Fan petition to remake Game of Thrones Season 8 escalates as finale approaches

Update: As of May 19, the petition has reached 1 million signatures.

Game of Thrones always involves its audience to a high degree. Whether it’s setting viewership records or earning accolades for social media interactions, everyone wants to gather around the digital water cooler to discuss HBO’s fantasy epic. That hasn’t changed with its final season. What has changed is what the fans are saying.

As Season 8 (and the series itself) comes to a close, a fan petition to remake the season has picked up steam — reflecting some of the criticisms raised among the community.

Some are angry at its perceived disservice to its female characters, while others are upset at its underlit battles. On the flip side, some argue for its twists. The point is, the takes are often as hot as Drogon’s dragonfire. Those have manifested into a Change.org petition that user Dylan D. started a week ago. It started off slow, but by Thursday morning it neared 400,000 signatures.

“[Showrunners] David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have proven themselves to be woefully incompetent writers when they have no source material (i.e. the books) to fall back on,” the petition’s description reads. “This series deserves a final season that makes sense.”

As Game of Thrones has moved beyond the plot of George R.R. Martin’s currently released A Song of Ice and Fire novels, Benioff and Weiss have been working with material fresh to fans — and with a truncated timeline to do so over the final season’s six episodes.

While a season on any TV series has never been, and likely won't be, remade (that’s not how TV works), fans no doubt will be watching closely to see how this reaction may impact how HBO approaches its planned spin-off series that takes place long before the events of Game of Thrones — and similarly has no basis in literature.

Game of Thrones airs its series finale this Sunday, May 19.