Why is Game of Thrones so popular?

I was a little late to the game of thrones party as I only started watching it after it had aired its fourth season. After constant peer pressure and years of blatant disregard of pop culture, I finally succumbed to the worldwide phenomenon that is game of thrones and how. After over two years of constantly speculating theories and waiting for the plot to move forward for the most part of the year, it’s safe to say that the seven gods have charmed me. What makes it so irresistible?

Politics and Power play
Politics is one of the major themes of the series. Every step taken is a step taken towards being more powerful than before. And power doesn’t come easy. Gruesome killings, murder, fraudulence, mind games come to people as easy as breathing. Where ostensibly good characters don’t make it even a few episodes whereas bad ones just keep multiplying their forces. You can never fully say who has the upper hand because power keeps radically shifting. And because of its likeliness towards the real world, though sans dragons, people cannot look away.

Shades of Grey
Most characters cannot be deemed either good or bad. The fact that everyone is flawed and imperfect makes them human which sets off comparisons with the real world. You find yourself rooting for a woman who killed her husband, man who pushed a kid out of the top of a tower and even murderers and rapists. Good people make horrific mistakes and Bad people are shown to be just as vulnerable. Everyone is fleshed-out with their own motivations and ideals which can be justified by human reasoning in most cases. It provides a different angle to the archetype of merciless emperor, a rouge murderer and has you sympathizing for them. And how can you not? You forgive their grave mistakes because that’s what humans are: flawed.

Historically accurate
Despite the obvious absence of dragons, Game of Thrones is more historically accurate than you’d expect. It draws heavy comparisons to the European history with rise and fall of empires, nomadic troops and city-states. In the middle ages, not unlike the show, the arms and armour used to be very well-respected. Giving away your sword to someone actually did mean some great, as per historians. The streets used to be just as bloody back then too as the homicide per capita in the middle ages were off-the-charts. Public executions were quite common too. Historians and non-historians alike find this parallelism fascinating.

Uncensored
While most of the shows on TV cut cameras away as soon as things heat up, Game of thrones is unapologetically uncensored. And this element rather than pushing people away, has only made it more exclusive. Some people come for the nudity, and stay for the plot and for some it's the other way around. Either way, the nudity factor definitely sets it apart from the mainstream TV.

Fantasy
Game of thrones is so much more than just politics through. It's a remorseless portrayal of the society but with fire breathing dragons and magic. It's something that makes the show so identical to reality but also completely disconnected. The fine line that sets it apart from reality only keeps on stretching as the plot progresses. The audience have no choice but to be enthralled.

Unexpected
One of the pivotal reasons why game of thrones is so popular these days has to be the fact that you can never quite guess what's coming. You root for people but before you can theorize how they will win the game of thrones in the end, they get killed off and in the most gruesome of ways. Your favorite characters are never safe nor are the seemingly central characters because literally anything can happen at any point of time. And if you're lucky, the universally hated character will bite the dust and you'll find yourself questioning why a guy being eating by hounds is making you happy. What can I say, that's the beauty of Game of Thrones.

Happy Watching!

Comments

Love & Hate

PC: Elitedaily.com Silence woke her. As she laid on the floor, saliva drooping from her mouth, she realized it had gotten darker. She must have passed out for an hour or so. She sub-consciously touched her forehead. There was no blood this time but she knew it would bruise. The glass had hit her pretty hard, after all. Hits, Bruises and cover-ups were just another day in this household. As she got bearings of the time and place, she started to look around. Few yards away in the next room, she saw a heap of limbs passed out on the floor. Upon closer inspection, she could smell the concoction of alcohol, vomit and sweat. The view was jarring but she wasn't repulsed. The emotion that overcame her was pity. Pity at the man who was her husband. Pity at the man she once loved. As she looked back, she didn't know where exactly she she went wrong with her life. Born to a privileged family, she was smart and beautiful. No wonder, she had caught an athlete's eye. He was pre...

Book Review: Kafka on the Shore

I love reading. And most of the time I go through books like a termite on wood. After I sit down with a book, the book only gets closed after I get done with it. However, this was not the case here. It's safe to say that Kafka on the Shore is the strangest book I've ever laid my hands on. Haruki Murakami, for me, was always one of those writers, holding whose book made you a serious reader. So, as I venture into adulthood, I wanted to jump into more thought-provoking, serious-people books unlike my usual YA genre around which my interests circle. Looking back, I could never have fathomed what was ahead of me. Because this book tested me. It tested my patience. It tested my humanity. And most of all, it tested my ability to do something that I absolutely despised. In this case, it was finishing this godforsaken book. This book has two main protagonists. We get to see inside the head of a barely 15-year-old Kafka Tamura who has run away from home to escape his f...

thank god it's friday

I don’t know if it’s just me or time seems to be moving a lot faster these days. I simply refuse to believe that it’s been 3 weeks since I joined my new job. And it’s end of March already? No fking way. I haven’t written for a big audience in a long time. If you know me, you know that I have always loved writing but over the past year, life caught up with me. I don’t know if mid 20s for everyone is a whirlwind or if it’s because I moved to a new country or because I was finishing up my Uni, working 4 days a week at my unpaid internship and 20 hours/week nightshift at the job that paid for my life all at the same time, everything was always too much. Sorry to my friends and family that I haven’t called in a while but calling takes too much effort. It’s my least favourite method of communication. But know that I miss you and I love you. Life isn’t bad at all, just a lot. I did try to start writing again in the past year and a half. But everything I wrote was stupid. I didn’t e...

I know I can count on you :)

Hey good people!! Its been long since I updated my blog. But you know,when I don't feel 'ít', I just can't write anything! lol I know that I keep telling this but every bit of the next sentence is true. I'm just crazy like that! :P Okay, so today's post is certainly not about my stupidity.(You had probably guessed that considering the large heading but I wanted to mention it anyways..lol) The post right here is about the people who accept my tantrums, silliness, mood swings and most importantly my 'short-temperedness' with ease ( I do 'chill out' after a short while even if I get angry VERY fast.. but lord bless those people!! It can be hard at times :P ) . This post is all about the people who make my life great. Yes,Friends are what i'm talking about...even if you didn't guess it already regarding the cheesy lines :P Today happens to be THE friendship day , so, I thought what better day could I pick to write about th...

21

Being in love is magical. In its truest moment, it takes over your entire being. It's inexplicable yet it will be all that you want to talk about. It will feel like a breath of fresh air after you've been stuck under water for too long. No matter how I put it, it'll sound like a bunch of clichés strung together. Such is love. However, it won't always be the case of bed of roses and happy ever afters. After you've come up for air a few times, the water current will pull you down leaving you questioning if the few gulps of air somehow made your situation infinitely worse. Now you're addicted to the air, but he's left long ago. What do you do now? When you're a teenager, you're made to chase romantic fantasies and happy ever afters. But lets face it: Love is as hard to pull off as it is fulfilling. It takes too much of you when it doesn't work out. And despite having chased all-consuming love for some time in the recent past, somewhere al...

The little things that matter :)

We people take too many things for granted in life. We are never satisfied with the things we already have in our possession. Don't get me wrong, when I say things, I don't only mean the superficial things like house, car, dresses blah blah.... I'm using here it in the simplest sense. So that includes the good times, the bad times and all the the other things in life that you can think of at this very instant! Because even the worst things have some positive effect on us....... But us not knowing the worth of those moments is a completely different story... :P We are always very busy complaining about the things that have gone wrong or the things which we feel are 'well below the mark'. Why cant we just shut up, sit down and enjoy the awesomeness around us? Because no matter how miserable we feel our life is there's always this other person who would love to have our life , like any day..! When I say it out loud it does seem intriguing, doesn't it...

Sensations

PC: lovethispic.com He isn't cute. Cute doesn't even begin to describe half the person that he is. Cute is momentary, flimsy. And he is the furthest from flimsy as one can get. He is beautiful. His voice is beautiful, his laugh is beautiful and the way he looks at me, he makes me feel like I'm the most beautiful girl he's ever laid his eyes upon. He is a blazing flame. And I am but a mere moth. I'll get burnt, I know it. He doesn't promise me otherwise, either. Deciding it will be worth it has made all the difference. I could say I love him, but those three words can never justify the kaleidoscope of sensations I feel when I'm with him. He is all colors in one, at full brightness.

The #Selfie Phenomenon

If you hadn't been visiting some another planet in the recent times, you are no newbie to the world of Sellfies. And at one point or another you have fallen for the selfie-trap, for the lack of a better word. Let's face it, we are pretty much obsessed with it...Well, most of us anyway. Also, as of today,there are over 23 million photos with the hashtag "#selfie" and a whopping 51 million with the hashtag "me" on Instagram. What makes it so popular? I don't precisely remember taking my first selfie but I do know that it was not too long ago. And ever since I laid my hands on the phone with a front-facing camera, me taking a selfie has been all the more frequent. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that it's literally the easiest way to take a picture of yourself: You just have to unlock the phone screen, tap the camera icon, tilt your head or the phone on a flattering angle and then tap the capture button (THAT easy!) against the traditi...

Questionable Choices

As of today, around 7 million people have viewed Deepika Padukone's Vogue Empowerment video. For the first few days, I just ignored it when it appeared on my Newsfeed. But a slew of jokes followed and I knew I couldn't ignore it forever. The first time I watched the video I had a deep unsettling feeling in my gut. Women Empowerment is a very important issue and all that the video pointed out to me was the societal double-standard against men in today's seemingly "modern" world. The video talks about matters ranging from the choice of clothing to choice to have sex (I'll come back to this one later) and something about being the snowstorm not the snowflake. The video has got so many things wrong it's not even funny. India has so many problems regarding the society bringing women down. India is the place where a girl being married to a man thrice her age is normal, where a girl has to pay the price when the only sin she has committed is being born a...

How I Met Your Mother vs Friends

Photo:Pinterest I watched How I Met Your Mother for the first time when I was in 7 th grade. At that time, the jokes most likely went right over my head and I probably didn’t understand the context to many things but still something about Ted Mosby resonated with me, even then. I have always struggled with keeping my love in check like him which has led to various failings throughout the years but Ted’s always had my back by being one step ahead. For these reasons and more, I whole-heartedly love the show. On the other hand, I watched F.R.I.E.N.D.S. a couple years later and thought it was mostly nice. I’d all but forgotten about it until last year when, for some reason, everyone started talking about it. I, by no means, thought it was a bad show but I couldn’t fathom why everyone liked it so much . People started labelling it superior to HIMYM which didn’t sit well with me. So I decided to re-watch F.R.I.E.N.D.S to gain perspective which led me to the conclusio...

...I speak my mind =)