http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Series/GameOfThrones

— Cersei Lannister "When you play the game of thrones , you win or you die. There is no middle ground."

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Game of Thrones is an 8-season HBO series based on George R. R. Martin's epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, which Martin began publishing in 1996. It started in April 2011 and wrapped up in May 2019.

Set in a medieval fantasy world, on the continents of Westeros and Essos, the series follows various political and supernatural threats to the Seven Kingdoms, a vast nation still recovering from a civil war that ousted the previous ruling dynasty. The plot focuses on the Stark family, a noble house that rules the frigid and sparsely populated North. Forced to enter the unfamiliar territory of King's Landing, the family must suddenly contend with deadly court politics, intrigue, plots, feuds and mysteries from a host of rival factions. As the nobles busy themselves playing the game of thrones, a supernatural threat looms beyond the Wall to the far north that threatens to destroy the Seven Kingdoms and drive the continent into a permanent winter. Meanwhile, the last scion of the ousted dynasty, now in exile, has her sights set on reconquering the Seven Kingdoms and reclaiming her family's throne with fire and blood.

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The series was adapted for television by screenwriters David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, who jokingly described it as "The Sopranos meets Middle-earth". Each season's arc was meant to line up with its corresponding book. However, this ultimately only worked for the first two seasons, as A Storm of Swords (which in pagecount equals the entirety of the Lord of the Rings trilogy) was eventually split into two seasons, with A Feast for Crows bleeding into both Seasons 4 and 5. Martin himself wrote an episode in each of the show's first four seasons. Starting with the sixth season, the show overtook the books, as Martin has yet to publish the sixth novel, The Winds Of Winter. Benioff & Weiss were informed by Martin of the basic plotline of how the saga ends when writing the remaining seasons.

Game of Thrones has become a worldwide cultural phenomenon. Also, it has won numerous awards since it debuted as a series, including 59 Primetime Emmy Awards out of 161 nominations.

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HBO's official site, featuring behind-the-scenes teasers, can be found here , whilst the main fan nexus is Winter Is Coming . You can vote for your favorite episode here .

In May 2017, two months before Season 7 aired, HBO announced that they were considering five different pitches for Game of Thrones prequels. In June 2018 HBO announced that it had ordered a series about the Long Night by Jane Goldman, which had the working title Bloodmoon. The pilot was shot in summer 2019, but the entire prequel was cancelled in October 2019.

The same week that HBO cancelled Bloodmoon, they immediately greenlit one of the other four pitch ideas: House of the Dragon, which will be focused on the history that Martin wrote for Fire & Blood (apparently focusing on the second half, about the Dance of the Dragons). HBO ordered it for a full ten episode first season, without a pilot. House of the Dragon is being developed by Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik (director of some episodes of Game of Thrones), and is tentatively aiming at a 2022 release.

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