Game of Thrones turns 10, but it's too soon to celebrate its "Iron Anniversary"

Vox

HBO's plan to celebrate today's 10th anniversary of the April 17, 2011 premiere of Game of Thrones with a month-long "Iron Anniversary" celebration seems to have been either met with indifference or scorn over how the show ended. "If it feels a little soon to be celebrating Game of Thrones, well, you’re not wrong," says Emily VanDerWerff. "The series finale aired on May 19, 2019, so when the 10th anniversary of the show’s premiere arrives, less than two years will have passed. And if the ambivalence I have sensed around this anniversary stems from anything, it stems from the fact that when Game of Thrones ended, it was an all-consuming pop culture story that even the show’s biggest fans had grown a little sick of. It’s only natural to want to give such cultural objects at least a little rest. Couldn’t HBO have waited for, you know, the 15th anniversary or something?...But I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that most fans of Game of Thrones felt some degree of frustration with how the series ended. For much of its run, Game of Thrones was the biggest show on television, and then it went out with a whimper. I suspect the show’s reputation will improve with time. There will eventually be another, more recent show whose finale makes many of the series’ fans howl with outrage. But for now, Game of Thrones is public enemy No. 1 when it comes to letting fans down. In even the recent past, a disappointing or even divisive finale would eventually fade from memory. Plenty of people had issues with the Lost finale (they were wrong!), but that show didn’t have any spinoffs or follow-ups, outside of a short film on the complete series DVD that lots of people don’t even know exists. As time has gone by, it’s been easier for even those who were unhappy with Lost’s finale to remember the show’s many other qualities and focus on those. Similar responses have followed the endings of The Sopranos and Mad Men, of Breaking Bad and The Wire. Not everybody liked all of those finales — because ending a long-running story in a way everybody likes is impossible — but get enough time and space from an ending you didn’t care for, and you’ll usually start to remember the good times too. We just don’t have that space from Game of Thrones yet, nor does it seem like the show has found a second wind among those who didn’t watch it the first time through. Throughout the pandemic, I’ve talked to lots of people who’ve finally gotten around to watching a TV show or two that they had been saving to savor, and even more who’ve revisited old favorites. I’ve talked to maybe two people who spent part of their quarantine watching Game of Thrones. Thus, an indifferent response to the Iron Anniversary — a kind of collective 'how can we miss you when you won’t go away?' — makes sense. But then again, so does HBO’s desire to turn the 10th birthday of its big hit show into a big deal. It wasn’t so long ago that Game of Thrones dominated pop culture discussion. Can’t the network get those days back?"

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• Emilia Clarke says her experiences on Game of Thrones are like a blur: "I honestly still look back at it and go, 'I'm so not at a point where I can retrospectively see this for what it is,'" she tells EW. "I think I'll be 90 when I can actually do that," Clarke tells EW just before the 10th anniversary. "The experience was so enormous, and so all-consuming, and defines me at that young moment in my life. You kind of look back at it like you would high school or college. When you're young like that, you're so in the moment." Clarke adds: "I look back at the person who was there and go, 'You really have no idea what's coming. You have no idea what's about to hit.' And it was beautiful for that. We were all very much in the moment that we were in, and very unaware as to how it was going to be received, what people were going to think, who we were going to be at the end of it. I'm going to call us kids, because we were — we were just having fun, experiencing this crazy thing. And it was joyous for that. That first season was nonstop joy, and so much fun. I look back at it with complete love."
• Game of Thrones fans are having trouble getting excited about the 10th anniversary after feeling burned by the series finale
• Viserys Targaryen, Game of Thrones' best villain, hasn't received the respect he deserves after 10 years