HBO Exec Addresses GAME OF THRONES Finale Fan Backlash and Says There Will Be No Arya Spinoff

It’s been interesting to see the reactions of the Game of Thrones fans since the series finale aired. It sure got got a big backlash, and there’s no way the executives at HBO are able to ignore what a lot of people have been saying.

In regards to the fans feeling disappointed and unfulfilled with the finale, programming president Casey Bloys recently talked to THR and detailed just how impossible a task it would have been to fulfill the wishes of all fans. He also stands up for the creative team saying:

"There's no way for [co-creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss] to have landed this plane in a way that would have made everybody happy and they're not out to make everybody happy. I think they did a beautiful job. You just have to accept that not everybody is going to agree with the choices. I'm paraphrasing Tim but basically for show this big, and this epic and this sprawling, they [Benioff and Weiss] have to make choices."

I understand they had to make choices, but a lot of the complaints I’ve been seeing are focusing on how poorly executed those choices were. They can make whatever choice they want, but as a lot of people are saying, it felt really rushed.

Bloys goes on to talk about how he likes the fact that the finale is inspiring this kind of reaction from the fans:

"What's great about the show is it made people feel a lot of things — positive and negative. A lot of people had invested in characters and hoped for certain things and wanted to see certain twists. There's probably a little bit of mourning going on that the show is over. I get it, I understand it: it's a big show and people really invested a lot in it — and that says a lot about what the show did. People really cared about it."

He goes on to address the criticism about about how the low episode count made the big important plot point feel more jarring:

"The guys have known what they've wanted to do for a long, long time. They've had a plan in their mind. I've been on the record saying I'd take five more seasons. But they've had a plan that they wanted to do and this made sense to them. They made this decision a long time ago and they're doing it exactly how they planned to do it."

He added that he’s not aware of “any conversations that anybody thought it was crammed or anything like that."

As for the upcoming Game of Thrones spinoffs, none of them will serve as a sequel to this series. That means no series that will follow Arya on her adventures exploring “what’s west of Westeros.” A lot of fans would have loved to see that, but nope, it’s not going to happen:

“I understand where that comes from, I totally get it. But in terms of wanting to be careful not overdoing it or not killing the goose that lays the golden egg, [showrunners] Dan [Weiss] and David [Benioff]’s show as it stands in eight seasons, I want to leave it as it’s own work of art and not have shows directly, having Arya do that. I think it’s best to try the prequels in other areas of George [R.R. Martin]’s massive universe — just feels like the right thing to do, let the show stand on its own.”

As for the spinoff series that is currently in the works, this is something that they are not rushing. The Jane Goldman prequel is set thousands of years before the events Game of Thrones, and they are “going to do that pilot and take our time and do it right.

Bloys is then asked if there will be more than one Game of Thrones spinoff show on the air at the same time, but it doesn’t sound like that is going to happen:

“I doubt it, I don’t think so. I certainly do not want to overdo it. We have so many varied shows coming up in 2019 and ’20 and even into ’21. I think Game of Thrones is a fantastic property but I don’t want to just be the home of prequels and sequels and all that stuff. I think you want to be really careful about how you do it. That’s why we’ve been working on the Jane pilot for a long time, because we want to do it right. I think the last thing fans would want is something that was rushed out just to make it to air.”

What do you think about the Bloys’ comments regarding the Game of Thrones finale and the future of the franchise?