Startseite
Podcasts
SFB 1472 Transformationen des Populären Podcast
#19 Carolyne Larrington: News from Westeros: “The Mad King”

#19 Carolyne Larrington: News from Westeros: “The Mad King”

SFB 1472 Transformationen des Populären vor 4 Tagen

What did really happen to the Mad King, Daenerys …

0:00

57:27

Podcast

SFB 1472 Transformationen des Populären

18 Episoden

Populär ist, was bei vielen Beachtung findet. Sei…

Wissenschaft

Podcast aneignen

What did really happen to the Mad King, Daenerys Targaryen’s
father, how are the Rebellion of Robert Baratheon and his big love
for Lyanna Stark intertwined, and who is the Knight of the Laughing
Tree? “The Mad King”, a theatre performance which premiered in
early August in Stratford-upon-Avon, is the latest contribution to
the globally popular “Game of Thrones” franchise and provides
answers to these and much more questions about the recent past of
the storyworld we know from HBO’s “Game of Thrones”. Carolyne
Larrington and Theresa Specht couldn’t help but to rush to
Stratford to see the prequel. In this ‘SFB on tour’ podcast
episode, they share their impressions and major plot revelations.
They also discuss how “The Mad King” expands the neomedieval
storyworld of GOT in a reasonable way and how its aesthetics are
realized on stage – where you can’t have CGI animations. Finally,
they talk about the possible frictions between the global
popularity of the franchise and this new – geographically and
temporally limited – theatre performance (aka high culture) – and
Carolyne reveals what part Shakespeare plays in all of this.
(00:00) Introducing the Guest (01:11) First impressions: “The Mad
King” without any idea about “Game of Thrones”? (06:30) Getting
everyone onto the same page: Worldbuilding (13:22) Diversity: The
Cast (14:16) Amazing Puppetry instead of CGI dragons: visual
aesthetics (19:38) ‘I like not what he says’: Accents and archaisms
(22:21) The prequel’s neomedieval storyworld (26:49) What happens?
Major plot twists (32:25) From ‘sexposition’ to strong women: Elia
Martell, Lyanna Stark, Ashara Dayne and Rhaella Targaryen (46:37)
Global popularity v Shakespearian Stratford-upon-Avon? See also
Carloyne’s review of The Mad King in The Times Literary Supplement:
“A Destiny Already Written: The Royal Shakespeare Company Takes on
George R. R. Martin”, in: TLS, August 21, 2026, p. 24. Schnitt:
Anna Greiving und Susanna Mengel