And we couldnt look away.
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The Mountain, a.k.a.
Neither was the show that sent him to such a spectacular end.
Martins source text, somewhere around season five.
More than a million grew so disenchanted that theysigned a petitionto remake all of season eight.
This thing was happening, whether you wanted it or not.
The core ofGame of Thrones appealwas alwaysits comfort with horror and terror.
Martinesque feeling of events being subtly finessed by the whims of unseen gods.
It was a 21st-century series in terms ofits technology of productionanddistribution, but the sensibility was primeval.
It worked like a charm.
It wasnt just the epic moments and shocking twists that made the series such a topic of conversation.
The definitive elaboration on this comparison can be found inan article by Zeynep Tufekci inScientific American.
But this wasnt the dramatic third rail that madeGame of Throneselectrifying.
The shift to individual-focused storytelling made the show feel less assured and less special.
Characterization was increasingly subordinated not just to plot twists but to spectacle and GIF-able moments.
The one constant that kept the show vital (and controversial) was its interest in horror and terror.
The upshot is a meta-death as disturbing as any the series has given us.
But we had to watch.
