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Revision as of 15:43, 1 May 2013 by 85.138.233.131 (talk)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) This article is about the TV series. For the novel, see A Game of Thrones. For other works of the same name, see A Game of Thrones (disambiguation).
{{Infobox television
|show_name = Game of Thrones
|image = 
|genre = High fantasy
Medieval fantasy
Drama
|format = Serial drama
|creator = David Benioff
D. B. Weiss
|starring = see List of Game of Thrones characters
|composer = Ramin Djawadi
|country = United States
|language = English
|num_seasons = 3
|num_episodes = 25
|list_episodes = List of Game of Thrones episodes
|executive_producer = David Benioff
D. B. Weiss
Frank Doelger
Bernadette Caulfield
Carolyn Strauss
George R. R. Martin
|editor = Oral Norrey Ottey
Frances Parker
Martin Nicholson
Katie Weiland
|location = Northern Ireland
Malta
Croatia
Iceland
Morocco
Scotland
United StatesCite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).
The series, set on the fictional continents of Westeros and Essos at the end of a decade-long summer, interweaves several plot lines. The first follows the members of several noble houses in a civil war for the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms; the second covers the rising threat of the impending winter and the mythical creatures of the North; the third chronicles the attempts of the exiled last scion of the realm's deposed dynasty to reclaim the throne. Through its morally ambiguous characters, the series explores issues of social hierarchy, religion, civil war, sexuality, crime, and punishment. It is the most recent big-budget work to have contributed to the popularity of the fantasy genre in mainstream media.
Game of Thrones has obtained an exceptionally broad and active international fan base. It received widespread acclaim by critics, although its use of nudity has been criticized. The series won numerous awards and nominations — including two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Drama Series, a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Television Series – Drama, a [[Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presenmkire#Plot_synopsis|l1=Synopsis of A Song of Ice and Fire}} The series roughly follows the multiple storylines of the A Song of Ice and Fire series. Set in the fictional Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, Game of Thrones chronicles the violent dynastic struggles among the realm's noble families for control of the Iron Throne. As the series opens, additional threats are beginning to rise in the icy North and in the eastern continent of Essos.
The settings, characters and plot elements of the novels and the TV series are derived from a very broad range of periods in European history. A principal inspiration for the novels was the English War of the Roses (1455–85) between the houses of Lancaster and York, reflected in Martin's houses of Lannister and Stark. Most of Westeros, with its castles and knightly tournaments, is based on High Medieval Western Europe. The scheming Cersei, for instance, calls to mind Isabella (1295–1358), the "she-wolf of France". But the series also combines such varied inspirations as Hadrian's Wall (which became Martin's great Wall), the fall of Rome and the legend of Atlantis (ancient Valyria), Byzantine "Greek fire" ("wildfire"), Icelandic sagas of the Viking Age (the Ironborn) and the Mongol hordes (the Dothraki), as well as elements from the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453) and the Italian Renaissance (c. 1400–1500). The series' great popularity has in part been attributed to Martin's skill at fusing these disparate elements into a seamless whole that appears credible on its own terms as an alternative history.
Cast and characters
Main article: List of Game of Thrones characters
Like the novels it adapts, Game of Thrones has a sprawling ensemble cast, estimated to be the largest on television. During the production of the third season, 257 cash (Richard Madden), the dainty Sansa (Sophie Turner), the tomboy Arya (Maisie Williams), the adventurous Bran (Isaac Hempstead-Wright) and the youngest, Rickon. Among the family's outsiders are Ned's hostage and ward Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen), Robb's lover, the healer Talisa Maegyr (Oona Chaplin), and Arya's friend, blacksmith's apprentice Gendry (Joe Dempsie).
Ned's bastard son Jon Snow (Kit Harington) and his friend Samwell Tarly (John Bradley) serve in the Night's Watch under Lord Commander Jeor Mormont (James Cosmo). The red-haired Ygritte (Rose Leslie) is one of the Wildling foes that they guard the ancient northern Wall against.
Ned's old friend King Robert Baratheon (Mark Addy) shares a loveless marriage with Queen Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey). Cersei has taken her twin, the "Kingslayer" Ser Jaime Lannister
| Season 1 | Season 2 | Season 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rating | 79 | 88 | 90 |
|} The critical response to the two aired seasons of Game of Thrones has been very positive. Both seasons were listed on several yearly "best of" lists published by U.S. media, such as the Washington Post (2011), TIME (2011 and 2012) and The Hollywood Reporter (2012).
Reviewing the first season, critics noted the high production values, the well-realized world, compelling characters, and particularly the performance of the child actors. Variety wrote that "there may be no show more profitable to its network than 'Game of Thrones' is to HBO. Fully produced by the pay cabler and already a global phenomenon after only one season, the fantasy skein was a gamble that has paid off handsomely."
The second season was also very well received by critics. Entertainment Weekly praised the "vivid, vital, and just plain fun" storytelling, and The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the show made a "strong case for being one of TV's best series", its gravitas making it the only genre show dramatically comparable to shows such as Mad Men or Breaking Bad. The New York Times published the only mixed review, disapproving of the characters' lack of complexity and their confusing multitude, as well as the meandering plot.
The amount of sex and nudity shown on Game of Thrones, especially in scenes that are incidental to the plot, has been the focus of much of the criticism aimed at the series. Charlie Anders wrote in io9 that while the first season was replete with light-hearted "sexposition", the second season appeared to focus on distasteful, exploitative and dehumanizing sex with little informational content. According to the Washington Post's Anna Holmes, the nude scenes appeared to be aimed mainly at titillating heterosexual men, right down to the Brazilian waxes sported by the women in the series's faux-medieval setting, which made these scenes alienating to other viewers. And in the Huffington Post, Maureen Ryan likewise noted that Game of Thrones mostly presented women naked, rather than men, and added that the excess of "random boobage" undercut any aspirations the series might have to address the oppression of women in a feudal society. Saturday Night Live parodied this aspect of the adaptation in a sketch that portrayed the series as having a horny thirteen-year-old boy as a consultant whose main concern was showing as many breasts per scene as possible.
Fandom
The novel series A Song of Ice and Fire and its TV adaptation Game of Thrones have an exceptionally broad and active international fan base. In 2012, Vulture ranked the series's fandom as the most devoted in popular culture, ahead of that of Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Harry Potter or Star Wars. In 2013, BBC News wrote that the "passion and the extreme devotion of fans" had brought about a phenomenon unlike anything related to other popular TV series, manifesting itself in a very broad range of fan labor, such as Game of Thrones-themed burlesque routines, or people naming their children after characters from the series. Writers cited by the BBC attributed this success to the rich detail, moral ambiguity, sexual explicitness and epic scale of the series and novels.
58 percents of viewers were reported to be male as of 2013, and on average 41 years old. According to the marketing director of SBS, Game of Thrones has the highest fan engagement rate of any TV series known to her: 5.5% of the series's 2.9 million Facebook fans were talking online about the series in 2012, compared to 1.8% of the more than ten million fans of HBO's other fantasy series True Blood.
Among the many fan sites dedicated to the TV and novel series, Vulture noted in particular Westeros.org and WinterIsComing.net, which provide news reports and discussion forums, ToweroftheHand.com, which organizes communal readings of the novels, and Podcastoficeandfire.com, which produces a fan podcast.
Viewer numbers
According to HBO, the second season of Game of Thrones had an average gross audience (including all repeats and on-demand viewings) of 11.6 million viewers. An earlier estimate of 10.3 million saw it become the third most-watched series in the history of HBO.
The following graphic shows viewer numbers for the first airings: Template:Game of Thrones ratings
Awards
Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Game of ThronesThe first season of Game of Thrones was nominated for thirteen of the 2011 Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Drama Series. It won two, Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series and Outstanding Main Title Design. Peter Dinklage, who plays Tyrion Lannister, was named best supporting actor by the Emmys, the Golden Globes, the Scream Awards and the Satellite Awards. In 2012, the second season won six of the Creative Arts Emmy Awards.
| Year | Award | Category | Recipient | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | Emmy Awards | Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series | Peter Dinklage (as Tyrion Lannister) for the episode "Baelor" | |
| Outstanding Main Title Design | Angus Wall, Hameed Shaukat, Kirk Shintani and Robert Feng | |||
| Scream Awards | Best TV Show | Game of Thrones | ||
| Best Supporting Actor | Peter Dinklage | |||
| Breakout Performance – Female | Emilia Clarke | |||
| Television Critics Association Awards | Outstanding New Program | Game of Thrones | ||
| Satellite Awards | Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film | Peter Dinklage | ||
| Screen Actors Guild Awards | Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Television Series | Game of Thrones | ||
| Golden Globe Awards | Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film | Peter Dinklage | ||
| George Foster Peabody Award | Game of Thrones | |||
| 2012 | Television Critics Association Awards | Program of the Year | Game of Thrones | |
| Screen Actors Guild Awards | Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Television Series | Game of Thrones | ||
| Creative Arts Emmy Awards | Outstanding Sound Mixing For A Comedy Or Drama Series (One Hour) | Matthew Waters, Onnalee Blank, Ronan Hill and Mervyn Moore for the episode "Blackwater" | ||
| Outstanding Sound Editing For A Series | Peter Brown, Kira Roessler, Tim Hands, Paul Aulicino, Stephen P. Robinson, Vanessa Lapato, Brett Voss, James Moriana, Jeffrey Wilhoit and David Klotz for the episode "Blackwater" | |||
| Outstanding Special Visual Effects | Rainer Gombos, Juri Stanossek, Sven Martin, Steve Kullback, Jan Fiedler, Chris Stenner, Tobias Mannewitz, Thilo Ewers and Adam Chazen for the episode "Valar Morghulis" | |||
| Outstanding Costumes For A Series | Michele Clapton, Alexander Fordham and Chloe Aubry for the episode "The Prince of Winterfell" | |||
| Outstanding Makeup For A Single-Camera Series (Non-Prosthetic) | Paul Engele and Melissa Lackersteen for the episode "The Old Gods and the New" | |||
| Outstanding Art Direction for a Single-Camera Series | Gemma Jackson, Frank Walsh and Tina Jones for the episodes "Garden of Bones", "The Ghost of Harrenhal" and "A Man Without Honor" (tied with Boardwalk Empire) |
References
- Roberts, Josh (April 1, 2012). "Where HBO's hit 'Game of Thrones' was filmed". USA Today. Retrieved March 8, 2013.
- ^ Martin, George R. R. (July 16, 2010). "From HBO". Not a Blog. LiveJournal. Retrieved March 14, 2013.
- Martin, George R. R. (January 18, 2007). "HBO options Ice & Fire". GeorgeRRMartin.com. Retrieved March 31, 2013.
- ^ Holland, Tom (March 24, 2013). "'Game of Thrones is more brutally realistic than most historical novels'". The Guardian. Retrieved March 24, 2013.
- Orr, David (August 12, 2011). "Dragons Ascendant: George R. R. Martin and the Rise of Fantasy". New York Times. Retrieved March 24, 2013.
Martin's books are essentially the War of the Roses with magic
- Hibberd, James (May 29, 2012). "'Game of Thrones' scoop: Season 3 character list revealed -- EXCLUSIVE". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved March 5, 2013.
- "Game of Thrones: Season 1". Metacritic. Retrieved March 5, 2012.
- "Game of Thrones: Season 2". Metacritic. Retrieved May 31, 2012.
- "Game of Thrones: Season 3". Metacritic. Retrieved March 28, 2013.
- "Thrones lands on tons of top TV shows of 2011 lists". WinterIsComing.net. December 23, 2011. Retrieved December 23, 2011.
- Martin, George R.R (December 21, 2011). "Plaudits for GAME OF THRONES". Not A Blog. Retrieved December 23, 2011.
- "Game of Thrones: The best of 2012". WinterIsComing.net. December 27, 2012. Retrieved January 4, 2013.
- Roush, Matt (April 15, 2011). "Roush Review: Grim Thrones Is a Crowning Achievement". TV Guide. Retrieved May 11, 2011.
- Tucker, Ken (April 14, 2011). "Game of Thrones (2011)". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved May 11, 2011.
- Levine, Stuart (December 27, 2011). "Cablers hit highs, lows, PR hurdles in 2011". Variety. Retrieved December 31, 2011.
- Tucker, Ken (March 21, 2012). "TV Review: Game Of Thrones (2012)". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved March 25, 2012.
- Goodman, Tim (March 27, 2012). "'Game of Thrones' Season 2: TV Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved March 28, 2012.
- Genzlinger, Neil (March 29, 2012). "Uneasy Lies the Head That Steals a Crown: 'Game of Thrones' on HBO". The New York Times. Retrieved March 29, 2012.
- ^ Anders, Charlie Jane (May 2, 2012). "Is Game of Thrones' gratuitous sex worse than the gratuitous violence?". io9. Retrieved May 2, 2012.
- Holmes, Anna (April 26, 2012). "Skin is wearing thin on HBO's 'Game of Thrones'". The Washington Post. Retrieved May 2, 2012.
- Ryan, Maureen (May 29, 2011). "'Game of Thrones' Season 1, Episode 7 Recap". AOL TV. Huffington Post. Retrieved May 2, 2012.
- Toder, Matt (April 15, 2012). "SNL Explains the Nudity in Game of Thrones". Gawker. Retrieved May 2, 2012.
- ^ "The 25 Most Devoted Fan Bases". Vulture. October 15, 2012. Retrieved October 17, 2012.
- de Castella, Tom (March 22, 2013). "Game of Thrones: Why does it inspire such devotion among fans?". BBC News Magazine. Retrieved March 23, 2013.
- Hibberd, James (March 31, 2013). "HBO: 'Game of Thrones' piracy is a compliment". EW.com. Retrieved April 3, 2013.
- Kellie, Helen (October 26, 2012). "Social is coming of age in the marketing mix – a TV perspective". Marketing magazine. Retrieved October 29, 2012.
- "HBO press release". Westeros.org/HBO. April 2, 2013. Retrieved April 3, 2013.
- Hibberd, James (May 30, 2012). "'Game of Thrones' ratings dip for 'Blackwater'". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved May 30, 2012.
- "SCREAM Awards 2011". Spike TV. Viacom Entertainment Group. Retrieved September 7, 2011.
- Lewis, Dave (April 4, 2012). "'Game of Thrones' and 'Homeland' among Peabody Award winners". HitFix. Retrieved March 13, 2013.
- "Complete 64th Primetime Creative Arts Emmys Winners" (PDF). Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Retrieved September 17, 2012.
External links
- Official Game of Thrones website in the United States and in the United Kingdom
- Game of Thrones exhibition website
- Game of Thrones at IMDb
- Template:Tv.com show
- Fan sites mentioned in the article:
- Westeros – news and discussion
- Winter Is Coming – news and discussion
- Tower of the Hand – readings
- A Podcast of Ice and Fire – fan podcast
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