With 12 mn views, Season 7 finale most watched Game of Thrones episode ever

When it comes to breaking records, there is no one better than 'Game of Thrones' and just like every season, season seven has also broken all the viewership records.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the super-sized finale episode (The Dragon and the Wolf) of the blockbuster series broke HBO's ratings records and stands as the show's most-watched episode ever.

A total of 12.1 million viewers tuned in for the 9 pm ET airing which is 13 per cent higher than the previous record high two weeks earlier (10.7 million viewers) and 36 percent higher than the season 6 finale (8.9 million viewers).

If HBO's replays and streaming are added, that number climbs to 16.5 million. It was also up 19 per cent from this year's debut, which clocked in at 10.1 million viewers.

When all forms of catch-up viewing are counted, the penultimate season's episodes are averaging under 31 million viewers, up nearly 8 million from the same point in time last season.

At this point, an estimated 90 per cent of US HBO subscribers watch 'Game of Thrones'.

With season 7 now complete, the showrunners plan to start production on an eighth and final season in October.

The season can debut in the latter half of 2018 or, more likely, early 2019.
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Game of Thrones season 7 episode 4 script leaked, HBO probing data breach

After anonymous hackers claiming to have leaked the script of the next episode of "Game of Thrones" (GoT) along with 1.5TB of data, popular TV network HBO was investigating the data breach.

"HBO recently experienced a cyber incident, which resulted in the compromise of proprietary information," Sky News quoted HBO as saying late on Monday.

"We immediately began investigating the incident and are working with law enforcement and outside cybersecurity firms. Data protection is a top priority at HBO and we take seriously our responsibility to protect the data we hold," HBO added in a statement.

According to the Telegraph, hackers claimed to have stolen 1.5TB of data, including the script for Season 7 Episode 4 of 'GoT' as well as unreleased episodes of 'Ballers' and 'Room 104' -- two of HBO's other shows.

There are four remaining episodes in "Game of Thrones" Season 7, with the finale scheduled on August 27.

In an email sent to Entertainment Weekly, the hackers said: "Hi to all mankind. The greatest leak of cyber space era is happening. What's its name? Oh I forget to tell. Its HBO and Game of Thrones??!!!!!!."

"You are lucky to be the first pioneers to witness and download the leak. Enjoy it & spread the words. Whoever spreads well, we will have an interview with him. HBO is falling," the email further read.
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Five reasons why Game of Thrones satisfies our needs

Game of Thrones has become something of a TV event over the past six years – the last season attracted more than 5m viewers per episode. On the face of it, the attractions are obvious: large helpings of sex and violence, bolstered by a serpentine storyline said to be inspired by the War of the Roses, one of the bloodiest periods of English history.

Yet, I think the series meets deeper, more fundamental human needs than just a romp through the bedrooms and battlefields of author George R. R. Martin’s imagination. With colleagues Luca Visconti of ESCP Europe and Stephanie Feiereisen of Cass Business School, I conducted a series of semi-structured interviews with 55 people from 14 countries to get a more detailed picture of what the psychological needs are that narratives like Game of Thrones satisfy.

We found five motivations for consuming stories varying from Game of Thrones specifically to other books, documentaries and films, to paintings and frescos, to music and novels. These are: understanding the outer world, understanding the inner world, investigating the outer world, forgetting the inner world and looking after a lonely and suffering self.

1. Understanding the outer world

Game of Thrones provides insight into the lives of people in other places in other times, like the Scandinavian vikings (portrayed in the series as the Ironborn from the Iron Islands) as well as Genghis Khan and the Mongols (represented by Daenerys’ time with the horse-obsessed Dothraki). We get a glimpse of the Slave Coast of Africa with Slavers’ Bay while the various Free Cities in Game of Thrones – Lys, Braavos, Pentos, Norvos, Myr – can be found in our history books as various trading cities of the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East (Alexandria, Baghdad, Constantinople, and Tyre, for example).
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Game of Thrones and the cut and thrust of warring women through the ages

“Enemies to the east, enemies to the west, enemies to the south, enemies to the north. Whatever stands in our way, we will defeat it.” So says Cersei Lannister to her brother Jamie, as she considers the various threats to her reign.

The trailers for season seven of Game of Thrones promise further epic battles to decide the fate of the Seven Kingdoms. One of the key struggles will almost certainly be between Cersei Lannister, recently crowned queen of Westeros, and Daenerys Targaryen, whose ownership of several dragons would appear to give her a distinct advantage on the battlefield. Her mantra: “I was born to rule the seven kingdoms and I will.”

One of the many sources of inspiration for Game of Thrones is the Wars of the Roses, which involved several ambitious women – principally Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry VI, Elizabeth Woodville (who married Edward IV), and Margaret Beaufort, whose son Henry Tudor would eventually take the crown – who brought the civil war to an end. The Hollow Crown, the BBC’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s plays about the Wars of the Roses portrayed Margaret of Anjou wearing mail on the battlefield, but what role did women really play in warfare of the later medieval period?

This partially depends upon how we define warfare. Then, as now, it was unusual to find women on the battlefield – but not impossible, think of Joan of Arc or Joanna of Flanders who donned armour to attack her enemy on horseback. But, if we think of warfare more broadly – as being waged by one society against another – then women played a significant role in the war effort.
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