Review 1: A Game of Thrones [No Spoilers]

If I could describe the television series A Game of Thrones in one word it would be: overwhelming. The show based of off a book series of the same name by George R. R. Martin. The series currently has three seasons, the fourth to begin April 6th of this year. After being inundated with Game of Thrones references by the internet, by family, and by friends, I decided to give it a try. By the end of the week, I had finished the first season and started the second.

The show is set in a fantasy land composed of seven kingdoms. The main plot of the story revolves around who will rule all these kingdoms as King of the Iron Throne in the south. There are many men vying for the position, which ultimately results in a lot of deception, plotting, and backstabbing (literally). I can’t go too much into detail without spoiling a lot of the plot, so you’ll just have to watch and see for yourself.

However, that is not even close to all that happens in the story. There is, for instance, the large wall erected to the north of the seven kingdoms, which keeps out some dark and sinister forces from destroying the land. And, as reiterated multiple times throughout the season “Winter is coming.”

There are also dragons.

By the end of the season, there is an intricate multi-dimensional story composed of four or five different plot points that are each interesting in their own way. Though it times it is hard to pick a side of the conflict to root for, I found my favorites in a many characters (most of which were slain, unfortunately).

On that note, I must stress that this is not a show for small children. It’s not The Chronicles of Narnia. There are scenes of complete nudity, assault, sexual scenes, scenes of torture and brutal (and sometimes cool) death blows.

Here’s a list of trigger warnings for the first episode: http://trigger-warnings.tumblr.com/post/23646118192/game-of-thrones-s01e01-winter-is-coming

One complaint that I can make about this show is the lack of characters of color (minus the “savage” army, go figure). I believe representation is a very important issue, so that fact stood out to me.

The only other thing I can say about this series is that there is a lot to take in. There are small details that can be easy to miss and many characters to keep track of. It’s almost impossible to both watch this show and do your homework with any degree of success, so that's something to take into account probably. Like I said, it’s a bit overwhelming, but in a really good way.