The 5 stages of 'Game of Thrones' grief: Is anyone still excited for tonight's finale?

20 May 2019 - 00:00
By Zola Zingithwa and Toni Jaye Singer
Fans are particularly cross about how quickly Daenerys Targaryen went from being a saviour to a city-torching tyrant.
Image: Showmax Fans are particularly cross about how quickly Daenerys Targaryen went from being a saviour to a city-torching tyrant.

SPOILER ALERT! This article contains spoilers for 'Game of Thrones' season 8.

Is anyone still excited about the Game of Thrones finale tonight?

Based on the comments that have flooded social media after the penultimate episode, The Bells, it would seem that for many the answer is no.

But is it because the eighth season of GoT is not playing out as they'd hoped, or are they just grieving because it's the end of an era? After all, they've been in an intimate eight-year relationship with the characters of Westeros.

If you think about it, the finale episode spells the death of their favourite show.

Psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross famously outlined five stages people go through when dealing with bereavement in her 1969 book, On Death and Dying.  

These stages perfectly correspond with the emotional responses GoT  fans seem to be going through in the run-up to the finale:

1. DENIAL

2. ANGER

3. BARGAINING

Hundreds of thousands of furious fans are petitioning HBO to remake season 8, protesting that the "series deserves a final season that makes sense". 

4. DEPRESSION

5. ACCEPTANCE