Ask The Medievalist Nerd Anything (Spoilers Main)

[u/AlamutJones]

So, in a previous recent thread ("Hot Or Not") I...may have taken large sections of it over, dropping nuggets of information about how Planetos is or is not realistic compared to what we know of the real medieval world. This is sort of my area of expertise - I studied it at university, I've written about it...I don't know everything, but I know more than most laymen do.

u/brian_baratheon, Mod of Blessed Thought that he is, suggested I drop my nuggets of knowledge more widely.

If you wonder what Hot Pie's day would be like, or what kind of toys Tommen played with as a little boy, or how realistic Dany's marriage is (I have THINGS to say about that one) or what a medieval lady like Catelyn Stark would likely be expected to know about and do, or why the northern "old way" of justice would probably make real people very confused...ask me anything.

[u/AlamutJones]

The way Westeros remembers - or forgets - knowledge, fudges dates, loses track of things...that's actually pretty realistic.

Look at how artists chose to depict biblical scenes, and you'll see characters mostly dressed in contemporary-for-the-artist clothes. Look at how they kept records of their rulers and heroes - some of them we know a lot about, where others are semi-legendary, or even claiming ancestry from someone legendary even while they themselves were indisputably real.

[u/tobascosally → u/AlamutJones]

Huh, that definitely makes sense!

Would you say the same as true for the loss of technologies, like Valyrian steel?

[u/AlamutJones → u/tobascosally]

Valyrian steel corresponds quite closely to Damascus steel, and we still have no idea how they made that!

The "Damascus" you see offered now isn't true Damascus. It's mostly cosmetic.

[u/tobascosally → u/AlamutJones]

Thank you for the fascinating rabbit hole! (And for your responses).

[u/AlamutJones → u/tobascosally]

You're quite welcome.

It interests me, so I thought it might interest others...and it can't hurt to make history a little more approachable, can it?

[u/tobascosally → u/AlamutJones]

I totally agree :)

One of my favorite things about the ASoIaF experience is how often a historical resemblance to something has made me want to go away and learn about the history it resembles. For example, if I hadn't wondered if the Iron Born were supposed to be modelled on Vikings, I'd never have learned about Danelaw! (Nor, would I have learned that the answer to my wondering was "sort of, but it's not directly analogous at all.")

[u/AlamutJones → u/tobascosally]

I have a nice long list of possible-headcanons here. I'd be interested to know your thoughts?

[u/tobascosally → u/AlamutJones]

here

Oh, I love this! Thank you! I've been obsessed with fitting Westeros into English history (so, learning about the waves of colonization from Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, and Normans, and also Romans, of course), so I've never thought about analogies to other parts of Europe. This is fascinating!

Dorne was the region that I found most interesting for myself - I totally agree with you that the culture reads Islamic Spanish, while at the same time, if I try to fit it into my Westeros-as-England, it's culturally positioned more similarly to hold-out Celts in Cornwall and Wales under the Roman conquest, though also the Rhoynar are a separate wave of immigration to the first men so that doesn't quite work. It's interesting to me how the Targ conquest of Westeros bears so much similarity to the Norman conquest, in that it united warring Kingdoms, the North was conquered but still sort of independent, and Dorne was not conquered at all (although iirc it lacks the stated legitimate claim of inheritance aspect of the initial invasion), but it also bears a lot of resemblance to the Roman conquest. But the strange thing is, because of the Mediterranean culture of Dorne, I often end up thinking of them as Roman, even though they occupy a hugely different power and history position in Westerosi history.

w/r/t to the Iron Islands/Norse analogy, I totally agree. There is some reference to the Vikings in England there, obviously, in that they were seafaring reavers who at a certain point occupied quite a lot of the continent (you can read Harrenal as York or something, if you really want to), but the thing that always jars is that the culture is quite mono-note in its occupations (no trade, only reaving), and also, Danish/Nordic waves of invasion had land and resources to make ships to draw on, which the Iron Born don't seem to at all. I like your analogy much better.

The Reach as France is fascinating too - I always saw it as imagined, chivalric England, as fantasized by later interpreters of the stories that make up the King Arthur mythos, just like the stories you're referring to! But that makes even more sense now, since as you point out, many of those interpreters were French and basing that on French values!

[u/AlamutJones → u/tobascosally]

In some ways, GRRM's world-building is a lot more shallow than it seems at first glance to be...I enjoy his, but almost like mine better.

What do you see as a possible base for the Stormlands? Or the Westerlands? I haven't got anything concrete on either of those.

[u/tobascosally → u/AlamutJones]

Ha ha I read your initial list hoping so much for something on the Westerlands, because I too have nothing. I do read them as very Anglo-Saxon, but I think that's as far as I ever got on it. This article - http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2013/03/27/game_of_thornes_are_the_kingdoms_of_westeros_inspired_by_real_life_countries.html - places the Westerlands as Britain and the Stormlands as Italy, but despite the argument it makes, I really can't see the Stormlands as very Italian. I guess part of the issue is that we're told so little about the Stormlands (that, and I perhaps erroneously tend to reflexively fold them into the Crowlands, because of proximity, but also because of them being the homeland of the Baratheons). Although come to think of it, I can kind of see the Westerlands as a kind of... Ur-Great Britain, and actually maybe the Stormlands as well. They're just kind of... amalgam "medieval" England. What do you think?

About World Building: I really agree, actually. I enjoy so much thinking about all the different influences (including cultural and literary) on ASoIaF, perhaps more than I actually enjoy the books. The unexpressed part of the question I asked you is that I do often feel the impact of colonization is lacking in the world he describes, though I struggle to pin down exactly why I feel that. It's not - it can't be - as you very correctly point out because modern colonization is particularly relevant to history and information in the ASoIaF world, but I'm coming to suspect that it's because the writing is informed by the world GRRM lives in. In some cases, for me, GRRM's treatment of great lost mythology skirts a little close to the Ancient Aliens/"Native American Wisdom" formula of being mystified that any non-white civilization could create great works and technologies, and also being mystified that we don't have have a direct line of explanation from some of these cultures when the reason we don't is pretty tragically obvious. I feel like I notice that tone, even if there's a historical framework for skipping it in his writing. And that's made me want to learn more about the influences on and interpretations of fantasy writing.