Att Adaptera Fantasy : En adaptionsstudie av TV-serien Game of Thrones

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this paper is to study the adaptation process of the TV-show Game of Thrones. This paper focuses mainly on how David Benioff and D.B. Weiss and HBO adapted the TV-show from George R.R. Martins book series A Song of Ice and Fire and what, in the adaptation and in the reception of the TV-show, made it such a global cultural phenomenon. The analysis has been done by analysing interviews and studying behind-the-scenes material that has been available through articles and bonus material provided by the web and on the DVD and Blu-Ray features of the show. Mary H. Snyders Analyzing Literature-to-Film Adaptations provides a ground tool of analysing adaptations where particularly her “A Marriage of Media” theory has significantly helped the study. The paper analyses fantasy as a genre, the book series that the TV-show is based on, and the adaptation process itself and the different components that make up for the TV-show called Game of Thrones. After the adaptation analysis there is a study on how the internet has helped distributing both the show’s popularity and the show itself through the use of illegal downloading. The result is that the adaption is a successful “Marriage between media”, to use Snyders words, where the internet can be seen as product of that metaphorical marriage. The confidence and trust that both the author of the books and the show runners of the TV-series has placed in each other is the binding fundament that made the adaption as successful as it is. HBO as a cable network company also play a significant part where the financial support to the show’s production and the non-existent censorship regarding the adult content otherwise wouldn’t have been provided for, had the show been produced and/or aired by any other network company for example. The previous successes of other fantasy adaptations such as The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter-series could also be seen as necessary initiators regarding the industry’s newfound openness towards large scale fantasy projects.