When the end came, it came depressingly quietly and quickly. After all the fire and brimstone of the ‘Battle of the Bastards’ and the utter annihilation of King’s Landing in the penultimate episode, an eerie stillness has crept across office aisles, canteens and coffee machines and smoking areas.
Addicts at workplace near you — who were hooked onto their screens from 6.30 am every Monday to watch every episode over eight long seasons — are now walking around much like the White Walkers in the series. Their weekly shot has been snatched away for good and they crave for more. The founder of a beverage company in Bengaluru would wake up earlier than usual, wear his office attire, watch the series and then head out for his 8 am meeting.
Karan Rajpal, digital marketing head at a construction and materials company, said he watched the series “every Monday before leaving for work.” “Even with a new-born baby, both my wife and I made this the only thing we did together on a schedule each week. Now, finding something similar which would meet both our tastes would be difficult,” Rajpal rues.
STRONG RECOMMENDATIONS
Even in this #MeToo era of heightened gender sensitivity and changing office dynamics, nobody seemed to mind or care about the non-consensual sex and violence. “It was initially tough to watch the first few seasons because of all the nudity. Violence, at least, we have seen before in movies, but this series kept pushing my moral boundaries,” admits Aarthisundari Jayakumar, a capital market professional. There were times when she tried to opt out, but strong recommendations pushed her to come back.
Fans dressed up as GoT characters queued up and paid fees for photographs with actors Kristian Nairn, who played Hodor, and Vladimír Furdík (the Night King) when they visited India for Comic Con. “Even the actors were surprised to see that the show was as popular in India as abroad,” said Jatin Varma, the founder of the local Comic Con chapter.
While viewers still scratch their heads to figure out how a work of fantasy fiction featuring dragons, eunuch warriors, zombies, delusional and dysfunctional despots and quixotic queens who slaughtered and pummelled over half of the 330 characters to rule over realms became such a smash hit and took such a hold on popular culture, the fact is it did. And, alongside, it changed TV for good and the way people live, work and play and interact.
“I actually had somebody on my Instagram who put up a picture of a household which was to witness a marriage in a few hours coming together to watch the finale with the bride in her full attire,” said Rohit Raj, cofounder and creative chief for The Glitch, a WPP agency. “I used to make notes on key characters and plot the probabilities and then rewatch previous seasons before the beginning of a new season so that nothing is missed out,” adds Nadir Kanthawala, a Mumbai business development manager.
Naturally then, after the finale aired on May 19, life for this collective — part of unbowed, unsullied, unbroken and unbent global tribe — seems to be meaningless.
Monday morning weekly reviews are no longer rescheduled, dedicated WhatsApp groups have disbanded, meeting rooms that were named after the kingdoms of Westeros – the continent where most of the action in GoT takes place – might soon be rechristened with the hackneyed names of India’s rivers, mountains or cricket stadiums.
Seldom are people scurrying to their desks now for an online peek-a-boo and neither are they transfixed to their mobile screens while traveling. No longer are alarms being set for earlier than usual to catch episodes, which in the last season, were streamed live with the US telecast.
GLOBAL PHENOMENON
Catch phrases such as ‘Winter is Coming,’ ‘A Lannister Always Pays His Debts’ and ‘Red Wedding’ to describe a disastrous meeting, which became so commonplace, now seem lame. It had become especially intense for Indian fans after they got to watch episodes simultaneously with the global audience, which added to the thrill and the excitement of being part of a larger, global phenomenon. The anticipation led many to download the Hotstar app, the only platform to stream it live, and tune in to the uncensored version.
“We’ve seen a 6x increase in tune-ins at 6.30 am compared to the previous season as well as growth in subscriptions for Hotstar Premium,” said Varun Narang, chief product officer of Hotstar, the streaming service owned by Star India. That’s why a new, first-of-itskind #GOTHelpline has been launched by STAR World — to help fans cope with the supposed “five stages of grief ” following the finale and help them navigate their emotional turmoil. Thousands called in the first week after its launch.
