If the end of Game of Thrones ruffled your feathers, I’m very sorry to break it to you, but you won’t be able to shoot daggers the showrunners at this year’s Comic-Con.
In a last minute tweet from the GoT account, it was announced that showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss will not be attending their Comic-Con panel this week. That also includes director Miguel Sapochnik and actors Iain Glen and Nathalie Emmanuel who have also bailed on the event.
While Jacob Aderson, John Bradley, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Liam Cunningam, Conleth Hill, Maisie Williams and Isaac Hemsptead Wright will still be in attendance, fans suspect the dropouts are because of bad press.
HBO didn’t give any specific reason for the change, but Twitter is busy speculating and the Game Of Thrones memes are RIFE. I’m not entirely surprised – the final episode of the hit show was dragged within an inch of its life online, and a petition to have it rewritten by “competent writers” now boasts over 1.5 million signatures.
According to Cinema Blend, one Reddit thread called for the showrunners to be punished with a “shame bell” during their Comic-Con panel as a cheeky nod to one of the show’s previous episodes.
During a recent fan convention in Nashville, Tennessee, actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau was forced to defend the show, telling the audience: “Everyone on Game of Thrones, and there are thousands, we worked our asses of to make the best show we could for the ending.”
Despite all the criticism, GoT has cleaned UP when it comes to Emmy nominations. The show is up for a whopping 32 awards, three of which were successfully self-submitted by actors Alfie Allen, Gwendoline Christie, and Carice van Houten.
As the old saying goes: if the Comic-Con fans won’t back you, you’ll just have to back yourself. Touché