Winter is coming, the hype has just begun, and the questions don't stop, or at least this insistent one _ who will die? But as we approach the final season of "Game of Thrones" (starting Sunday at 9 p.m. Eastern on HBO) there is still one lingering question that's so obvious we've barely paused to consider it: Where did this devotion come from?
Each of the 67 episodes over the last seven seasons have been seen an estimated 30 million times, certainly many of those repeat viewings. No TV series since "Lost" has stirred such obsessive fan speculation about the endgame, no TV drama since "The Sopranos" has so completely commanded _ make that overwhelmed _ the attention of the culture at large.
But winter must come, all games much end, and all series must wrap. What was it about this strange, complicated, gorgeous enterprise that made us fall in love with dragons, one dragon mother and the immortal (for now) Jon Snow?
