With fabulous wealth, frequent public sword displays and a rigid top-down power structure, it’s no wonder that Saudi Arabia draws frequent comparisons to “Game of Thrones.”

The sprawling Saudi royal family has traditionally featured a massive, but generally secretive, cast of characters. Descended from a group of 60 brothers and cousins, the dynasty’s rule over the Arabian Peninsula was established by Abdulaziz ibn Saud in the early 20th century. In past decades, a few flamboyant playboys among its approximately 5,000 princes could always be counted on to flaunt their riches and privilege, but most members have been content to keep their heads down and let the oil money flow. Until now.

In recent weeks Saudi princes have been grabbing headlines in previously unseen ways — with an audacious auction buy of the most expensive painting of all time and the continuing aftershocks of a downright medieval purge.

Here are the most sensational members of the House of Saud.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, 32

He just can’t wait to be king.

Less than six months after his father, King Salman, booted the previous crown prince and named Mohammed his heir, the ambitious young son launched a purge of opposition elements within the upper ranks of Saudi society — arresting and detaining at least 10 princes and more than 200 clerics, officials and wealthy businessmen.

Among them was billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who made his considerable fortune on major stakes in Twitter, the Four Seasons and other top corporations. An estimated 1,700 personal bank accounts were frozen.

The effort was billed as an anti-corruption measure, taken after a three-year investigation revealed at least $100 billion worth of fiscal malfeasance and misuse of funds.

But many analysts believe that the sweeping shake-up is really a power grab, meant to further the prince’s “Saudi 2030” reform plan that would expand women’s rights, revamp the nation’s oil-dependent economy and ease back on religious extremism.

And the arrests, made without formal charges, gave rise to rumors of mistreatment and even torture of detainees, leading to blowback from human-rights groups.

None of the controversy dissuaded Time magazine readers from voting for the crown prince as their choice for “Person of the Year.” The magazine announced on Monday that Mohammed won 24 percent of the votes cast — way ahead of the magazine’s hand-picked choice, the “#MeToo” movement, with just 6 percent of the votes.

Prince Bader bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan al-Saud, 48

Prince Bader was revealed last week to be the world’s biggest art connoisseur — a title he held for all of 24 hours.

The art world buzzed for weeks after “Salvator Mundi,” a rare painting by Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci was auctioned to an anonymous bidder in November for an eye-popping $450.3 million — the priciest artwork ever sold. On Wednesday, Bader, a relatively modest member of the Saudi royal family, was outed as the masterpiece’s new owner by The New York Times.

One day later, The Wall Street Journal reported that Bader had bid on the painting only as a proxy for his ally, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a fact that was confirmed by US intelligence services. But on Friday, the government of neighboring Abu Dhabi insisted that Bader had acted as its agent to acquire the work for display in the country’s flashy new Louvre museum.

The intrigue unveiled the prince as a major player in the region’s highest political circles. Despite Bader’s formerly low profile, he has made a name for himself in media as the head of the Saudi Research and Marketing Group. Recently he announced a partnership with former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to launch Bloomberg Al-Arabiya — a radio, TV, digital and print news outlet.

Prince Fahad bin Faisal Al Saud, 30

Saudi Arabia may be modernizing quickly, but few members of the royal family flaunt their tats on Instagram. Prince Fahad bin Faisal Al Saud is the exception to the rule. His social-media hub features more than 13,000 snaps of his decidedly modern fashion sense, which includes a frequently bared chest and substantial amounts of ink.
The tech entrepreneur parlayed his Stanford education into a job at Facebook, where he helped establish Facebook Arab in 2009 as the division’s head of user operations.
Fahad moved on to launch several startups, including Appiphany, a suite of Arabic-language social-media apps, and Popover, a developer of cross-platform casino games. His company NA3AM, or New Arab Media, launched the Arab world’s first female superhero in May with a comic book and a computer game, the debut of a planned “Saudi Girls Revolution” series. It also produced an experimental comic — released via Instagram, one panel per day, throughout the month of Ramadan — about the hardships faced by refugees during Islam’s holy days.

“We wanted to create content that focused on our identity and heritage as Arabs, using technology, education and entertainment as primary tools in projecting our new future,” he has said of the venture.

Prince Abdullah bin Mosaad, 51

He’s just like any rabid sports fan — constantly tinkering with his fantasy teams, keeping tabs on multiple matches. Except that he has the means to buy an actual club.

Prince Abdullah, who has a passion for both the NFL and English football, snapped up a 50 percent share of the venerable Sheffield United Football Club in 2013 for just £1 — plus a promise to plow undisclosed millions into the team so it can sign new and better talent.

“I’ve seen the stereotype of a Saudi who can call upon $18 billion,” he told a reporter at the time. “I tell you what. If I was worth $18 billion, I would have bought the 49ers and Arsenal!”

The prince’s basement “man cave” at his home in Riyadh boasts six big-screen TVs that he uses to monitor all his team’s competitors while simultaneously keeping tabs on his fantasy players.

Abdullah’s investment has taken Sheffield United from an 18-win season in his first year as owner to a 30-win season and a first-place League One finish in 2017.

Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Saud, 34

He likes to boast that he learned to drive at the tender age of 9, when his father let him tool around the desert in a big, boxy Nissan Patrol. And while the cars have gotten sleeker — and much, much faster — this royal has rarely taken his hands off the wheel since.

The Red Bull-sponsored driver was a key figure in establishing a full-fledged racing circuit in Middle East, competing for the last 11 years in the Hankook 24H in Dubai, which has become a fully approved international endurance racing event. Abdulaziz’s team won the competition in 2015. In 2017, his group took the race’s Porsche 991 Cup, coming in 11th overall.

He was also the first Saudi driver to participate in — and win — a GT3 European championship round, taking first place at the Algarve International Circuit in Portugal in May 2011.

Prince Abdullah al Saud, 33

With a perfect show-jumping round at the London Olympic Games, Prince Abdullah al Saud was a key member of a group that took home the bronze in the team equestrian event in 2012 — one of only three Olympic medals in Saudi history.

“I cannot describe my feelings, I am so happy,” the prince told reporters after his flawless ride on the competition’s first day, which temporarily vaulted Saudi Arabia into the lead for the gold medal that Great Britain ultimately won.

It was Abdullah’s second Olympic appearance, after riding with his country’s equestrian team in Beijing in 2008 without a trip to the podium.

The next year, in 2009, his grandfather King Abdullah issued a royal decree establishing the Saudi Equestrian Fund to seek out and purchase top jumping horses for use by the national team. The fund spent at least $49 million on horses ahead of the 2012 Olympics, its chairman said after the team’s triumphant win.

The Saudi equestrian team did not qualify for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Prince Khaled bin Alwaleed, 39

The “Vegan Prince” is a green activist who puts his investments where his mouth is.

Khaled is the son of billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, an investor known as “the Arabian Warren Buffett” (and a top target of the Crown Prince’s purge). But he left his father’s business empire in 2008 to start his own investment company, shedding oil and gas holdings to focus on tech and construction.

His top project is an ongoing effort to install solar panels and 100,000 LED lighting units along roadways in Amman, Jordan, part of a $400 million investment in the country’s transportation system. “We’re changing the entire country’s lighting infrastructure to LEDs,” he told Canada’s National Observer. The project will make Amman the first major capital to switch to earth-friendly LED technology.

An animal-rights campaigner who supports groups like Mercy for Animals and PETA, he has also funded plant-based food companies and has brought a vegan restaurant chain to Saudi Arabia. “It’s all tied together,” he says. “Animal welfare, factory farming, the environment — usually they’re solvable if we look at things in an economic way, a humane way and a practical way rather than a greedy way.”