Characters, War of the Roses August 1, 2013

Sansa Stark and Elizabeth of York: A Shattered Childhood (Part 2)

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The rioters are raping her. Sansa awakens gasping and shaken only to discover her nightmare has been born to life. She’s “bled.” Fearing the queen will learn she is now a woman and she’ll be forced to consummate her betrothal with Joffrey, Sansa frantically tries to cut the stain out of the mattress. Sansa’s realities are harsh. Childhood is over and womanhood endangers her. Worse than the risk of dying in childbirth, Sansa’s betrothed, Joffrey, is a cruel cowardly boy…

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Announcements July 31, 2013

Announcement: The White Queen & Missing Article

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re: the article “5 Historical Inaccuracies in The White Queen Costumes and Set” Last night, I accidentally released a blast promoting an unfinished article “5 Historical Inaccuracies in The White Queen Costumes and Set.” First of all, my apologies. Second,  I’m currently working on a new section of the History Behind Game of Thrones site about The White Queen. Unfortunately, while working on the test site (“sandbox”), I published an article privately but this sent out a social media blast with a…

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Characters, War of the Roses July 30, 2013

The Origin of Sansa May Lie in Elizabeth of York

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Sansa Stark is lovely: everything you’d imagine a medieval princess to be. Beautiful, poised, graceful, soft-spoken, and mannerly, Sansa studies the feminine arts and tries to stay composed. She isn’t the sort of girl who would upstage her prince. Instead, she would remain quietly waiting in the background, smiling sweetly, as she ties a favor to his lance or kisses his sword before battle. Yet, Sansa is quite possibly the most annoying character on Game of Thrones. Why is that? Through our twenty-first century eyes, the…

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Announcements July 27, 2013

Giveaways, Goodreads, Google Scholar, and Wars of the Roses Book Reviews

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Inspired after the Nerdalicious interview, I’d intended to work on a post about Sansa. Instead, I got distracted and had some fun playing around with Goodreads and writing some reviews. But first, a tip about research and Google Scholar. Google Scholar I’ve never used Goodreads before because I usually find books and articles by reading footnotes and then tracking down the item with Google Books or, my newest discovery, Google Scholar. A few quick asides about that in case you…

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Interviews July 24, 2013

Nerdalicious Interview

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What might be my new favorite blog, Nerdalicious, just interviewed me about the historical basis for Game of Thrones and the Song of Ice and Fire series.  To mix it up a bit, I talk about some parallels I haven’t had a chance to write about yet. Nerdalicious has articles about anything that appeals to your inner nerd, including history, StarTrek, Doctor Who, and J.K. Rowling. It even had an awesome post the other day with some very funny GoT…

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Real Events, War of the Roses July 23, 2013

Origins of the Iron Throne?

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Recently, George RR Martin wrote that few artists render the iron throne the way he imagined it. In fact, on his blog, he provides a picture of Marc Simonetti’s depiction of the iron throne – an enormous monstrosity so large you have to mount it by climbing steps. Today, while reading J.R. Lander’s Wars of the Roses, I stumbled across a picture that made me wonder if it planted a seed for the iron throne in GRRM’s mind a long time…

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