Look, it’s about time you started taking Game of Thrones ( GoT ) seriously. Like really seriously.

US presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren does.

In April, she wrote an article in The Cut titled The World Needs Fewer Cersei Lannisters . Devout fans of the show will no doubt concur. One Cersei is bad enough. There are vats of acid that look at Cersei and say, “Stay away from that one. She’ll burn you.”

Warren, whose presidential campaign hinges on rallying against the unchecked avarice of corporate America, finds many lessons in GoT for governing a fractured nation splintered by extreme inequality and poverty.

Too late, Warren... Wall Street got there first.

Ever since the show began gaining global popularity after it was first aired in April 2011, corporate and business-oriented types have been using the TV series as a self-help manual to get ahead in office — with less bloodletting, hopefully. Articles such as Four Leadership Lessons from Game Of Thrones and Are you the Cersei or a Daenerys in your office? abound.

And with good reason. In the GoT universe, if you wear a crown and hope to survive another episode, you’d better know what kind of manager you’re going to be. And if you don’t wear a crown, you’d better know how to keep the wearer happy while making sure the intern doesn’t stab you in your sleep.

The show’s finale airs on May 20 in India, but so far, there is just a handful that has survived the garotte. It’s worth seeing what kept them alive — and why manuals for successful business draw heavily from ancient military treatises.

For those unfamiliar with the show — surely, your tribe is few by now — the central tension in the narrative comes from competing claims to the Iron Throne, the seat of power in the continent of Westeros. On one hand is Daenerys Targaryen, and on the other, Cersei Lannister. Somewhere in the middle is a brooding grump called Jon Snow, but we’ll come to that later.

Daenerys has been known to swoop into far-off lands, topple existing governments in the name of freedom, and vamoose quickly in the cause of sowing freedom elsewhere, leaving behind an unstable caretaker government assailed by insurgency (Iraq war, anyone?).

Her ascendancy is contingent on her extraordinary firepower — her three dragons, as well as uncommonly loyal advisers and her unshakeable belief that she is meant to rule Westeros. Did anyone tell you that if you could dream it, you can do it — well, maybe, but just to be on the safe side, make sure your safety nets include two armies and some dragons.

Cersei, on the other hand, is currently on the Iron Throne. She detests the unwashed, hungry masses, and is a great fan of human shields as defence strategy. Wealthy, conniving, grasping and vengeful, she’s a great candidate for assassination, but she survives through cultivating fear and confusion in her enemies. If ruthlessness is your boss’s favourite virtue, prepare for stomach ulcers. If it’s your favourite virtue, at least be rich enough to evade consequences.

Jon Snow — or Aegon Targaryen, as the show revealed — has transformed from a sullen fatherless child to a sullen claimant of the Iron Throne. But he just doesn’t want the job. Caught between his love for Daenerys (his aunt, by the way) and his sense of duty to his family, he shuffles from battle to battle, looking worried and glum. That his head may wear the crown is encouraged by advisers who see his aversion to power as a rare virtue. Oh well, so if you want power, just try not to want it. Or at least try not to look too excited about a promotion.

But the show’s real narrative power comes not from the CEOsbut middle management. A clutch of advisers such as Tyrion Lannister, Varys, Petyr Baelish, Davos Seaworth and others provides the show’s most memorable moments by their realpolitik and artful scheming. GoT repeatedly shows why it’s so important to keep middle management happy. They control information and perception — and they are not reluctant to switch sides, taking with them the knowledge of an enterprise’s vulnerabilities.

For instance, Daenerys’s adviser Varys, who no longer believes in her capacity to be a just and compassionate ruler, has made up his mind to spread the information about Snow’s secret royal lineage. That spells serious trouble for her final charge for the throne as well as her time on it.

So, as the character Eddard Stark said earlier on in the show, “Know the men that follow you. Let them know you. Don’t ask them to die for a stranger.”

It’s a shame he didn’t survive either.

At any rate, a show that is known for its merciless dispatching of central characters is bound to appeal to MBA students weaned on movies such as Wall Street and The Social Network — films that prize the bartering of principles for getting ahead in the marketplace at any cost.

So even if Warren may hope for fewer Cerseis, let’s hope that she doesn’t pull a Daenerys either.

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