From a book series to the biggest show on television
Game of Thrones is based on A Song of Ice and Fire, a series of fantasy novels by the American author George R. R. Martin, the first of which was published in 1996. The television series ran on American cable television from 2011 to 2019, eight series and seventy-three episodes, and it became one of the most watched and talked-about programmes in the world. By the later series, the show had overtaken the books, which Martin was still writing, so the television writers finished the story using his plans. It won fifty-nine Emmy awards, more than any other drama series in history.
The show is made for adults, with violent and frightening scenes, so this grid, which holds only names and places, is best for grown-up fans. The world it shows, WESTEROS, is ruled from the Iron THRONE, said in the books to be forged from the swords of defeated enemies, melted by dragon fire, and noble families fight over it: the STARK family of WINTERFELL, the rich LANNISTER family of TYWIN, CERSEI, JAIME and TYRION, the TARGARYEN family who once ruled with dragons, and the GREYJOY family of the islands.
A real war behind a fantasy one
Martin has said that the rivalry between the Starks and the Lannisters was loosely inspired by the Wars of the Roses, the fifteenth-century struggle for the English throne between the houses of York and Lancaster, which ended when Henry Tudor took the crown. The similar names are no accident. Our Tudors page covers the family that came out on top.
Filmed across Europe
Most of the studio work was done in a former shipyard building in Belfast, in Northern Ireland, and many outdoor scenes were filmed in the Northern Irish countryside. The old walled city of Dubrovnik in Croatia played King's Landing, the capital, and Iceland's glaciers and lava fields became the frozen lands beyond the great Wall. Scenes were also shot in Malta, Spain and Morocco. Tourism to many of these places boomed.
The DOTHRAKI horse lords speak a real, working language invented for the show by the linguist David J. Peterson, who also created High Valyrian, the old language of the Targaryens. He built thousands of words and full grammar, so actors could learn their lines properly, and people now study both languages for fun.
Wolves, a raven and a single word
The DIREWOLF pups the Stark children adopt in the first episode were played by Northern Inuit dogs, a breed that looks like a wolf. After the show became popular, many people bought husky-type dogs, and animal charities warned that some were later abandoned, so one of the show's stars, Peter Dinklage, appealed to fans to think carefully before getting one.
HODOR, the gentle giant who can say only one word, is played by Kristian Nairn, who worked as a DJ before the show. The grid also holds ARYA, SANSA and BRAN Stark, JON SNOW, DAENERYS Targaryen, known as KHALEESI, her DRAGON, and the RAVEN that carries messages across the realm. Our House of the Dragon page covers the prequel set two hundred years earlier.