Game of Thrones is roughly based on the storylines of the A Song of Ice and Fire book series by George R. R. Martin, set in the fictional Seven Kingdoms of Westeros and the continent of Essos.

The second concerns the actions of the exiled scion to reclaim the throne; the third chronicles the threat of the impending winter, as well as the legendary creatures and fierce peoples of the North.

His children with his wife, Catelyn (Michelle Fairley), include: Robb (Richard Madden), Sansa (Sophie Turner), Arya (Maisie Williams) and Bran (Isaac Hempstead-Wright).

Ned also has an illegitimate son, Jon Snow (Kit Harington), who, along with his scholarly friend, Samwell Tarly (John Bradley) serve in the Night's Watch under Lord Commander Jeor Mormont (James Cosmo).

The Wildlings living north of the Wall include Gilly (Hannah Murray) and the warriors Tormund Giantsbane (Kristofer Hivju) and Ygritte (Rose Leslie).

Robb accepts help from the healer Talisa Maegyr (Oona Chaplin), while elsewhere, Arya befriends blacksmith's apprentice Gendry (Joe Dempsie) and assassin Jaqen H'ghar (Tom Wlaschiha).

In Dragonstone, Robert's younger brother, Stannis (Stephen Dillane), is advised by foreign priestess Melisandre (Carice van Houten) and former smuggler Ser Davos Seaworth (Liam Cunningham).

Her retinue eventually comes to include the exiled knight Ser Jorah Mormont (Iain Glen), her aide Missandei (Nathalie Emmanuel), mercenary Daario Naharis (Michiel Huisman), and elite soldier Grey Worm (Jacob Anderson).

[30] In later seasons, critics pointed out that certain characters had developed "plot armor" to survive in unlikely circumstances and attributed this to Game of Thrones deviating from the novels to become more of a traditional television series.

[52] Writing for Time magazine in 2005 after the release of A Feast for Crows, journalist Lev Grossman called Martin the "American Tolkien", stating he is a "major force for evolution in fantasy".

The Walls of Dubrovnik and Fort Lovrijenac were used for scenes in King's Landing, though exteriors of some local buildings in the series, for example, the Red Keep and the Sept of Baelor, are computer generated.

[109] The island of Lokrum, the St. Dominic monastery in the coastal town of Trogir, the Rector's Palace in Dubrovnik, and the Dubac quarry (a few kilometers east) were used for scenes set in Qarth.

[173] Creative director Angus Wall and his collaborators received the 2011 Primetime Emmy Award for Main Title Design for the sequence,[174] which depicts a three-dimensional map of the series's fictional world.

[208] The third season was made available for purchase as a digital download on the Australian iTunes Store, parallel to the US premiere, and was released on DVD and Blu-ray in region 1 on February 18, 2014.

[284] Writing for The Hollywood Reporter, Maureen Ryan condemned the season's reductive treatment of women, and "decisions set up and executed with little or no foresight or thoughtfulness", declaring the penultimate episode as "Game of Thrones at its worst".

Alan Sepinwall, writing for Rolling Stone, placed the series on his "50 Best TV Shows of the 2010s" list, saying its "ability to most of the time keep all of its disparate threads feeling vital and tied to one another, remains a staggering achievement".

[303][304] George R. R. Martin responded that he felt obliged to be truthful about history and human nature, and that rape and sexual violence are common in war; and that omitting them from the narrative would have rung false and undermined one of his novels' themes, its historical realism.

[21] The show has reportedly been censored or banned for sexual or violent content in countries like China,[306][307] India,[308][309] Iran,[310] Jordan,[311] Singapore,[312] Turkey,[313][314] United Arab Emirates,[315] and Vietnam.

[318] Saturday Night Live parodied this aspect of the adaptation in a sketch that portrayed a 13-year-old boy as a Game of Thrones consultant, whose main concern was showing as many breasts as possible.

[323] A scene in the fourth season's episode "Breaker of Chains", in which Jaime Lannister rapes his sister and lover Cersei in the tomb of their dead son, triggered a broad public discussion about the series' depiction of sexual violence against women.

[326][327][328] In response to the scene, pop culture website The Mary Sue announced that it would cease coverage of the series because of the repeated use of rape as a plot device,[329] and US Senator Claire McCaskill said that she would no longer watch it.

[331] As the later seasons saw Daenerys, Sansa, and Cersei assume ruling positions, Alyssa Rosenberg of The Washington Post noted that the series could be seen as a "long-arc revenge fantasy about what happens when women who have been brutalized and raped gain power".

[344][345] Barely minutes into the episode, viewers took to social media sites such as Twitter to express their discontent over the fact that they were having severe difficulties watching the battle and trying to figure out what was going on.

[348] The series's popularity led to increased sales of the A Song of Ice and Fire novels (republished in tie-in editions), which remained at the top of bestseller lists for months.

[353] The success of the genre has been attributed by writers to a longing for escapism in popular culture, frequent female nudity and a skill in balancing lighthearted and serious topics (dragons and politics, for example) which provided it with a prestige enjoyed by conventional, top-tier drama series.

[32] In 2019, the Australian Red Cross conducted a study using international humanitarian law to determine which of the Game of Thrones' characters had committed the most war crimes during the first seven seasons of the show.

[373] Game of Thrones episode recap articles were a significant source of web traffic for many top news sites, including The Atlantic, The New York Times and NPR.

[433] The Game of Thrones Live Concert Experience, a North American 28-city orchestral tour which performed the series's soundtrack with composer Ramin Djawadi, began in February 2017 and concluded in April 2017.

[451] S. J. Clarkson was announced to direct and executive produce the pilot,[452] while Naomi Watts was cast as the female lead playing "a charismatic socialite hiding a dark secret".

[456] In September 2019, Deadline Hollywood reported that a second prequel from Martin and Ryan Condal that "tracks the beginning of the end for House Targaryen" was close to receiving a pilot order from HBO; the project is not considered an original sixth script, as it builds upon Cogman's idea from 2017.