Game of Thrones aired its series finale about a month and a half ago, but translated into Internet time, the show has been over for decades. Yet this hasn’t stopped its diehard fans from theorizing all kinds of things based on the bare bits that were left for them to chew on. It also hasn’t stopped some of the darker corners of Thrones fandom from petitioning for a final season redo, among many, many other complaints. These criticisms, though bad, have spread thanks in large part to the Internet, and series author George R.R. Martin doesn’t seem to think that’s a good thing.
Speaking with film critic Leonard Maltin for his podcast, Martin decried the Internet as a “toxic” place that has changed the very fabric of fandom, and not for the better. As reported by IndieWire:
“The Internet is toxic in a way that old fanzine culture and fandoms — comics fans, science fiction fans — in those days, was not,” Martin said. “There were disagreements. There were feuds, but nothing like the madness that you see on the Internet.”
This isn’t the first time the writer has spoken out against the perils of being extremely online. Shortly before the Thrones series finale, a rumor suggesting that Martin had already finished books six and seven in his A Song of Ice and Fire novels (on which the show is based) had been making the rounds. He swiftly took to his personal blog to deny them. “Internet journalism is an oxymoron, I am more and more convinced,” he wrote at the time. “Of late it seems there’s a new story about me somewhere on the net every day, or near enough to make no matter. Many get things wrong.”
(Via IndieWire)
