GOT: Game of Thrones Offers an Insight of the Royal Bushes
If you said “Winter is coming” to 100 random people and recorded their expressions, there would be a wide difference in the expressions shown. If you still think this is referring to the season, you, my friend, are from a different planet.
Game of Thrones is a television series that is adapted from a book “The Song of Ice and Fire” written by George R.R. Martin. The pilot episode was aired in April 2011and has never looked back since. It has one of the widest fan bases for a series and rightly so. Every episode has a cliff hanger that makes the audience impatient for the next episode.
Game of Thrones is predominantly based in politics. Set in the fictional land of Westeros, it depicts seven noble families and the immense political struggle between them to capture the title of ‘King of the Seven Kingdoms’. Of course, friction exists between every house that threatens to escalate into a full blown out war at any point. Far out in the north, an ancient entity called The Night King awakens and threatens to destroy the entire realm of men, with only an ancient neglected order called the Night’s Watch fighting against them. Doesn’t seem interesting? I dare you to watch the pilot episode and stay the same way.
Other than the gripping story, the lead characters of the series are an indispensable asset. Sean Bean (Lord Eddard Stark), Lena Hedey (CerseiLannister), NikolajCoster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister), Sophie Turner (Sansa Stark), MaisieWillaims(Arya Stark), Kit Harington (Jon Snow), Emilia Clarke (DaenerysTargaryen), Peter Dinklage (TyrionLannister), Aidan Gillen (PetyrBaelish) and Conleth Hill (Lord Varys) play their characters to different extents of perfection. The portrayal of the characters that it remains in the minds of the viewer for a very long time.
The screenplay and the dialogues are to be noted. Maintaining the same tone and the unrelenting grip for six seasons without compromising on any character is a challenging task. The show does a fabulous job of maintaining the cold yet diplomatic stance right from the start. Since magic is an aspect of the series, the portrayal of dragons, blood magic and other fantasy elements is done in a manner that is appropriate to the situation. The series has its own share of stand-out dialogues (“I am a Khaleesi”, “The Lannisters send their regards”, etc).
The most important aspect of all is how the characters seem to grow in the series. Sansa Stark, DaenerysTargaryen, Jon Snow TyrionLannister and PetyrBarlish are characters who have developed from being irritating or hateful to audience favorites.
All these put together make GoT (after F.R.I.E.N.D.S), perhaps, the most iconic series of all times.