document_title: Game of Thrones

question_text: when did filming for game of thrones start

question_tokens: when did filming for game of thrones start

root

text: Game of Thrones

text: Background

text: Setting

text: Game of Thrones is roughly based on the storylines of A Song of Ice and Fire,[3][4] set in the fictional Seven Kingdoms of Westeros and the continent of Essos. The series chronicles the violent dynastic struggles among the realm's noble families for the Iron Throne, while other families fight for independence from it. It opens with additional threats in the icy North and Essos in the east.[5]

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text: Showrunner David Benioff jokingly suggested "The Sopranos in Middle-earth" as Game of Thrones' tagline, referring to its intrigue-filled plot and dark tone in a fantasy setting of magic and dragons.[6] In a 2012 study of deaths per episode, it ranked second out of 40 recent U.S. TV drama series (with an average of 14).[7]

text: Themes

text: The series is generally praised for what is perceived as a sort of medieval realism.[8][9] George R.R. Martin set out to make the story feel more like historical fiction than contemporary fantasy, with less emphasis on magic and sorcery and more on battles, political intrigue, and the characters, believing that magic should be used moderately in the epic fantasy genre.[10][11][12] Martin has stated that "the true horrors of human history derive not from orcs and Dark Lords, but from ourselves."[13]

text: A common theme in the fantasy genre is the battle between good and evil, which Martin says does not mirror the real world.[14] Just like people's capacity for good and for evil in real life, Martin explores the questions of redemption and character change.[15] The show allows the audience to view different characters from their perspective, unlike in many other fantasies, and thus the supposed villains can provide their side of the story.[12][16] Benioff said, "George brought a measure of harsh realism to high fantasy. He introduced gray tones into a black-and-white universe."[12]

text: In early seasons, under the influence of the A Song of Ice and Fire books, main characters were regularly killed off, and this was credited with developing tension among viewers.[17] Later seasons, however, critics pointed out that certain characters had developed "plot armor", attributing this to the show's deviating from the books and becoming more of a traditional television series.[17] The series also reflects the substantial death rates in war.[18][19]

text: Inspirations and derivations

text: Although the first season closely follows the events of the first novel, later seasons have made significant changes. According to David Benioff, the show is "about adapting the series as a whole and following the map George laid out for us and hitting the major milestones, but not necessarily each of the stops along the way".[20]

text: Tom Holland of The Guardian believes that the novels and their adaptations base aspects of their settings, characters, and plot on events in European history.[21] Most of Westeros is reminiscent of high medieval Europe, from lands and cultures,[22] to the palace intrigue, feudal system, castles, and knightly tournaments. A principal inspiration for the novels is the English Wars of the Roses[23] (1455–85) between the houses of Lancaster and York, reflected in Martin's houses of Lannister and Stark. The scheming Cersei Lannister evokes Isabella, the "she-wolf of France" (1295–1358);[21] Isabella and her family (particularly as portrayed in Maurice Druon's historical-novel series, The Accursed Kings) were also a main inspiration for Martin.[24]

text: Holland further proposes that other historical antecedents of series elements include Hadrian's Wall (which becomes Martin's Wall), the legend of Atlantis (ancient Valyria), Byzantine Greek fire ("wildfire"), Icelandic sagas of the Viking Age (the Ironborn), the Mongol hordes (the Dothraki), the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453) and the Italian Renaissance (c. 1400–1500).[21] The series' popularity has been attributed, in part, to Martin's skill at fusing these elements into a seamless, credible version of alternate history.[21] Martin acknowledges, "I take [history] and I file off the serial numbers and I turn it up to 11."[25]

text: Cast and characters

text: Game of Thrones has an ensemble cast estimated to be the largest on television;[26] during its third season, 257 cast names were recorded.[27] In 2014, several actor contracts were renegotiated to include a seventh-season option, with raises which reportedly made them among the highest-paid performers on cable TV.[28] In 2016, several actor contracts were again renegotiated, reportedly increasing the salary of five of the main cast members to £2 million per episode for the last two seasons, which would make them the highest paid actors on television.[29][30] The main cast is listed below.[31]

text: Lord Eddard "Ned" Stark (Sean Bean) is the head of House Stark, whose members are involved in plot lines throughout most of the series. He and his wife, Catelyn Tully (Michelle Fairley), have five children: Robb (Richard Madden), the eldest, followed by Sansa (Sophie Turner), Arya (Maisie Williams), Bran (Isaac Hempstead-Wright) and Rickon (Art Parkinson), the youngest. Ned's illegitimate son Jon Snow (Kit Harington) and his friend, Samwell Tarly (John Bradley), serve in the Night's Watch under Lord Commander Jeor Mormont (James Cosmo). The Wildlings living north of the Wall include young Gilly (Hannah Murray), and warriors Tormund Giantsbane (Kristofer Hivju) and Ygritte (Rose Leslie).[32]

text: Others associated with House Stark include Ned's ward Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen), his vassal Roose Bolton (Michael McElhatton), and Bolton's bastard son, Ramsay Snow (Iwan Rheon). Robb falls in love with the healer Talisa Maegyr (Oona Chaplin), and Arya befriends the blacksmith's apprentice Gendry (Joe Dempsie) and the assassin Jaqen H'ghar (Tom Wlaschiha). The tall warrior Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie) serves Catelyn and, later, Sansa.[32]

text: In King's Landing, the capital, Ned's friend King Robert Baratheon (Mark Addy) shares a loveless marriage with Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey), who has taken her twin brother, the "Kingslayer" Ser Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), as her lover. She loathes her younger brother, the dwarf Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage), who is attended by his mistress Shae (Sibel Kekilli) and the sellsword Bronn (Jerome Flynn). Cersei's father is Lord Tywin Lannister (Charles Dance). Cersei also has two young sons: Joffrey (Jack Gleeson) and Tommen (Dean-Charles Chapman). Joffrey is guarded by the scar-faced warrior, Sandor "the Hound" Clegane (Rory McCann).[32]

text: The king's Small Council of advisors includes the crafty Master of Coin Lord Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish (Aidan Gillen) and the eunuch spymaster Lord Varys (Conleth Hill). Robert's brother, Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane), is advised by foreign priestess Melisandre (Carice van Houten) and former smuggler Ser Davos Seaworth (Liam Cunningham). The wealthy Tyrell family is represented at court by Margaery Tyrell (Natalie Dormer). The High Sparrow (Jonathan Pryce) is the capital's religious leader. In the southern principality of Dorne, Ellaria Sand (Indira Varma) seeks vengeance against the Lannisters.[32]

text: Across the Narrow Sea, siblings Viserys (Harry Lloyd) and Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) – the exiled children of the last king of the original ruling dynasty, who was overthrown by Robert Baratheon – are running for their lives and trying to win back the throne. Daenerys has been married to Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa), the leader of the nomadic Dothraki. Her retinue includes the exiled knight Ser Jorah Mormont (Iain Glen), her aide Missandei (Nathalie Emmanuel) and the sellsword Daario Naharis (Michiel Huisman).[32]

text: Production

text: Conception and development

text: In January 2006, David Benioff had a phone conversation with George R. R. Martin's literary agent about the books he represented, and became interested in A Song of Ice and Fire as he had been a fan of fantasy fiction when young but had not read the books before. The literary agent then sent the first four books of A Song of Ice and Fire to Benioff.[33] Benioff read a few hundred pages of the first novel, A Game of Thrones, shared his enthusiasm with D. B. Weiss and suggested that they adapt Martin's novels into a television series; Weiss finished the first novel in "maybe 36 hours".[34] They pitched the series to HBO after a five-hour meeting with Martin (a veteran screenwriter) in a restaurant on Santa Monica Boulevard. According to Benioff, they won Martin over with their answer to his question, "Who is Jon Snow's mother?"[35]

text:
I had worked in Hollywood myself for about 10 years, from the late '80s to the '90s. I'd been on the staff of The Twilight Zone and Beauty and the Beast. All of my first drafts tended to be too big or too expensive. I always hated the process of having to cut. I said, 'I'm sick of this, I'm going to write something that's as big as I want it to be, and it's going to have a cast of characters that go into the thousands, and I'm going to have huge castles, and battles, and dragons.

—George R. R. Martin, author[36]

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text: Before being approached by Benioff and Weiss, Martin had had other meetings with other scriptwriters, most of them wanting to turn it into a feature film. Martin, however, deemed it "unfilmable" and impossible to be done as a feature film, stating that the size of one of his novels is as long as The Lord of the Rings, which had been adapted as three feature films.[36] Similarly, Benioff also said that it would be impossible to turn the novels into a feature film as the scale of the novels is too big for a feature film and dozens of characters would have to be discarded. Benioff added, "a fantasy movie of this scope, financed by a major studio, would almost certainly need a PG-13 rating. That means no sex, no blood, no profanity. Fuck that."[12] Martin himself was pleased with the suggestion that they adapt it as an HBO series, saying that he "never imagined it anywhere else".[37] "I knew it couldn't be done as a network television series. It's too adult. The level of sex and violence would never have gone through."[36]

text: The series began development in January 2007.[3] HBO acquired the TV rights to the novels, with Benioff and Weiss as its executive producers, and Martin as a co-executive producer. The intention was for each novel to yield a season's worth of episodes.[3] Initially, Martin would write one episode per season while Benioff and Weiss would write the rest of the episodes.[3][38] Jane Espenson and Bryan Cogman were later added to write one episode apiece the first season.[5]

text: The first and second drafts of the pilot script by Benioff and Weiss were submitted in August 2007[39] and June 2008,[40] respectively. Although HBO liked both drafts,[40][41] a pilot was not ordered until November 2008;[42] the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike may have delayed the process.[41] The pilot episode, "Winter Is Coming", was first shot in 2009; after a poor reception in a private viewing, HBO demanded an extensive re-shoot (about 90 percent of the episode, with cast and directorial changes).[35][43]

text: The pilot reportedly cost HBO $5–10 million to produce,[44] while the first season's budget was estimated at $50–60 million.[45] In the second season, the show received a 15-percent budget increase for the climactic battle in "Blackwater" (which had an $8 million budget).[46][47] Between 2012 and 2015, the average budget per episode increased from $6 million[48] to "at least" $8 million.[49] The sixth-season budget was over $10 million per episode, for a season total of over $100 million and a series record.[50]

text: Casting

text: Nina Gold and Robert Sterne are the series' primary casting directors.[51] Through a process of auditions and readings, the main cast was assembled. The only exceptions were Peter Dinklage and Sean Bean, whom the writers wanted from the start; they were announced as joining the pilot in 2009.[52][53] Other actors signed for the pilot were Kit Harington as Jon Snow, Jack Gleeson as Joffrey Baratheon, Harry Lloyd as Viserys Targaryen and Mark Addy as Robert Baratheon.[53][54] Addy was, according to showrunners Benioff and Weiss, the easiest actor to cast for the show, being that his audition was on point.[55] Some of the characters in the pilot were recast for the first season: Catelyn Stark was initially played by Jennifer Ehle, but the role was recast with Michelle Fairley.[56] Daenerys Targaryen was also recast, with Emilia Clarke replacing Tamzin Merchant.[57][58] The rest of the first season's cast was filled in the second half of 2009.[59]

text: Although many of the cast returned after the first season, the producers had many new characters to cast for each of the following seasons. Due to the large number of new characters, Benioff and Weiss postponed the introduction of several key characters in the second season and merged several characters into one or assigned plot functions to different characters.[26] Some recurring characters were recast over the years; for example, Gregor Clegane was played by three different actors, while Dean-Charles Chapman who played Tommen Baratheon also played a minor Lannister character.[60]

text: Writing

text: Game of Thrones used seven writers in six seasons. Series creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, the showrunners, write most of the episodes each season.[61]

text: A Song of Ice and Fire author George R. R. Martin wrote one episode in each of the first four seasons. Martin did not write an episode for the later seasons, since he wanted to focus on completing the sixth novel (The Winds of Winter).[62] Jane Espenson co-wrote one first-season episode as a freelance writer.[63]

text: Bryan Cogman, initially a script coordinator for the series,[63] was promoted to producer for the fifth season. Cogman, who wrote at least one episode for the first five seasons, is the only other writer in the writers' room with Benioff and Weiss. Before his promotion, Vanessa Taylor (a writer during the second and third seasons) worked closely with Benioff and Weiss. Dave Hill joined the writing staff for the fifth season after working as an assistant to Benioff and Weiss.[64] Although Martin is not in the writers' room, he reads the script outlines and makes comments.[61]

text: Benioff and Weiss sometimes assign characters to particular writers; for example, Cogman was assigned to Arya Stark for the fourth season. The writers spend several weeks writing a character outline, including what material from the novels to use and the overarching themes. After these individual outlines are complete, they spend another two to three weeks discussing each main character's individual arc and arranging them episode by episode.[61] A detailed outline is created, with each of the writers working on a portion to create a script for each episode. Cogman, who wrote two episodes for the fifth season, took a month and a half to complete both scripts. They are then read by Benioff and Weiss, who make notes, and parts of the script are rewritten. All ten episodes are written before filming begins, since they are filmed out of order with two units in different countries.[61]

text: Benioff and Weiss write each of their episodes together, with one of them writing the first half of the script and the other the second half. After that they begin with passing the drafts back and forth to make notes and rewrite parts of it.[37]

text: Adaptation schedule

text: Benioff and Weiss originally intended to adapt the entire, still-incomplete A Song of Ice and Fire series of novels for television.[citation needed] After Game of Thrones began outpacing the published novels in the sixth season, the series was based on a plot outline of the future novels provided by Martin[65] and original content. In April 2016, the showrunners' plan was to shoot 13 more episodes after the sixth season: seven episodes in the seventh season and six episodes in the eighth.[66] Later that month, the series was renewed for a seventh season with a seven-episode order.[67][68] As of 2017[update], seven seasons have been ordered and filmed, adapting the novels at a rate of about 48 seconds per page for the first three seasons.[69]

text:
Season
Ordered
Filming
First aired
Last aired
Novel(s) adapted
Refs

Season 1
March 2, 2010
Second half of 2010
April 17, 2011
June 19, 2011
A Game of Thrones
[70]

Season 2
April 19, 2011
Second half of 2011
April 1, 2012
June 3, 2012
A Clash of Kings and some early chapters from A Storm of Swords
[71][72]

Season 3
April 10, 2012
July – November 2012
March 31, 2013
June 9, 2013
About the first two-thirds of A Storm of Swords
[73][74][75]

Season 4
April 2, 2013
July – November 2013
April 6, 2014
June 15, 2014
The remaining one-third of A Storm of Swords and some elements from A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons
[76][77]

Season 5
April 8, 2014
July – December 2014
April 12, 2015
June 14, 2015
A Feast for Crows, A Dance with Dragons and original content, with some late chapters from A Storm of Swords and elements from The Winds of Winter
[78][79]
[80][81][82]

Season 6
July – December 2015
April 24, 2016
June 26, 2016
Original content and outline from The Winds of Winter, with some late elements from A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons
[78][83]
[84][85]

Season 7
April 21, 2016
August 2016 – February 2017
July 16, 2017
August 27, 2017
Original content and outline from The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring
[66][67]
[68][84][86]

Season 8
July 30, 2016
October 2017 – Mid 2018
2019[2]
2019[2]
[87][84][88]

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text: The first two seasons adapted one novel each. For the later seasons, its creators see Game of Thrones as an adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire as a whole rather than the individual novels;[89] this enables them to move events across novels, according to screen-adaptation requirements.[90]

text: Filming

text: Principal photography for the first season was scheduled to begin on July 26, 2010,[5] and the primary location was the Paint Hall Studios in Belfast, Northern Ireland.[91] Exterior scenes in Northern Ireland were filmed at Sandy Brae in the Mourne Mountains (standing in for Vaes Dothrak), Castle Ward (Winterfell), Saintfield Estates (the Winterfell godswood), Tollymore Forest (outdoor scenes), Cairncastle (the execution site), the Magheramorne quarry (Castle Black) and Shane's Castle (the tourney grounds).[92] Doune Castle in Stirling, Scotland, was also used in the original pilot episode for scenes at Winterfell.[93] The producers initially considered filming the whole series in Scotland, but decided on Northern Ireland because of the availability of studio space.[94]

text: The first season's southern scenes were filmed in Malta, a change in location from the pilot episode's Moroccan sets.[5] The city of Mdina was used for King's Landing. Filming was also done at Fort Manoel (representing the Sept of Baelor), at the Azure Window on the island of Gozo (the Dothraki wedding site) and at San Anton Palace, Fort Ricasoli, Fort St. Angelo and St. Dominic monastery (all used for scenes in the Red Keep).[92]

text: Filming of the second season's southern scenes shifted from Malta to Croatia, where the city of Dubrovnik and nearby locations allowed exterior shots of a walled, coastal medieval city. The Walls of Dubrovnik and Fort Lovrijenac were used for scenes in King's Landing and the Red Keep. The island of Lokrum, the St. Dominic monastery in the coastal town of Trogir, the Rector's Palace in Dubrovnik, and the Dubac quarry (a few kilometers east) were used for scenes set in Qarth. Scenes set north of the Wall, in the Frostfangs and at the Fist of the First Men, were filmed in November 2011 in Iceland: on the Vatnajökull glacier near Smyrlabjörg, the Svínafellsjökull glacier near Skaftafell and the Mýrdalsjökull glacier near Vik on Höfðabrekkuheiði.[92][95]

text: Third-season production returned to Dubrovnik, with the Walls of Dubrovnik, Fort Lovrijenac and nearby locations again used for scenes in King's Landing and the Red Keep. Trsteno Arboretum, a new location, is the garden of the Tyrells in King's Landing. The third season also returned to Morocco (including the city of Essaouira) to film Daenerys' scenes in Essos.[96] Dimmuborgir and the Grjótagjá cave in Iceland were used as well.[95] One scene, with a live bear, was filmed in Los Angeles.[97] The production used three units (Dragon, Wolf and Raven) filming in parallel, six directing teams, 257 cast members and 703 crew members.[27]

text: The fourth season returned to Dubrovnik and included new locations, including Diocletian's Palace in Split, Klis Fortress north of Split, Perun quarry east of Split, the Mosor mountain range, and Baška Voda further south.[98] Thingvellir National Park in Iceland was used for the fight between Brienne and the Hound.[95] Filming took 136 days and ended on November 21, 2013.[99] The fifth season added Seville, Spain, used for scenes of Dorne, as well as Córdoba.[100]

text: The sixth season, which began filming in July 2015, returned to Spain and filmed in Navarra, Guadalajara, Seville, Almeria Girona and Peniscola.[101] Filming also returned to Dubrovnik, Croatia.[102]

text: Filming of the seven episodes of season 7 began on August 31, 2016, at Titanic Studios in Belfast, with other filming in Iceland, Northern Ireland and many locations in Spain.[103] Spain filming locations included Seville, Cáceres, Almodovar del Rio, Santiponce, Zumaia and Bermeo.[104] The series also filmed in Dubrovnik, which is used for location of King's Landing.[105] Filming continued until the end of February 2017 as necessary to ensure winter weather in some of the European locations.[106]

text: Directing

text: Each ten-episode season of Game of Thrones has four to six directors, who usually direct back-to-back episodes. Alan Taylor has directed seven episodes, the most episodes of the series. Alex Graves, David Nutter, Mark Mylod and Jeremy Podeswa have directed six each. Daniel Minahan directed five episodes, and Michelle MacLaren, Alik Sakharov, and Miguel Sapochnik directed four each. Brian Kirk directed three episodes during the first season, and Tim Van Patten directed the series' first two episodes. Neil Marshall directed two episodes, both with large battle scenes: "Blackwater" and "The Watchers on the Wall". Other directors have been Jack Bender, David Petrarca, Daniel Sackheim, Michael Slovis and Matt Shakman.[107] David Benioff and D. B. Weiss have directed two episodes together but only credited one each episode, which was determined after a coin toss.[64][108]

text: Technical aspects

text: Alik Sakharov was the pilot's cinematographer. The series has had a number of cinematographers,[109] and has received seven Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Cinematography for a Single-Camera Series nominations.[110]

text: Oral Norrey Ottey, Frances Parker, Martin Nicholson, Crispin Green, Tim Porter and Katie Weiland have edited the series for a varying number of episodes. Weiland received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Drama Series in 2015.[110]

text: Costumes

text: Michele Clapton was costume designer for Game of Thrones' first five seasons before she was replaced by April Ferry.[111] Clapton will return to the show as costume designer for the seventh season.[112]

text: The costumes used in the show drew inspiration from a number of sources, such as Japanese and Persian armour. Dothraki dress resembles that of the Bedouin (one was made out of fish skins to resemble dragon scales), and the Wildlings wear animal skins like the Inuit.[113] Wildling bone armor is made from molds of actual bones, and is assembled with string and latex resembling catgut.[114] Although the extras who play Wildlings and the Night's Watch often wear hats (normal in a cold climate), members of the principal cast usually do not so viewers can distinguish the main characters. Björk's Alexander McQueen high-neckline dresses inspired Margaery Tyrell's funnel-neck outfit, and prostitutes' dresses are designed for easy removal.[113] All clothing used is aged for two weeks so it appears realistic on high-definition television.[114]

text: About two dozen wigs are used for the actresses. Made of human hair and up to 2 feet (61 cm) in length, they cost up to $7,000 each and are washed and styled like real hair. Applying the wigs is time-consuming; Emilia Clarke, for example, requires about two hours to style her brunette hair with a platinum-blonde wig and braids. Other actors, such as Jack Gleeson and Sophie Turner, receive frequent hair coloring. For characters such as Daenerys (Clarke) and her Dothraki, their hair, wigs and costumes are processed to appear as if they have not been washed for weeks.[113]

text: Makeup

text: For the first three seasons, Paul Engelen was Game of Thrones' main makeup designer and prosthetic makeup artist with Melissa Lackersteen, Conor O'Sullivan and Rob Trenton. At the beginning of the fourth season Engelen's team was replaced by Jane Walker and her crew, composed of Ann McEwan and Barrie and Sarah Gower.[110][115]

text: Visual effects

text: For the series' large number of visual effects, HBO hired British-based BlueBolt and Irish-based Screen Scene for season one. Most of the environment builds were done as 2.5D projections, giving viewers perspective while keeping the programming from being overwhelming.[116] In 2011, the season-one finale, "Fire and Blood", was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Visual Effects.[110]

text: Because the effects became more complex in subsequent seasons (including CGI creatures, fire, and water), German-based Pixomondo became the lead visual-effects producer; nine of its twelve facilities contributed to the project for season two, with Stuttgart the lead.[117][118] Scenes were also produced by British-based Peanut FX, Canadian-based Spin VFX, and U.S.-based Gradient Effects. "Valar Morghulis" and "Valar Dohaeris" earned Pixomondo Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Special Visual Effects in 2012 and 2013, respectively.[110]

text: For season four, HBO added German-based Mackevision to the project.[119] The season-four finale, "The Children", won the 2014 Emmy Award for Visual Effects. Additional producers for season four included Canadian-based Rodeo FX, German-based Scanline VFX and U.S.-based BAKED FX. The muscle and wing movements of the adolescent dragons in seasons four and five were based largely on those of a chicken. Pixomondo retained a team of 22 to 30 people which focused solely on visualizing Daenerys Targaryen's dragons, with the average production time per season of 20 to 22 weeks.[120] For the fifth season, HBO added Canadian-based Image Engine and U.S.-based Crazy Horse Effects to its list of main visual-effects producers.[121][122]

text: Sound

text: Unusual for a television series, the sound team receives a rough cut of a full season and approaches it as a ten-hour feature film. Although seasons one and two had different sound teams, one team has been in charge of sound since then.[123] For the show's blood-and-gore sounds, the team often uses a chamois. For dragon screams, mating tortoises and dolphin, seal, lion and bird sounds have been used.[124]

text: Title sequence

text: The series' title sequence was created by production studio Elastic for HBO. Creative director Angus Wall and his collaborators received the 2011 Primetime Emmy Award for Main Title Design for the sequence,[125] which depicts a three-dimensional map of the series' fictional world. The map is projected on the inside of a sphere which is centrally lit by a small sun in an armillary sphere.[126] As the camera moves across the map, focusing on the locations of the episode's events, clockwork mechanisms intertwine and allow buildings and other structures to emerge from the map. Accompanied by the title music, the names of the principal cast and creative staff appear. The sequence concludes after about 90 seconds with the title card and brief opening credits indicating the episode's writer(s) and director. Its composition changes as the story progresses, with new locations replacing those featuring less prominently or not at all.[126][127][128]

text: Music

text: The music for the series was composed by Ramin Djawadi. The first season's soundtrack, written in about ten weeks before the show's premiere,[129] was published by Varèse Sarabande in June 2011.[130] Soundtrack albums for subsequent seasons have been released, with tracks by the National, the Hold Steady and Sigur Rós.[131] Djawadi has composed themes for each of the major houses and also for some of the main characters.[132] The themes may evolve over time, as Daenerys Targaryen's theme started small and then became more powerful after each season. Her theme started first with a single instrument, a cello, and Djawadi later incorporated more instruments for it.[132]

text: Language

text: The Westerosi characters of Game of Thrones speak British-accented English, often (but not consistently) with the accent of the English region corresponding to the character's Westerosi region; Eddard Stark (Warden of the North) speaks in actor Sean Bean's native northern accent, and the southern lord Tywin Lannister speaks with a southern accent, while characters from Dorne speak English with a Spanish accent.[133][134] Characters foreign to Westeros often have a non-British accent.[135]

text: Although English is the common language of Westeros, the producers charged linguist David J. Peterson with constructing Dothraki and Valyrian languages based on the few words in the novels;[136] Dothraki and Valyrian dialogue is often subtitled in English. It has been reported that during the series these fictional languages have been heard by more people than the Welsh, Irish, and Scots Gaelic languages combined.[137]

text: Effect on location

text: Game of Thrones is funded by Northern Ireland Screen, a UK government agency financed by Invest NI and the European Regional Development Fund.[138] As of April 2013, Northern Ireland Screen gave the show £9.25 million ($14.37 million); according to government estimates, this has benefited the Northern Ireland economy by £65 million ($100.95 million).[139]

text: Tourism Ireland has a Game of Thrones-themed marketing campaign similar to New Zealand's Tolkien-related advertising.[140][141] Invest NI and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board also expect the series to generate tourism revenue.[139] According to Arlene Foster, the series has given Northern Ireland the most non-political publicity in its history.[142] The production of Game of Thrones and other TV series also boosted Northern Ireland's creative industries, contributing to an estimated 12.4-percent growth in arts, entertainment and recreation jobs between 2008 and 2013 (compared with 4.3 percent in the rest of the UK during the same period).[143]

text: Tourism organizations elsewhere reported increases in bookings after their locations appeared in Game of Thrones. In 2012, bookings through LateRooms.com increased by 28 percent in Dubrovnik and 13 percent in Iceland. The following year, bookings doubled in Ouarzazate, Morocco (the location of Daenerys' season-three scenes).[144] Game of Thrones has been attributed as a significant factor in the boom of tourism in Iceland that had a strong impact on its economy. Tourist numbers increased by 30% in 2015, followed by another 40% in 2016,[145] with a final figure of 2.4 million visitors expected for 2016, which is around seven times the population of the country.[146]

text: Availability

text: Broadcast

text: Game of Thrones is broadcast by HBO in the United States and by its local subsidiaries or other pay television services in other countries, at the same time as in the U.S. or weeks (or months) later. The series' broadcast in China on CCTV, begun in 2014, was heavily edited to remove scenes of sex and violence in accordance with a Chinese practice of censoring Western TV series to prevent what the People's Daily calls "negative effects and hidden security dangers". This resulted in viewer complaints about the incoherence of what remained.[147] Broadcasters carrying Game of Thrones include Showcase in Australia; HBO Canada, Super Écran and Showcase in Canada; HBO Latin America in Latin America; SoHo and Prime in New Zealand, and Sky Atlantic in the United Kingdom and Ireland.[148]

text: Home video

text: The ten episodes of the first season of Game of Thrones were released as a DVD and Blu-ray box set on March 6, 2012. The box set includes extra background and behind-the-scenes material but no deleted scenes, since nearly all the footage shot for the first season was used in the show.[149] The box set sold over 350,000 copies in the first week after release, the largest first-week DVD sales ever for an HBO series, and the series set an HBO-series record for digital-download sales.[150] A collector's-edition box set was released in November 2012, combining the DVD and Blu-ray versions of the first season with the first episode of season two. A paperweight in the shape of a dragon egg is included in the set.[151]

text: DVD-Blu-ray box sets and digital downloads of the second season became available on February 19, 2013.[152] First-day sales broke HBO records, with 241,000 box sets sold and 355,000 episodes downloaded.[153] The third season was made available for purchase as a digital download on the Australian iTunes Store, parallel to the U.S. premiere, and was released on DVD and Blu-ray in region 1 on February 18, 2014.[154][155] The fourth season was released on DVD and Blu-ray on February 17, 2015,[156] and the fifth season on March 15, 2016.[157] The sixth season was released on Blu-ray and DVD on November 15, 2016.[158] Beginning in 2016, HBO began issuing Steelbook Blu-ray sets which include both Dolby TrueHD 7.1 and Dolby Atmos audio options.[159]

text: Copyright infringement

text: Game of Thrones has been widely pirated, primarily outside the U.S.[160] According to the file-sharing news website TorrentFreak, Game of Thrones has been the most-pirated TV series since 2012, which means it has held the record for six years in a row.[161][162][163][164][165][166] Illegal downloads increased to about seven million in the first quarter of 2015, up 45 percent from 2014.[160] An unnamed episode was downloaded about 4,280,000 times through public BitTorrent trackers in 2012, roughly equal to its number of broadcast viewers.[167][168] Piracy rates were particularly high in Australia,[169] and U.S. Ambassador to Australia Jeff Bleich issued a statement condemning Australian piracy of the series in 2013.[170]

text: Delays in availability apart from HBO and its affiliates[171] before 2015 and the cost of subscriptions to these services have been cited as causes of the series' illegal distribution. According to TorrentFreak, a subscription to a service for Game of Thrones would cost up to $25 per month in the United States, up to £26 per episode in the UK and up to $52 per episode in Australia.[172]

text: For "combating piracy", HBO said in 2013 that it intended to make its content more widely available within a week of the U.S. premiere (including HBO Go).[173] In 2015, the fifth season was simulcast to 170 countries and to HBO Now users.[160] On April 11, the day before the season premiere, screener copies of the first four episodes of the fifth season leaked to a number of file-sharing websites.[174] Within a day of the leak, the files were downloaded over 800,000 times;[175] in one week the illegal downloads reached 32 million, with the season-five premiere alone ("The Wars to Come") pirated 13 million times.[176] The season-five finale ("Mother's Mercy") was the most simultaneously shared file in the history of the BitTorrent filesharing protocol, with over 250,000 simultaneous sharers and over 1.5 million downloads in eight hours.[177] For the sixth season, HBO did not send screeners to the press, so as to prevent the spread of unlicensed copies and possible spoilers.[178]

text: Observers, including series director David Petrarca[179] and Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, said that illegal downloads did not hurt the series' prospects; it benefited from "buzz" and social commentary, and the high piracy rate did not significantly translate to lost subscriptions. According to Polygon, HBO's relaxed attitude towards piracy and the sharing of login credentials amounted to a premium-television "free-to-play" model.[180] At a 2015 Oxford Union debate, series co-creator David Benioff said that he was just glad that people watched the show; illegally downloaded copies of the show sometimes interested viewers enough to buy a copy of the show, especially in countries where the show was not televised. Co-creator D. B. Weiss had mixed feelings, saying that the show was expensive to produce and "if it doesn't make the money back, then it ceases to exist". However, he was pleased that so many people "enjoy the show so much they can't wait to get their hands on it."[181] In 2015, Guinness World Records called Game of Thrones the most-pirated television program.[182]

text: IMAX

text: Beginning on January 23, 2015, the last two episodes of season four were shown in 205 IMAX theaters across the United States; Game of Thrones is the first TV series shown in this format.[183] The show earned $686,000 at the box office on its opening day[184] and $1.5 million during its opening weekend;[185] the week-long release grossed $1,896,092.[186]

text: Reception and achievements

text: Game of Thrones was highly anticipated by fans before its premiere,[187][188] and has become a critical and commercial success. According to The Guardian, by 2014 it was "the biggest drama" and "the most talked about show" on television.[8]

text: Cultural influence

text: Although Game of Thrones was dismissed by some critics before it began,[8] its success has been credited with an increase in the popularity of fantasy themes. On the eve of the second season's premiere, a CNN.com blog post by Joel Williams read, "After this weekend, you may be hard pressed to find someone who isn't a fan of some form of epic fantasy" and cited Ian Bogost as saying that the series continues a trend of successful screen adaptations beginning with Peter Jackson's 2001 The Lord of the Rings film trilogy and the Harry Potter films establishing fantasy as a mass-market genre; they are "gateway drugs to fantasy fan culture".[189] Its success in the face of its genre was attributed by writers to a longing for escapism in popular culture, frequent female nudity and a skill in balancing lighthearted and serious topics (dragons and politics, for example) which provided it with a prestige enjoyed by conventional, top-tier drama series.[8]

text: The series' popularity increased sales of the A Song of Ice and Fire novels (republished in tie-in editions), which remained at the top of bestseller lists for months. According to The Daily Beast, Game of Thrones was a favorite of sitcom writers and the series has been referred to in other TV series.[190] With other fantasy series, it has been cited for an increase in the purchase (and abandonment) of huskies and other wolf-like dogs.[191]

text: Game of Thrones has added to the popular vocabulary. The first season's scene in which Petyr Baelish explains his motives (or background) while prostitutes had sex in the background gave rise to the word "sexposition" for providing exposition with sex and nudity.[192] "Dothraki", the series' nomadic horsemen, was ranked fourth in a September 2012 Global Language Monitor list of words from television most used on the Internet.[193] In 2012, the media used "Game of Thrones" as a figure of speech or comparison for situations of intense conflict and deceit, such as the 2012 United States Supreme Court decision regarding healthcare reform legislation,[194] the Syrian Civil War[195] and the ousting of Bo Xilai from the Chinese government.[196]

text: "Khaleesi" has increased in popularity as a name for baby girls in the United States. In the novels and the TV series, the word is a title meaning the wife of a Khal (warlord) in the Dothraki language held by Daenerys Targaryen, and not actually a name.[197]

text: Critical response

text:
Season
Critical response

Rotten Tomatoes
Metacritic

1
89% (34 reviews)[198]
80 (28 reviews)[199]

2
96% (34 reviews)[200]
90 (26 reviews)[201]

3
97% (43 reviews)[202]
91 (25 reviews)[203]

4
97% (43 reviews)[204]
94 (29 reviews)[205]

5
95% (52 reviews)[206]
91 (29 reviews)[207]

6
95% (30 reviews)[208]
73 (9 reviews)[209]

7
95% (43 reviews)[210]
77 (12 reviews)[211]

text: Game of Thrones has received critical acclaim, although the series' frequent use of nudity and violence has been criticized. Its seasons have appeared on annual "best of" lists published by The Washington Post (2011), TIME (2011 and 2012) and The Hollywood Reporter (2012).[212][213][214]

text: The performances of the cast have received immense praise. Peter Dinklage's "charming, morally ambiguous, and self-aware"[215] Tyrion, who earned him Emmy and Golden Globe awards, was noted. "In many ways, Game of Thrones belongs to Dinklage", wrote Mary McNamara of the L.A. Times before Tyrion became the series' central figure in season two.[216][217] Several critics highlighted performances by actresses[216] and children.[218] Fourteen-year-old Maisie Williams, noted in the first season for her debut as Arya Stark, was singled out for her season-two work with veteran actor Charles Dance (Tywin Lannister).[219] Stephen Dillane has received positive reviews for his performance as Stannis Baratheon, especially in the fifth season, with one critic noting "Whether you like Stannis or not, you have to admit that Stephen Dillane delivered a monumental performance this season."[220]

text: The series has a rating of 97 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average score of 8.4 out of 10 based on 44 reviews.[202] All episodes had positive reviews of 91 percent or higher on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 97-percent rating (based on 50 reviews) for the season as a whole.[204] On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a rating of 95 percent and an average score of 8.6 out of 10 (based on 52 reviews).[206] The season has a rating of 96 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average score of 8.4 out of 10 based on 29 reviews.[208] After the first episode aired, the seventh season held a rating of 97 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average score of 8.2 out of 10 based on 29 reviews.[210]

text: First-season reviewers said the series had high production values, a fully realized world and compelling characters.[221] According to Variety, "There may be no show more profitable to its network than 'Game of Thrones' is to HBO. Fully produced by the pay cabler and already a global phenomenon after only one season, the fantasy skein was a gamble that has paid off handsomely".[222] The second season was also well received. Entertainment Weekly praised its "vivid, vital, and just plain fun" storytelling[223] and, according to the Hollywood Reporter, the show made a "strong case for being one of TV's best series"; its seriousness made it the only drama comparable to Mad Men or Breaking Bad.[224] The New York Times gave the series a mixed review, criticizing its number of characters, their lack of complexity and a meandering plot.[225]

text: The third season was extremely well received by critics, with Metacritic giving it a score of 91 out of 100 (indicating "universal acclaim").[203] The fourth season was similarly praised; Metacritic gave it a score of 94 out of 100 based on 29 reviews, again indicating "universal acclaim".[205] The fifth season was also well received by critics and has a score of 91 out of 100 (based on 29 reviews) on Metacritic.[207] The sixth season has been praised by critics, though not as highly as its predecessors. It has a score of 73 on Metacritic (based on nine reviews), indicating "generally favorable reviews".[209] The seventh season scored 77 out of 100 (based on twelve reviews) and was praised for its action sequences and focused central characters,[211] but received criticism for its breakneck pace and plot developments that "defied logic."[226][210]

text: Sex and violence

text: Despite its otherwise enthusiastic reception by critics, Game of Thrones has been criticized for the amount of female nudity, violence, and sexual violence (especially against women) it depicts, and for the manner in which it depicts these themes. The Atlantic called the series' "tendency to ramp up the sex, violence, and—especially—sexual violence" of the source material "the defining weakness" of the adaptation.[227] George R. R. Martin responded that he feels obliged to be truthful about history and human nature, and that rape and sexual violence are common in war; and that omitting them from the narrative would have rung false and undermined one of his novels' themes, its historical realism.[13] HBO said that they "fully support the vision and artistry of Dan and David’s exceptional work and we feel this work speaks for itself."[13]

text: The amount of sex and nudity in the series, especially in scenes that are incidental to the plot, was the focus of much of the criticism aimed at the series in its first and second seasons. Stephen Dillane, who portrays Stannis Baratheon, likened the series' frequent explicit scenes to "German porn from the 1970s".[228] Charlie Anders wrote in io9 that while the first season was replete with light-hearted "sexposition", the second season appeared to focus on distasteful, exploitative, and dehumanizing sex with little informational content.[229] According to The Washington Post's Anna Holmes, the nude scenes appeared to be aimed mainly at titillating heterosexual men, right down to the Brazilian waxes sported by the women in the series' faux-medieval setting, which made these scenes alienating to other viewers.[230] The Huffington Post's Maureen Ryan likewise noted that Game of Thrones mostly presented women naked, rather than men, and that the excess of "random boobage" undercut any aspirations the series might have to address the oppression of women in a feudal society.[231] Saturday Night Live parodied this aspect of the adaptation in a sketch that portrayed the series as retaining a thirteen-year-old boy as a consultant whose main concern was showing as many breasts as possible.[229][232]

text: In the third season, which saw Theon Greyjoy lengthily tortured and eventually emasculated, the series was also criticized for its use of torture.[233] New York magazine called the scene "torture porn."[234] Madeleine Davies of Jezebel agreed, saying, "it's not uncommon that Game of Thrones gets accused of being torture porn—senseless, objectifying violence combined with senseless, objectifying sexual imagery." According to Davies, although the series' violence tended to serve a narrative purpose, Theon's torture in "The Bear and the Maiden Fair" was excessive.[235]

text: A scene in the fourth season's episode "Breaker of Chains", in which Jaime Lannister rapes his sister and lover Cersei, triggered a broad public discussion about the series' depiction of sexual violence against women. According to Dave Itzkoff of The New York Times, the scene caused outrage, in part because of comments by director Alex Graves that the scene became "consensual by the end". Itzkoff also wrote that critics fear that "rape has become so pervasive in the drama that it is almost background noise: a routine and unshocking occurrence".[13] Sonia Saraiya of The A.V. Club wrote that the series' choice to portray this sexual act, and a similar one between Daenerys Targaryen and Khal Drogo in the first season—both described as consensual in the source novels—as a rape appeared to be an act of "exploitation for shock value".[236]

text: In the fifth season's episode "Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken", Sansa Stark is raped by Ramsay Bolton. Most reviewers, including those from Vanity Fair, Salon, The Atlantic, and The Daily Beast, found the scene gratuitous and artistically unnecessary.[227][237][238][239] For example, Joanna Robinson, writing for Vanity Fair, said that the scene "undercuts all the agency that's been growing in Sansa since the end of last season."[240] In contrast, Sara Stewart of The New York Post wondered why viewers were not similarly upset about the many background and minor characters who'd undergone similar or worse treatment.[241] In response to the scene, pop culture website The Mary Sue announced that it would cease coverage of the series because of the repeated use of rape as a plot device,[242] and U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill said that she would no longer watch it.[243]

text: As the sixth and seventh seasons saw Daenerys, Sansa and Cersei assume ruling positions, Alyssa Rosenberg of the Washington Post noted that the series could be seen as a "long-arc revenge fantasy about what happens when women who have been brutalized and raped gain power"—namely, that their past leaves them too broken to do anything but commit brutal acts in their own turn, and that their personal liberation does not effect the social change needed to protect others from suffering.[244]

text: Fandom

text: A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones have a broad, active international fan base. In 2012 Vulture.com ranked the series' fans as the most devoted in popular culture, more so than Lady Gaga's, Justin Bieber's, Harry Potter's or Star Wars'.[245] Fans include political leaders such as former U.S. president Barack Obama,[246][247] former British prime minister David Cameron,[248] former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard[249][250] and Dutch foreign minister Frans Timmermans, who framed European politics in quotes from Martin's novels in a 2013 speech.[251]

text: BBC News said in 2013 that "the passion and the extreme devotion of fans" had created a phenomenon unlike anything related to other popular TV series, manifesting itself in fan fiction,[252] Game of Thrones-themed burlesque routines and parents naming their children after series characters; writers quoted attributed this success to the rich detail, moral ambiguity, sexual explicitness and epic scale of the series and novels.[253] The previous year, "Arya" was the fastest-rising girl's name in the U.S. after it jumped in popularity from 711th to 413th place.[254]

text: In 2013 about 58 percent of series viewers were male and 42 percent female, and the average male viewer was 41 years old.[255][256] According to SBS Broadcasting Group marketing director Helen Kellie, Game of Thrones has a high fan-engagement rate; 5.5 percent of the series' 2.9 million Facebook fans talked online about the series in 2012, compared to 1.8 percent of the more than ten million fans of True Blood (HBO's other fantasy series).[257] Vulture.com cited Westeros.org and WinterIsComing.net (news and discussion forums), ToweroftheHand.com (which organizes communal readings of the novels) and Podcastoficeandfire.com as fan sites dedicated to the TV and novel series;[245] and podcasts cover Game of Thrones.[258]

text: Awards and accolades

text: Game of Thrones has won dozens of awards since it debuted as a series, including 38 Primetime Emmy Awards,[110] 5 Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Peabody Award.[259] It holds the Emmy-award record for a scripted television series, ahead of Frasier (which received 37).[260] In 2013 the Writers Guild of America listed Game of Thrones as the 40th "best written" series in television history.[261] In 2015 The Hollywood Reporter placed it at number four on their "best TV shows ever" list,[262] while in 2016 the show was placed seventh on Empire's "The 50 best TV shows ever".[263] The same year Rolling Stone named it the twelfth "greatest TV Show of all time".[264]

text: The 2011 first season received 13 nominations (including Outstanding Drama Series), and won for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (given to Peter Dinklage for his portrayal of Tyrion Lannister) and Outstanding Main Title Design. Other nominations included Outstanding Directing ("Winter Is Coming") and Outstanding Writing ("Baelor").[110] Dinklage was also named Best Supporting Actor at the Golden Globe, Satellite and Scream Awards.[265][266][267]

text: In 2012, the second season received six Creative Arts Emmy Awards from 11 nominations, including Outstanding Drama Series and Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (Dinklage).[110]

text: The 2013 third season received 16 Emmy nominations, including Outstanding Drama Series, Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (Dinklage), Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series (Emilia Clarke), Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series (Diana Rigg) and Outstanding Writing ("The Rains of Castamere"), winning two Creative Arts Emmys.[110]

text: In 2014 the fourth season received four Creative Arts Emmys from 19 nominations, which included Outstanding Drama Series, Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (Dinklage), Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series (Lena Headey), Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series (Rigg), Outstanding Directing ("The Watchers on the Wall") and Outstanding Writing ("The Children").[110]

text: The 2015 fifth season won the most Primetime Emmy Awards for a series in a year (12 awards from 24 nominations), including Outstanding Drama Series; other wins included Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (Dinklage), Outstanding Directing ("Mother's Mercy") and Outstanding Writing ("Mother's Mercy"), and eight were Creative Arts Emmy Awards.[268]

text: In 2016, the sixth season received the most nominations for the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards (23). It won for Outstanding Drama Series, Outstanding Directing ("Battle of the Bastards"), Outstanding Writing ("Battle of the Bastards"), and nine Creative Arts Emmys. Nominations included Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (Dinklage and Kit Harington), Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series (Clarke, Headey and Maisie Williams), Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series (Max von Sydow) and Outstanding Directing ("The Door").[269]

text: Viewer numbers

text: The first season averaged 2.5 million viewers for its first Sunday-night screenings and a gross audience (including repeats and on-demand viewings) of 9.3 million viewers per episode.[270] For its second season, the series had an average gross audience of 11.6 million viewers.[271] The third season was seen by 14.2 million viewers, making Game of Thrones the second-most-viewed HBO series (after The Sopranos).[272][273] For the fourth season, HBO said that its average gross audience of 18.4 million viewers (later adjusted to 18.6 million) had passed The Sopranos for the record.[274][275] By the sixth season the average per-episode gross viewing figure had increased to over 25 million, with nearly 40 percent of viewers watching on HBO digital platforms.[276] In 2016, a New York Times study of the 50 TV shows with the most Facebook Likes found that Game of Thrones was "much more popular in cities than in the countryside, probably the only show involving zombies that is".[277] In season seven, the viewers numbers averaged at over 30 millions per episode across all platforms.[278]

text: The series set records on pay-television channels in the United Kingdom (with a 2016 average audience of more than five million on all platforms)[279] and Australia (with a cumulative average audience of 1.2 million).[280]

text: The following graph indicates first-airing viewer numbers in the US:

text:
Season
Ep. 1
Ep. 2
Ep. 3
Ep. 4
Ep. 5
Ep. 6
Ep. 7
Ep. 8
Ep. 9
Ep. 10
Average

1
2.22
2.20
2.44
2.45
2.58
2.44
2.40
2.72
2.66
3.04
2.52[281]

2
3.86
3.76
3.77
3.65
3.90
3.88
3.69
3.86
3.38
4.20
3.80[281]

3
4.37
4.27
4.72
4.87
5.35
5.50
4.84
5.13
5.22
5.39
4.97[282]

4
6.64
6.31
6.59
6.95
7.16
6.40
7.20
7.17
6.95
7.09
6.84[283]

5
8.00
6.81
6.71
6.82
6.56
6.24
5.40
7.01
7.14
8.11
6.88[284]

6
7.94
7.29
7.28
7.82
7.89
6.71
7.80
7.60
7.66
8.89
7.69[285]

7
10.11
9.27
9.25
10.17
10.72
10.24
12.07
N/A
10.26[286]

text: Other media and products

text: Video games

text: The series has inspired four video games based on the TV series and novels. The strategy game Game of Thrones Ascent ties into the HBO series, making characters and settings available to players as they appear on television.[288] Behaviour Interactive is developing a free-to-play strategy game based on the series for mobile devices.[289]

text: Merchandise and exhibition

text: HBO has licensed a variety of merchandise based on Game of Thrones, including games, replica weapons and armor, jewelry, bobblehead dolls by Funko, beer by Ommegang and apparel.[290] High-end merchandise includes a $10,500 Ulysse Nardin wristwatch[291] and a $30,000 resin replica of the Iron Throne.[292] In 2013 and 2014, a traveling exhibition of costumes, props, armor and weapons from the series visited major cities in Europe and the Americas.[293]

text: Accompanying material

text: Thronecast: The Official Guide to Game of Thrones, a series of podcasts presented by Geoff Lloyd and produced by Koink, has been released on the Sky Atlantic website and the UK iTunes store during the series' run; a new podcast, with analysis and cast interviews, is released after each episode.[294] In 2014 and 2015 HBO commissioned Catch the Throne, two rap albums about the series.[295][296]

text: A companion book, Inside HBO's Game of Thrones (ISBN 978-1-4521-1010-3) by series writer Bryan Cogman, was published on September 27, 2012. The 192-page book, illustrated with concept art and behind-the-scenes photographs, covers the creation of the series' first two seasons and its principal characters and families.[297]

text: After the Thrones is a live aftershow in which hosts Andy Greenwald and Chris Ryan discuss episodes of the series. It airs on HBO Now the Monday after each sixth-season episode.[298] The Game of Thrones Live Concert Experience, a 28-city orchestral tour which will perform the series' soundtrack with composer Ramin Djawadi, is scheduled to begin February 15, 2017 in Kansas City, Missouri.[299]

text: Each season's Blu-ray and DVD set contains several short animated sequences narrated by the cast as their characters as they detail events in the history of Westeros.[300] For the seventh season, this is to include the animated prequel series Game of Thrones: Conquest & Rebellion, illustrated in a different animation style than previous videos. The series focuses on Aegon Targaryen's conquest of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros.[301]

text: Spin-offs

text: After years of speculation about possible successor shows, in May 2017 HBO commissioned five screenwriters – Max Borenstein, Jane Goldman, Brian Helgeland, Carly Wray and a fifth writer yet to be announced – to develop individual Game of Thrones successor series. All of the writers are to be working individually with George R. R. Martin.[302] Martin said that all the concepts under discussion are prequels, and some may be set outside Westeros. He also ruled out Robert's Rebellion (the overthrow of Daenerys's father by Robert Baratheon) as a possible idea.[303] D. B. Weiss and David Benioff said that they would not be involved with any of the projects, and want to enjoy the successor series as fans.[1] Martin is co-writing two of the four announced scripts.[304] HBO announced in September 2017 that Game of Thrones writer Bryan Cogman would be developing a fifth prequel series.[305]


document_title: The Young and the Restless cast members

question_text: who plays natalie on the young and the restless

text: The Young and the Restless cast members

text: Cast

text: Main cast

text:
Actor
Character
Duration

Peter Bergman
Jack Abbott
1989–

Marco Annicelli
2015

Eric Braeden
Victor Newman
1980–

Sharon Case
Sharon Newman
1994–

Doug Davidson
Paul Williams
1978–

Eileen Davidson
Ashley Abbott
1982–88, 1999–

Melissa Claire Egan
Chelsea Newman
2011–

Cait Fairbanks
Tessa Porter
2017–

Noah Alexander Gerry
Charlie Ashby
2017–

Daniel Goddard
Cane Ashby
2007–

Caleb Atkinson
2011

Camryn Grimes
Cassie Newman
1997–2007, 2009–10, 2013–14

Mariah Copeland
2014–

Daniel Hall
Scott Grainger
2017–

Amelia Heinle
Victoria Newman
2005–

Elizabeth Hendrickson
Chloe Mitchell
2008–

Bryton James
Devon Hamilton
2004–

Christel Khalil
Lily Ashby
2002–

Tristan Lake Leabu
Reed Hellstrom
2016–

Christian LeBlanc
Michael Baldwin
1991–93, 1997–

Kate Linder
Esther Valentine
1982–

Mishael Morgan
Hilary Hamilton
2013–

Joshua Morrow
Nicholas Newman
1994–

Melissa Ordway
Abby Newman
2013–

Melody Thomas Scott
Nikki Newman
1979–

Kristoff St. John
Neil Winters
1991–

Lexie Stevenson
Mattie Ashby
2017–

Jason Thompson
Billy Abbott
2016–

Gina Tognoni
Phyllis Summers
2014–

text: Recurring cast

text:
Actor
Character
Duration

Marla Adams
Dina Abbott Mergeron
1983–86, 1991, 1996, 2008, 2017–

Robert Adamson
Noah Newman
2012–

Laur Allen
Juliet
2017–

Ryan Ashton
Zack
2017–

Catherine Bach
Anita Lawson
2012–

Lauralee Bell
Christine Blair Williams
1983–2006, 2010–

Corbin Bernsen
Todd Williams
2004, 2009–10, 2012–14, 2017–

Jared Breeze
Max Rayburn
2016–

Tracey E. Bregman
Lauren Fenmore Baldwin
1983–95, 2000–

Sarah Smythe
2010

Jensen Buchanan
Elise Moxley
2015–

Ryan Caltagirone
Winston Mobley
2015–

Sean Carrigan
Stitch Rayburn
2013–

Judith Chapman
Jill Foster Abbott
1994

Gloria Abbott Bardwell
2005–

Tamara Clatterbuck
Alice Johnson
1998–2000, 2005, 2017–

Annalisa Cochrane
Zoey
2017–

Angell Conwell
Leslie Michaelson
2010–

Jerry Douglas
John Abbott
1982–2013, 2015–

Alistair Wallingford
2008

Max Ehrich
Fenmore Baldwin
2012–

Margarita Franco
Mrs. Martinez
2016–

Kelly Frye
Michelle Hazelton
2016–

David Faustino
Howard Green
2016–

Robert Gant
David Sherman
2013–

Alice Greczyn
Emma Randall
2015–

Stacy Haiduk
Patty Williams
2009–12, 2015–

Emily Peterson
2009–12

Hunter King
Summer Newman
2012–

Darnell Kirkwood
Jordan Wilde
2017–

Alyvia Alyn Lind
Faith Newman
2011–

Beth Maitland
Traci Abbott
1982–96, 1999, 2001, 2006–

Mara McCaffray
Natalie
2016–

Nadine Nicole
Gwen Randall
2014–

Morgan Obenreder
Crystal
2017–

Sofia Pernas
Marisa Sierras
2015–

Dax Randall
Moses Winters
2016–

Greg Rikaart
Kevin Fisher
2003–

Marcia Rodd
Myrna Bloodworth
2017–

Tristan Rogers
Colin Atkinson
2010–12, 2014–

Ted Shackelford
William Bardwell
2006–07

Jeffrey Bardwell
2007–

Abhi Sinha
Ravi Shapur
2016–

Max Shippee
Graham Bloodworth
2017–

Chrishell Stause
Bethany Bryant
2016–

Terrell Tilford
Barton Shelby
2014–

Jess Walton
Jill Atkinson
1987–

Ray Wise
Ian Ward
2014–

text: Cast changes

text: Debuting

text:
Actor
Character
Date
Ref.

Wayne Knight
Irv West
September 20, 2017
[5]

text: Departing

text:
Actor
Character
Date
Ref.

Greg Rikaart
Kevin Fisher
October 2017
[6][7]

Laur Allen
Juliet Helton
November 10, 2017
[8]

text: Returning

text:
Actor
Character
Date
Ref.

Thad Luckinbill
J.T. Hellstrom
December 12, 2017
[9]

text: Previous cast members

text: References and notes

text:
^ Jump up to: a b The Young and the Restless Weekdays. "The Young and the Restless Cast: Doug Davidson". Cbs.com. Retrieved September 23, 2012.
Jump up ^ The Young and the Restless Weekdays. "The Young and the Restless Cast: Jeanne Cooper". Cbs.com. Retrieved September 23, 2012.
Jump up ^ The Young and the Restless Weekdays (July 20, 2007). "The Young and the Restless Cast: Eric Braeden". Cbs.com. Retrieved September 23, 2012.
Jump up ^ "Show Guide: Cast Bio: Kate Linder". Sony. Retrieved January 6, 2012.
Jump up ^ SOD (August 11, 2017). "Seinfeld Alum To Y&R". Soap Opera Digest. United States: American Media, Inc. Odyssey Magazine Publishing Group Inc. Retrieved August 11, 2017.
Jump up ^ SOD (August 3, 2017). "Greg Rikaart Returns To Y&R!". Soap Opera Digest. United States: American Media, Inc. Odyssey Magazine Publishing Group Inc. Retrieved August 3, 2017.
Jump up ^ Soaps SheKnows (September 13, 2017). "Greg Rikaart to make Y&R return, first air date revealed". Soaps.com. United States: SheKnows Media. Retrieved September 13, 2017.
Jump up ^ SOD (November 10, 2017). "Y&R: Laur Allen Says Good-bye". Soap Opera Digest. United States: American Media, Inc. Odyssey Magazine Publishing Group Inc. Retrieved November 10, 2017.
Jump up ^ SOD (November 3, 2017). "Thad Luckinbill Back To Y&R!". Soap Opera Digest. United States: American Media, Inc. Odyssey Magazine Publishing Group Inc. Archived from the original on November 3, 2017. Retrieved November 3, 2017.

tag: ol


document_title: Olympic symbols

question_text: what does the five olympic rings stand for

text: Olympic symbols

text: Motto[edit]

text: The Olympic motto is the hendiatris Citius, Altius, Fortius, which is Latin for "Faster, Higher, Stronger".[1] It was proposed by Pierre de Coubertin upon the creation of the International Olympic Committee in 1894. Coubertin borrowed it from his friend Henri Didon, a Dominican priest who was an athletics enthusiast.[2] Coubertin said "These three words represent a programme of moral beauty. The aesthetics of sport are intangible."[2] The motto was introduced in 1924 at the Olympic Games in Paris.[3] A more informal but well-known motto, also introduced by Coubertin, is "The most important thing is not to win but to take part!" Coubertin got this motto from a sermon by the Bishop of Pennsylvania during the 1908 London Games.[4]

text: Rings[edit]

text: The rings are five interlocking rings, coloured blue, yellow, black, green, and red on a white field, known as the "Olympic rings". The symbol was originally designed in 1912 by de Coubertin.[5] He appears to have intended the rings to represent the five continents: Africa, Asia, America, Oceania and Europe.[6] According to Coubertin, the colours of the rings together with the white of the background included the colours composing every competing nation's flag at the time. Upon its initial introduction, Coubertin stated the following in the August 1912 edition of Olympique:[7]

text: ... the six colours [including the flag's white background] combined in this way reproduce the colours of every country without exception. The blue and yellow of Sweden, the blue and white of Greece, the tricolour flags of France, England, the United States, Germany, Belgium, Italy and Hungary, and the yellow and red of Spain are included, as are the innovative flags of Brazil and Australia, and those of ancient Japan and modern China. This, truly, is an international emblem.

text: In his article published in the Olympic Revue the official magazine of the International Olympic Committee in November 1992, the American historian Robert Barney explains that the idea of the interlaced rings came to Pierre de Coubertin when he was in charge of the USFSA, an association founded by the union of two French sports associations and until 1925, responsible for representing the International Olympic Committee in France: The emblem of the union was two interlaced rings (like the vesica piscis typical interlaced marriage rings) and originally the idea of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung: for him, the ring symbolized continuity and the human being.[8]

text: The 1914 Congress was suspended due to the outbreak of World War I, but the symbol and flag were later adopted. They would first officially debut at the Games of the VII Olympiad in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1920.[9]

text: The symbol's popularity and widespread use began during the lead-up to the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. Carl Diem, president of the Organizing Committee of the 1936 Summer Olympics, wanted to hold a torchbearers' ceremony in the stadium at Delphi, site of the famous oracle, where the Pythian Games were also held. For this reason he ordered construction of a milestone with the Olympic rings carved in the sides, and that a torchbearer should carry the flame along with an escort of three others from there to Berlin. The ceremony was celebrated but the stone was never removed. Later, two American authors, Lynn and Gray Poole, when visiting Delphi in the late 1950s, saw the stone and reported in their History of the Ancient Games[10] that the Olympic rings design came from ancient Greece. This has become known as "Carl Diem's Stone".[11] This created a myth that the symbol had an ancient Greek origin.

text: The current view of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is that the symbol "reinforces the idea" that the Olympic Movement is international and welcomes all countries of the world to join.[12] As can be read in the Olympic Charter, the Olympic symbol represents the union of the "five continents" of the world and the meeting of athletes from throughout the world at the Olympic Games. However, no continent is represented by any specific ring. Prior to 1951, the official handbook stated that each colour corresponded to a particular continent: blue for Europe, yellow for Asia, black for Africa, green for Australia and Oceania and red for the Americas; this was removed because there was no evidence that Coubertin had intended it (the quotation above was probably an afterthought).[13] Nevertheless, the logo of the Association of National Olympic Committees places the logo of each of its five continental associations inside the ring of the corresponding colour.

text: Different Types Of Flags[edit]

text: The Olympic flag was created by Pierre de Coubertin in 1925.

text: The Olympic flag has a white background, with five interlaced rings in the centre: blue, yellow, black, green and red. This design is symbolic; it represents the five continents of the world, united by Olympism, while the six colours are those that appear on all the national flags of the world at the present time.

text: Specific flags used[edit]

text: There are specific Olympic flags that are displayed by cities that will be hosting the next Olympic games. During each Olympic closing ceremony in what is traditionally known as the Antwerp Ceremony,[15] the flag is passed from the mayor of one host city to the next host, where it will then be taken to the new host and displayed at city hall. These flags should not be confused with the larger Olympic flags designed and created specifically for each games, which are flown over the host stadium and then retired. Because there is no specific flag for this purpose, the flags flown over the stadiums generally have subtle differences, including minor color variations, and, more noticeably, the presence (or lack) of white outlines around each ring.

text: Antwerp flag[edit]

text: The first Olympic flag was presented to the Jr National Olympics at the 1920 Summer Olympics by the city of Antwerp, Belgium. At the end of the Games, the flag could not be found and a new Olympic flag had to be made for the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris. Despite it being a replacement, the IOC officially still calls this the "Antwerp Flag" instead of the "Paris Flag".[16] It was passed on to the next organizing city of the Summer Olympics or Winter Olympics until the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo, Norway, when a separate Olympic flag was created to be used only at the Winter Olympics (see below). The 1924 flag then continued to be used at the Summer Olympics until the Games of Seoul 1988 when it was retired.

text: In 1997, at a banquet hosted by the US Olympic Committee, a reporter was interviewing Hal Haig Prieste who had won a bronze medal in platform diving as a member of the 1920 US Olympic team. The reporter mentioned that the IOC had not been able to find out what had happened to the original Olympic flag. "I can help you with that," Prieste said, "It's in my suitcase." At the end of the Antwerp Olympics, spurred on by teammate Duke Kahanamoku, he climbed a flagpole and stole the Olympic flag. For 77 years the flag was stored away in the bottom of his suitcase. The flag was returned to the IOC by Prieste, by then 103 years old, in a special ceremony held at the 2000 Games in Sydney.[17] The original Antwerp Flag is now on display at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland, with a plaque thanking him for donating it.[18]

text: Oslo flag[edit]

text: The Oslo flag was presented to the IOC by the mayor of Oslo, Norway, during the 1952 Winter Olympics. Since then, it has been passed to the next organizing city for the Winter Olympics. Currently, the actual Oslo flag is kept preserved in a special box, and a replica has been used during recent closing ceremonies instead.[19]

text: Seoul flag[edit]

text: As a successor to the Antwerp Flag,[20] the Seoul flag was presented to the IOC at the 1988 Summer Olympics by the city of Seoul, South Korea, and has since then been passed on to the next organizing city of the Summer Olympics. The Seoul flag is currently on display at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building.

text: Rio de Janeiro flag[edit]

text: As a successor to the Seoul Flag,[21] the Rio flag was presented to the IOC at the 2016 Summer Olympics by the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and has since then been passed on to the next organizing city of the Summer Olympics, Tokyo.

text: Singapore flag[edit]

text: For the inaugural Youth Olympic Games, an Olympic flag was created for the junior version of the Games. The flag is similar to the Olympic flag, but has the host city and year on it and was first presented to Singapore by IOC President Jacques Rogge.[22][23] During the closing ceremony on 26 August 2010, Singapore officials presented it to the next organizing committee, Nanjing 2014.[24]

text: Innsbruck flag[edit]

text: For the inaugural winter Youth Olympic Games, an Olympic flag was presented to the IOC at the 2012 Winter Youth Olympics by the city of Innsbruck, Austria, and has since then been passed on to the next organizing city of the Winter Youth Olympics.

text: Flame and torch relay[edit]

text: The modern tradition of moving the Olympic flame via a relay system from Greece to the Olympic venue began with the Berlin Games in 1936. Months before the Games are held, the Olympic flame is lit on a torch, with the rays of the Sun concentrated by a parabolic reflector, at the site of the Ancient Olympics in Olympia, Greece. The torch is then taken out of Greece, most often to be taken around the country or continent where the Games are held. The Olympic torch is carried by athletes, leaders, celebrities, and ordinary people alike, and at times in unusual conditions, such as being electronically transmitted via satellite for Montreal 1976, submerged underwater without being extinguished for Sydney 2000, or in space and at the North Pole for Sochi 2014. On the final day of the torch relay, the day of the Opening Ceremony, the Flame reaches the main stadium and is used to light a cauldron situated in a prominent part of the venue to signify the beginning of the Games.

text: Medals and diplomas[edit]

text: The Olympic medals awarded to winners are another symbol associated with the Olympic games. The medals are made of gold-plated silver – for the gold medals – silver, or bronze, and are awarded to the top three finishers in a particular event. Each medal for an Olympiad has a common design, decided upon by the organizers for the particular games. From 1928 until 2000, the obverse side of the medals contained an image of Nike, the traditional goddess of victory, holding a palm in her left hand and a winner's crown in her right. This design was created by Giuseppe Cassioli. For each Olympic games, the reverse side as well as the labels for each Olympiad changed, reflecting the host of the games.

text: In 2004, the obverse side of the medals changed to make more explicit reference to the Greek character of the games. In this design, the goddess Nike flies into the Panathenic stadium, reflecting the renewal of the games. The design was by Greek jewelry designer Elena Votsi.[25]

text: Olympic diplomas are given to competitors placing fourth, fifth, and sixth since 1949, and to competitors placing seventh and eighth since 1981.

text: Anthems[edit]

text: The "Olympic Hymn", officially known as the "Olympic Anthem", is played when the Olympic flag is raised. It was composed by Spyridon Samaras with words from a poem of the Greek poet and writer Kostis Palamas. Both the poet and the composer were the choice of Demetrius Vikelas, a Greek Pro-European and the first President of the IOC. The anthem was performed for the first time for the ceremony of opening of the 1896 Athens Olympic Games but wasn't declared the official hymn by the IOC until 1958. In the following years, every hosting nation commissioned the composition of a specific Olympic hymn for their own edition of the Games until the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley.

text: Other notable Olympic anthems and fanfares include:

text:
"Olympische Hymne": A composition for orchestra and mixed chorus composed by Richard Strauss for the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics.
The "Olympic Fanfare" for the 1952 Helsinki Summer Olympics was originally composed by Aarre Merikanto for the 1940 Summer Olympics, which were cancelled. Merikanto's Fanfare won the fanfare contest organized in Finland in 1939, but the score was lost for over a decade; when rediscovered in 1951, it was decided to use it in 1952. It was recorded in 1953.[26]
"Bugler's Dream": Written in 1958 by Leo Arnaud as part of his Charge Suite, the theme is often thought of by Americans as the Olympic Theme" due to its usage in television coverage by ABC and NBC, starting with the 1964 Olympics.
The "Olympic March": The theme written by Yūji Koseki for the Tokyo 1964 Summer Olympics theme song.
"Olympic Fanfare 1972": The winning submission for the Munich 1972 Summer Olympics theme song, used as the TV signature tune of the German Olympic Center (Deutsches Olympia-Zentrum, DOZ) and the prelude to the medal ceremonies, composed by Herbert Rehbein.[27] It was performed by the Orchestra of the Bavarian Broadcasting Company (Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks) and members of the Air Force Band Neubiberg, conducted by Willy Mattes.[citation needed]
"Olympic Fanfare and Theme": Composed by John Williams for the Los Angeles 1984 Summer Olympics, the theme was performed in the opening ceremonies by the United States Army Herald Trumpets conducted by then-Captain David Deitrick.[28] The first recording, performed by an orchestra composed of Los Angeles-area musicians, was released in its entirety on the LP and cassette album The Official Music of the XXIIIrd Olympiad Los Angeles 1984, with a concurrent Japan-only CD release (which went on to win a Grammy in 1985).[29] A slightly different arrangement of the piece was released on the Philips album By Request: The Best of John Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra. In 1996, an alternate version of "Olympic Fanfare and Theme" was released on the album Summon the Heroes for the Atlanta Olympic Games, replacing the first part of the piece with Arnaud's Bugler's Dream. The theme was also used in closing ceremony of the 2010 Olympic Games, as the nations' flagbearers entered BC Place Stadium surrounding the Olympic flame and when the Olympic flag was brought into the stadium by Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson.
"The Olympic Spirit": The theme written by John Williams for the 1988 Olympics in Seoul and used in the corresponding NBC broadcasts.
"Summon the Heroes": The theme written by John Williams for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.
"Theme from The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.": The theme song to this television show, composed by Randy Edelman, has been used by NBC for teaser commercial and promo spots since the 1996 Summer Olympics.[30]
"Call of the Champions": The theme written by John Williams for the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympics.

tag: ul

text: Several other composers have contributed Olympic music, including Henry Mancini, Francis Lai, Marvin Hamlisch, Philip Glass, David Foster, Mikis Theodorakis, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Vangelis, Basil Poledouris, Michael Kamen, and Mark Watters.it had oath too : we swear that we will take part in the Olympic Games in loyal competition, respecting the regulations which govern them and desirous of participating in them in the true spirit of sportsmanship for the honour of our country and for the glory of sports.

text: Kotinos[edit]

text: The kotinos (Greek: κότινος),[31] is an olive branch, originally of wild olive-tree, intertwined to form a circle or a horse-shoe, introduced by Heracles.[32] In the ancient Olympic Games there were no gold, silver, or bronze medals. There was only one winner per event, crowned with an olive wreath made of wild olive leaves from a sacred tree near the temple of Zeus at Olympia. Aristophanes in Plutus makes a sensible remark as to why victorious athletes are crowned with a wreath made of wild olive instead of gold.[33] The victorious athletes were honoured, feted, and praised. Their deeds were heralded and chronicled so that future generations could appreciate their accomplishments.

text: Herodotus describes the following story which is relevant to the olive wreath. Xerxes was interrogating some Arcadians after the Battle of Thermopylae. He inquired why there were so few Greek men defending Thermopylae. The answer was "All other men are participating in the Olympic Games". And when asked "What is the prize for the winner?", "An olive-wreath" came the answer. Then Tigranes, one of his generals uttered a most noble saying: "Good heavens! Mardonius, what kind of men are these against whom you have brought us to fight? Men who do not compete for possessions, but for honour."[34]

text: However, in later times, this was not their only reward; the athlete was rewarded with a generous sum of money by his country. The kotinos tradition was renewed specifically for the Athens 2004 Games, although in this case it was bestowed together with the gold medal. Apart from its use in the awards ceremonies, the kotinos was chosen as the 2004 Summer Olympics emblem.

text: Olympic salute[edit]

text: The Olympic salute is a variant of the Roman salute, with the right arm and hand stretched and pointing upward, the palm outward and downward, with the fingers touching. However, unlike the Roman Salute, the arm is raised higher and at an angle to the right from the shoulder.[35][36] The greeting is visible on the official posters of the games at Paris 1924[35] and Berlin 1936.[37]

text: The Olympic salute has fallen out of use since World War II because of its strong resemblance to the Nazi salute.[38] It was used for the last time by the French team in the opening ceremony of the 1948 Winter Olympics.[39]

text: Mascots[edit]

text: Since the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France, the Olympic Games have had a mascot, usually an animal native to the area or occasionally human figures representing the cultural heritage. The first major mascot in the Olympic Games was Misha in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. Misha was used extensively during the opening and closing ceremonies, had a TV animated cartoon and appeared on several merchandise products. Nowadays, most of the merchandise aimed at young people focuses on the mascots, rather than the Olympic flag or organization logos.

text: Intellectual property[edit]

text: The Olympic movement is very protective of its symbols; as many jurisdictions have given the movement exclusive trademark rights to any interlocking arrangement of five rings, and usage of the word "Olympic". The rings are not eligible for copyright protection, both because of their date of creation and because five circles arranged in a pattern do not reach the threshold of originality required to be copyrighted.

text: The movement has taken action against numerous groups alleged to have violated their trademarks, including the Gay Games; the Minneapolis-based band The Hopefuls, formerly The Olympic Hopefuls; the Redneck Olympics or Redneck Games; Awana Clubs International, a Christian youth ministry who used the term for its competitive games; and Wizards of the Coast, publisher at the time of the IOC's complaint of the card game Legend of the Five Rings.

text: In 1938, the Norwegian brewery Frydenlund patented a label for its root beer which featured the five Olympic rings. In 1952, when Norway was to host the Winter Olympics, the Olympic Committee was notified by Norway's Patent Office that it was Frydenlund who owned the rights to the rings in that country. Today, the successor company Ringnes AS owns the rights to use the patented five rings on its root beer.[40] In addition, a few other companies have been successful in using the Olympic name, such as Olympic Paint, which has a paintbrush in the form of a torch as its logo, and the former Greek passenger carrier Olympic Airlines.

text: Certain other sporting organizations and events have been granted permission by the IOC to use the word "Olympics" in their name, such as the Special Olympics, an international sporting event held every four years for people with intellectual disabilities.

text: In recent years, organizing committees have also demanded the passing of laws to combat ambush marketing by non-official sponsors during the Games – such as the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006 – putting heavy restrictions on using any term or imagery that could constitute an unauthorized association with the games, including mere mentioning of the host city, the year, and others.[41][42]


document_title: List of Open Era men's singles tennis players by career match wins

question_text: who has won the most tennis matches in history

text: This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

text:
These male professional tennis players have the most career singles match wins in the Open Era.
The open era was started in April 1968.

text:
*

Inducted to the International Tennis Hall of Fame

^

Active player

text:
Rank

Player

Country

Years active

Match wins

1.
Jimmy Connors*

1970–1996
1256

2.
Roger Federer^

1998–
1166

3.
Ivan Lendl*

1978–1994
1068

4.
Guillermo Vilas*

1968–1992
949

5.
Rafael Nadal^

2001–
914

6.
John McEnroe*

1976–1992
881

7.
Andre Agassi*

1986–2006
870

8.
Ilie Năstase*

1968–1985
838

9.
Novak Djokovic^

2003–
817

10.
Stefan Edberg*

1982–1996
801

11.
Pete Sampras*

1988–2002
762

12.
David Ferrer^

1999–
726

13.
Boris Becker*

1983–1999
713

14.
Brian Gottfried

1970–1984
683

15.
Manuel Orantes*

1968–1984
679

16.
Arthur Ashe*

1968–1979
667

17.
Stan Smith*

1968–1985
662

Michael Chang*

1987–2003

19.
Andy Murray^

2002–
660

20.
Björn Borg*

1971–1983
639

21.
Tomáš Berdych^

2001–
627

22.
Thomas Muster

1984–1999
625

23.
Lleyton Hewitt

1997–2016
616

24.
Andy Roddick*

1999–2012
612

25.
Yevgeny Kafelnikov

1992–2003
609

26.
Goran Ivanišević

1988–2004
599

27.
Roscoe Tanner

1969–1985
592

28.
Eddie Dibbs

1970–1984
586

29.
Harold Solomon

1971–1986
576

30.
Carlos Moyá

1995–2010
575

31.
Mats Wilander*

1980–1996
571

32.
Tommy Haas

1996–2017
569

33.
Tom Okker

1968–1981
564

34.
Raúl Ramírez

1970–1983
539

Wojciech Fibak

1973–1988

36.
Tommy Robredo^

1998–
533

37.
John Alexander

1968–1985
532

38.
Andrés Gómez

1979–1995
531

39.
Vitas Gerulaitis

1971–1986
528

40.
Tomáš Šmíd

1976–1989
521

41.
Brad Gilbert

1981–1995
519

42.
Wayne Ferreira

1989–2005
512

42.
Richard Gasquet^

2002–
512

44.
Fernando Verdasco^

2001–
510

45.
Jim Courier*

1987–2000
506

46.
Mikhail Youzhny^

1999–
498

47.
Tim Henman

1992–2007
496

48.
Nikolay Davydenko

1999–2014
482

49.
Jaime Fillol

1968–1985
479

50.
Yannick Noah

1977–1996
478

50.
Stan Wawrinka

2002–
478

text:
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