Carolyne Larrington is Professor of Medieval Literature at University of Oxford, UK. She is the author of The Women's Companion to Mythology (1997), Morgan and her Sisters in Arthurian Tradition (2006), The Land of the Green Man (2015) and Winter is Coming (2015), among others.

A historical exploration of the narratives of love, passion and relationships in Game of Thrones.

Bridges academic and trade audience

List of IllustrationsList of EpisodesPrefaceAcknowledgementsIntroduction1. Institutions and the Family2. Identity3. Power and Knowledge4. Love, Desire and Hate5. Gods, Demons and Monsters6. Us and Them: Gender and MarginalizationAfterwordBibliographyIndex

'All men must die': or 'Valar Morghulis', as the traditional Essos greeting is rendered in High Valyrian. And die they do - in prodigious numbers; in imaginatively varied and gruesome ways; and often in terror within the viciously unpredictable world that is HBO's sensational evocation of Game of Thrones. Epic in scope and in imaginative breadth, the stories that are brought to life tell of the dramatic rise and fall of nations, the brutal sweeping away of old orders and the advent of new autarchs in the eternal quest for dominion. Yet, as this book reveals, many potent and intimate narratives of love and passion can be found within these grand landscapes of heroism, honour and death. They focus on strong relationships between women and family, as well as among the anti-heroes, the 'cripples, bastards and broken things'. In this vital follow-up to Winter Is Coming (2015), acclaimed medievalist Carolyne Larrington explores themes of power, blood-kin, lust and sex in order to draw entirely fresh meanings out of the show of the century.