How much of the society & culture of Game of Thrones was taken from history, and which parts are the inventions of George R.R. Martin?
Examples
[ul]
[li]Kings,Queens,Knights, etc: These of course existed in real life[/li][li]“Hand of the King”: As far as I can tell, this was made up by GRRM, and didn’t seem to exist in history (at least by that title)[/li][li]Maester: Did this title exist?[/li][li]What about the names of the characters like Cersei, Melisandre, Tywin, etc: Were some made up by the author, or were they all historical names[/li][/ul]
Any other aspects that GRRM made up? (excluding the fantasy parts, of course)
Robert Baratheon: King Edward IV of England
Queen Cercei: Elizabeth Woodville
Tywin Lannister: Warwick the Kingmaker
Jamie Lannister: The Knightly bits of Antony Woodville
Tyrion Lannister: The intellectual parts of Antony Woodville
Stannis: Richard III
Ned Stark: William Hastings
Whoever wins: Henry Tudor.
The Targaryen marriage practices were copied from Ancient Egypt. The Faith of the Seven is an expy for the Roman Catholic Church; albeit with some major differences (septas being equal to septons, at least in theory). It’s also not as dominant as the Church was during this era; witness the widespread tolerance for paganism in Westeros (indeed it’s still the majority faith in the North, and Ned Stark was appointed a major royal office).
The Andal invasion of Westeros is analogous to the Angle and Saxon invasions of Britain.
Aegon the Conqueror and the Targaryens were inspired by William the Conqueror and the Normans.
The Valyrian Freehold is comparable to the Roman Republic/Empire.
The Iron Islanders are ax wielding raiders who travel by longship, so obviously there’s some Viking influence in their origin. But referring to a life in which one relies entirely on piracy and raiding for sustenance as “the old way” comes from Ancient Greece.
It’s a hard question to answer. For example, in book 5 a certain army gets stuck in a blizzard just outside of Winterfell, which they were marching to conquer. Sounds a lot like Napoleon’s winter retreat from Moscow to me.
Treachery at feasts and weddings is a common practice in small-scale societies. They have to come together sometime, but they always do it at their own risk.
Iron Age Britains believed that gods lived in pools and wetlands. It’s semi-analogous to the weirwood groves.
Sword-lore and sword-naming was a real thing for northern European cultures.
Thank you, it’s on Kindle and will soon be in my tablet
If sword-naming means giving names to swords (well, weaponry in general, it’s simply that famous folk were more likely to have had a sword as their main weapon), it was common in Southern Europe as well. Tizona (Ember-like), the name of one of el Cid’s swords, has come to mean “sword” in poetic Spanish.
Martin invented the title, but the office is analogous to one of the Great Officers of State, either the Earl Marshal or the Lord High Constable. Or perhaps the Grand Vizier in an Asian court.
The badge is reminiscent of the badge worn by a British baronet.
The Faith of the Seven AND the Order of Maesters are the church stand-ins, albeit with some big differences. The Maesters play the role in Westerosi society that the literate, educated clerics did in Medieval Europe. I got the impression from the books that there’s not much requirement for literacy to be a Septon/Septa.
Daenerys is partially inspired by Joan of Arc: teenage girl with God/dragons on her side collects an army and leads them to great victories.
Obviously there are plenty of differences, but Joan’s example proves that it was real-world possible for a teenage girl to lead an army in a medieval society.
Just as “Ser” is an alternate spelling of “Sir.” Ser is used identically on the weird world on which Jack Vance setThe Moon Moth, one of his more famous stories. Possible tribute from GRRM to one of the Old Masters…
