HBO Greenlights Game of Thrones

Nothing sets Twitter ablaze like happy fantasy fans: HBO has ordered nine episodes of Game of Thrones, based on fantasy novels by George R.R. Martin, the network announced Tuesday. The cast includes Sean Bean, Peter Dinklage, Jennifer Ehle, Richard Madden, Sophie Turner, and Mark Addy. The story that unfolds in Martin’s novels follows the story of the aristocratic Stark family as they work through high court drama in the make-believe land of Westeros. There are four books as of now (a fifth is in progress), and at this time, it appears that each novel will serve as the plot backbone for a season of its own. Some have attributed the success of Thrones to the fact that it does not rely as heavily as other fantasy stories on magic and myth, instead supplanting the more fantastical elements with harsh and violent realism. Martin has written for TV in the past, including for Beauty and the Beast. When the news broke, one die-hard Game of Thrones fan tweeted that the decision showed the “existence of a higher power confirmed!”