Why you should be watching Game of Thrones

Or

If you don’t like Game of Thrones, you are worse than Hitler.

Oh my. I’m really putting my cards on the table where I stand on this subject aren’t I? I suppose I’d better back this rather grand claim up without too much hyperbole.

If you haven’t heard of Game of Thrones, it is a fantasy series set primarily in the Kingdom of Westeros. There are noble families dotted around the kingdom which will get into a bit of a kerfuffle because this is a drama and without conflict there is no drama. There are a number of families dotted around but there three particularly important families.

You have the noble Stark family who guard the north from the creatures beyond the wall, except that they don’t because nothing nefarious has been seen for hundreds of years. The Baratheons who are the current royal family with Robert Baratheon on the Iron throne, except he’s not a very good king because he’s mostly pissed all the time and doesn’t like the reality of ruling. Then we have the Lannisters who are the richest family and whom lust for power and are generally the “bad guys”.

Oh I almost forgot, there are two remaining Targaryans, an exiled family who were almost wiped out in a bloody revolution to take the throne from them.

Except things aren’t clear cut in this universe, there is no Lord of the rings moment with Aragorn facing down Sauron’s minions in an epic battle of good versus evil. There are bad people and there are good people but no evil force is coming to wipe them out just because it is an evil force. People fight for power because they are greedy for it, or because they believe it is their right, or because they need the power to protect their loved ones from those who would do them harm.

This is a fantasy series for people who, like me, generally don’t like fantasy series. All the pomp and circumstance of the fantasy is replaced with gritty reality. There are no white wizards with eagles to save the day. Good people are killed, evil can win and nothing is certain.  That isn’t to say that fantasy doesn’t play a part in this series, in fact it is an background note of a song that is slowly growing to a tremendous roar. One phrase echoes through the series “Winter is coming”, meaning that years, maybe decades will go on through the winter and with the winter, things from the icy north come with them threatening everyone.

I’m being deliberately vague at this point because I absolutely love this series and I wish to engender you to watch it without any spoilers, because, and I believe I am quoting Nietzsche when I say “Shit goes down hard”.

When I first recommended this series to my friends, family, strangers online, in person and on the bus, my first one line description was “As if Lord of the Rings was directed by Quentin Tarantino, but better” and I think that still sticks. The drama is intense; the battle scenes are truly epic and brutal. There is fucking, swearing and brutal violence. Almost every line of dialogue is beautifully written and snappy, you’ll want to memorise them in vain hope that you can use them in every day talk with the people around you.

If you ever lived through that moment when everyone was telling you “You have to see The Wire! It’s the best cop show ever” well HBO has done it again and Game of Thrones is the new series you have to see. As time of writing, both the first two series are available on DVD and Bluray, it is not a purchase you will regret because you will end up watching them more than once, lending them to a friend to get them into it, just so they can understand the fervour that has possessed you about this television program.  

As a final note. I’m going to leave you with the first minutes of this fantastic series. Hopefully that will whet your appetite

Hey I’m Stuart Robinson.

This is my first guest contribution to The Social Gamer and with any luck it should be one of many. I have my own blog but it’s not as stylish as this, nor is it as refined. I tend to write whatever comes to my mind, whether that be fiction, non-fiction or a general ranty style of essay with liberal amounts of swearing and analogies involving sexually transmitted diseases from swine corpses. It can be found at 

Toe Nail Dirt.

I’m also on Twitter @Stueymon where I can be found either posting pictures of cats with captions on them, making observations about pop culture, movies or videogames, swearing or swinging vaguely at some lefty liberal political point and failing completely. Go read the blog and follow me or I’ll come into your house and stare lecherously at your house pets.