Game of Thrones
George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire began in 1996 as a deliberate corrective to the fantasy tradition Tolkien founded: a setting where the rightful king is not obviously right, where competence does not protect anyone, and where the protagonist of the first volume does not survive it. HBO's 2011 adaptation converted that into the most-discussed television series of its decade and, for a period, the most pirated programme in the world.
About Game of Thrones
George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire began in 1996 as a deliberate corrective to the fantasy tradition Tolkien founded: a setting where the rightful king is not obviously right, where competence does not protect anyone, and where the protagonist of the first volume does not survive it. HBO's 2011 adaptation converted that into the most-discussed television series of its decade and, for a period, the most pirated programme in the world. The show's collapse in its final season — running past the published novels and compressing years of plotting into six episodes — is one of the most public examples of an adaptation outpacing its source, and it reshaped how studios talk about ending long-running series.
The television series overtook the novels it was adapting, and the books it needed have still not been published.
Rights holder: Warner Bros. Discovery (HBO); the novels by George R. R. Martin. CharacterTshirts.com is an independent guide. It is not affiliated with, authorized by, endorsed by, or connected to any character rights holder, publisher, studio or network named on this site. All character names and titles are trademarks of their respective owners and are used here only to identify the products described.
Key eras
| Era | Years | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| Novels | 1996–2011 | Five volumes published; the series remains unfinished. |
| HBO adaptation | 2011–2019 | Eight seasons, the last written beyond the published books. |
| Spin-offs | 2022– | House of the Dragon and further prequels. |