This one is less tangible than some of the other things this show has going for it. I think it’s a result of the characters being so rich and entertaining that we grow to like some of them very much. Perhaps it’s just a thirst for escapism and pure fantasy that we don’t get to enjoy as much as we’d like. But the fever around the return of Game of Thrones this season was rather strong. The anticipatory buildup was prolonged by HBO’s decision to push back the premiere from January to the end of March, but that just gave them more time to promote it even more and work us all up to a frenzy to see what was going to happen with Arya and Jon Snow and everyone else. They were able to send custom boxsets to their favorite Twitter celebs and get some viral marketing that way (how many episodes of Enlightened could the price of those customized things have produced? Whatever I’m not bitter!).
It didn’t hit me until I saw the cold (like, super cold) open featuring Samwell picking up where he left off at the end of Season 2 and then the opening theme music hit and I was watching the interactive map animation so closely and my heart sank when I saw Winterfell reduced to smoke and rubble. That’s when it hit me: my relationship with this show may not be entirely healthy. But there’s something about the power of a show like this that creates this level of weird attachment (and on the flip side, extreme levels of rage for the more villainous characters). Maybe someone else has the answer for why this is; all I know is that it’s there and it’s embarrassing but what can you do.
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