As GOT Fans Cry for Remake, a Defense From Stephen King

In a seemingly appropriate twist for the realm of Westeros, fans are turning on Game of Thrones. A Change.org petition calling on HBO to remake the eighth and final season of the show "with competent writers" launched last Thursday and saw a huge spike in support this week, reports People. It went from 15,000 signatures to more than 250,000 on Wednesday alone, per CNBC. As of Thursday morning, more than 360,000 had signed the petition claiming showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss are "woefully incompetent writers when they have no source material (i.e. the books) to fall back on." By 9am EDT Friday, that number was nearly 800,000.

Sunday's penultimate episode riled critics, with the Guardian's Sarah Hughes noting "it felt as though Benioff and Weiss were doing little more than gleefully destroying the world they once carefully depicted." Per CNBC, many others have complained that Benioff and Weiss are "rushing toward its ending and straying from established character arcs." But don't count Stephen King among the critics. He had this to say Thursday on Twitter: "I've loved this last season of GoT, including Dani going bugshit all over King's Landing. There's been a lot of negativity about the windup, but I think it's just because people don't want ANY ending. But you know what they say: All good things..." (Benioff and Weiss' intentions may be revealed through a coming documentary exploring "the challenge of bringing the fantasy world of Westeros to life.")