Stephen King Speaks out and Defends ‘Game of Thrones’ Final Season

The eighth and final season of Game of Thrones has been drawing conflicting reactions from viewers during the course of its run, with many less than pleased with the way things are going in Westeros.

Some have even gone so far as to start a petition for the season to be rewritten, but author Stephen King seemed to have no issue, sharing his thoughts on Twitter and writing that he thinks the negativity is simply because fans don’t want the show to end.

“I’ve loved this last season of GoT,” he tweeted on Thursday.

Riverdale star Lili Reinhart also shared her thoughts on fans’ negative reactions to the show, commenting on an Instagram post from Variety discussing the circulating petition.

“This is not how television works…” Reinhart wrote. “TV shows are not fan service. It’s ridiculous of people to think they can demand creative change from artists.”

The Change.org petition has over 800,000 signatures as of Friday morning.

“[Showrunners] David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have proven themselves to be woefully incompetent writers when they have no source material (i.e. the books) to fall back on,” the petition reads. “This series deserves a final season that makes sense. Subvert my expectations and make it happen, HBO!”

Game of Thrones star Kit Harington told Esquire in April that he couldn’t care less about what critics have to say about the HBO drama’s final season.

“I think no matter what anyone thinks about this season — and I don’t mean to sound mean about critics here — but whatever critic spends half an hour writing about this season and makes their [negative] judgement on it, in my head they can go f— themselves,” he said. “‘Cause I know how much work was put into this. I know how much people cared about this. I know how much pressure people put on themselves and I know how many sleepless nights working or otherwise people had on this show.”

“Because they cared about it so much. Because they cared about the characters. Because they cared about the story. Because they cared about not letting people down,” he continued. “Now if people feel let down by it, I don’t give a f— — because everyone tried their hardest. That’s how I feel. In the end, no one’s bigger fans of the show than we are, and we’re kind of doing it for ourselves. That’s all we could do, really. And I was just happy we got to the end.”

The final episode of Game of Thrones airs Sunday, May 19 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.

Photo Credit: Getty / John Lamparski