A New Yorker cartoon was doing the rounds on social media on July 16, the day the much-awaited Season 7 of the TV show Game of Thrones premiered worldwide. It showed two women in a cemetery, standing amid a bunch of headstones.
The epitaph on one tombstone reads, “Chantal K Lolas: Finished Mad Men and Gilmore Girls, halfway through Friday Night Lights.” Another says, “Louisa Lee Gomez: Was on 2nd-to-last episode of Breaking Bad.” A third one: “Leelah Freenie: Just Getting Into Game of Thrones.” Contemplating these inscriptions, one of the women says thoughtfully, “They still had so much TV ahead of them.”
If this cartoon is funny, it is because it only slightly exaggerates an obvious truth.
In the 21st century, for a great many people, it is TV that makes life worth living. And for these entertainment junkies, Game of Thrones (GoT) is ultimate television. HBO’s adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s ASong of Ice and Fire series of epic fantasy novels made its début in 2011. Over six seasons, it has grown from strength to strength, steadily widening its fan base, and setting new viewership records. The Season 7 premiere this week temporarily crashed the HBO website, with more than 10.5 million fans logging in.
GoT has devoted fans who wake up at six in the morning to catch the first episode of a new season. And there are those who shut themselves in a room for three days so they can binge watch six seasons over one long weekend. It has turned millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens into rampaging pirates, gleefully downloading content from file-sharing platforms. And these are people for whom the word ‘season’ signifies not so much a weather pattern as a fresh dose of their favourite entertainment.
Widespread craze
What explains this mania? Is it the escapism? Is it the show’s harkening back to the fairy-tale world of our childhood — a world of kings and queens and castles and dragons? Is it the extraordinary production values, amply aided by the best that CGI can offer?
While the reasons behind its incredible appeal would continue to be debated, the craze is widespread enough to make GoT a global media and cultural fixture for some time to come. Harvard, for instance, has recently started offering a GoT -inspired course on myths and the medieval universe. Management experts are publishing articles on leadership lessons that women can learn from the likes of Cersei and Daenerys. And GoT has made a significant contribution to both tourist revenue and foreign investment in the countries where it has been shot — from Croatia to Spain, Ireland and Morocco.
And happily, for all these fans and the billion-dollar industry that feeds on the worldwide fandom, the latest season, on the evidence of episode 1, looks set to meet, if not surpass, their expectations. The opening episode ends with the insurgent queen posing a question, “Shall we begin?” Taking it as an invitation, a worldwide chorus has already responded with a resounding “Yes!”
