To say that the final season of Game of Thrones has been, uh, divisive is putting it mildly, and the likelihood that its finale on Sunday will manage to appease its fans has seemingly decreased with each additional episode.
Now, a Change.org petition to remake the series’ eighth season “with competent writers” has surpassed a million signatures and was closing in on 1.1 million as of Sunday afternoon.
“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.”
The petition kicked off following the series’ fourth episode “The Last of the Starks” (no spoilers here for the folks who’ve yet to watch). In a longer explanation of the petition’s motives posted Friday, its author Dylan wrote that while it may not be reasonable to expect HBO to actually cough up for an entirely new season, the petition was started to communicate to HBO a message “of frustration and disappointment.”
“There is so much awful crap going on in the world, people like me need to escape into things like Star Wars and Game of Thrones,” Dylan wrote. “We fans invested a wealth of passion and time into this series. I’ve been watching religiously since Season 2, myself. I’ve read all the books and eagerly await the next two. I love this story, and I, like most of you, was crushed to see how the last season (and Season 7, let’s be real) has been handled.”
HBO didn’t immediately return a request for comment about the petition.
It’s true that expecting to HBO to shell out for a redo of a six-episode season that cost tens of millions of dollars to make is a tall order. And listen, with a show as big as Game of Thrones, there’s no pleasing everyone. But given that this thing has raked in more than a million signatures in about a week, it’s clear others feel much the same way about the show’s narrative arc as Dylan.
But if Game of Thrones actors themselves are any indication, fans better brace themselves for the finale.