Game of Thrones Breaks Emmy Records for Most Wins by Scripted Series, Single Episode

Game of Thrones just can’t be stopped. HBO’s commercial and critical smash is one of the most popular series currently airing on television, and now it’s the most awarded, as well. At Sunday night’s Emmy awards, Thrones won three Emmys, which allowed it to break the record for most Emmys won by a scripted series that was previously held by Frasier.

The show also became the most-awarded drama series of all time, passing The West Wing and Hill Street Blues. Thrones won for writing, directing and outstanding drama. The show also picked up nine awards at the Creative Arts Emmys held last weekend, bringing its total number of wins to 38, which bests Frasier’s 37.

A whopping seven of Thrones’ Emmys were awarded to superlative season six episode “The Battle of the Bastards,” which now becomes the most-awarded single episode of television ever aired. That record was previously held by E.R.’s pilot, “Love’s Labor Lost.”

Thrones has one mountain still to climb: the show with the most total Emmy wins is still Saturday Night Live, which has earned 45 Emmys over the course of its 40-plus years on television. The sketch show picked up another trophy on Sunday, for Kate McKinnon’s wonderful work on the show. Game of Thrones may overtake SNL over the course of its final two seasons, should it perform well, although the crown may eventually return to SNL during its inevitable sixtieth season.

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After the show, George R.R. Martin also teased the possibility of a Thrones prequel. “I do have thousands of pages of fake history of everything that led up to Game of Thrones,” Martin told Deadline at the Emmys. “So there’s a lot of material and I’m writing more.”

Martin’s still focused on the task at hand, though, which involves finishing the last two books in his series. “At the moment we still have this show to finish, and I still have two books to finish so that’s all speculation,” he said. The show pushed ahead of the books this year for the first time, and is likely to continue to be ahead of the books unless Martin invents time travel. Whatever the case may be, your friends will likely keep solemnly repeating “Valar Morghulis” for years to come.