George R R Martin maintains vehemently that everything he puts in his books is historically accurate to the middle ages

- fantasy
- historically accurate

Choose one.

Eternal-Anglo influence and their meme arrows. English speakers forget that from about 1350 on the Spanish, French, Germans and Italians were blowing each other up.

actually the 7 Kingdoms is a lot harsher to illegitimate children than Medieval Europe.

noble bastards often ended up part of the aristocracy...

His world is pretty much how a fat man would see this world.

Everything is horrible. Family is always disappointed in you. Its either too hot or too cold. Women are unattainable by means other than force or if they really want your wealth. And the food is exquisitely detailed.

>George R R Martin maintains vehemently that everything he puts in his books is historically accurate to the middle ages.
No he doesn't. Like or dislike his books, he's not an idiot. Go bait somewhere else.

kek

Kek

Holy shit, user.
Even the fat self insert stands up to his disappointed father, gets a qt waifu, is bff with the hero, and starts discovering plot progressing stuff in a dusty old library.

...

>discovering plot progressing stuff in a dusty old library.
That's the Show.

Samwell barely even started in the Books.

trying to be too accurate in fucking FICTION is just cumbersome. Once you set out to get cookie points from history buffs (who are never satisfied btw. just look at this board) you have already taken up an impossible task. Also it just comes off as "LOL look ho well i know this era, you can trust me! buy more of my books!

It all makes sense now. GRRM confirm for filthy self inserting author

>Vehemently maintains

When has he said this? He has said however it's a blind of more grounded medieval life with lots of exaggerated and fantasy elements

>George R R Martin maintains vehemently that everything he puts in his books is historically accurate to the middle ages.
No he doesn't you shitposter. The word he uses consistently to describe his stories is "fantasy".

> I have drawn on a great many influences for these books. I do use incidents from history, yes, although I try not to do a straight one-for-one transposition of fact into fiction. I prefer to mix and match, and to add in some imaginative elements as well.
OP BTFO

I don't think the kingdoms system in ASoiaF could accurately be called the equivalent of a medieval monarchy.

Eh, he kind of did it with the dwarf's penny tax on brothels.

I work in municipal finance. No one wants to read a book about it, our city council won't even read our budget

Oh shit

TAHX
PAHLICY

You don't need to make it known that a post amused you, this is Veeky Forums after all. No upvotes.

What do you mean, next you're telling me that a sage is not a downvotr

>Sexual immortality

>George R R Martin maintains vehemently that everything he puts in his books is historically accurate to the middle ages.
>Is he right?

No.

Not even close.

His 'world' completely misses core structures of Feudalism and Manorialism. It lacks anything comparable in any way to the Catholic Church. And of course, as almost all fantasy does, it has completely unrealistic measures of time, distance, and population (time, specifically, as what we think of as the 'middle ages', of knights and castles and crusades and whatnot, lasted no more than 300 years (mid 11th - mid 14th c) while GOT's universe has medieaeval stasis for millennia).

GRRM is the average American pop-history amateur.

His fantasy (key word) has people calling eachother lord, peasants living in shit, people fighting over being called king, and a mysterious religion or two. And for most people, that's enough. But he has absolutely no idea how most of mediaeval life actually worked and most importantly, WHY the systems existed the way they did in the real world.

GRRM is an American whose perception of space and time is skewed by the American car-centered way of life where every distance is easily reachable.

Hear, hear!

>people actually stayed married and sexual immortality
That's why most nobles had basterds right?

That and he's admitted that he screwed up the scaling of things like the wall and westeros itself.

Hey now he's really researched medieval tax policy
>you owe money to the iron bank
>ok we'll tax the citizens more and steal money from other houses to pay you back, this plan is foolproof

Jesus

>this plan is foolproof
How did you get that? It's made quite clear that the plan is anything but foolproof

There was a story, possibly Apocryphal, where he was like "holy shit why did you build the wall so freaking big?!" and they were like "we built it according to your specifications" and he was like "...oh"

>George R R Martin maintains vehemently that everything he puts in his books is historically accurate to the middle ages.

No he doesn't. His books just try to be less black and white morally, deal with a lot bit more minutia of life in the setting, and eschew some (but not all) fantasy tropes.

It's still fantasy and he refers to it as such

most characters feel like people from the 21st century that got stuck in the medieval ages, the biggest sign of this is their gigantic skepticism towards religion. The world is too stagnant or doesn't develop like it should (nobility has existed in the North the same way for thousands of years). Westeros and Esos are right next to eachother but it looks like they are completely isolated from eachother

George tried to chew more than he could bite with the Lore and Worldbuilding of asoiaf

>The world is too stagnant or doesn't develop like it should (nobility has existed in the North the same way for thousands of years).
So when people tell you they know their ancestors 10.000 years ago you believe them? The narrators in ASoIF are unreliable. The counts of Holland claimed they were related to the trojans, as did the Romans.

Westeros and Esos are right next to eachother but it looks like they are completely isolated from eachother
Right, that's why people from Essos invaded Westeros at least 4 times
-Andals
-Roinish
-Aegon and his boys

Furthermore there are loads of non-Westerosi in Westeros during the books.
-Melisandre
-That other firemonk
-The black prince
-Syrio Forel
-The Brave Companions
From the top of my head there are probably more of them.

You don't know shit.

I forgot
War of Ninepenny Kings
War of the stepstones
And the second fEagon's invasion.

...

Why did they have to kill her... why... I will never understand the cruelty of this world...

Honestly I think for all the nitpicking we can do of the worldbuilding, the fact that it manages to be "there is no right or wrong, just morally complex conflict of interests" is what sets it apart from all of the crappy, derivative fantasy that there is out there. But what sets it apart from all of those "grey vs. grey" stories is that it's not just an excuse to make every character a selfish, unlikeable prick because that's probably what the author is.

>So when people tell you they know their ancestors 10.000 years ago you believe them? The narrators in ASoIF are unreliable. The counts of Holland claimed they were related to the trojans, as did the Romans.
I think this is one of the things deceptively clever about the show: all of the "history" is atrocious, just like it would have been in those days. Characters citing their thousands of years old lineage should make modern viewers roll their eyes, it's a more nuanced take on the "people were idiots back in the day" stereotype.

oops, forgot your (you)

>So when people tell you they know their ancestors 10.000 years ago you believe them? The narrators in ASoIF are unreliable. The counts of Holland claimed they were related to the trojans, as did the Romans.

You really can't tell the difference between these two statements?

>Our civilisation was founded by X mythical member of X ancient civilisation, our king is vaguely descended from him

vs

>My family with a direct male lineage has ruled this place for THOUSANDS of years and we still share the exact same name as founder (Stark, for example)

Remember now, dynasties are VERY VERY VERY hard to keep organised and functional. Most mediaeval dynasties were lucky if they survived a few hundred years without completely dissolving (William the Conqueror's dynasty lasted 3 (THREE) kings including himself, then the Angevins came and went, then the Plantagenets, then the Lancasters, then the Yorks, then the Tudors, and ALL THIS within 450 years, and including no less than 2 major civil wars over the inheritance).

The fact that the Habsburgs kept their dynasty together and in power for over 700 years was a MASSIVE achievement, and it's why they're remembered as pretty much the most successful royal dynasty ever, because unlike the Normans, the Capets, or the Jagiellons, they neither fragmented nor died out.

But compare all this with the Starks in GOT, who supposedly have ruled almost uniformly for literally thousands of years with seemingly minimal challenge.

>Remember now, dynasties are VERY VERY VERY hard to keep organised and functional. Most mediaeval dynasties were lucky if they survived a few hundred years without completely dissolving (William the Conqueror's dynasty lasted 3 (THREE) kings including himself, then the Angevins came and went, then the Plantagenets, then the Lancasters, then the Yorks, then the Tudors, and ALL THIS within 450 years, and including no less than 2 major civil wars over the inheritance).
>The fact that the Habsburgs kept their dynasty together and in power for over 700 years was a MASSIVE achievement, and it's why they're remembered as pretty much the most successful royal dynasty ever, because unlike the Normans, the Capets, or the Jagiellons, they neither fragmented nor died out.
>But compare all this with the Starks in GOT, who supposedly have ruled almost uniformly for literally thousands of years with seemingly minimal challenge.
It is explained in the books that other families (or junior branches) take the name Stark when they assume the rule of the north.

>Our civilisation was founded by X mythical member of X ancient civilisation, our king is vaguely descended from him
>My family with a direct male lineage has ruled this place for THOUSANDS of years and we still share the exact same name as founder (Stark, for example)

Both are foundings myths that were probably believed by some of the populous.

In the World of Ice and Fire there are the commentaries of a maester who doubts all this kind of stuff. Also in universe.

>who supposedly have ruled almost uniformly for literally thousands of years with seemingly minimal challenge.
The fact that you still believe this to be true means that you don't understand anything.

The Starks probably did not rule for 1000s of years, they probably didn't rule with minimal challenge.

They just tell this to the people to give their dynasty credence and prestige.

The narrators are unreliable you moron.

If one character tells something to another, it could be they are bullshitting.

>The fact that you still believe this to be true means that you don't understand anything.
>The narrators are unreliable you moron.

You don't understand what 'unreliable narrator' means.

In literature unreliable narrators require either an established or suggested trait that makes them unreliable, especially in fiction or scifi.

You can't claim unreliable narrator as some trump card when the facts given are produced by multiple different corroborating sources, none of whom have any possible reason to lie. Unreliable narrator is only ever used from a single perspective and with regards to a specific character or series of events that said narrator has some involvement in.

Now, I think you mean that there is supposed to be some sort of mystery as to a lot of these facts. However at no point is any doubt cast upon the established version of history. There are no conflicting myth surrounding any of it, there are no discrepancies between myth and reality, there are no inexplicable events within the scope of the universe (saying Achilles was invincible because he was dipped in the river Styx is different to saying the wall in GOT was made by magic thousands of years ago, because the river Styx IRL is literally just a river, there is nothing special about it, while in GOT, magic is established as part of the universe, so there is no reason to realistically doubt that what is claimed is true, because it's possible, it accounts for everything we see happening, and there are no conflicting narratives, in fact, multiple different narratives all agree that what happened, happened). In GOT, a lot of the mythic stuff is literally confirmed by Bran's visions, unless they too are unreliable.

Basically, the only argument that any of what is recounted as history being untrue or in any way unreliable is that GURRRM is such a fucking garbage writer that he doesn't know how to make anything seem mysterious or consistent.

>nobility has existed in the North the same way for thousands of years
You obviously know nothing about the setting. Each noble house created a long and glorious past and this is said explicitly in the novels.
There were no "thousands of years".

>The oldest histories we have were written after the Andals came to Westeros. The First Men only left us runes on rocks, so everything we know about the Age of Heroes and the Dawn Age and the Long Night comes from accounts set down by septons thousands of years later. There are archmaesters at the Citadel who question all of it.
(Sam, A Feast for Crows)

>Those old histories are full of kings who reigned for hundreds of years, and knights riding around a thousand years before there were knights

imagine being this dumb

This is the same europe where you can fuck 50 kids in bible study and pay your "get into heaven" tax and get off scott free.

>he hasn't heard of the feudal-peasant laws where knight landlords had rights to the first nights of any peasant bride
12 year old christkek summer boarding school rednecks wearing khakis up to their belly button need to be shot in the head or banned from this board.

>-Roinish
>-Aegon and his boys
Ahem.
Rhoynar
Aegon and his sisters, who were descended from some Targaryens who moved onto Dragonstone centuries before when Valyria went Atlantis on everyone.

>It is explained in the books that other families (or junior branches) take the name Stark when they assume the rule of the north.
They keep saying "there must always be a Stark in Winterfell"
The family name is practically a title in itself, it's like successive Princeps of Rome taking the names Caesar Augustus after Julius and Octavian passed. There was always a Caesar ruling Rome after that, so that's that.

people have always been skeptical of religion. If you were born into it, believing comes naturally. But if youre forced to convert, you view it as a hostile force taking you prisoner. Even the greek philosophers questioned the gods, and that was a 1500 years before the medieval era gets going in earnest. I doubt many scholars or philosophers actually believed but they understood the importance of shared cultural values and a god-fearing population, like ancient deterrence. Farmers and soldiers were likely very religious, both out of fear (pls protect crops/pls protect neck) whereas the rich were more likely to be skeptical given all the free time they had to dwell on things and abscent any reason for fear behind your big gate.

That literally never happened.

>muh.. muh medieval christian dindu nuffin

youre cute.

Knights would roll up to peasant farms like a pack of brodudes rolls up to a whore house, taking what they wanted and fucking who they wanted. Peasants had no power and just had to take whatever the warrior class left them. Being a knight was like being a dirty cop in LA. Less about being virtuous and more about using your power to gobble up pleasure and riches.

With boys I meant the dragons.

>Because multiple characters with no education say this is true it must be true!!!!

We have no single reason to believe that the histories people believe in are the true histories in that world. Have you ever read a fucking medieval chronicle? They are fantastic as fuck.

All these people that claim Bran the Builder built the wall to keep the others out also believe that the Others are children's fairy tales.

>In GOT, a lot of the mythic stuff is literally confirmed by Bran's visions, unless they too are unreliable.
We don't see Starks a thousand years ago. We only saw the war of the children of the forest and men.

as were the english, but while guns were entering service by 1350 the primary infantry missile weapons remained the crossbow and the longbow and they continued to be so until the 1500s

>George R R Martin maintains vehemently
No he does not

Just because it could have happened doesn't mean it was common. A peasant works for someone, if you go around raping their wives and daughters their lord is going to hear about it. You are damaging his income, so he will demand justice for it. The only times stuff like you are describing happened was during a state of war when the goal is to hurt the enemies finances. As much as we love to discuss war on Veeky Forums it is not the normal state of things. Raping another lords people and burning his property his how wars would start however.

>filthy self inserting author
>Muh Dante Alighieri
>Muh James Joyce

Not sure if bait or fucking retarded

Yes, perfectly, especially the parts about the seven year winters, the undead armies at the wall, and of course, the dragons... All extremely accurate.

>Instead of some meme fantasy map with drawn borders
Uh hu...

>They turned Stannis into a Kinslayer by killing his daughter, the only person Stannis loved in his life and a major reason as to why he fought in the war
He deserved better.

Everyone has been skeptical of religion since day 1, because absolutely no one has ever returned from the dead, institutions declared sanctified and immutable fell and became corrupted, and your heathen enemies defeated your armies and ravaged your lands.

>Eternal-Anglo influence and their meme arrows. English speakers forget that from about 1350 on the Spanish, French, Germans and Italians were blowing each other up.

This is your threadly reminder that at Crecy in 1346 the English had cannon deployed while the French did not.

they turned stannis into a kinslayer when he killed his brother

The polytheism of Westeros is barely explored only stupid savages refer to their deities as " the gods" the deities would obviously have names and a mythos to them.

>boasts about not being black and white
>the most important conflict (that gives name to the series) is a literal manichean conflict between good and evil, with the mostly all-black politics being filler

>skeptical
No user religion is instinct humans are programmed to be insane due to how advanced their brains are.

>It is explained in the books that other families (or junior branches) take the name Stark when they assume the rule of the north.

Not him, but where? I've read them and don't remember any like this.

Why are a lot of fantasy stories in a stasis? I don't get it, honestly. It makes no sense.

Because 95% or more of fantasy writers ape Tolkien without actually understanding Tolkien; who in his case was writing with an actual unreliable narrator such that you were supposed to look a degree of askance not only of the history being related by characters, but what was actually going on in the story itself.

You do not have "what happened' at the end of the Third Age (For a given value of happened since it's all fiction), you have a story that a bunch of hobbits wrote, often getting things wrong, which lay in an attic somewhere until thousands of years later and god knows how many exchanges of owners and possible edits, a British linguist translated it into English; and tends to paint this weird anachronistic Shire and has only a fuzzy idea of everything that goes on outside of it, and thus creates an implication of social and technological stasis that probably didn't exist, all the moreso because you actually have definitive "evidence" (remember, the evidence that's used isn't 100% reliable) of technological change within recent memory in the Shire itself.

Not insane. Just programmed to use heuristics and compartmentalize any paradoxes.

Mane I'm reading Dune right now. And I gotta say, it's full of crazy wacko shit and amazing logical leaps to conclusions about history, religion, government, and human evolution

But they're recognizable logical leaps. They're logical leaps that i can use context from my experience to visualize. And that's where the strength of reference comes from. And not only does it reference history and theory, but it builds these two into a coherent universe. Then, it refrences itself. You see a play-by-play of some of the stated rules of that universe, embedded between the lines of some faux-historical account from two books ago.

I fuckin love that shit OK

The religion in A Song of Ice and Fire has always been a bit lazy. The Faith of the Seven is just Catholicism mixed with traditional faiths. Rather than state a philosophy that speaks to spiritual needs, the aspects of the Seven are just typical manifestations of concepts like you see the pre-Christian faiths of Europe and elsewhere. The Old Gods are hippie-bippie tree hugger stuff, the Drowned God is Cthulhu if it was worshiped by vikings, Rhollor is Zoroastrianism turned up to 11 etc. I understand that most fantasy religions take real life ones as inspiration but it's just so very lame

Who?

Joan of Arc