I’m currently watching through the first season of Game of Thrones and am really enjoying it.
I was wondering if anyone is aware of a place to read about the history of the world and events prior to the beginning of the story that doesn’t contain any spoilers (it doesn’t have to be super detailed, I’d just like become a bit more familiar with the lay of the land).
I’m sure I’d get a lot more of that if I were reading the books rather than watching the show, but I usually like to stick to one media or another for the telling of the story and I think I’ll be choosing the show for this.
Check out HBO’s site for the show. There’s an interactive map, a guide to the houses of Westeros and an appendix. The appendix includes the history that happened before the show began and background material–like information about the various religions.
There are also summaries of series 1 and 2–which you might wish to avoid if you haven’t watched them yet. But the site is designed for people who haven’t read the books & don’t want to be spoiled about what’s to come. (It’s also handy for those of us who *have *read the books but need refreshing on various details; it’s a big world!)
There;s lots of other info out there but spoilers are an ever present danger. They are also full of speculation–since the book series isn’t finished yet…
King Aerys II was obsessed with fire, and by the end of his rule, was pretty much insane. As a king, he was largely incompetent, and his Hand - his childhood friend, Tywin Lannister - effectively ruled the country (and did a good job at it, too).
Things fell apart when Tywin quit his job. The king’s eldest son, Rhaegar, kidnapped/ran off with Ned Stark’s sister, who was engaged to Robert Baratheon. When Ned Stark’s father and older brother went to file a protest, he had them burned alive in front of his court. This triggered the civil war that ended with Rhaegar’s defeat at the hands of Robert, the sack of King’s Landing by the Lannisters, and Aerys’s death at the hands of Jaime.
That is not quite right, King Aerys’ reign started off quite well. He went insane after a minor lord rebelled and held him as a hostage for several months. Tywin had the town surrounded but couldn’t do anything because the Lord threatened to kill Aerys, it wasn’t until Barristan Selmy infiltrated the castle and rescued him that the situation was resolved. After that he became extremely paranoid and slowly descended into madness. He kept cutting himself on the iron throne and became so afraid of blades he stopped cutting his hair and nails, he was also deathly afraid of being poisoned so he barely ate and became very gaunt with extremely long hair and fingernails nearly a foot long.
Except for the odd Dornish noble the Targaryens never married outside of their own family and they had a preference for brother-sister unions. They were worse than the Hapsburgs.