may be based on Martin’s short stories Tales of Dunk and Egg. (“Flea Bottom”? “Dunk and Egg”? After coming up with the masterfully evocative “Game of Thrones”, George Martin just forgot how to make titles?) Even if they don’t all make it to the screens, it’s not. not cheap to make a TV show – let alone one set in a fantastic realm like Westeros.

Then there are the acclaimed latest novels. Martin is working on The Winds of Winter (so he says) and has not even started on the planned last part, A Dream of Spring. When the show’s ending is under a lot of pressure, the viewer’s reaction raises Martin’s expectations to not only wrap up his epic story, but also undo small screen mistakes. Fortunately for Martin and his publishers, the books were bestsellers before HBO got involved. The question is whether the new books and TV shows will rekindle Thrones’ fever or disappear from view like Bran Stark out a window.

On the plus side, networking would be deadly for the next Game of Thrones, so the last few years have been great for sexy, violent, very adult fantasy shows. The Witcher from Netflix Watch on Apple TV Plus and HBO’s own Raised by Wolves they all show a clear Westerosian influence. That said, some post-Thrones adult fantasy shows like Carnival Row and The Nevers are equally imbued with Penny Dreadful’s steampunk DNA. At the height of Thrones’ worldwide popularity, who would even have thought that Penny Dreadful could have a similar long-term impact?

It’s early days, but I wonder if 10 years from now people will still be talking about Thrones the way they do the Sopranos, or if it will join the ranks of loving but rarely mentioned series like Carnivale or Boardwalk Empire.

There is a whole generation of kids called “Arya”, and one day we may have to explain to them what Game of Thrones actually was.

But however you feel about the finale or how the show is viewed, the 10th anniversary is an opportunity to reflect on how important Game of Thrones was to so many people. Think of the twists and turns, the friends you’ve made among other fans, the real water cooler moments in a world that doesn’t even have water coolers anymore.

Whatever the seasons bring, remember what it felt like when winter was yet to come.