I've been thinking about Game of Thrones lately, trying to figure out why it fails to win my interest, and one of my hypotheses is that it focuses too much on the power struggle itself. In a monarchy, the stories I find the least interesting are those of the royal people themselves. I prefer the approach of e.g. The Pillars of the Earth, which dedicates far more attention to the lives of ordinary people and how the consequences of royal decisions affect their everyday lives.