By The end of Game of Thrones was never really, truly going to be the end of Game of Thrones, was it? Nothing that colossal could just evaporate overnight.
Now, all that energy and time which used to be sunk into elaborate theories as to how Gendry was secretly a giant, or that the White Walkers would be undone by something Hot Pie mentioned back in season two, is invested in dunking on David Benioff and DB Weiss, the Thrones showrunners.
The backlash against season eight – too rushed and featuring scarcely credible contortions of conscience and character, some said – has transmuted into a general tendency to kick Benioff and Weiss at any opportunity. That includes trying to make them the top Google result if you search 'bad writers'.
Another opportunity arrived in the form of a panel interview at Austin Film Festival, in which the writers' self-deprecating tone made it sound like almost everything that happened on the show was a completely fortuitous accident that happened in spite of them, rather than because of them. So what did we learn?
They had to tell George RR Martin that they didn't have any writing credentials at all
Sounds like the equivalent of a job interview where someone says the uni on your CV doesn't sound like it existed, you shrug and blow a raspberry, and you're immediately invited to become CEO.
They were as surprised as anyone that their awful pilot didn't kill the series
Again, the fact that something can go so clearly and catastrophically wrong and yet turn into something good is a lesson for us all. Just make sure you've got loads of foreign pre-sale in your back pocket when you tell the family you forgot to book anywhere for mum's birthday, but that there's a lovely place next to the station that does these tremendous things called Whoppers.
The characters only came into focus very, very, very late on
"We didn't really understand who these characters were until we were forced to write more scenes to fulfil our contracts" is one of those things that probably sounds better in your head than when you say it out loud.
NFL players were the target audience
See above: could just not say that. Lifelong fantasy fans don't often take kindly to having their beloved sagas pitched at enormous men who get battered around the head for a living. Or mums.
Angry fans kicked off and 'upset' Benioff
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