Carolyne Larrington, Professor of Medieval European Literature at the University of Oxford, talks about watching and writing about HBO’s Game of Thrones as a medieval scholar. She explains some of the medieval history and literature from which George R. R. Martin chiselled the building blocks for the construction of his imaginary world.

Game of Thrones has now become the most frequently streamed or downloaded show in TV history. Carolyne suggests some reasons for its enormous international success as the medieval fantasy epic for the twenty-first century, and undertakes a little speculation on how the show might end.