What I'm Watching: Game of Thrones

I've always heard about the awesomeness of 'Game of Thrones'. Since I'm a complete TV junkie, I decided to do a little research. It's based on the novels by George R. R. Martin and considering my lack of interest in anything regarding fantasy, it just seemed like some idiotic HBO show about soldiers with cool accents from the medieval era playing with swords and dragons. My interest wasn't piqued.

Then summer rolled around. School ended. I was bored and every summer I always start a new show. And I couldn't ignore the praises for this show any longer so I decided to make the best decision of my life. I watched the first episode.

Now, this is HBO and I do watch True Blood and am quite familiar with the graphic, animalistic sex scenes present in almost every episode. The same goes with GoT. So children, avert your eyes and do not watch this show! 

Other than the occasional explicit sex scenes and constant nudity, Game of Thrones epitomizes the word 'epic'. It took me a few episodes to truly get hooked onto this show. And once I did, I was addicted. In fact, I finished all three seasons within a week and a half. 

The beginning of the pilot focuses on the Stark family, a noble and powerful family in the North of Westeros, the continent of which the story is set and consists of seven kingdoms. The plot soon splits into multiple storylines (though I still feel as if the Starks are the 'main focus') and each episode centers around the selfish, malevolent Lannisters, who is the family of Queen Cersei; the Targaryens, who are fighting to seize back the throne from King Baratheon, who overthrew their father, the previous king; and the endeavors of the other great houses across the seven kingdoms. Soon after an unforeseeable event, chaos breaks loose and the war known as 'War of the Five Kings' erupts to seize the 'Iron Throne'. Meanwhile, tension at "The Wall", the northern border of the Seven Kingdoms and serves as protection against outsiders known as 'wildlings', intensifies when a seemingly unstoppable species resurrects from extinction. You can find a better summary here.

The amount of ain't-afraid-to-go-there twists, funny quips, and lovable/hateable characters distinguishes this show from others. Martin's creative brilliance is exemplified in each episode. A once hated character can easily turn into a loved character and vice versa. Every episode is 50-60 minutes of greatness. My opinion of this show changed from some nerdy, stupid storyline that only men who play videogames and drink beer all day care to watch to an addictive, mind-blowing, and just plain awesome show.

This isn't one of those shows where you're sort of nonchalant when the episodes come out and you aren't very captivated and could care less about the fate of the characters. No. This show will seriously become addictive, especially if you were like me and had three seasons to speed through. The fact that each season only has 10 episodes and GoT fans must wait one year until the next season doesn't help either. Again since it's HBO, I will warn that some brutality scenes can get quite graphic as well but I wouldn't say it's anything near The Walking Dead. 

 It's nearly impossible to try to articulate how extraordinary this show is in one blog post but all I can say is that if you're into Lost, The Walking Dead, or intense shows like that and can put your mature thinking cap on, you'll definitely love Game of Thrones. Although you may still not be convinced to watch the show, I still recommend at least sticking it out til' the end of season one and then tell me how you like it.