A Streaming War For The Throne: The Age of The Fantasy Series Boom

Valenti Govantes
7 min readJan 31, 2023
Image collage created by myself from images owned by Netflix (above) and Amazon (below) respectively.

The release of HBO’s House Of The Dragon left me thinking about major streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime filling the void with new fantasy series ever since Game of Thrones ended nearly four years ago. There are many different fantasy series now like Shadow and Bone, The Wheel of Time, The Witcher and Lord of The Rings: Rings of Power. These are just a few that are out there, but I’m looking at these four because of their similar epic fantasy atmospheres. Most of the series’ source materials actually predate A Song of Ice and Fire, Game of Thrones’ source material, by years and even decades. The source materials’ ages result in almost all of the series not being exactly like Game of Thrones, but are still adapted to fit the latter series’ vibe.

Full disclosure before we dive right in: I haven’t read the novels for any of these series. They will be judged solely on their quality as television series.

No Mourners, No Funerals

Image source: Netflix.

What’s It About?: Shadow and Bone is based on the popular Grishaverse novel series of the same name by author Leigh Bardugo. The series chronicles the adventures…

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Valenti Govantes

Just your friendly, neighborhood Medium writer. Always open to discussing anything movie or comic book related.