There’s no bigger phenomenon right now than Game of Thrones. Why is that? Aren’t we a bit too advanced for stories featuring dragons, zombies and direwolves? No, we’re not and here is why.
MORE: When Reality Looks Better Than Photoshop: Here Are Some Unique Places on Earth
It’s all about the story. Stories are not something designed to put children to sleep. There’s a relevance to them, even for or especially for adults. We like diving into fantastic realms, meeting mythological creatures. But in spite of everything, we like it because the story talks about reality.
The fictional world and our own world face the same problems: climate change, immigration, narcissistic leaders and power struggles. We enjoy the metaphors and the symbols, but we also like the wit of Tyrion speaking about the nature of power and how does social change come into being. The dragons and the direwolves are there to make us feel relaxed and to entertain us, but suddenly we realize that it is actually our world that is described.
MORE: What Makes Left-Handed People So Special?
And this is the goal of every good story: to entice us with a special medium so that the message can come across more easily. Game of Thrones excels exactly at that: offering to a mythical world an appearance of plausibility. It explores the too human origin of global conflict, the nature of power and how the best intentions can lead to disasters.
MORE: 5 Plants for Your Bedroom to Help you Sleep Better
By mastering the art of creating strong and credible characters, the author helps us define ourselves and discover a little more about the world around us. There’s a Cersei in every each of us, living alongside a Jon Snow, a Mother of Dragons or a Davos. What happened during the Battle of Bastards happens in ourselves all the time, minus the special effects.
Not to mention that it’s fun to discuss the future development of the story. To try to guess who’s going to live and who’s going to die next. Every time we elaborate a theory about it, we enter the fantastic realm, bringing along with us everything we’ve learn in the real world. And vice versa. Please share this!
