George R. R. Martin calls backlash to Game of Thrones final season ‘madness’

He just thinks it's all a bit much, really.

A month or so ago, Game of Thrones ended forever. It was a dramatic ending, a defiant one, an ending that some people hated with every fibre of their being and others thought was essentially fine. If you watched Game of Thrones, you'll be more than well aware of the backlash that the show's final season received. And if you don't watch Game of Thrones, you'll probably still be more than well aware of the backlash that the show's final season received. It was all encompassing. Everything from the writing to the plot to the deaths were criticised. Nothing and nobody was safe, apart from the actors who all did a very good job as per usual. And while just about everybody else who anything vaguely to do with the show has already expressed their feelings about season eight, George R. R. Martin had yet to throw in his two cents. Until now. Speaking on Leonard Maltin's 'Maltin on Movies' podcast, Martin said that although the final season was not based directly on his work, he still feels the need to defend it - and suggest that maybe people weren't as enraged as they thought they were.

"The Internet is toxic in a way that the old fanzine culture and fandoms - comics fans, science fiction fans in those days - was not," he said.

"There were disagreements. There were feuds, but nothing like the madness that you see on the internet. "The scale of Game of Thrones' success has - reaching all over the world and invading the culture - it's not something anyone could ever anticipate, not something I expect to ever experience again." Fair, like. This comes after a Game of Thrones director defended the show's decision to rush Daenerys's descent into madness in the final season. Miguel Sapochnik, who directed season eight episode five, said that he had always expected the Queen of Dragons to go mad - it was just a case of how they were going to execute it with the little allocated time they had left. "The way she has treated humans, and the conviction she has, means that conviction is eventually going to fall afoul," he told IndieWire. "We said, 'You’ve never been like this.' It was this idea of us trying to piece her back together, but something’s broken." If you say so.