As I'm sure most of you know, I had my appendix out on Friday. What this means is that I've been hopped up on pain medications these last few days, and have mostly-closed cuts on my abdomen that feel ready to pop open when I sit or stand up straight. I'm still hoping that I'll be able to make it into school tomorrow, but I'm not making any promises. Needless to say, I'm not in one of my better moods right now. So what have I been up to these last few days? Well, I've been reading further into George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, which I discussed briefly in my last post (which I wrote on Thursday with the intent of editing on Friday). And I came to this conclusion about three hours ago: the history of Martin's fictional continent of Westeros is parallel to the mythology and history of the British Isles, regardless of whether Martin intended this. The events in this history resemble myth and history from both Great Britain and Ireland, and I'll explore both.
HISTORY OF WESTEROS:
I wrote a massive summary of the events I'll be discussing, but honestly, who wants to read that? So...enjoy these links!
Note: The drawback of the links is that they contain more spoilers than my summary did. Read at your own risk.
The Children of the Forest/The First Men: http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Dawn_Age
The Others/The Wall: http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/The_Long_Night
The Andals: http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Andal_Invasion
The Targaryens: http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/War_of_Conquest
Robert's Rebellion: http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Robert%27s_Rebellion
So how is this all parallel to the tales and history of the British Isles? In many ways:
1) The Children of the Forest
Irish legend speaks of the Tuatha de Danann, remembered today as the fairies. Legends remember them as Celtic pagans with some supernatural powers, somewhat smaller and daintier in stature than the Milesian Gaels, the ancestors of the modern Irish.
2) The First Men
The First Men most likely represent the Roman Empire (see #3 for the explanation), though you could argue that they represent the Gaels. In both cases, a new people arrived and made the island their own. The difference between the two: whereas the Romans mixed and mingled with the Britons, the Gaels waged a relentless war upon the people they met.
3) The Others/The Wall
The Others are clearly based on the Picts, Celtic barbarians from pre-Gaelic Scotland. The Picts terrorized the Romans stationed in Britain on their forays into what would become England. As a result, the emperor commissioned (and lent his name to) Hadrian's Wall, the obvious inspiration for Martin's Wall, to deter the invaders of the north.
4) The Andals
The Andals seem to be based upon the Normans, who invaded Britain and Ireland (the south of Westeros) but failed to capture Scotland (the north of Westeros). The realms they create (several kingdoms competing for power) is reminiscent of the pre-Norman Irish kingdoms of Munster, Leinster, Connacht, Ulster and Meath.
5) The Targaryens
In this case, the Targaryens are the English, and Westeros the Emerald Isle. English artillery, represented as dragons, spelled doom for the Norman-Irish troops fighting the invaders. Throughout it all, the English tried to garner the loyalty of the Irish, succeeding in many cases by appealing to the Norman lords, just as the Targaryens won support in Westeros.
The fall of the Targaryens is peculiar, in that the events (particularly the cause and the aftermath) don't seem to be based on anything I can think of or find at the moment. At least, not in the history of the British Isles: a man fighting to reclaim his wife, and inadvertently becoming king, seems more the stuff of legend than of history. As for the rest of the rebellion, it's similar and dissimilar to any revolution from history. But I don't want to give too much away. I highly recommend the books to anybody who enjoys reading and writing. You can draw your own conclusions from there.
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