“When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.”—Cersei Lannister
In April of 2011, HBO aired the premiere episode of Game of Thrones. It was watched by over 2 million people—solid ratings, but nothing to indicate that it was a major event according to simple numbers. But for fans of the book series it was based on, A Song of Ice and Fire, it was a huge deal. It also had the full attention of TV critics, who’d seen HBO redefine television through the 2000s but which found itself without a major hit heading into the 2010s.
The critics generally liked it, and the fans certainly supported Game of Thrones, but the show’s meteoric rise over the next few years, to the point where it’s regularly called the biggest TV show on Earth, with individual episodes earning record-breaking numbers of Emmy awards, has still been an incredible surprise.
There aren’t any unicorns in Game of Thrones, but Game of Thrones itself may be a unicorn. A unique set of circumstances led to its creation and it hit television at exactly the right time as television was ready for it. There’s no “next Game of Thrones,” it is entirely unique, and when it’s done, it’s done for good.
So what is Game of Thrones? It’s an adaptation, and an increasingly different one, of one of the most popular fantasy book series of all time, A Song of Ice and Fire, by George R.R. Martin. The changes between the books and the show have been one of the most interesting parts of seeing Game of Thrones air. But it’s also become increasingly controversial, as the changes from page to screen became increasingly notable before the show’s story passed the book’s in the sixth season.
Game of Thrones is also now the pinnacle of the entire fantasy genre. From the publication of Lord of the Rings in the mid-20th century, through Star Wars and The Sword of Shannara in the 1970s, and on to Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time in the 1990s, heroic fantasy was heading in a certain straightforward direction. Then A Game of Thrones was published and changed that direction entirely. Amazingly, the same thing happened with movies and television. After the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, once again Game of Thrones came along and dominated the genre.
Daenerys Targaryen and Drogon, the most useful pet of all time. (Photo courtesy of HBO / Photofest)
But Game of Thrones is also a television series on HBO. There, George R.R. Martin’s Westeros has been reimagined by showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. It may be a unique show in many ways, but it also comes from a tradition of the best network on television producing the most ambitious shows on television. Without The Sopranos and The Wire, Game of Thrones couldn’t exist, and it fits in with them, as well as shows like Breaking Bad and Vikings and Shannara Chronicles.
Perhaps most importantly, though, Game of Thrones is a story. It’s a fascinating, complicated story, with hundreds of characters in dozens of locations. All of them have their own histories and motivations, trying to do the best they can in the wars over the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms. While Game of Thrones seems to start small, focusing on the Stark family and a handful of other people, it’s traveled around the world to tell the stories of the woman-warrior Brienne of Tarth; the Greyjoy siblings, Yara and Theon; the Martells of Dorne; and former slaves in Slaver’s Bay like Missandei and Grey Worm.
There’s also a huge, complicated history behind the story of Game of Thrones. From the Targaryen invasion 300 years before the show begins to Robert’s Rebellion just 15 before, history permeates Game of Thrones. Characters like Rhaegar Targaryen, Ser Duncan the Tall, and Queen Nymeria pass their influence through the series. Some of this is on-screen or in the books, and some is shown in supplemental sources, like the show’s special features and books like The World of Ice and Fire. It’s a huge world, which is one of its strengths and a source of consistent confusion.
Game of Thrones is all of these things at once. That’s what makes it special. That’s what made it the biggest television series on the planet. This is the magic that makes Game of Thrones great.