The Fans-Come-Lately anyway. EW reports that a portion of the GoT viewers came away from Episode Nine’s death of Ned Stark screaming that they feel betrayed and will never watch again.

As a book reader who knew perfectly well this was coming–and that it would be episode nine, because they would need episode ten to move us forward to next season with the characters who are still alive–I find this sort of hysteria both unnecessary and foolish. Why would you quit now? This is a series that is in a genre in which every story has a main POV male character who lives despite the odds. Don’t you want to know how A Song Of Fire and Ice can pull this off and still have the following that it has? No? Instead you’re going to knee jerk react and pull the plug?

Really non-reading TV viewers? Sorry, if that’s the way you’re going to behave, we have a problem.

You wanted a show with a twist? Here’s your motherfucking twist bitches.

NED’S NOT THE PROTAGONIST OF GAME OF THRONES. HE NEVER WAS.

You’re damned right Martin killed off Stark. Not only did he kill him, but he killed him needlessly. Thoughtlessly. Ned Died For Nothing. He died because some 14-year-old kid thought it would be fun, and make him look manly. Welcome to the World of Westeros.

Don’t be upset–us book readers were blown away when we read that the first time too. I believe I may have cried, stamped, thrown my book across the room, picked it back up, reread to make sure I wasn’t MOTHERFUCKING DREAMING, finished the chapter and then thrown it again.

In fact, guess what? In the books, it’s actually worse. Because you never see things from Cersei’s POV, or Jaime’s POV in the books. You don’t know what’s going on in their world. Instead you only ever seen them through Stark’s eyes, so you are far more convinced that Ned is right in his decision-making. (There is no Stupid Ned Stark in the books.) There is no detachment from him.

But really it’s so much, much worse, because it is 100% Sansa’s fault he’s killed. Yes, you read that right. In the books, Sansa’s betrayal of her father runs far deeper. She betrays his escape plans, and blabs everything to Cersei because she’s so sure people are honorable (she is after all, her father’s daughter.) She also does it because she has this fantasy of who Joffrey is and is terrified of losing her chance at marrying him. In the book, his death is 100% laid at her feet. So not only do you scream and cry because Stark was the one you got attached to, because he was the one it was safe to get attached to, because the main male POV character is always the one who lives. Oh no, it’s much worse. You scream and cry, AND THEN YOU HAVE TO READ ANOTHER FUCKING SANSA POV CHAPTER. Trust me TV viewers, the show softened the blow for you. You should be grateful.

You’re mad because you got attached to Sean Bean as Ned? Welcome to how we all felt. You can’t understand why he was the face of the series, if he was going to die? Because that was the most True To The Book Thing they could have done.

I’m sure the temptation was great to change that–to make Dany or Jon or Tyrion the center, to put their faces up on the side of the bus. For the record, they actually did make those characters much more central. They made everyone who lives to the next season much more accessible. You should try it with Cersei being a two-dimensional monster, with no redeeming moments until several books in.

No, there is no replacing Ned Stark. The book never replaces him either. From the moment he dies, until where we are now, waiting for Book 5, there is never a central figure in quite that way again. Because with Ned’s death, that conceit, that supposition that pervades every fantasy story, is thrown out the window. No one is safe. There was a tag on LiveJournal, back when LiveJournal had not been done in by Facebook: Everytime You Ask About The Next Book, GRRM Kills A Stark. Starks aren’t the only ones to go either. As The Player said, “The bad end unhappily, the good unluckily. That is what tragedy means.”

For the love of of all that is holy, you should Keep Fucking Watching.

Because Dany’s about to give birth. And let me tell you when that goes down, it’s about to become a Whole New Motherfucking Ballgame.