Dynasty of the Rings (Game of Thrones?)

Full disclosure:  I have neither read any of the A Song of Ice and Fire series nor have I watched a single episode of the Game of Thrones.  All that I know of it comes from listening to The Sword and from social medial.

From The Sword, an Austin-hipster act relying on classic metal riffs and lyrics taken from fantasy novels from the likes of Robert E. Howard’s Conan and Kull series as well as George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice series to give them something more than just Norse mythology to mine for ideas, I have not been able to catch the story.  “To Take the Black” was written about the Night’s Watch and “Maiden, Mother, and Crone” references the three female faces of the god of the Faith of the Seven.  There’s certainly speculation that other songs by The Sword were inspired by this (“Winter’s Wolves,” for example).  It seems The Sword is just as obsessed with George R. R. Martin as Led Zeppelin was with J. R. R. Tolkien.  (Hmm, is there something about having two middle initials, both being the letter ‘R’, that makes your fantasy novels fodder for rock tunes?)

The rest that I know about the series comes from cryptic posts on Facebook and a plethora of stories posted on various internet sites on Monday mornings.  One of the things I’ve found is that for a series based on a set of books, many people have not bothered to read them, or the condensed Reader’s Digest version, or even the Cliff’s Notes and are shocked and surprised by things other people are expecting.  The other surprising thing I’ve noticed is that for a story that contains swords, direwolves, and dragons, there is an awful lot of sex, politics, betrayal, and murder.  It seems to me to be a lot like a fantasy soap opera.

So I asked a friend of mine, Liz Khimani, about the show.  I know she’s read the books but doesn’t seem to have been following the show religiously.  She claims that HBO has done a good job of making the show interesting by hitting the key elements of the books: swords and boobs.  If they had just gone ahead and named the damned thing “Swords and Boobs” I would have watched them all by now.  Here’s her tl;dr description of the story:

“Well basically, the Lannisters are terrible people with one sort-of exception. The Starks are our heros [sic] but most of them have been murdered. The Tyrells are nicer, but also very politically savvy. The dragon owning lady is kind of just a teenager who doesn't really know what she's doing but is against slavery generally. The Bolton's [sic] are bastards in every sense of the word.”

So it seems to me that this is just a classic, 80s, primetime soap.  This whole cultural phenomenon is nothing more than Dynasty of the Rings.

So now I’m wondering if one of those websites like Gawker, Buzzfeed, or Upworthy, those sites whose articles contain no useful content and are nothing but clickbait, have ever done an article comparing the families from Game of Thrones to the families from the classic, 80s primetime soaps.  Are the Starks the Ewing family from Dallas?  Are the Lannisters the Quinns of The Catlins?  Are the Boltons the Barnes?

I don’t know.  I haven’t watched any of those shows.