Video: Game of Thrones’ final season is upon us. The end — the final end. What we have left is weirdly finite in a way that’s still hard to comprehend after what will be eight seasons of television.
What is dead may never die, however — as long as there’s brand tie-ins to be made. I’m not sure that’s exactly what the Drowned God had in mind.
Obviously, Game of Thrones is no stranger to brand collaborations at this point — it is one of the biggest pop culture juggernauts on the planet, and has been around for years. Merchandise is inevitable.
But the arrival of the final season really feels as though it’s hit a bizarro level of merch overload that HBO has shied away from in the series’ past. We have Game of Thrones the whisky. Game of Thrones the sneaker collection. Game of Thrones the Oreo. Game of Thrones the Mountain Dew! It’s weird.
It’s like a dam somewhere holding all this in burst, and the Hot Brand Collabo Tide surged forth out of the cracks, threatening to drown anything in its path.
Or like, there was some kind of wall, safeguarding us from this threat. That part of fell down. And then a giant horde of brainless monsters surged through it ready to consume us all.
Anyway, entirely unrelated to this, here’s a new two-minute CG animation of Game of Thrones Funko Pops recreating the climactic moment of season seven — you know the bit. Where the Night King uses the undead Viserion to blow a hole in the wall? That he and his vast army of white walkers and ice zombies then marched through, to consume all of Westeros?
Yeah. Anyway, better this than another unexpected tie in with the Trump administration, probably.