Hi, {{first_name | friend}}! Welcome back to Worth the Watch. One odd habit I have is waiting to watch popular shows until long after the cultural conversation surrounding them has ended. I’m talking at least a decade, sometimes two. For example, I chose to finally dive into The Sopranos a couple years ago, and I loved every episode of it. Why do I do this? Maybe it's a mild case of psychological reactance—the more people tell me I have to watch something, the less I want to watch it. Or maybe I just like having access to helpful resources like character maps, episode recap videos, wacky fan theories on Reddit, and conflicting perspectives of contentious episodes, which usually arise a few years after the hype train for the series has slowed down.

Now, after years of hearing my friend Joslyn praise House of the Dragon and always feeling left out of the conversation, I’ve chosen to start the same journey for one of my biggest cinematic blind spots, Game of Thrones. I started the show last week and I’m already on Season 2, so it’s safe to say: I’m loving it. Keep reading for my initial impressions of the show thus far, my favorite character, and my craziest predictions for where the series might lead. Plus, I share three of my favorite underrated stories that also have epic, GoT-level world-building.

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