The famous TV series "Game of Thrones" has inspired an online video series called "Game of Polls" that takes on the tense Turkish political atmosphere leading up to the June 24 presidential and parliamentary elections with a sense of humor.
Quickly gaining popularity on Twitter with more than 23,000 followers, the series has all the major actors of current Turkish politics, from the presidential candidates to terrorist organizations such as the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ).
The Game of Polls' Twitter account first posted on June 8 and since then, with mini-episodes that are three to four minutes long, the series has offered a fictionalized take on what has been going on in Turkey's election process.
Before releasing the actual episodes of the series, the Twitter account first advertised through previews and banners saying, "Election is coming," mimicking the famous "Winter is coming" slogan from Game of Thrones. A banner was designed for every individual in the series with special attention given to the presidential candidates. The banners each feature a picture of the actor, the name of his/her house - which is actually his/her party's name, and the slogan of the house, which is actually a sum of his/her ideological views.
They also feature the actors' supposed favorite characters from the original series, most likely the ones that represent the Turkish politicians the best according to the creators.
In a banner designed for the presidential candidate of the Felicity Party (SP), Temel Karamollaoğlu, for instance, says "House of Felicity," and his slogan is "neither communist nor mason, national vision is both the beginning and the end."
His favorite character is listed as Walder Frey, the head of the House of Frey in "Game of Thrones" and known for his betrayal to the House of Tully during the infamous "Red Wedding."
The first episode of the series was released on June 12 in English with Turkish subtitles. The series begins with a depiction of Turkey's political scene and how it emerged ahead of the elections. In the next episodes, the story continues with the emergence of the two alliances, particularly focusing on the opposition's alliance comprised of parties from completely different ideologies. The series even depicts FETÖ as a version of "greyscale," a fatal, contagious sickness that slowly kills people by turning them into stone in the original series. It also uses Twitter polls to ask the audience what the next episode should cover and continues in accordance with the results of the polls.
The latest episode of the mini-series went beyond depicting what has happened so far and dared to predict the results of the elections and the aftermath. According to the series, the winner of the elections will be incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Thus, at the very end of the episode, the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu decides to punish the party's presidential candidate Muharrem İnce for his failure and forces him to do the "walk of shame" that Cersei Lannister had to do in fifth season of the original series. Also known as the "walk of atonement," the walk of shame is a public ritual in "Game of Thrones" used to punish a person by forcing him or her to walk naked in the public while people shout "shame" to humiliate the individual.
*Şeyma Nazlı Gürbüz / Daily Sabah
