Winter Is Coming – to Court
"Game of Thrones" has already spawned a class at Harvard entitled "The Real Game of Thrones: from Modern Myths to Medieval Models."
October 01, 2017 at 12:00 AM
4 minute read
By John G. Browning
Have you every instructed a client to sign a document with “a girl has no name?” Have you ever argued in a motion for new trial that like Jon Snow, your case should be brought back to life? Have you ever filed, in lieu of a jury demand, a demand for trial by combat? If so, then you are REALLY taking “Game of Thrones” way too seriously. But if you are a lawyer who also happens to be a fan of HBO's smash hit show based on the hugely popular saga by George R.R. Martin, then you are far from alone.
“Game of Thrones” has already spawned a class at Harvard entitled “The Real Game of Thrones: from Modern Myths to Medieval Models.” Politicians even reference the series: warning of the potential dangers of Brexit, House of Lords peer Baroness Crawley declared “as they say in Game of Thrones, winter is coming.” At the White House Correspondents Dinner in April 2016, President Barack Obama even joked about getting his Supreme Court nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, confirmed Westeros-style. Noting the many Republican senators in attendance, The president remarked “[B]ar the doors. Judge Merrick Garland, come on out. We're going to do this right here, right now. It's like the Red Wedding.”
Legal academics are not immune to the lure of “Game of Thrones” either. The Alabama Law Review recently published an article on “The International Law of Game of Thrones,” replete with discussions of how treaty obligations, alliances,and notions of sovereignty addressed on the hit show relate to real-world international law. And in 2015, the Media and Arts Law Review at the University of Melbourne Law School in Australia even published an entire issue devoted to the theme of “Law and Law-Breaking in Game of Thrones.” The volume included scholarly analysis of everything from the intellectual property implications of things like wildfire or dragons to the right to trial by combat and its historical antecedents in medieval Europe.
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