What's Everybody Mad About This Week?!: Games of Thrones’ creators had themselves a week

Welcome to What's Everybody Mad About This Week?!, a SYFY WIRE series that rounds up the biggest geek culture uproars of the week and adds a little bit of context for those who missed out.

There's no denying that the internet is a breeding ground for debate. Not all of that debate is healthy, or even really a debate in the classical sense of the word. In case you're living a healthy life away from internet outrage, we've cut through all the noise to take stock of the latest, hottest debates so you can pretend to know what your friends are talking about.

Happy Halloween! This week we've got a double dose of drama surrounding Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss — strap in, my beautiful, angry nerds!

Credit: HBO

The original, unnamed Game of Thrones spinoff — the one created by Jane Goldman (co-writer of both Kingsman films) and George R.R. Martin that had cast Naomi Watts in the lead role — was officially canceled by HBO on Tuesday. It was said to take place thousands of years before the main series, during Westeros' "Age of Heroes." Then, just a day later, we learned that there's actually a completely different spin-off that will be happening, this one titled House of the Dragon, which is, of course, a Targaryen-focused series.

While Benioff and Weiss aren't... really involved with these spin-offs, people are blaming them for having soiled the series' overall reputation. Many people initially assumed that the Watts-led series was canceled because HBO was so embarrassed by peoples' reactions to the Game of Thrones finale (there is, for what it's worth, no evidence of this). Others blamed those angry fans for scaring HBO away (again, there is no evidence of this).

Then House of the Dragon was announced and people were either elated that we'll be getting more dragons (and more fire and blood) onscreen or they still weren't happy because they just… kind of don't like Game of Thrones anymore. Which is fine. Everybody has their opinion. And, yes, everyone will continue to be mad.

Credit: Taylor Hill/Getty Images

If you haven't spent time on the internet, then you might not know that Game of Thrones is currently one hell of a touchy subject. Judging by peoples' reactions to the finale episode in May, there's not a lot of love lost right now between fans and the series' creators, Benioff and Weiss.

The new series announcement has some people excited — who doesn't love dragons? — but, of course, anger is powerful and we're still not too far from the Game of Thrones finale for people to still have passionate feelings over it.

So when Benioff and Weiss made an appearance at the Austin Film Festival to talk about writing and producing Game of Thrones, things were said. A Twitter thread recounting partial quotes from the pair was, for a time, the only source the internet had to go off of. So everyone laid into them. Only later did the truth come out.

I'm not here to tell you how you should feel about what Benioff and Weiss had to say about adapting Game of Thrones, their relationship and early talks with Martin, or the finale. I'm just here to give you the context behind why everyone is so mad.

Here's the thing: There's long been a debate surrounding exactly how qualified Benioff and Weiss were for the job of adapting the series in the first place. Many have accused them of not acknowledging their privilege as straight white men in a space that, historically, rewards straight white men by allowing them to "fail upward" — meaning, they either fail at their jobs or do so-so work and still manage to be promoted and praised.

Whether or not you agree with that is your business, I just know that everyone’s gonna be mad no matter what.

Credit: Image Group LA / Contributor via Getty Images

I feel like this was a good week! Especially if you're not super into Game of Thrones. Let's not be mad! It's Halloween — save your pent-up anger for that Michael Myers costume you'll be donning tonight!

If you need some things to be happy about: We got a lot of crazy announcements, like the fact that HBO's making a Targaryen spin-off, a new Green Lantern series, a new Ridley Scott Project, and just a hell of a lot more content for HBO Max.

The new Mandalorian trailer was pretty dope, right?

And, maybe most importantly, we learned that Ewan McGregor, that beautiful bastard, has been lying to us for years about not knowing whether or not an Obi-Wan project would be happening. You can't even be mad about that — honestly, I'm impressed.