I started watching Game of Thrones slightly late in comparison to many viewers, on a plane to New York in the spring of 2012. I was already aware of the show, of course; my interest had been attracted by the
medievalist setting and by the news that much of Season Two had been filmed in Iceland, one of my central areas of research as a professor of medieval literature. As my companion dozed, I watched three episodes
back to back on that flight. Within the first twenty minutes I was completely hooked, drawn in by the show’s depiction of northernness, the effort that had gone into making the medieval world look plausible, and by the skilled storytelling that set the key three plotlines – those of the Starks, the Lannisters and the Targaryens – in motion. When I got home, I watched the box set of Season One: experiencing the show’s storytelling without knowledge of its source – the amazement produced by seeing Bran pushed from the tower window, Arya’s attack on Joffrey, Littlefinger’s dagger put to Ned’s throat and of course the execution of Ned himself – was foundational to the enormous pleasure I took in Game of Thrones.