The final season of Game of Thrones is upon us, and millions of people tuned in to watch the first episode yesterday.
While there’s sure to be a fair few conversations in the lunch room today, many of you have probably been left wondering what all the fuss is about.
To take you through a crash course of Game of Thrones 101, RNZ’s resident expert William Ray joined Wallace Chapman to break down what the show is all about and just why it is so popular.
If you haven’t caught up yet, don’t worry, there’s no season 8 spoliers.
Game of Thrones season 8 Photo: HELEN SLOAN SMPSP/©2019 Home Box Office, Inc
Game of Thrones is based on books by George R. R. Martin, the first of which came out in 1996. The books were massive within certain sections of the fantasy community, but no one else really batted an eyelid until the series went to air.
Martin is still writing the books – he’s only released seven of the nine planned – which means the TV series is far ahead and progressing the plot before he’s even had a chance to put pen to paper, or his hands on the keyboard.
Game of Thrones is branded as a fantasy series, but it’s really more of a political thriller; more like House of Cards than Lord of the Rings, Ray says.
“The first season, and the first book of Game of Thrones, is based on this unambiguously honourable character called Ned Stark who goes down to the corrupt capital looking to root out all of the corruption and stands by his principles all the time. He’s very much set up to be the hero of the piece and then he basically gets out manoeuvred and executed quite quickly. That kind of sets the tone.”
It’s definitely hyper-violent and hyper-sexual, says Ray.
And the depiction of women in the first few seasons was heinous, which you can’t really justify watching, he says.
“I watch it for the plot because the plot was so good, that’s the whole thing, you never really know what’s going to happen next but when it happens, it generally makes sense.”
There’s also the amazing battle scenes, says Ray.
“The gore and violence of it is obviously one sided, but the spectacle of it is really amazing. There was one sequence, the Battle of the Bastards, which is just the most amazingly filmed thing for TV ever, and I mean obviously the show’s got the most ridiculous budget.”
Each episode of season 8 is estimated to cost $15 million.
“The actual fighting is dramatic, and where all the budget is going, but what really hooks people in is the plot, which is legendarily convoluted and involves so many different factions and characters and competing interests and religions and all kinds of weird and wonderful stuff, that it’s pretty much impossible to keep track of.”
The thing about those battles scenes though is that no one actually knows what ancient sword battles were like, says Ray. We don’t actually know if horses charge into big groups of people, or if they get scared and shy away.
Game of Thrones is set on the fictional continents of Westeros and Essos. There are seven kingdoms, each with a Great House, creating a web of alliances.
The main players:
The Starks:
Based in the far north, they’re mostly branded as the good guys.
The Lannisters:
In the south, they hold most of the power and are riven with internal strife.
“At this stage Cersei, who is the queen and a complete nutcase, is in control having exploded all of her political rivals inside, basically a church.”
The Targaryens:
Ruled Westeros for a few thousand years but were overthrown. Now there’s only a few of them left.
“Daenerys, the one with all of the dragons, is in the current process of trying to take control. “
The White Walkers:
Evil, frozen zombie people who are coming down from the far north to take over.
“What we’re waiting to see this season is whether all the other factions – who we’ve watched the last six seasons murdering each other basically – can come together and go ‘oh these guys are the actual bad guys, we should probably fight them.”
Despite appearing otherwise to those who haven’t watched, things are not necessarily as simple as good vs evil.
“There are some characters who are sort of good through the whole thing, there are some characters who are very evil through the whole thing but there are a lot of characters who are in the middle…”
The Night King (the head of the White Walkers) for example, was introduced as a villain in the show, but there are people who think he’s actually the good guy who’s coming south to try and restore order, says Ray.
“I’m really looking forward to what is going on with the Night King because he’s the only real mystery left, we had a lot of things we don’t know, for example Jon Snow’s parentage, there’s many theories there and we’ve finally resolved that really he is a secret Targaryen and secretly has probably the most legitimate claim to the Iron Throne. But the Night King, we still really have no idea who he is and what his motivations are, he’s the one mystery left.”
With 5 more episodes to go, there’s a lot of questions that still need to be answered and a lot of fans hoping to have their theories proven right. For those of you who haven’t started watching yet, there’s still plenty of time to start from the very beginning, you might just want to avoid public spaces for a while.
