Westeros might appear as a chaotic medieval landscape devoid of the rule of law, but it's actually a land of unwritten laws rife with conflicts that parallel modern-day struggles.

That's according to a small but growing cohort of law professors who are harnessing the popular television show “Game of Thrones”—soon to return for its eighth and final season—to spark discussions about ethics, conflict resolution, immigration, climate change and other areas of the law.

The show is now the basis of an ethics course at the University of Virginia School of Law; the focus of an upcoming research workshop at Durham University's law school in the United Kingdom, and the topic of several law review articles. Academics who bring the show into the classroom say students are especially engaged when discussing “Game of Thrones” and that the sprawling story lines offer ample fodder for analysis and insight into our own world and legal structures.

“Anytime you can make the law come alive for [students], they tend to sit on the edge of their seats,” said David Weber, a professor at Creighton University School of Law who has written one of the first law review articles centered on “Game of Thrones.” “The 'Game of Thrones,' to me, epitomizes where our cultural zeitgeist is right now. It's the one show on television that really drives that water cooler discussion the following morning.”

Weber's article, titled “Legal Structures In Game of Thrones: The Laws of the First Men and Those That Followed,” appears in the South Carolina Law Review and argues that “more similarities exist than we may prefer to acknowledge” between our world and Westeros. Analyzing the legal structure of  is a useful avenue to reflect on our own laws and traditions, he argues. Other Game of Thrones-related articles have appeared in Alabama Law Review and the Pace Intellectual Property, Sports & Entertainment Law Forum. The Media & Arts Law Review, put out by the University of Adelaide Law School in Australia, even published a special issue devoted to the show in 2015.

Mila Versteeg.

University of Virginia law professors Mila Versteeg and Toby Heytens, who is also Virginia's solicitor general, break down the many parallels they see between “Game of Thrones” and modern society in a new podcast put out by the law school. The pair co-teaches a one-credit ethics seminar based around the show. (The class is part of a seminar series that takes an informal approach, with small classes often meeting in professors' homes.)

“There is no law in this lawless world, but then if you look closer, there [are] many places where we do see these seemingly all-powerful figures be constrained by certain norms, or other people's reputations—certain rules that are not written, but they're there,” Versteeg said in the podcast.

The threat of an army of undead dubbed the “white walkers” is an obvious analogy to climate change, with the warring houses of Westeros standing in for international leaders jockeying for power among themselves while ignoring the true threat, Versteeg argues.

Westeros faces a “collective action problem,” just as we do with climate change, Heytens adds. The professors also muse about what Westeros' constitution would look like, were the dragon-wielding Daenerys Targaryen to write it—assuming she lands in the coveted Iron Throne.

“Games of Thrones” consistently comes up in Weber's immigration class, with students mentioning the wall of ice that divides Westeros from the north and “the others” who reside there.

“Every time we talk about a wall on the southern border, someone invariably will bring up the 'Game of Thrones,'” Weber said.  “It's very much an interesting dichotomy in language. We have all the people in Westeros, and 'the others.' We talk about it from that lens: When we are building this type of wall, who are we dividing and why are we dividing? There's an interesting debate and dialogue that happens.”

Not everyone is convinced that “Game of Thrones” is a useful tool to teach law, however. University of Pennsylvania law professor David Hoffman said using the show in the classroom is “a little gimmicky” and could make nonwatchers feel left out of the discussion. Hoffman, however, has a unique vantage point of the legal landscape of Westeros.

In 2006 he interviewed George R.R. Martin, author of “A Song of Ice and Fire,” the book series from which “Game of Thrones” is adapted, about the laws of the fantasy world he created. The interview was part of a podcast series in which fantasy authors and science fiction television writers discussed the role of the law in their creations. (Hoffman recalled that he simply emailed Martin and asked for an interview—something that would be unlikely in 2019 now that Martin is more than a minor celebrity.) Hoffman, who teaches contract law, said he had hoped Martin would have insight on private law in Westeros. But the author had little to say on the subject.

“He was more focused on public law,” Hoffman recalled. “He was really focused on the intricacies of inheritance law. He spent a ton of time in the interview talking about French inheritance law, which I think he was trying to work into his books. I think he hadn't thought as much as a contracts professor would have wanted him to about, 'What does it mean to have a contract when there's magic?'”

But Weber sees potential for a semester-long law course based on the show, not unlike existing law courses centered on another popular HBO show—”The Wire.”

“You could almost do 'Game of Thrones' as a bar review course,” he said. “It would cover aspects of criminal law, constitutional law and criminal procedure. You could absolutely have a seminar-type course where you are looking at all the different legal structures in that universe.”