10 Best Ways To Catch Up On Game Of Thrones

Everything you need to get up to speed.

By James McGrath /

As Season 5 neared its official and widely pirated debut this past Sunday, fans devoted their time to the darkness of some old inn just North of the neck, waiting for Winter. Its coming had been heralded. Chasing bowls of brown with rye ale, a warm youtube search blazed under the hearth. Oh, the visions seen in that fire - the past, present and future of the best fantasy TV ever known.

Advertisement

If you only catch up on Game of Thrones like the Old Gods intended – binge-watching every season start to finish – you're upholding an honorable oath, but you're missing out. To bolster the experience, intrepid adventurers have scoured the many rivers, mountains and dungeons of youtube's darkest depths for the best of the best in behind-the-scenes interviews, production processes and companion history pieces to get a dragon's-eye view of Westeros in the making and beyond. 

The best way to experience any of this is through HBO officially, for the night is dark and full of torrents.

Before you dive further into Season 5 - and as you wait week to week for more iron and ice - The Lord of Light urges you to dig deeper into the show's history, GRR's genius and the human effort behind HBO's Game of Thrones universe.

10. The Complete History And Lore, Parts I-IV

As heartily as G.R.R. Martin fleshes out his fictional realm with a comprehensive history of warring legions, treacherous political webs and age old traditions, the bulk of this fascinating information simply can't find its way into the show. 

Advertisement

Without the raw knowledge of being able to read our character's thoughts, some extra guesswork goes into keeping track of who's who, which house is which, their relationship to one another and their broader connection to Westeros' past.

Harking back to the dawn of The Children, The First Men and the height of Valyria all the way up through family sigil histories and the generations of political conflict directly leading to the Targaryian Legacy and The Mad King's fall, this four-part motion comic is narrated by the biggest names in the show. 

Each chapter is roughly an hour long, divided into a dozen or so mini-vignettes, and like the books, digs deeper into the personal perspective of each character as they guide you through Game of Thrones History 101. If only such studies were a University prerequisite...

Advertisement