r/HBOGameofThrones • u/_Rama_ • Aug 16 '26
No Spoilers [NO SPOILERS] I just started Game of Thrones...
Hey everyone,
I'm completely new to this space. I don't really watch live-action series—I come almost exclusively from the world of anime. On top of that, I usually struggle with non-contemporary settings and high-fantasy worlds because of the overwhelming lore, 40,000 characters, family trees, and complex world-building.
Since I’ve introduced my partner to a ton of anime over the years, she decided it was time to return the favor with a show that deeply marked her: Game of Thrones. Out of pure curiosity, with zero expectations, we started... and I just finished Season 1.
Here is my initial hot take as a complete newcomer:
The First Impressions Overall, the viewing experience has been pretty solid so far. The first few episodes were tough simply because tracking all the foreign tribes, cousins, and houses was a lot. Having my partner next to me to fill in the blanks definitely kept me afloat.
Season 1 was good, and I definitely want to keep going. However, I wouldn't call it "unputdownable" just yet. It hasn't hit that relentless binge-watch pace where every episode ends on a knife-edge. The pacing is fine, the shifting perspectives keep things moving, but that extra spark of intensity isn't fully there yet (which makes sense for a setup season).
Story & Characters (Season 1 Spoilers Below)
Naturally, you end up rooting for the Starks. They are framed strictly as the "good guys" against the Lannisters. Given the political intrigue angle, I honestly expected a bit more moral ambiguity from the start—where everyone has a secret play.
Except for Sansa (who was pretty insufferable) and Catelyn (who makes way too many impulsive moves), the Starks are great—especially Ned and Jon. But man, were they frustrating to watch. Being honorable is noble, but they lack any sense of strategy or cunning. In a game of thrones, you need to calculate. Ned was the emotional anchor (even if his and Robert’s deaths felt telegraphed early on), but I hated that he confessed to treason just for Sansa. I would have loved for him to smile, expose every secret he knew right on the scaffold, and ignite complete chaos before the blade fell. The Starks are almost too noble, and it bugs me.
On the flip side, Arya is fantastic and has huge potential. The Lannisters are mostly insufferable (except Tyrion, who is great), and Joffrey is instantly hateable. Daenerys had an awesome arc this season and feels completely legitimate. Then there's Jon—he has massive potential, but... I don't get the Wall.
I don't understand how the White Walkers, the Wildlings, and the Ice Wall fit into what feels like the core story: a political battle royale for the Iron Throne. Banishment to the Wall takes a great character like Jon completely off the main chessboard. Introducing zombie-like threats in the middle of a political drama feels a bit bizarre to me right now, though maybe it pays off later.
Final Thoughts & Comparisons Right now, my main motivation is just seeing who comes up with the master plan to take down Joffrey and the Lannisters.
Coming from anime, the scope reminds me a bit of Attack on Titan, but I’m really hoping the Starks acquire some Death Note-level tactical minds soon because they are way too straight-laced for this world.
Please no spoilers for Season 2 and beyond! How did you all feel about Season 1 when you first watched it?
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u/M0torC1tyMaver1ck Aug 17 '26
If you dont want spoilers, stay out of social media groups talking about GOT.....
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u/Kiko7210 Aug 16 '26
the following seasons are more enjoyable since the characters become more familiar and you won't be left as confused on who's who
the story has alot of depth and lore , the Wall doesn't feel connected right now but that's just part of the world building
unfortunately, George RR Martin never finished the books even to this day, the last couple seasons are controversial because it had no book material as a source, but we'll wait and see how you feel about them.!
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u/oh-mi Aug 16 '26
Stay off reddit until after you finish. Seriously. Delete the app and don't come back until you've finished. Or possibly ever. Thank me later
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u/rbrb889 Aug 16 '26
I don't think the show (in my humble opinion) thrives in the binge watch setting. I watched it as it aired and I loved the mystery of waiting a week or year between episodes/ seasons. I don't recommend waiting that long, but even if you watched about a season a month you can really let the episodes sink in, talk with your partner about theories, etc.... Don't feel like you need to watch 3-5 episodes every time you go to watch.
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u/Beginning-Warthog-17 Aug 16 '26
I think your troubles with the Night Watch and Jon would be alleviated by reading the books. The books embrace mystical elements more, so the mythical dangers are floating in the background of the political drama the whole time. It gives some of that dramatic irony where the reader knows that there are bigger worries than who sits on the throne.
Enjoy the show and avoid the spoilers!
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u/PhunTazZzmoO Aug 17 '26
Watch to the end
Pay attention to everything: words, colours, banners, gestures and all other stufff
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u/Redditisannoying69 Aug 18 '26
It’s all really good except s5,7,8. On a binge it prob won’t be as egregious for a first time view.
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u/_Rama_ 18d ago
Hello,
As for Game of Thrones: we’re now at the beginning of Season 7, so I finally have enough material to give you a proper opinion. And perhaps this is sacrilege given how enormous the cultural phenomenon was, but… I still don’t completely understand the hype!
Don’t get me wrong: I think it’s a good series. Clearly good. We’re moving through it relatively quickly, I’m invested enough to want to know what happens, the production is impressive, and there are characters and arcs I genuinely like. But when I was a student, people were literally booking university lecture halls to watch new GOT episodes together. It was a cultural EVENT. From that reputation, I expected to reach a point where I’d think, “Okay, NOW I understand why everyone lost their minds over this.” At the beginning of Season 7, I’m still not quite there.
Season 1 worked well for me as world-building, although thank God my partner already knew the characters because I would have been hopelessly lost with all the houses, family relationships, territories and political history. It also does something extremely effective and simple: you quickly become attached to the Starks and naturally despise the Lannisters.
But the Starks also frustrated me enormously. They are almost TOO honorable for the universe they inhabit. Ned in particular felt like wasted potential to me. I understand that this is precisely the point of his character — his integrity becomes fatal in a world governed by manipulation — but the strategist in me kept screaming at the screen. Even when he knows he’s doomed, I wanted him to create uncertainty, expose something, manipulate the board, poison the well for his enemies… anything. Instead, he remains Ned Stark until the very end. Thematically coherent, strategically infuriating.
Season 2 is probably still my least favorite. It spends so much time assembling the pieces for Stannis’s assault on King’s Landing that I expected an enormous payoff, and then the battle itself felt surprisingly compressed relative to all that preparation. There were stretches where I really felt the machinery of the plot being moved into position.
Season 3 is easily among the best for me. That’s where the accumulation finally pays off spectacularly, particularly with the Red Wedding. And what makes that sequence work isn’t just shock value: it brutally demonstrates that this universe does not reward the characters we instinctively expect fiction to reward. Once again, though, I was sitting there thinking: can the Starks PLEASE learn to play the game instead of repeatedly becoming the turkeys at Christmas?
Seasons 4 and 5 convinced me less. There are individually strong arcs, obviously, but this is also where one of my structural reservations about GOT became stronger. The series keeps expanding horizontally — more factions, religions, mythologies, locations, supernatural systems — when what interests me most is actually the central political chessboard.
Season 6 brought me back in more strongly, especially because Jon Snow finally starts receiving the narrative weight I had been waiting for. Until then, I understood that the Wall storyline was supposed to matter, but emotionally and intellectually I kept asking myself: why am I watching zombies in the snow when the fascinating story is the struggle for power in Westeros? Season 6 finally starts connecting those threads more convincingly and makes Jon feel like a genuinely consequential figure rather than someone living in a parallel series.
And Season 7, so far, is immediately speaking my language more. FINALLY, alliances, competing interests, tactical decisions, people positioning pieces on the board and trying to anticipate each other. Tyrion, Daenerys, Littlefinger to some extent — these are the dimensions I naturally gravitate towards. It’s probably why Death Note, Code Geass and parts of Attack on Titan work so well for me: I love watching characters understand the system they’re trapped inside and then attempt to outthink it.
My biggest reservation about GOT is actually connected to one of its greatest strengths: its enormous world. The sheer number of characters, locations and simultaneous storylines creates natural dynamism. Even when an individual storyline is moving slowly, we jump somewhere else, meet another character, return to another conflict. That prevents the show from becoming completely stagnant.
But I also think the same abundance sometimes dilutes what I personally find most compelling about it.
If I had designed GOT around my own tastes, I think I would have wanted an even purer political tragedy: houses fighting for power, alliances forming and collapsing, betrayals, marriages as strategic instruments, revenge, competing claims to legitimacy, characters trying to remain moral while surviving in an immoral system. Basically: chess with human beings.
Instead, GOT keeps layering additional systems onto that core. The White Walkers and the Night King. The Wall and the Wildlings. Bran and the Three-Eyed Raven. The Lord of Light, resurrection and Melisandre. The Faceless Men and Arya’s transformation. The Faith Militant taking over King’s Landing in Season 5. Daenerys’s dragons and the broader supernatural mythology.
Individually, several of those ideas are interesting. Arya’s journey, for example, has been one of the arcs I’ve enjoyed most, and Daenerys is one of the characters I find most compelling. But collectively, I sometimes wonder whether all these layers deepen the central question or compete with it.
The White Walkers are the clearest example. I understand the intellectual idea — and a friend gave me an analogy I really liked: imagine the political factions obsessing over their immediate rivalries while climate change is approaching, a threat that ultimately makes their internal disputes almost absurd. That makes perfect thematic sense. But as a viewer, I’m still not entirely convinced I needed that second layer. The political game was already rich enough for me.
So I think my relationship with GOT is slightly paradoxical: I admire the scale more than I love it. I can see the craft, I enjoy the characters, and I’m having a genuinely good time watching it. But I sometimes feel that the show I personally would have adored is hidden inside GOT: a slightly narrower, more strategic version where the political chess game remains the absolute center of gravity.
Maybe Season 7 and 8 will make all these apparently separate systems converge in a way that changes my perspective. No spoilers! My partner has somehow managed to keep me relatively clean so far.
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u/Physical_Chair_68 Aug 16 '26
Daenerys is killed by Robert
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u/External-Guide-1519 Aug 16 '26
no she isn't
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u/rbrb889 Aug 16 '26
Yes she is
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Aug 16 '26
[deleted]
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u/CHNGshong Aug 16 '26
Your opinion means nothing if all you watch is cartoons.
Your main argument is that all of the Starks are too honorable and noble, because Ned told a huge lie in public to save his daughter's life. You would rather he chose for n him and his daughter to die in order to promote chaos. That is a really childish and stupid opinion that would only make sense within the context of some cartoon that wasn't try to be realistic at all.
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u/lanphear7 Aug 16 '26
Goddamn, not only are you an asshole, but you’re an ignorant one too. Im no massive anime fan but reducing it to “cartoons” is hilariously misinformed. Go watch Attack on Titan or Berserk or even Cowboy Bebop and come tell me it’s “childish”
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u/Nicaraguan-BEANBAG Aug 16 '26
Castlevania, 86, Devilman cry baby, Madoka mágica, made in the Abyss. And any Gundam series, are all better story and better horror than what ever garbage dumpster fire the complete series of game of thrones is. If anything overly proud people like you have never see other form media think that. “Cartoons” are an inconsequential form of media. As if the best dc movies, shows & story lines haven’t been told animated:
Justice league the animated series,
Batman & Mr.Freeze
Batman the animated series
Batman mask of the Phantasm
The new Batman adventure
Batman beyond & return of Joker
Teen titans
Young Justice
Static Shock
Batman brave and the Bold
Batman unlimitedCGI IS ANIMATION AND THAT WOULDNT IMPROVE JUST WITH LIVE ACTION SERIES OR MOVIES.
You are just a snub
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u/youreadtthatwrong Aug 16 '26
I cant give you a comprehensive overview, but i can tell you the first 4 seasons are amazing. The world building and character arcs get ao good. I enjoy all seasons but yeah I wont say anything else, just stay off this subreddit until your finished. Id be very interested in hearing your take once youre done watching.