It is an epic saga of betrayal which ends with a gruesome battle to the death.
We cannot be sure of the plot twists in this fantasy story as rivals put each other to the sword for the right to sit on the highly coveted iron throne.
Yes, after a three-year absence from our screens, the Conservative leadership race is back.
But we’ve moved on from the 2016 contest in which Andrea Leadsom committed political suicide and Michael Gove fatally injured himself while stabbing Boris Johnson in the front.
Boris has come back to life, however, and seems to be unstoppable but more than dozen others are lining up to take him down.
The ink on Theresa May’s resignation speech had hardly dried when the manoeuvring began.
Johnson, the favourite, has lost weight and cut his blond, Targaryen-like mop.
He has already started campaigning, saying he wants a pragmatic EU exit but the country must prepare for no deal as a negotiating tactic.
He is desperate for power but is he credible enough a character to be prime minister?
He will struggle to convince the Remain MPs who make up a substantial part of the 330 Tory MPs who select the shortlist.
The 124,000 Tory party members will feel betrayed if they do not get a chance to anoint him in the ballot.
They should have picked their new leader by the summer parliamentary recess at the end of July.
It means a new prime minister could hold PMQs the week before MPs go on their summer holidays. All they have to do then is fix Brexit.
The United Kingdom, the real-life backdrop this Tory psychodrama is being played out against, is still in its biggest peacetime crisis, one that will deepen this weekend when the results of the European Parliament elections come in and Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party has demolished them across the UK.
But should Johnson, or any other PM, give in to pressure from Farage and go for a hard Brexit, they’ll find themselves in opposition to the will of Parliament and facing a vote of no confidence.
Regardless of who is in No10, the Commons is still gridlocked and no deal is still the legislative default, though overwhelmingly opposed by Parliament.
Among Tory Remainer MPs, there would be considerably less sympathy for Johnson in Downing Street than there was even for May.
If the new PM tried to go for a no-deal Brexit to outflank Farage, he’d be snared by the opposition.
Far better for a new broom to spend a lot of cash fast on social reform, on pumping up public sector wages and knocking away Labour’s strongest campaigning platform.
The Tories could then lay the ground for a general election to deliver Brexit and paint Labour as a roadblock to leaving the EU, and Corbyn as an anti-Brexit party leader.
The tactic would split him from his Remainer MPs and Leave-voting Labour voters in the north of England.
If the Conservatives can unite their own party against divided, anti-Brexit Labour, that elusive majority might be theirs.
Then there’s the problem of the Union.
A PM with a majority would no longer be tied to the DUP and could listen to others in Northern Ireland who want to see the province as a bridge into the EU, not a barrier against it.
The problem of the Irish backstop would be a lesser headache.
But Scotland, where the SNP sees Johnson and a hard Brexit as political catnip for independence, poses different problems.
A Brexit PM would be fighting demands for one re-run referendum while trying to douse another.
If “now is not the time”, when is, the SNP will ask.
Someone driven by self-interest, such as Johnson, cannot pretend to be suddenly interested in Scotland.
The answer, being considered by some Tories, is to shake up devolution.
By making their deputy also a Cabinet secretary for the Union and devolution, alongside the Scottish, Wales and Northern Irish Secretaries, the new PM would show seriousness about the UK while insulating themselves from the day-to-day constitutional rows.
If Johnson is in No10, it would also put a shock absorber between himself and Ruth Davidson.
But the kingdom is still heading for the cliff edge and whoever sits next on the throne might hasten the day with a declaration of a hard Brexit to satisfy the Tory base.
MPs are off this week but the sun does not shine on this Brexit story. At Westminster, winter is coming.
