The easiest answer would be “Read the books”.

But I will say that it’s practically pointless to try to pick it up in the middle – there are too many story lines and too many characters. You’d have to Netflix from the beginning.

There’s a description here, but the biggest appeal seems to be the number of characters that you love to hate (plus nudity, graphic sex, incest, sadism, graphic violence).

Seriously, I have no idea why am I watching it. There are 100 bazillion characters, the ones I like are only on every other episode, and it takes forever to get to a battle scene. I swear I think to myself “I should turn this off” then a stunningly attractive female character appears naked as a complete surprise. So it is like a weird gambling addiction.