SAN DIEGO — Amid uproar following the end of HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” the programming director of Comic-Con International told the audience to be kind.
“One thing I do want to bring up before I talk a little more about this panel coming up is I want to mention one of the things I think we all love about Comic-Con so much is the fact that we all accept each other,” Eddie Ibrahim said, as the crowd laughed. “We all accept each other’s fandoms, we all accept each other idiosyncrasies and even if we disagree sometimes, we all do love the content that is brought to us and we do love the shows and the movies. We want that to continue, we want more of this content because we love it. So just keep that in mind and just remember this is a place where everyone is accepted, feels welcome and is at home.”
The announcement came just two days after creators D.B Weiss and David Benioff suddenly dropped out of the panel citing scheduling issues.
Isaac Hempstead Wright, Conleth Hill, John Bradley, Maisie Williams, Liam Cunningham, Jacob Anderson and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau were all on hand to discuss Season 8 — the good and the bad.
“I don’t regret starting the petition,” Hill, who played Lord Varys, joked, poking fun of the online petition that went around angling to have HBO remake the final season.
Cunningham said of the backlash to the final season, “You look at the amount of people who are here and we’re here to thank you for watching us for all those years … we’re very grateful for your fandom over the years and I think this is the reality rather than the media-led hate.”
Coster-Waldau commented that there was backlash at the end of every season.
“This show has brought so many people together, watching it, loving it, so obviously when it comes to an end, it’s going to piss you off no matter what because it’s the end,” he added.
The cast went on to share their favorite lines from the series, different what-if scenarios, what they will miss most and, of course, address the modern-day water bottle that was left in the final edit of one of the episodes.
“I’m right-handed, I’ve thought about this,” Bradley, who portrays Samwell Tarly, said. “If I’m drinking a water bottle with my right hand … If I was going to put it on the floor I think I would have put it on [the right side].”
He then joked that if he’d had less heavy of an outfit while filming in Spain, he may not have had to drink as much water.
At the end, the fans gave the cast members a standing ovation for their final “Game of Thrones” Comic-Con panel.