Game of Thrones Fans Aren’t Too Happy About the Show’s Lighting Issues

The long-anticipated Battle of Winterfell on Game of Thrones finally took place on the most recent episode of the show’s final season, and it was as twisted and surprising as one might have expected. What people did not necessarily enjoy, however, was the darkness on their television screens.

No, people were not necessarily complaining about the lack of levity in the subject matter (although that aspect of the series deserves to be pointed out, too). It was the literal darkness that caused fans of the series to make memes about how little they could actually see onscreen because the show just wasn’t bright enough.

It’s not just Game of Thrones, either. Many prestige drama series with scenes of battle and violence tend to have this problem of being too dimly lit: People have complained about the brightness levels of The Walking Dead, the Twin Peaks revival, and Mr. Robot, to name a few. Additionally, when a show relies heavily on CGI, the creators could be using low brightness levels as a little bit of sleight of hand to hide any discrepancies or glitchy inaccuracies a viewer might notice if the screen is too well lit.

Many viewers tweeted about turning off every light in their house just so that they could get a glimpse at what was going on in the bloody battle, but it was not until the big surprise of the return of Melisandre that brought some brightness back to the screens.

Whether or not the Game of Thrones creators wanted the Battle of Winterfell to purposefully be that dark until Melisandre returned to fight the Dothraki as some sort of symbolism remains to be seen, but at least we got some good memes out of it.

Related: Game of Thrones Season 8, Episode 3 Winners and Losers: Some Men Must Die