Living in a fantasy world with game of thrones

When the show first got released, it had a really small fan base, but as the series went on it massed an almost cult following since it filled the fantasy void left after the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Harry Potter franchise ended. The plot of the series branches into three many storylines while overlapping many different genres, from basic fantasy plotlines regarding a hoard of monsters heading for our protagonists to intricate political battles for the Iron Throne.

The first plotline follows the battle for the throne. At the beginning of the story, the Lannisters are presented as the family which will remain the rulers, and throughout the rest of the series, we follow them as they are challenged by many for the trone. This part of the story relies heavily on the political battles and psychological schemes between the main characters. The second part of the story follows the person that gets introduced as the character who would overthrow the current rulers, Daenerys Targaryen.

This part of the story follows her as she evolves from the weak exiled daughter of the overthrown king to a most formidable challenger for the throne. A big part of this part of the story is also Daenerys resisting madness which was common in her family as she tries to establish herself as more rational than her father. The last part of the story is the one that features most of the fantasy elements in the entire series. The plotline taking place on the Wall follows a small group of guards coming to terms with the fact that the White Walkers are actually real while trying to warn the rest of the kingdom.

Although this is a common misconception it is actually not true. The stories are rich in European mythology, history, and folklore. Several of the Witcher storylines are based on well-known fairy tales, but with a twist: picture Snow White as a vicious murderer. There are vampires, werewolves, dragons, and the Wild Hunt, a strange ghostly force. Other planets and times exist, and certain individuals may go to them via magic.

R, Martin since the first book in the Witcher series was released in Answering this question is actually pretty difficult since the shows are extremely similar when it comes to their cores, which means that the answer will be in their differences.

The first similarity between the two shows is the approaching apocalyptic event. The Witcher starts off with a similar issue. Both shows also have an extremely dark tone overall, something fantasy fans are very familiar with, since fantasy stories usually lean towards happier endings. For fans used to narrative armor, the concept that heroes may die and that good does not always triumph was intriguing. The Witcher is set on a planet on the eve of colonization and the aftermath of racial genocide.

In terms of fairy tales, it veers away from Disney and toward the Grimm brothers. The first two seasons will also be available on On Demand. Let your feet do the talking in customised Converse All Stars. Carry them in the Hear Me Roar bag and get back inside with the Lannister keychain. What's better than watching 'Game of Thrones'? Watching 'Game of Thrones' while drinking specially themed beer of course. Yes, that's right, it's a life-sized copy of the Iron Throne. Registration is a free and easy way to support our truly independent journalism.

By registering, you will also enjoy limited access to Premium articles, exclusive newsletters, commenting, and virtual events with our leading journalists. Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies. Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later?

Start your Independent Premium subscription today. Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in Please refresh your browser to be logged in. Register for free to continue reading. Registration is a free and easy way to support our truly independent journalism By registering, you will also enjoy limited access to Premium articles, exclusive newsletters, commenting, and virtual events with our leading journalists.

Please enter a valid email. Password Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number. Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number. Our latest edition is out in print and online now.

Subscribe today and start reading. Institutions that would never dream of printing Marxist critiques of, say, the banking system, are perfectly happy to let the children of Karl critique our dreams.

In the most recent example, the Guardian has dredged up Paul Mason, the economics editor for Channel 4 News, to provide a historical materialist prediction for the upcoming seasons of Game of Thrones. Marxism sees the finely tuned logic of all currently existing societies, recognizes the absolute necessity of every element, and then pronounces the whole thing to be mad and stupid. Part of its failure also has to do with its overreaching ambition — in the space of a short essay, Mason tries to forecast the future plotlines of Game of Thrones , account for the fall of feudalism and the rise of capitalism , and explain why people living under capitalist economies enjoy fantasy stories set amid medieval decay.

Any one of these could quite comfortably provide enough material for an entire book; muddled together in just over a thousand words, they end up crossing over each other into near incoherence. The social system in these fictions can decay, but it never actually collapses. Instead, fantasy feudalism will pant through its crisis by finding new land and resources across the Sunset Sea to the West.

This argument is brazenly irresponsible, and not remotely Marxist. Debts accumulated under a corrupt patronage system, whose sources of wealth dried up, destroyed the system in the end. The power of commerce began to squash the power of kings. Feudalism gave way to a capitalism based on merchants, bankers, colonial plunder and the slave trade.

The old monarchical powers find themselves with an increasing debt burden that threatens the stability of society. So the bankers come to the rescue, transforming feudalism into capitalism. Something else happened that laid the seeds for the emergence of the financialized world empire. The real crisis of feudalism had very little to do with corruption and aristocratic profligacy, and everything to do with collective action on the part of the toiling masses. Peasant revolts were a near constant during the late medieval period — Germany alone saw over sixty periods of mass unrest between and Often the peasants got what they wanted: high wages, rights to common land, and leisure time.

As a result, the ruling class found it harder and harder to extract the surpluses they needed to keep the system going; in the end, they made recourse to mercantilism, enclosure, and primitive accumulation. The real decline of feudalism was in fact a moment of incredible opportunity that was brutally suppressed.