BENGALURU: Winter has finally arrived. And no, we don’t mean the kind where you have to pull out those sweaters and plan beach vacations. The much-anticipated, penultimate Season 7 of Game of Thrones (GoT) released in India early on Monday morning, and social media was already full of spoilers.
Kavya Satyakumar works at an advertising firm in the city and has also read the books on which the hit series is based. The viewing of the episode therefore had to be a special occassion. “My flatmate and I have a projector at home. So we called a few people over - only massive fans - and got some beers,” she said.
For those with regular day jobs, watching their favourite show on Monday morning was impossible. “I’m going to download it at my office, same as a lot of my colleagues, and watch it at home,” said 26-year-old Homa Abdul Hamid, an animator and huge GoT fan. “This season is going to be a decider in a lot of ways,” she added.
Others such as Pratik, who works with a media house in the city, said he was very lucky that he gets to go in to work much later in the day. He was planning to download the episode and watch it before going in to work. “Luckily, my flatmates won’t be at home then, so I can watch it peacefully and without any interruptions,” he said.
Avoiding spoilers
Because the episode had already released in the US and the UK late on Sunday night there were spoilers all over social media. For Rohan Matthew, a 25-year-old fitness and health trainer, staying off Facebook before he watched the episode was key. “I refused to go onto Facebook. Every second post screams ‘spolier alert’! It was hard enough to get my friends not to reveal anything to me, but even accidentally clicking on a link can do a lot of damage,” said Rohan who is looking forward to the battle with the white walkers and watching Jon Snow (hopefully) defeat them.
Meenal Jain, who just finished her MBA and has recently moved to the city, said that she called in sick to work today and is going to order food, put a ‘do not disturb’ sign on her door, and watch the episode in bed. “In a way, I’m lucky that I have the flu. I called in sick today, and this way I get to see the episode before most people I know. My plan is to order some soup, wear socks, curl up in bed and watch Daenerys slowly take over Westeros,” she said. She added that she is very fascinated by the female characters in the show and how they’ve evolved through the seasons.