Tragic Oedipus, Precarious Oedipus: Inheritance, Legacy and Crisis’ Imaginary in <i>Game of Thrones</i>

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to read the TV series Game of Thrones as a great contemporary narration in which themes and forms of epic and tragic genre intersect and are reconfigured. By analyzing the main narrative sequences of the plot, it will be shown that Game of Thrones stages an original version of oedipal conflict, which plays a key role in the conceptualization of fight between generations, at the confluence of individual aspirations and community rules. This point of view enables to investigate the subjects’ roles and functions in relation to their family units and to the social collectivity, in a serial narration fully focused on fighting for dynastic succession and on the management of power in times of war and turmoil. It will be proposed that the peculiar configuration of the oedipal theme in Game of Thrones deeply resonates whit the dynamics of increasing financial and social crisis of contemporary times.

Keywords

• Game of Thrones
• Crisi
• Complesso edipico
• Epica
• Tragedia