Game of Thrones Rewrite Petition Supporters Start Fundraiser For Emilia Clarke’s Charity

Some of the Game of Thrones fans who pushed the petition to rewrite season eight have launched a fundraiser for Emilia Clarke’s charity. If you missed the original story, a petition was launched toward the end of season eight to try and get HBO to rewrite and reshoot the final season, and it has over 1.5 million signatures currently. According to the subreddit that it came from though, the petition was not serious and one of the members of that community launched a fundraising campaign for Clarke’s SameYou charity.

ella_ellaria, the Reddit user who launched the new fundraising campaign, spoke with EW about the petition and the new campaign. Identifying herself only as Sarah, she said that she did sign the initial petition but said “it’s pretty obvious it’s a joke at the writers’ expense.”

“We wanted to send a message that even though fans have been very vocal in their disappointment with the conclusion of the series, none of that is directed at the cast and crew — all of whom did an incredible job bringing Westeros to life,” Sarah said. The campaign supports the charity that Clarke started after she revealed that she nearly died of a brain aneurysm after the first season of the show was completed.

The JustGiving campaign has raised £35,672 of the £50,000 target ($45,150 of $63286) thus far. The campaign, which makes clear it is not a “counter petition,” notes:

This fundraiser began in r/freefolk, the same subreddit the now-infamous petition originated from. Since the tongue-in-cheek nature of that petition has flown over a lot of peoples’ heads, to the point that it’s prompted backlash from some of the cast, we wanted to show that Game of Thrones fans appreciate the hard work of the incredible cast & crew despite their constraints. Any disappointment we felt with the conclusion of the series was not in them, but rather in the potential that was lost due to the rushed pace of storytelling.