This week, _Arya_ ready for our look at fans of Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice and Fire! We are! _And_ you definitely don 't learn Dothraki to enjoy it! Plus, we have a special guest from the award-winning [A Podcast of Ice and Fire](http://podcastoficeandfire.com/), Amin!
Next week, we'll be keeping the fantasy setting (sort of) to talk about one of the most popular RPG series in Japan; we'll be talking about fans of the _Tales_ series of video games!
## Where can I learn more about Amin?
If you want to learn more about Amin, you should definitely check out the aforementioned [A Podcast of Ice and Fire](http://podcastoficeandfire.com/); they even provided us with [some slides](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4fkEcWiuGpCV0t6anU3WTAyMW8/view) from their panel at San Diego Comic Con (which we brought up in this week's episode)!
You can also find him on his other podcasts, [The Bastards of Kingsgrave](https://bastardsofkingsgrave.wordpress.com/), which covers anime, manga, western animation and other pop culture, and [Vassals of Kingsgrave](https://vokpodcast.wordpress.com/)!
## Episode outline
### Fandom Facts
**Introduction, Origins, and History:**
Game of Thrones is an American fantasy drama television adaptation of George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" epic fantasy novels. For the purposes of the fandom, we'll be referring to both of them interchangeably.
_A Game of Thrones_ , the first volume in the series, was written in 1991 and published in 1996. Since then, four other volumes have been released, with a total of seven volumes planned. The series follows the adventures of a wide cast of different characters of the continents of Westeros and Essos. Though there are many different perspectives, the books and TV show follow three main plot lines: an epic war among several families for control of Westeros; the rising threat of the supernatural _Others_ to the north; and "the ambition of Daenerys Targaryen, the deposed king's exiled daughter, to assume the Iron Throne" ([Wikipedia - A Song of Ice and Fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Song_of_Ice_and_Fire)).
The books have sold over 60 million copies worldwide, has been translated into 47 different languages, have been adapted into comics, card games, board games, and video games (and the television show, of course). The television show (which first aired in 2011) has won 38 Emmies, is the most pirated TV series every year since 2012, and an unnamed episode was downloaded over 4 million times (roughly equal to broadcast viewers) ([Wikipedia - Game of Thrones](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_of_Thrones#Copyright_infringement)).
**Fandom Origins:**
While no doubt fans of the series existed when the books were initially being released, fandom started buzzing closer to the announcement of the cast of the TV show (early 2011).
**Most Active:**
The fandom is most active [now](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F0524b41). Almost definitely now. Game of Thrones has never been as popular as it is today, according to Google Trends data.
More than any other fandom we've observed to date, the data is highly periodic (i.e. it spikes whenever a new season is released) and each spike, for the most part, is higher than the last. If you look at the chart, there is a very clear upward trend in interest.
**Size of Fandom:**
Using some of the data we have on hand, it is possible to get a few different estimates:
- 60 million (assuming every book purchase is a new fan) - 12 million (assuming every fan buys a full set of books)
- Almost 9 million views (based on [the season 6 finale](http://variety.com/2016/tv/ratings/game-of-thrones-ratings-season-6-finale-record-1201805035/))
- Over 8 million (assuming all broadcast views and pirated episode downloads per episode are unique)
- Over 4 million (assuming episode downloads or broadcast view as a rough proxy)
Regardless of how you estimate, there are a lot of fans.
**Fan Demographics:**...
