Game of Thrones: Television Addiction

This is part of my "Television Addiction Series" which I explained about HERE.  The Television Addiction series is part of my so-called "Scripted Review Series", which I explained about HERE.  For the original 2013 post on which this is based, see: Television Addiction Part 2: Oh the TV Shows I’ve Seen!

The original 2013 post reads:

Game of Thrones

          When this series was first airing, it generated quite a lot of buzz around my office.  People were talking about this series, and people were really enjoying this series.

            So I checked it out of course.

            It takes about 5 episodes or so to get into this series, because initially the series just throws a bunch of characters at you without giving you a reason to care about them.

            Once you get about 5 episodes into it, and start getting into these characters, it is highly addictive.  Perhaps the most addictive show I’ve seen yet.  Every time I finished an episode, I had to watch the next one immediately afterwards.  The week I was watching this show I was low on sleep and hardly ever went out.

            Why is it so addictive?  Well that’s a little bit harder to explain.

            The show is classified as fantasy, but as viewers know the fantastical elements are not center stage.  Rather, this show is part of a genre I like to call “fake history.”  It’s the story of a fictional civil war in a fictional country.

            As I watched the show, I kept asking myself, “Why am I so interested in this when it’s not even real?”

            One of my colleagues, a fellow history geek, once said to me, “The reason I read history instead of fiction is because history is always more interesting.  The stuff that happens in history—you couldn’t make that up if you tried.  Cortez and the conquest of the Aztecs?  The French Revolution?  The American Civil War?  World War II?  Show me the fiction writer who could possibly match those stories!”

            I agreed with him on the spot, but since I started watching Game of Thrones I’ve started to question the assertion.  As I watch Game of Thrones, I keep asking myself, “Is this more interesting than real history, or would a real historical drama have been a more interesting show?  Would all of the time and money needed to make Game of Thrones been much better employed depicting a real historical war instead of a pretend one?"

            20 years ago, the argument probably would have been that historical dramas make for poor television because history is too complex.  You could never ask an American audience to keep track of all the various factions and nobles during The War of the Roses, could you?

            And yet, Game of Thrones seems to be mocking this idea.  It blatantly makes its fictional history more and more and more complex.  (One of my co-workers even told me he had started making a chart on his wall to keep track of who everyone was while he watched Game of Thrones).  And yet Game of Thrones is one of the most successful television shows ever.

            So, now that Game of Thrones has shown modern audiences are not adverse to complex plots or ideas, I have a whole list of historical incidents I think would make for great television.  But I’ll save that for the next post.

            (For Whisky’s thoughts on Game of Thrones and history versus fiction, see LINK HERE)

Bonus Link

My Game of Thrones Season 8 (episode by episode review) playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x5UJWJ7DkyzvKG5Ljx7zG2U