Game of Thrones
BRING OUT THE EXORCIST!
That hurts.
“Force has no place where there is need of skill." Herodotus
On a more serious note, the Game of Thrones series sounds interesting, although I have no idea what it's about. Is it games where people fight to the death?
It's about political intrigue in a medieval world with a dash of fantasy (bit o' magic, bit o' dragons). The reason people like it is that the intrigue is realistic.
I've heard it described as "Skyrim meets drama meets sex".
It's a more drawn out, competitive Lord of the Rings, with a fair amount of nudity.
The intrigue is realistic, and the author isn't afraid to kill off main characters. That's not to say that he goes around killing willy-nilly. Character choices have real consequences. Stupidity (even masked as honor) is often met with death. It makes the series fun and more grounded when not every character introduced in the first two chapters has 'plot armor' until the end of the series.
I think people like it because the intrigue feels real, choices have consequences, and there's just enough fantasy to allow you to suspend reality and enjoy this other world. You get invested in characters and actually fear for them when they are in peril. Brings extra suspense and drama just from that.
“Force has no place where there is need of skill." Herodotus
It also makes you really want a direwolf.
Me in 2013, after people were discussing the Red Wedding:
I don't even watch Game of Thrones, but I couldn't help myself from watching the end of the last episode just to figure out what all the fuss was about.
4 years later, I have watched all 7 seasons in the past 2 months or so. I never cared about stuff being spoiled to me, because I thought it was too late to join the GoT train anyway. I changed my mind, watched the first episode, and got hooked.
It was kind of an odd experience because I knew about basically all of the deaths. Whenever people would be freaking out about a major death scene, I would look up a clip because I was always kinda fascinated with how the creators would create these death scenes in a realistic way. This means I knew about the manner and rough timeframe of major deaths ahead of time:
I still really enjoyed watching the show though, even despite all of this being spoiled. Two huge scenes were never spoiled to me:
So I still had some moments that left me shocked. All in all a great experience, and now that I'm fully hooked I'm excited for what the next season might bring.
Funnily enough, that Jaime scene you mention about not getting spoiled by was the FIRST thing I was ever spoiled with in this show! I had never heard/watched it and out of the blue on google messages someone exclaimed "I CAN'T BELIEVE JAIME LANNISTER [rest of spoiler]." I had no idea who Jaime Lannister was, and given who it was from thought an MLB pitcher or other sports guy got in trouble in Saudi Arabia or something... haha
“Force has no place where there is need of skill." Herodotus