‘True to the end’?: Fan responses to the final season and series finale of HBO’s True Blood

Abstract

Abstract HBO used the tag line ‘True to the End’ to advertise the final season of True Blood (2008–14). Building on existing scholarship on active fandom, this article explores viewer responses to this final season by analysing the posts by fans on the HBO-sponsored True Blood Facebook page. This page encourages communication within the fan community and also tries to guide the direction of the communication through various posts, including ones by cast members. Yet despite this guidance, the fan posts express overall disillusionment with the plotline of the final season, with the discontent bordering often on what Jonathan Gray (2003) has termed ‘antifandom’. Drawing on the literary critic Frank Kermode’s (2000) theory about the sense of an ending, this article will provide an innovative paradigm for analysing fan responses to the series ending. Thus, although readers take pleasure in complex plots, they nevertheless simultaneously wish to rest assured that the ending will fulfil a set of narrative expectations. In analysing the Facebook fan posts, the article discusses the alternative endings that fans were most ardently wishing for and whether it is possible to make any generalizations about the fans who supported the plot developments and those who opposed them. The article illustrates how fans can successfully navigate promotional spaces aimed at them and use them for their own purposes, thus undermining the promotional discourse of the sites. It also aims to encourage further debates about the possible benefits of applying traditional literary paradigms to new media contexts.