The Real Events That Inspired the Greatest Show on Earth
Episodes: Season 1, Episode 9 “Baelor,” Season 2, Episode 6 “The Old Gods and the New,” Season 2, Episode 7 A Man Without Honor The beloved Game of Thrones character Ned Stark, who was so cruelly taken from us in Episode 9 of Season 1, is a mixed cocktail of historical references. While George RR Martin appears to base Ned Stark on several different historic people, he doesn’t strictly use any one person’s life events as the basis for Ned’s…
Read MoreI am not a big YouTube person, but I spotted this “encouraging” little video in the Wall Street Journal and thought it was hilarious. It looks like an oldie, but a goodie, so I thought I’d share it. The video suggests George RR Martin needs to write faster or else HBO will catch up with him. The singers profess they need their next fix of 900 page “nerd crack.” Greg “Storm” DiCostanzo and Paul Sabourin of geekandsundry did the video— highlights include…
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Episodes: Season 1, Episode 10 “Fire and Blood” Three hundred years before the Game of Thrones era, there were seven independent kingdoms – the Kingdoms of the North, the Vale, the Isles and Rivers, the Rock, and the Reach; the Storm Kingdom; and the Kingdom of Dorne. However, Aegon Targaryen and his two sisters flew dragons over those kingdoms and burned the people into submission. This event, known as Targaryen Conquest, merged the seven kingdoms into one mega kingdom under House…
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In my last post, I wrote about the complexities of medieval relationships in the Wars of the Roses. This post, which builds on the last one, primes you on Edward IV’s relationships, the complexities of which form the basis of Robert Baratheon’s last days. Like Robert Baratheon, Edward IV was close to several different noble families. In Robert’s case, he was close to the Starks, the Lannisters, Jon Arryn, and others. As these families pursued their interests, hatred arose. Similar to…
Read More<People who are familiar with the Wars of the Roses may want to skip this post.> I’ve been reading about the Wars of the Roses as a hobby for the past eight years. However, because it is such an intricate period, it has taken me a long time to get even a moderate understanding of the period. There are several reasons why the Wars of the Roses are confusing: Multiple Phases and Causes The wars were not a uniform struggle…
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Game of Thrones is not simply re-enacting the events in the Wars of Roses. For example, George RR Martin doesn’t have one character who completely embodies Edward IV and participates in all the events in Edward’s life. Instead, Martin slices up some of the most interesting aspects of Edward’s life and, possibly so he can shrink the time period, gives them to different characters. For example, like I discussed in this Robert Baratheon post and this Robb Stark post, Martin assigns: Young…
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