The Game of Thrones is played on two continents: Westeros and Essos. Westeros is a tightly defined, familiar island ruled by families who tend to fight sometimes. Essos is a sprawling, elongated land mass with diverse city-states and partially undefined regions. This west-east perspective is part of a long-standing Western storytelling tradition: define everything possible in the places that feel like home, and keep the “other” a place of endless possibility for hope or terror to arise.
Read MoreIf a storyteller breaks too many rules, a world becomes indecipherable. Even in an alien world with creatures of all shapes and sizes, there ideally is an underlying reason for their appearance, culture and rule of action that we can relate to.
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