Series over, but Game of Thrones lives

It’s over.

The “Game of Thrones” television series, which has treated viewers to epic-movie-quality episodes for eight years, aired its final cliff-hanging installment on Sunday.

I didn’t watch it. I’m too cheap to subscribe to cable or satellite television or to pay the added fee for HBO. I’ll see it later, when the DVDs for Season 8 are available at reduced rates.

I did manage to watch the first seven seasons through means both fair and foul.

I also have managed to read the books on which the series was based, the five existing novels in the “Song of Ice and Fire” series by George R.R. Martin.

The TV series left the books behind two seasons ago.

Martin insists he is still struggling to complete the two books that will wrap up his story.

I’ll watch as many YouTube videos of key scenes as I can.

The real joy, of course, is watching the story play out, and knowing the outcome takes away only a little of the joy of following the story’s development. I can wait as long as I must to see the complete episodes on my terms.

I don’t know why a mythical setting makes a story of medieval characters in true-to-the-period settings more appealing, but for some reason it does.

When you consider that tales of dragon-slaying knights in the Middle Ages were likely based on the discovery of old dinosaur skeletons, you realize also that every single tale of dragon slaying was a lie.

In the Middle Ages, apparently, the idea that species could become extinct hadn’t been considered. That means a dinosaur skeleton was sincerely believed to be that of a large, threatening creature whose friends and relatives were still lurking about somewhere. Dragon slaying was, therefore, plausible.

If you are an ambitious, imaginative author like Martin, however, you can create your own world in which dragons can exist. You can infuse it with magic, wizards, giants and holy miracles, too.

Martin’s added touch was to make his characters so completely human you could experience their mannerisms, bodily functions and salty language as if you were in the story with them.

He populated his mythical lands with incestuous nobles, murderous child princesses, and a libertine noble dwarf with a heart of gold.

All were gloriously fallible.

Some Hollywood visionaries with ambitions to match Martin’s imagination were able to sell their idea of eight years of television episodes, each an epic movie, to HBO.

The result has been well worth the effort, at least as far as I’m concerned.

The best part is, once I have seen how Hollywood brings the story to a close, I am hopeful to be able to read how Martin develops the final chapters in his story of the world he created.

Steve Hansen writes about our life and times from his perspective of a semi-retired Tucumcari journalist. Contact him at:

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