Description
Book SynopsisGame of Thrones was an international sensation, and has been looked at from many different angles. But to date there has been little research into its audiences: who they were, how they engaged with and responded to it. This book presents the findings of a major international research project that garnered more than 10,000 responses to an innovative 'qualiquantitative' questionnaire. Among its findings are: a new way of understanding the place and role of favourite characters in audiences’ responses; new insights into the role of fantasy in encouraging thinking about our own world; and an account of two combined emotions – relish and anguish – which structure audiences’ reactions to controversial elements in the series.
Table of Contents1 The remarkable phenomenon that is Game of Thrones
2 Generating a ‘richly structured combination of data and discourses’
3 Distinguishing different kinds of audience
4 Favourite characters, favourite survivors
5 The significance of favourite character choices
6 Winter is coming…
7 Conflicts and controversies
8 Making predictions for an unpredictable world
Postscript: ‘If you think this has a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention’
Index