Grace Dent's love affair with Game of Thrones

Like millions of devotees to the Game of Thrones phenomenon, I'm far from your typical ‘fantasy genre’ fan.

In fact, on paper, all this talk of dragons, White Walkers and otherworldly tribes battling for The Iron Throne would be my ultimate TV turn-off. The Lord of the Rings I have been duped into watching twice, fidgeting through three long hours of chipper gnomes grappling about in woodland. It’s not for me. It’s the type of TV those men who leave Forbidden Planet clutching large bags full of Doctor Who tat settle down to watch, not the staff of Vogue and Dalston’s finest. Then, in 2011, along came the televised interpretation of George RR Martin’s multimillion-selling series A Song of Ice and Fire with a haunting opening sequence scored by Ramin Djawadi and showing an ever-shifting map filled with curious, unknown territories, then an opening episode set in an imaginary pseudo-medieval world filled with razor-witted women, gay knights, happy hookers and scheming serfs. Welcome to Westeros, a world where life is exceedingly cheap and the power-mad, the Machiavellian and the wholly sociopathic rule. I was hooked, along with millions of others.

For fantasy fans, Martin was already a main player, a masterful, prolific author famed for his candid interviews and his habit of popping up in fan forums to debate plot twists and character flaws. To everyone else, Martin was a name one might have noticed on the cover of books in the bestseller section at an airport, smug in the knowledge that goblins and Klingons weren’t quite your thing. I told George RR Martin this, tactfully, when I interviewed him for his Sky Atlantic special in 2012. He was wholly gracious about it, like a man sitting on a multimillion-dollar fortune, in fine health, with several more hotly anticipated books plotted and ready to go, can be.

From the outset of season one this was big, brash, gloriously funded, lovingly hewn, trope-breaking television. I mention the price tag — about £4 million per episode — because when, one year later, the BBC broadcasted The Hollow Crown, its adaptation of Shakespeare’s history plays, Richard II, Henry IV Parts 1 & 2 and Henry V, the discrepancy in budgets was starkly evident. While the BBC is tied by finances to hiring draughty National Trust castles and prop-department crowns, HBO can swagger in shooting a cast of thousands in international locations such as Malta and Croatia, creating multiple courts and mythical continents. And while Shakespeare and other historical TV must stay close to the facts, Game of Thrones is free to cherry-pick the most intriguing strands of history and mythical legend, interweaving it all into a rather glorious made-for-TV tapestry. Aidan Gillen’s character, the slippery, obsequious Petyr Baelish, slinks into a scene in a black doublet and pointed beard, heavily reminiscent of Thomas Cromwell. Meanwhile, Mark Addy as the rotund, red-faced, booze-sodden King Robert Baratheon can’t fail to remind us of historical hearsay about King Henry VIII, his greed, lust and subsequent gout and syphilis.

Game of Thrones pilfers and pays tribute to the juicier parts of history and religious studies GCSE we hazily remember. The War of the Roses, the Holy Roman Empire, Genghis Khan, Vlad the Impaler, Viking legends, and numerous biblical tales of miracles, wilderness walks and the battle of good versus evil. I’ve watched many episodes of Game of Thrones two or three times, the first time just skimming the surface for plot and wisecracks, then returning again and again to enjoy the lush, ornate scenery and costumes and the multi-layered historical references.

As a woman, I love Game of Thrones because Game of Thrones loves strong, valiant, complex women. It pushes its women — Catelyn Stark, Daenerys Targaryen, Cersei Lannister — centrestage and allows them to be warlike, ruthless and lust-driven. HBO’s previous big hits, such as The Sopranos or Mad Men, celebrate female strength yet still show women exerting power from the sidelines by nagging or emotional control. My favourite character Catelyn Stark, on the other hand, is perpetually on her horse galloping between kingdoms on typically flawed peacekeeping missions. A massive hit with audiences is the incorrigible Cersei Lannister, beautiful, delicate, bloodthirsty, in an incestuous relationship with her handsome brother, yet one can’t help but find oneself rooting for her. Cersei’s scenes are brilliantly pithy and ever tense; she’s a medieval Alexis Carrington pitching up at the bedside of a young child she has almost killed, weeping crocodile tears, giving way to a sombre monologue about her own dead babies. Cersei on rape, on marriage, on sex, on power is endlessly listenable. Women viewers also get a breath of fresh televisual air from nine-year- old Arya Stark, rejecting her courtly path and training secretly to be a killer. Or female knight Brienne of Tarth, working three times as hard to be taken half as seriously in a world where often chopping off sexist rivals’ heads with a broadsword is the only answer to improper conduct.

And while I’m certain millions watch this show — filled with monsters, ghosts and blood drinkers — as pure escapism from an ever-depressing world, many others must love the parallels with the modern day. Just as we are intrigued by hierarchies and power struggles within Westminster, showbusiness and the corporate jungle, we can savour the same tactics within Westeros. I adore Tyrion Lannister’s game — oft played by Hollywood publicists to test loyalty — of telling four sources a different piece of gossip to check who’ll betray him first. Or Margaery Tyrell and her work for charity, which will paper over any amount of moral sin. She truly is selfless. Or is she? Game of Thrones hammers home the idea — as subtly as a Wildling giant hammering in a tent pole — that nobody stays at the top of the pile without smashing a few heads and stabbing several backs. No wonder it is Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg’s vice of choice, her favourite character being the albino-haired mother of dragons, Daenerys Targaryen, arguably the most powerful woman of the lot. Cynical? Yes. But I’m overjoyed a fourth season has already been commissioned. It’s a Game of Thrones, after all. You win or you die.

I’ll be appearing on Sky Atlantic’s spin-off Game of Thrones fan-fest Thronecast every Monday at 10pm. Join me for some dragon gossip and Westeros scandal. Let’s plot the downfall of King Joffrey together. Obviously, I know you don’t normally watch this type of thing, but your secret is safe with me. ES

Shot on location at Hampton Court Palace, which is currently holding a Secrets of the Royal Bedchamber exhibition daily until 3 November (hrp.org.uk)