A Game of Thrones Guide for Beginners

Game of Thrones can appear rather complicated to someone new to the show, or book series for that matter. Trust me, I know all about this first hand. I worked at a facility with mostly guys when I first heard of Thrones. After hearing them talking endlessly about the show, I thought that it must be one heck of a show to have them talking that avidly about it. Words like Red Wedding, Snow, Joffrey, White Walkers, and Tyrion Lannister were thrown around. The Red Wedding came along with remarks like ‘I can’t believe it!’ and ‘how can they do this!’ While Tyrion was regarded with comments of ‘he’s ridiculously awesome’, ‘bad-ass’, and other honoring commentary. It all had me in a sense of wonder. What could Thrones be about?

All I knew was there was a throne. Really that’s it, I had actually seen the Throne while I was working at Sony. I believe it was during their first season. I had walked past it, wondering why the heck someone would want something that looked incredibly uncomfortable to sit on. Little did I know what that incredibly uncomfortable chair was all about.

That throne, or chair as I saw it, is part of a massive battle between the families (houses) of Westeros. This guide is for those of us who are either beginners, or if you just have some trouble following it all (myself included). Or this may be a review for some of you before season four starts in April!

Best to start with the houses! Each house has their own colors and symbols. For example, our protagonist family, the Starks, are the direwolf with grey as their color. The symbols and colors really do reflect the families themselves. Don’t want to spoil anything so I won’t say anything else on that account.

Image from http://www.deviantart.com

Below is a great chart of the connections between characters with photos for extra help! Click the chart to make it bigger. The house colors also are relevant in this chart as well. What’s really nice about this chart, other than the photos, is that there are short character descriptions below their names. For the life of me that I can’t keep these people straight, the Starks excluded.

Image from http://www.chartgeek.com

Then there’s the chart below, more simplified, but without pictures. Once again, click the chart to make it bigger. I really like the fact that this also is modeled after the ancestry model. Marriages, Death, and relations are all visualized on here.

Image from http://hauteslides.com

Last but not least, is the lay of the land. Westeros is one of four known continents, the others being Essos, Sothoryos, and Ulthos. Most of the area of Westeros is covered by the Seven Kingdoms shown below. It’s not entirely necessary to understand for the show, or at least pretend like you understand, but here it is for you any way. The only thing you probably really need to know is that they are a) located fairly close (think Ireland sized) and b) that the Wall is to the North. Spoilers…