Game of Thrones and the art of rhetorical gift-giving

What did the leader of the Spanish party Podemos mean by giving a box set of George RR Martin’s regicidal series to the king of Spain? And which other books would you choose to deliver a political message?

Nice as it is to be given a present, have you ever had the feeling somebody is dropping you a bit of a hint with the volume selected?

Such ungrateful thinking might perhaps have occurred to Felipe VI, who succeeded Juan Carlos to the Spanish throne last year, with the gift he received from Pablo Iglesias at the European parliament on Wednesday. Iglesias, who leads the radical anti-austerity party Podemos, chose to give the monarch four box sets of HBO’s Game of Thrones. Everybody loves George RR Martin these days, of course, and according to the Washington Post the king pronounced himself delighted: “That’s great, I haven’t seen it.”

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