The Beauty of the Iceberg

Another episode of Game of Thrones has come and gone. Some people are complaining because it wasn't the greatest of episodes. A scene everyone had been anticipating didn't live up to expectations and the rest of it fell somewhat flat. How do I feel? I'm happy about the episode, because I know, as the illustration next to me shows, it's just the tip of the iceberg.

The thing about any show (or book or movie or other form of entertainment) is that it not only give enjoyment IN THE MOMENT to the audience, it also serves to inspire them, to open their imaginations, and, now that we have the internet, to very quickly set off an explosion of culture and rituals.

I'll use Game of Thrones as an example of my own personal fandom ritual. A couple of days before the show, I start going to the fansites and reading up on people's theories about what will happen on the episode. I read all the arguments, all the guesses, and all the various counterpoints. The day OF the show, screencaps start to get posted. People will put up discussions labeled as MAJOR SHOW SPOILERS and the discussion will begin again, now that some images of the show have actually been seen.

In a lot of ways, this is my favorite part of the ritual. I LOVE the anticipation. I love the buzz and the fever surrounding what is to come. At the same time, I also love the moments as the show is happening. People from everywhere watch it at the same time and have live blog discussions about what is happening. Once the show ends, they begin to rate the episode, talking about favorite parts, least favorite.

Then the recaps begin. People will blog about the episodes in more detail than those first reactions. People will talk about episode versus book and what the changes might mean. Most of these blogs will have people adding their own comments, creating more layers of analysis and critique.  People who have watched the episode will actually read a lot of these recaps, mulling over all the different points of view.

A few days after the episode airs, the lighter stuff begins to show up. Memes taken from screen caps. Songs. Poems. I have two personal favorites from this side of things. One is Happy Place's If Game of Thrones Took Place Entirely on Facebook and the other, a more recent find, is What the Flula: Game of Thrones.  The first one is set up to just look like the whole world works off of Facebook stuff. It is brilliantly done and very funny. The second one is a confused German man trying to recap the episode in broken English. It is then animated by some very funny people. I linked to both recaps of episode 5 from season 3. You can see how they take a very serious episode with lots of creepy stuff and turn it into a giant gigglefest.

With a show I love, of course, OF COURSE, I want the episodes to be grand and wonderful. However, even when they're not, I know that when there is a strong fanbase  involvement, I will still very much enjoy the episode because there will be so much more too it than the episode itself. This frustrates some authors and show creators, but I really don't think it should. a strong fanbase can guild your creation towards superstardom . . . perhaps even more than you can.