Between various books and chapters, I watched several episodes of the HBO television series "Game of Thrones"  (GoT). The show ran eight seasons from 2011 to 2019 and I found the series to be very well-produced with an impressive cast of actors and intriguing plotlines.

There are elements of fantasy in GoT as in Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" paired with echoes of epic storytelling from medieval legends like Robin Hood or King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. But what appealed to me the most in the early seasons of GoT were the gritty politics and the realistic human consequences of actions, alliances, and betrayals.

In viewing the series, one gets the feeling the make-believe Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms and the continents of Westeros and Essos may have actually existed on another universe's timeline; but the same human interaction… the frailties, violence, sex, power-seeking, greed, and cruelty…  surely occurred throughout actual history to this day.