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along with millions of other viewers, I eagerly await each new season and each new episode of "Game of Thrones." It's one of my favorite things on television.

But the HBO series also aggravates me more than almost anything else on TV. Well, it's not the show that aggravates me, it's some of the people who watch it. And some of the people who write about it.

Look, no show is perfect. No show is above criticism.

But some of that criticism has been uninformed. Inconsistent. Naive. Dumb.

Including:

• In Season 1, some viewers were shocked when Ned Stark (Sean Bean) was beheaded. Some vowed they would never watch the show again.

Ned died in exactly the same way in the book.

That criticism cropped up again in Season 3, when Robb (Richard Madden) and Catelyn Stark (Michelle Fairly) — among others — were murdered at the Red Wedding. Again, that was pretty much what happened in the book.

This is not a happy fairy tale. It's "Game of Thrones."

Grrrr.

• Conversely, there's also a contingent of viewers and reviewers who naively complain because the HBO series diverges from the books.

The five books in the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series run thousands of pages, include hundreds of "speaking parts" and thousands of people … along with dragons, White Walkers, giants, etc.

It's insane to think that every detail could be included in 50 episodes. Of course characters have been combined or eliminated, plotlines have been dropped and events have been condensed.

Hey, "The Lord of the Rings" movies did the same thing. "Gone With the Wind" eliminated two of Scarlett O'Hara's three children when it was translated to the screen.

Grrrr.

• Last season, a chorus of criticism arose proclaiming that "Game of Thrones" is misogynistic. It was prompted when Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) was raped by Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon) after she was forced to marry him.

I'm not in any way defending rape. The scene was brutal, although not graphic. It was tough to watch.

But "GOT" has been brutal from the get-go; the violence is not only against women, it's also against men and children; and the narrative takes place in a fictional, medieval land where violence is a daily fact of life.

The series is not anti-women. It's filled with strong female characters. To claim otherwise is disingenuous.

Grrrr.

• And then there's the whole Jon Snow-is-dead thing. Some of the press coverage of "Game of Thrones" has been extraordinarily stupid.

We saw Jon Snow stabbed to death in the fifth-season finale. And HBO staffers have been told us repeatedly that, yes, Jon Snow (Kit Harington) is really quite completely dead.

But ask them if he's going to stay dead and they don't answer. Because, no, he isn't.

That's not a spoiler. Harington has been seen coming and going from the "Thrones" set. Jon Snow is in a promotional poster for Season 6.

But when HBO sent out this description of the Season 6 premiere — "Jon Snow is dead. Daenerys meets a strong man. Cersei sees her daughter again" — it was reported by some outlets that the character is definitively dead. Despite the fact that we have seen other characters resurrected in other seasons of "GOT."

Keep that in mind when you hear people complaining about the forthcoming resurrection. It's completely within the reality that Martin created.

Grrrr.

• Oh, and I once heard someone complain that Daenerys must be dumb if she had to name one of her dragons Drogon.

It has nothing to do with the fact that he's a dragon. He's named after her late husband, Drogo.

Grrrr.

Scott D. Pierce covers TV for The Salt Lake Tribune. Email him at spierce@sltrib.com; follow him on Twitter @ScottDPierce. —

On TV

Season 6 of "Game of Thrones" begins airing Sunday on HBO — 7 p.m. on DirecTV and Dish Network; 10 p.m. on Comcast.