One of the television shows my Aggie Boy and I enjoy discussing is HBO’s “Game of Thrones.” Aggie Boy is a long-time science-fiction reader, and he gave me the boxed set of George R.R. Martin’s epic stories one Christmas.

He wanted to have somebody to talk with about the mysterious world where kings battle each other to see who will ultimately sit on the Iron Throne.

This week, my husband came into the living room as a new “GOT” episode was coming on. He said he wanted to see what we were talking about so he could join in on the conversation.

He’s heard me talk about Throne’s major character, Jon Snow, for weeks, and he was curious about the question my son and I had been hashing out for months – is Jon alive or dead.

“Well, he was alive and then he was dead and now he’s alive again,” I explained when Jon appeared on the screen. “That beautiful woman in the red brought him back from the dead, but she’s really not young and beautiful – she’s an old woman.”

I found myself explaining about Jon’s siblings – one lives in a tree, one’s in a medieval cult and the youngest just got captured by the worst of the worst rulers in “Thrones.” I started in on the story of the Lannisters where a brother and sister have three children together – two of which died violently – the youngest has been banished for killing his father and the other has a golden hand.

And then I stopped myself. Trying to explain family histories on “Thrones” is like trying to unravel a knot.

“Just enjoy the sword fighting,” I said. “I’ll tell you who to root for.”

Luckily the scene changed to one of my favorite characters, Tyrion Lannister. I launched into an explanation of how he’s really smart but he did kill his father but can now talk to dragons.

“Dragons?” he said.

I launched into the back story of Daenerys Targaryen and how she hatched three dragon eggs in her husband’s funeral pyre and how she was queen and now she’s not the queen, and then my husband yawned.

I couldn’t blame him. I sounded like I was explaining the ridiculous plot to a daytime soap opera.

Which is exactly what “Thrones” is, I realized — a pricey soap opera set in some far away land. I have no room to poke fun at my mom for being a constant “Young and the Restless” viewer.

The last time I visited her, we sat down to watch her soap. That show was one of my favorites when I was in high school, and I was surprised to see some of the same people still playing their devious roles.

“Isn’t that Jack Abbott?” I asked, spotting a familiar face.

“He’s such a snake,” Mom said. “He’s in the hospital, but it’s not really him. It’s an imposter pretending he has amnesia.”

And, bingo, there it was. The amnesia card. No soap opera is complete without at least one incident of amnesia.

And, come to think of it, no season of “Thrones” is complete without a beheading.

I was starting to feel a bit foolish, but then I realized nothing beats real life for crazy stories.

Let’s see – a man who was an Olympic gold medalist will become a woman and host her own reality show. A billionaire with a ridiculous comb-over who once hosted a television show will be running for president of the United States.

So maybe a world of fire-breathing dragons and people who come back from the dead – still sporting the best hair on television – isn’t so farfetched.

Hey, maybe Trump will sit on the Iron Throne.

Stranger things have happened.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.