A series known not only for its brutality but shocking brutality, Game of Thrones has sucker punched viewers several times over the last few years, in grisly scenes that stole some of the most beloved characters from the show. And each time its done it, we’ve seen the internet littered with videos of fans gasping, weeping, and shouting all manner of profanity as someone they rooted for met a cruel end.
In the wake of the most recent Game of Thrones episode, we saw it again.
(Spoiler alert: This post and the videos in it contain spoilers for Game of Thrones. Obviously.)
Much like series itself, Game of Thrones reaction videos are immensely popular, scoring hundreds of thousands or even millions of views. One compilation, for the infamous Red Wedding episode, has been viewed over 10 million times, and even was screened for creator George R. R. Martin himself on the Conan show. But why do we love them so much, especially when they’re focused on the moments we hate the most? And why do the plot twists on Game of Thrones seem to inspire them in ways other shows don’t?
First, there’s the source material. The Song of Ice and Fire novels the show is based on are a subversion of fantasy tropes; you believe that Ned—and later, his son Robb—are going to be noble heroes that will win the day, because that’s how stories like this are supposed to work. Martin designed these stories to evoke those familiar fantasy tropes, and then very deliberately pulls the rug out from under them. Rather than blunt force trauma, these deaths are the literary equivalent of a surgically-aimed stiletto to the heart.
That doesn’t mean they aren’t excellent, compelling stories—or perhaps more interesting for their desire to swerve left when everyone expects them to go right—but they are, quite simply, designed to screw with you.
Reaction videos are also fundamentally linked to the books in an important way. Unlike most shocking plot twists on television shows, a significant portion of the audience saw it coming. That means that there are insiders in millions of living rooms, sitting right next to friends and family members who have no idea about the bloody events in store. The reason most reaction shots exist at all is because someone in the room knew exactly what was coming, and decided to press record and capture the fallout.
There’s an element of both hazing and fraternity there, in desiring to see other people suffer through the same pain you did, to see them react as you did, and ultimately for them to join you on the other side in fellowship. These videos also depict a point of pride for many Song of Ice and Fire readers: a collective agreement to preserve the television audience from spoilers and allow the often tragic story to unfold in its own time. Each fresh and unexpected blow to a television viewer is a fulfillment of that promise, both a wound and a gift.
After the great shock of the Red Wedding, Martin himself told the Brisbane Times that he was “very proud of my book readers … for the most part they’ve done an excellent job of not spoiling the non-readers. I mean, the fact that the Red Wedding had such a tremendous impact all around the world is a testament not only to what a great job David Benioff and Dan Weiss and the cast of Game of Thrones did in rendering the Red Wedding, but it’s also a tribute to all of my book readers who knew what was gonna happen but deliberately withheld that information, did not spoil their friends and relatives.”
Some people surely enjoy the videos solely because it’s amusing to watch people get upset—at least if the harm is fictional—particularly if their reactions are theatrical and colorfully profane. Laughing at people who react emotionally can offer distance and detachment, an opportunity to position oneself as cool and unaffected while others are vulnerable.
For others, particularly ardent fans of the series, however, it also offers a chance to do the opposite. The death of Ned Stark and the Red Wedding are moments not merely of violence but of horror, and watching them with others—not only in our living rooms, but again and again through reaction videos—offers a bit of the same thrill that comes from watching a slasher film in a crowded theater, and screaming along with everyone else.
There’s catharsis in them as well: a way to see our own horror and sadness reflected in the faces of others, and thereby somewhat allayed. Although DVRs may have fragmented audiences from one unified whole watching at a single time to a far more chronologically scattered experience, TV is still a significantly shared phenomenon—or at least, many of us still want it to be. When we watch popular shows like Game of Thrones, on some level we share that experience with millions of other people, and reaction videos are a comforting reminder that we cry and scream and grieve with them as well.
But even in Westeros, it’s not all doom and gloom. After the Purple Wedding earlier this season—where the unanimously hated King Joffrey finally met his end—we got a reaction video that again saw Game of Thrones fans were once against gasping, yelling and leaping out of their chairs, but with one important difference: everyone was ecstatic. Here viewers united not over shared sadness, frustration, or disappointment, but over the satisfaction of a deeply-held desire finally fulfilled, a chance to scream “yes!” at a show that had so often inspired us to scream “no!”
Either way, we screamed it together.
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