“Thrones” plays out in an ever-expanding fantasy world created by author George R.R. Martin, with dozens of stories involving hundreds of characters all being inexorably drawn together in what promises to be the most epic confrontation ever produced on television. But who can say for sure? There are all kinds of questions in the wind, because the narrative during the next season of “Thrones” – the sixth – is going to move fully beyond the five novels in what Martin intends to be a seven-part series because he has yet to complete the final two books.
Will fervid fans of the franchise accept the television tale to come without the first-hand knowledge of the books to serve as a foundation? Will the HBO series spoil whatever drama is to come in the last two novels? I’ll bet it doesn’t matter to most viewers, since the majority have quite likely not read the books and care only about the television adaptation. But it’s an interesting position that all parties find themselves in.
For now, it seems that the only thing that really matters to fans of “Thrones” is whether or not Jon Snow is alive and actor Kit Harrington (pictured above) is going to return to the show. In many ways “Thrones” seems to defy audience loyalty by continuing to kill off popular characters – especially the “good guys” -- in the most violent of ways. But it’s working; the audience for “Thrones” was in its fifth season bigger and more vocal than ever, and the industry finally chose to honor it with an Emmy Award for Outstanding Dramatic Series (part of HBO’s unprecedented Emmy sweep earlier this year).
Where “Thrones” continues to widen the epic scope of its story, sometimes leaving some of us confused or feeling that certain characters aren’t as developed as we might like them to be, “Outlander” accomplishes the opposite, becoming ever more internal and intimate as its sweeping saga of time travel and forbidden loves continues to expand.