Game of Thrones- Season Long Thread (Newbie Guide in First Post)

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Everyone keeps warning that "Winter is coming" in Game of Thrones, but I can't remember the last series that packed this much heat. After putting its distinctive stamp on genres as diverse as the mob drama (The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire), the Western (Deadwood), the urban crime saga (The Wire), the period-piece potboiler (Rome), the horror-show bodice-ripper (True Blood), HBO now turns its extravagant attention to adult epic fantasy. HBO has found its answer to Lord of the Rings in adapting George R.R. Martin's enthralling, sprawling, ruthlessly brutal and magnificently entertaining series of page-turners.Be prepared. Game of Thrones isn't a popcorn epic. More like steak: red-blooded and raw, with bone and gristle and a side of brains. There are supernatural elements afoot — a ghoulish menace from the icy wastes of the North, teased in a chilling opening sequence; a memory of dragons from across the sea — but the real magical wizardry here lies in the rich storytelling, embroiling a bounty of memorable characters young and old in a fatalistic free-for-all of dynastic mayhem.

With a cinematic sweep reflected in its brilliant world-building opening credits, Thrones covers a vast medieval landscape of geographic and thematic ground as it weaves an intricate saga of honor, family, treachery, revenge and heroism. That last quality is most obviously apparent in the embattled Starks of Winterfell. -From TV Guide

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The last of the Targaryens to reign, Aerys II was dubbed the "Mad King" for his bouts of insanity and increasingly violent and unpredictable behavior. After the king brutally executed Lord Rickard Stark and his son Brandon, many houses in the realm rose up against him, under the leadership of Robert Baratheon. Robert and his friend Ned Stark defeated the army of Prince Rhaegar Targaryen -- who had ridden off with Ned's sister Lyanna -- and King Aerys himself was killed when his ally House Lannister betrayed him in his home of King's Landing. Only two Targaryens survived the war, children named Viserys and Daenerys, who were spirited away to the continent of Essos, where they grew up in exile. Robert took the Iron Throne and has ruled Westeros since.

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