Interlude
After so long without an update, I should explain myself about the reasons which led me to stop writing.
The first is simply a lack of inspiration. As I had mentioned way back in the first chapter, I can only write when I feel inspired, and after Yara died my interest waned a bit. It's weird how these fictional characters become so important in our minds. I felt bad about killing her, and I didn't really know how to process that feeling.
It took me a while to understand that these characters never truly die. Even the ones that officially died in canon aren't really gone if we can always bring them back in another story. That's the beauty of fanfiction. We get to see our favourite characters again, even if we have to look through the lenses of different writers. Sometimes the image is good, other times it's a bit twisted, but it's something. It helps to keep them alive.
So that was a problem of my own design. The other reason is less internal and more external.
After the finale, I was embarrassed.
Sure, the ending wasn't all that great, and the whole season felt a bit rushed. Well, given that I started writing this after season seven, I'll admit this feeling wasn't new. Now that we can see the whole story, the last two seasons don't compare well to the previous ones. I'm sure there were many reasons behind the decision to have two shorter seasons, but it didn't work for me.
While all that is true, what disappointed me most was the vitriolic reaction of the fandom.
Some people confused criticism with harassment, going out of their way to punish the two showrunners for the terrible crime of giving their favourite show a bad ending. There's a very clear line between criticising someone's work and insulting that someone because you didn't like their work. One is a perfectly natural way of engaging with art, the other is what immature children do.
What I saw after the finale made me embarrassed to be a part of this fandom.
Reddit was a particularly nasty place (r/freefolk was a hellhole. Maybe it still is, I haven't checked back in a long while). Echo chambers tend to have that problem. One opinion gets repeated so often that everyone takes it as fact, and dissenting voices are muted and ignored.
It made me think of that Nietzsche quote ("If you stare long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you"), so I had to step back and take a break. I felt no need to hate anyone, and being exposed to so much hatred was slowly eroding my goodwill.
I'm glad I got to enjoy the show for as long as I could. And even if I didn't like the ending, I still appreciate all the rest. Game of Thrones was my favourite show for nearly a decade, and that's no small feat. It gave me weeks and weeks of entertainment, discussing complicated theories, reading and writing thousand-word essays, watching fan videos, overanalysing minutes of trailers for future episodes to figure out what would come next…
That's all still fresh in my memory. That's what I took from Game of Thrones. Not how nonsensical the ending was.
Somewhat related, since I've grown to resist arguments about how terrible the ending was, I found myself accepting it. At least GOT gave us some closure, which is more than can be said about the book series. I would have preferred something else, but that's what we got. That's enough for me.
This also explains why I'm more interested in fanfics about what happens after season 8 now. Post canon. When you accept what happened, there are still many storylines left to explore. Jon beyond the Wall, Arya's journey West, Sansa as Queen in the North, Bran and Tyrion managing the rest of the kingdoms. Even Yara is still alive. And last but not least, Drogon flying away with Dany's dead body. You know there's a reason for that. There are so many possibilities…
On that note, this entire fanfic now seems an exercise on hypocrisy, considering I'm basically rewriting the last two seasons. If I find myself accepting what the show did, why should I rewrite it?
Which brings us back to the beginning.
I'm still somewhat curious to see where this story takes me, but not as curious as I used to be. Rereading the whole thing, I noticed that there are a few upcoming scenes I really want to read, like Arya and Jon's reunion. So I have some motivation to keep writing. But the realist in me knows this won't last. It's probably just a renewed interest due to the anniversary of the show's premiere.
Here's a compromise: If I don't finish this by next year, I'll post the outline for the ending. We all need some closure, even if it's not an ideal version.