In the spring of 2012 I was flying to the US for a conference. My companion, an eminent professor of medieval English literature, had dozed off, so I cast about for some in-flight entertainment – and found series one of Game of Thrones. Little did I suspect how this would change my life.
Twenty minutes in the snowy landscape, with the direwolves and Sean Bean, had me completely hooked, hoping my companion wouldn’t wake up before we began our descent. By the end of that summer, I’d read all the books, watched the available shows, and couldn’t wait for more episodes. What grabbed me about the early series of Game of Thrones was just how well realised its different medieval societies were. George RR Martin was a history major, and his understanding of medieval culture was evident.
My first book on Game of Thrones, Winter is Coming, published in 2015, focused on the parallels between the books, the show, and medieval history, literature and myth. That project raised quite a few eyebrows – why would an Oxford medieval literature professor be spending her time writing about popular TV?
There are two answers. First: the show is a gateway drug, enticing people into the world of medieval studies by suggesting that if you loved Game of Thrones, you’d really love Beowulf, or Mongol history, or Old Norse myth. Second: medieval fantasy epic is interesting in itself, for the light that it sheds on the ways in which we think about, and are still shaped by, our medieval past, and how we use it to talk about our present. For, despite its exotic settings, terrifying monsters, and grandly shocking moments, like other epics, Game of Thrones is recognisably about politics, passions, family and faith – engrossing topics of global and timeless interest.
The final seasons were disappointing to many fans: storylines were arbitrarily axed, and crucial questions fudged or ignored, for the showrunners had their eyes fixed on their next project and seemed impatient to be done. My 2015 book had raised many unanswered questions – not least, who would win the Iron Throne – and so, now that it was all over, I wrote another book, just about the show, to explore its treatment of power, emotions, relationships and belief.
