How Game of Thrones is good drama.

Up until a month ago I had never seen Game of Thrones, the HBO series based on the work of George R R Martin. Then I saw the first season on sale at Walmart on Blue Ray. Since I have a blue ray player and an HD TV, I am always on the look out for bargains to play in high definition. The first season was on sale for less that forty dollars, so I snatched it up, took it home, and put it in the player. Wasn’t really sure what was going on at first, though I knew the idea of medieval kingdoms on a world that had multi year summers followed by multi year winters. And it had Sean Bean in it, one of my favorite actors since his days of playing Richard Sharpe. There were some characters I really like from the start, including most of the Starks, Tyrion of the Lanesters, and Daenerys, the woman whose brother married her off to the horse barbarians so he could take the throne he thought was his. There were also a lot of scumbags, and nobody seemed to keep their word about anything unless it was in their interest. Not really my idea of good fantasy, which should have at least some noble souls in it, loyal to a fault. And some magic. the magic came later, along with the dragons, also a favorite of mine, but the lying stinking betrayals just increased as time went by. I bought the second series before finishing the first, and then was horrified when they took off Sean’s head, and one of my favorite actors was no longer in the series. I was pissed off, and I didn’t watch the second season for almost two weeks. Still populated with people I despised. Joffrey, the little useless shit who was now the king, Melisandre, his incestuous mother, and Jaime, his uncle/father, Theon, who seemed a good guy and then turns into just another scoundrel.
I realized about the time I was hitting episode 9 of season 2, hoping that Joffrey would be killed in some horrible manner, that the series was doing its job. I was emotionally invested in the characters. I may not have liked all of them, and in fact despised most of them and their actions. Tyrion was still the only Lanester I thought much of, since he had a wisdom and a total lack of blood thirstiness about him, the Starks, and Daenerys, the mother of dragons. And I really loved the little beasts that were her children. I am in her corner, cheering that one of the little guys will grow up to immolate and eat Joffrey. In fact, I was so invested now in the characters and the story that I added HBO to my cable just so I could see the new season and not have to wait until it came out on Blue Ray. Bravo, Game of Thrones. And more about the Dragons please.