Monthly Archives: May 2014

History Behind the Throne: The Ironborn Raiders, Vikings of Westeros

History Behind the Throne is a series discussing the historical influences embedded within the Game of Thrones series. For an introduction to the series click HERE. This is meant to be a discussion within the world of the HBO series, meaning anything that has happened on the show so far is fair game to discuss, but if you choose to comment NO BOOK MATERIAL AND SPOILERS ARE ALLOWED. Thanks! Aaaaaalso if you like it and want some more click HERE! Thanks again!

Alrighty, so I know I’ve written several of these articles about migrations, and you’re probably getting sick of them BUT I’ve got one more for you. Now, in the massive migration article we pretty much hit England’s history up to and through the Middle Ages, but for the sake of brevity I only touched on one specific migration very lightly. That would be the Danes aka vikings aka meanest baddest, beardliest dragon boat riders on Earth.

hashtag manliness

Ok… no more distractions. Anyway, when we last left our English heroes they had more or less formed an England-ish country in terms of borders and were comprised ethnically of Anglo-Saxons with a rich and patterned history of Romans, Celts, Saxons, Angles, and all sorts of happy funtimes genes. DIVERSIFY THE GENE-POOL! YAY!

ANYWAY! Everything was lookin’ all hunky-dory for these guys during the period formerly known as the heptarchy. (Aside: its called the heptarchy because there were allegedly 7 major kingdom’s during the period [hept being the Greek root for 7 and archy from the Greek for “to rule”] HOWEVER a lot of historians have kindof abandoned this nomenclature in more recent times, claiming it is a misnomer for a variety of reasons… mainly that there weren’t really 7 Kingdoms because the number often fluctuated as various kingdoms collapse, were conquered, reformed etc. (by the way… any of this sounding familiar Game of Thrones fans?? 7 Kingdoms?!?! OMFGROFLJAMZ THE PARALLELS ARE ENDLESS… anyway… Some historians get snooty about the phrase but ultimately the phrase does a good job of evoking the time period to which it refers so I’m gonna use it because fuck the police…

“Wooo! Seven Kingdoms! Yay! I bet nobody will mess this up ever!! Hurray and Huzzah!!” Image via Wikipedia

Ok, so you have these 7 Kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Sussex, and Wessex, and they existed, at one time or another, broadly over the approximate period from 500AD to 850AD. However, these Anglo-Saxon kingdoms had their little jam fest rudely interrupted beginning in the 9th century. You see, the 9th century AD as the beginning of the Viking Age, a period of Scandinavian expansion which would ultimately terrorized huge swaths of Europe, even ranging as far as Constantinople on the very edge of Europe.

Viking Expansion. Image via Wikipedia

Everybody knows of the Vikings badassery so I’ll try not to waste too much time here, but these guys were amazing. They were known to be superb seamen (laugh if you must) of Leif Eriksson is often given credit for discovering the New World when he led an expedition of Scandinavians to Greenland. Part of what made them such badass sailors, however, was the ship they used.

Image via Nordic Museum http://nordicmuseum.blogspot.com/2014/03/viking-long-ships.html

The Viking Longboat was the terror of Europe for hundreds of years. Because of the ship’s shallow draft (meaning it didn’t sink very deep into the water… unlike a large galley or modern battleship which sinks deeper into the water and ‘cuts’ through it like a knife, the longboat was flatter, more like a piece of paper floating on top of the water rather than a knife cutting through it. The cool thing about this meant that it could sail in deep water (the open sea) and shallow (major rivers of Europe) alike. This set the Vikings apart from other raiders in that not even inland cities were safe from them. Moreover, they weren’t dependent on wind to sail as their ships all came equipped with oars for manual power. In short, then, these guys were unstoppable beasts and you just had to pray they weren’t interested in taking your shit when compared to your neighbors.

Moreover, using their ships they were able to carve swaths of land out of many European nations for themselves, including France (one of the superpowers of the day), and even conquering the entire Island of Sicily for themselves. Their own homelands, because of the climate and limited arable land, were incapable of supporting a large population. When the Scandinavian population exceeded certain natural limitations, then, they would carve out new territories out of their cowering neighbors’ land. (Or, even if they didn’t need land they would just go take those same cowering neighbors’ shit… because they needed it more… at least that’s what they told me… )

Asha Greyjoy… slightly more badass than her brother… and perhaps more “manly” at this point as well… eh? eh? See what I did there?

Similarly, George R. R. Martin’s Ironborn are revered sailors, feared raiders, and come from a homeland (the Iron Islands) which does not fully support their needs (thus necessitating the raiding). The Ironborn are credited with raiding the Lannister lands and lighting the Lannister fleet on fire in Lannisport. We are told Theon has an uncle who is off raiding in distant lands in Essos and the island far away from Westeros. They are known to raid the Stark lands frequently throughout history. And they do all of this on board ships which are undoubtedly Viking Longboats.

Perhaps more importantly, however, is just how far these two peoples, the Ironborn and the Vikings, could go when driven to their fullest extent. As mentioned, vikings began raiding England in the 9th century AD and continued into the 11th century. (Also, as a nerdly aside, History Channel’s show Vikings covers the beginnings of this story by bringing to life the Ragnar Lodbrok Saga and its an excellent show. If you’re suffering from withdrawal after Game of Thrones season 4 ends next month, I highly encourage you to go check out the first 2 seasons of Vikings.)

Watch me!

BUT ANYWAY the Vikings began raiding England in the 9th century. The hardest hit was the Kingdom of Northumbria which was just unlucky enough to be the first place the Vikings landed. At first they only raided monasteries and coastal towns but they gradually moved inland. Moreover, eventually they got sick of just raiding, because… y’know… its hard to haul all that gold and shit back on a boooooat and sometimes you don’t have enough rooooom so they decided “forget this… lets just conquer this place, and then we can hoard all our gold right here!” … so they did … and the Englishmen lamented.

The Danes (meaning Vikings from Denmark at this time) conquered pretty much the entire center and northeastern corner of modern day England. Once they did so they established a new Kingdom of sorts known as the Danelaw (author’s note: convenient thing about Scandinavians is they tend to name things after what they are… so the Danelaw was just the region of England where the Danes’ Law governed the area.)

Image via Wikipedia

The Ironborn had their own sort of experience with this time of conquest about 60 years before the Targaryen Conquest. The Ironborn under their Iron King during this period expanded into the Riverlands (what we know of as the Tully lands) and built a massive Kingdom for themselves with a new capital at Harrenhall (that haunted castle we hear so much about). Under King Harren the Black the Kingdom was at its height, and he used his massive wealth to erect the gigantic castle which was allegedly impregnable. However, once Aegon the Conqueror crossed over with his dragons the castle didn’t look so impregnable. The castle withstood the Dragon’s onslaught in large part, however, their fired destroyed and dilapidated many portions of it. Moreover, Harren himself was burned to death within his own walls. With Harren’s death ended the great Kingdom of the Ironborn and they were forced back to their island and their raiding ways.

According to the Game of Thrones into, Harrenhall was not so fireproof as Harren the Black would have hoped

In both cases then we can see a warrior, seaborne, raiding culture with limited resources expanding to other regions, first simply for economic profit via raiding, but ultimately with the intent to conquer new territories entirely for their people. Moreover, both these groups, the Vikings and the Ironborn, were greatly successful at this. The Ironborn conquered an enormous kingdom for themselves on the mainland of Westeros and the Vikings conquered large portions of England, France, Italy, Sicily, and other regions.

Furthermore, both these groups possessed a degree of cultural similarity. Of course the limited output of their homelands and the resulting emphasis on raiding have been elucidated already. However, raiding wasn’t the only output of resource scarcity in the homeland for these people. The Ironborn come from the Iron islands and are known for paying the Iron price (often involving bloodshed) rather than the gold price (just paying for it) for items. This emphasis on Iron is especially apt when looking at their Viking forebears in that Iron was both incredibly important and incredibly scarce in Scandinavia. There was no major mining of iron ore veins for them, but rather they had to make to with peat iron. Essentially, there was a lot of iron in the poor soil of Scandinavia, and the Vikings discovered that if you took a crapload of this bog dirt and burned off all the impurities you would end up with what they call bog iron (because the soil came from bogs) or peat iron (because the specific type of soil was called peat).

Peat Moss… bet you never though you could make an axe out of this! Crafty Vikings…

However, in order to produce this kind of iron you needed a loooooot of dirt to produce a little Iron. Because of this Vikings favored weapons such as axes and spears over broadswords and used wooden round shields rather than steel kite shields simply because in all these cases the latter items required more metal. They could produce 3 axes with the amount of metal it would take to produce one broadsword, and working with their limited resources they needed to arm as many men as possible. Iron, then, was both incredibly scarce and therefore incredibly important to the Vikings so it is only fitting that it became a central theme, even down to the name, of Martin’s Westerosi equivalents.

Vikings favored axes such as these to conserve on metal use. They could produce three axes with the same amount of metal it took to produce one broadsword. Moreover, an axe penetrates armor better than a broadsword, meaning they could even have an advantage over a knight in full plate mail.

So in both Georgie’s world and the real world we can see that resource scarcity, ingenuity, and genetic badassery result in the production of a seaborne raiding elite which terrorized their more docile neighbors. Raiding becomes a way of life for resource starved peoples who eventually tire of the effort and carve more hospitable homelands out of their neighbors’ territory. However, I think I’d have to opt for Odin, Valhalla, and an eternity of booze, women, and battle over the Drowned God’s eternity of… idk… sitting at the bottom of the ocean? Or whatever the Ironborn do when they die… so point to the Vikings! Enjoy your rocks Ironborn. I’m sure they’re very nice in the summertime.

Walhalla by Max Brückner, 1896. Image via Wikipedia

History Behind the Throne: The Free City of Braavos and The Iron Bank

History Behind the Throne: The Rohynar Invasion

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So I know we just spent 3,000 words talking about various population migrations into Westeros BUT I have another one I’d like to talk about. I mentioned The Rohynar Invasion in the last article, but held off going into detail with because I think it, along with the Ironborn’s Invasion, was a more unique story than the other migrations in that it is categorized as an “invasion.” The Rohynar Invasion was just that too. It started with a people being dislodged by an expanding superpower and seeking safe havens, but became an invasion when the Rohynar refugees became embroiled in the politics of Westeros. Their real world counterparts, the Moors, shared a similar story. The Moors (or the Umayyad Dynasty) were displaced from their seat of power in Damascas, Syria, and fled all the way to Spain… conquering a new Islamic empire for themselves on the fringe of Christian Western Europe.

For the Rohynar, however, it all started with those damned Valyrians and their Dragons (as apparently all conquests in A Song of Ice and Fire do). Ok, so you know Slaver’s Bay where Daenarys has been hanging out for the last 79 episodes? Well in the current timeline of the show that area is made up of three rival (though not warring) and ethnically linked cities called Astapor, Yunkai, and Mereen. The primary residents of these cities (I say primary because the majority of the citizens are slaves from all corners of the world) are a people called Ghiscari. They used to be incredibly powerful in Essos and had a great empire called Ghis. However, somewhere around 1,000 years before the show starts Ghis was conquered by their neighbors just across Slaver’s Bay… Valyria. With Ghis gone there was noone to keep Valyria in check. This meant they could continue their expansion westward into their old neighbors to the west, the Rohynar.

Dragons… the ultimate trump card…

The Rohynar resisted, successfully at first, but ultimately were overcome by the Valyrian dragons, purportedly losing 250,000 men in the conquest. Once the battle was lost the remaining Rohynar (mainly women), led by their ruler (a female) Nymeria (the person Ayra chose to name her direwolf after), fled from Essos to Westeros. Specifically, Nymeria led them to the Dornish Peninsula. Once there, since the Rohynar were mainly women (although more akin to the legendary Amazon Women in that they were warriors, like their men) they intermarried heavily with the Dornish. Specifically they became linked to House Martell, and with the two groups allied, the Martells became the dominant military and political force of Dorne and Rohynish cultural influence spread throughout the peninsula. It is also important to note that, culturally, this female orientation became very important to the fleeing Rohynish, and subsequently became a fixture in Dornish culture. After the Martell/Rohynar took control of the peninsula, Absolute Cognatic Primogeniture (which is fancy-speak for saying whichever kid is born to the royal family FIRST, whether male OR female, becomes next in line for the throne. It is an unusual form of inheritance in the middle ages as most societies would practice Agnatic Primogeniture, meaning the first born MALE inherits, regardless of whether or not he has an older sister) became the rule of inheritance in Dorne. This whole process then is why Oberyn Martell, while in King’s Landing, continuously throws barbs at the other houses (specifically Lannisters) that in Dorne women are not treated as crudely as they are north of the Peninsula (along with the fact that he believes his sister, Elia, who was married to Rhaegar Targaryen, was murdered by the Lannisters during the Siege of King’s Landing).

Having a bastard as your concubine and paramour is frowned upon most places in Westeros, but not in Dorne. Lucky for Oberyn I suppose

In any event, similar to the Rohynish/Martell alliance, when the Moors invaded Visigothic Spain they were an incredibly powerful and fearsome new foe with whom the rest of Western Europe now had to contend.The Umayyad Dynasty (from whom the Moors were born) at its peak was the superpower of its day. Nobody could stop them, and they pretty much conquered whoever they wanted. All it took was enough motivation to encourage them to move troops into the area. As far as Middle Eastern Empires go (and this is especially impressive when you consider the fact that nearly all the Empires the classical world speaks fondly of came from the Middle East) they were the largest and most impressive. They conquered Egypt and the Nile (especially valuable even into the 19th century because of the vast quantities of grain they produced [Napoleon even attempted to conquer Egypt as one of his great campaigns]) Mesopotamia (the cradle of Empires and civilization), Syria (center of the former Seleucid Empire, successor kingdom to Alexander the Great’s Empire), Persia (antiquity’s ‘gold standard’ for what a big scary Empire from the East should look like), and even pushed into central Asia, time and again defeating those central Eurasian badasses that we determined were unbeatable a couple articles ago.

“Fuck it… time to pack up guys I’m over this…”

So the Umayyad’s were doing pretty well for themselves. However, all good things must come to an end. Eventually they fell prey to a dynastic, political, religious play for power and were displaced as leader’s of the enormous Caliphate (name for a Muslim Empire ruled by a “Caliph,” a political and religious leader) by the Abbasid Dynasty. The Umayyads, however, weren’t completely done hanging on to power. They rounded up their toys (read: soldiers) stuck out their tongues (read: fled begging for their lives) at the Abbasids, and went to go play in a different sandbox (read: Spain).

So in both cases we can see an ascendant power (either an entirely different state [Valyria] in the case of the Rohynar, or a dynastic overthrow from the Umayyads to the Abbasids) displace an old power. In both cases, however, the dislodged power is not completely shattered by their conquering foes. They are able to retain a significant, sizable force capable of conquering a new land for themselves in the west. Moreover, they were culturally unique in their new land, and rather than being assimilated they left their mark on the peoples of their new land. We’ve already talked about how the Rohynar altered Dornish society and made it more matriarchal, but the Moors also drastically impacted Spanish society. As was the case elsewhere in newly conquered lands for the Muslims, often times individuals could get away without converting by paying a tax to the state. However, vast numbers of individuals (both Jewish and Christian) did convert, but they never lost their roots entirely. Religious practices in Spain became somewhat hybridized although different religions often lived in different quarters within cities. The fact remains, however, that a conquering came into a new area, used military might to dominate the regional hierarchy (I say regional because the Rohynar did not conquer all Westeros, only the southern part [Dorne] and the Moorish state of Al Andalus did not include the whole of Iberia, let alone the whole of Western Europe) and used their new positions of power to radically alter the culture of their new homelands.

Arabic High Culture bled into Iberia during the Moorish conquest, and many of Spain’s cultural icons of today, such as the Alhambra pictured, were built by the Moors.
(Image via http://artsofadventure.com/category/cordoba-2/ )

Also, religiously, it is important to note that while the Dornish are followers of The Seven, they practice the religion in a manner unique to themselves. While a lot of hate and political ideology has gone into pointing out that Islam and Christianity are hated rivals, they both are 2 of the 3 so called Judeo-Christian religions. Christianity came out of Judaism, and Islam came out of Christianity, but they are all 3 evolutions of the same broad spectrum religious movement with the same monotheistic deity at its head (whether that be Yahweh for Judaism, God for Christianity, or Allah for Islam… they’re just three names for the same divine concept). Similarly then the Dornish are part of the same religious family as the rest of Westeros, but they practice it in their own manner. Indeed, as Oberyn told us this season the Dornish do not scorn bastards, they hold women in more or less equal stature as men.

Moreover, the show helps us out with this imagery of the Dornish being Arabic in origin in that they dress differently (flowing robes and silks which for the Moors were procurable because the Muslim world was linked to China while the Christian world was cut off from it due to their refusal to trade with the hated Muslims). Similarly the Dornish have more direct trade relations with the Free Cities in far Western Essos on the other side of the Narrow Sea. The Westorosi can trade with them as well, but their relationships are not as intimate as those of their southern neighbors. In the same manner, Franks and Germans could obtain porcelain and silks from China, but they had to go through more pain and hassle than Moors in Spain had to as the Moors were directly linked in to the Silk Road. The Moors were still connected to the Caliphate which meant they could trade all the way from Spain, through North Africa, into the Middle East and Central Asia, and beyond to the Far East.

Flowing and loose fitting silks would be much better suited for the climate in southern Spain, Arabia, and Dorne alike.

It is also important to point out that in both cases these new migratory conquerors proved nearly impossible to dislodge from their new surroundings. Even the near-deified Charlemagne was not successful in his attempts to return Iberia to the Christians. In fact his failings were so stupendous they were made into an epic poem. The Song of Roland is one of the most famous literary, poetic works to come out of the Middle Ages, and is in fact all about Charlemagne’s army getting its ass kicked out of Spain by Muslims. Moreover, you know it must have been a good old fashion ass beating because the authors blame the final battle between the Christians and Muslims as one which the Muslims only won because they are sneaky and treacherous.

Similarly, the Dornish/Rohynar were the only region in Westeros south of The Wall to resist Aegon the Conqueror and his 3 dragons. In either case then we have a foreign culture essentially breaking off a chunk of what the natives consider their territory (be those natives Catholics or Westerosis) and holding it in spite of the natives best efforts to dislodge them. Dorne, like Spain in the Middle Ages before the Reconquista, is considered part of a totally different world for all intents and purposes. Even though the Iberian Peninsula is geographically part of Western Europe, it was politically and culturally connected to the Middle East. While the Abassids and Umayyads obviously had bad blood between then, they were still part of the same culture group more so than either of them was a part of the Catholic world. Their value systems are different, their cultures are different, their cloths are different. Hell, even what they do for entertainment is different. Oberyn mentioned to Cersei that he was writing poetry in his leisure time in King’s Landing. Indeed, Arabic High Culture has been marked by an emphasis on poetry throughout its history, producing such works as 1001 Nights (or, in English ‘Arabian Nights’).

In short then there are cornucopia of parallels between the Dornish (post Rohynar Invasion) and the Moors. They have similar origin stories, both having been forced out of their formerly prosperous homelands, only to use their remaining military might to conquer a new land for themselves in the backyard of their would be rivals (the Westerosis or Catholics respectively). Once established in these new lands they both practice a degree of religious tolerance (or even conversion in the Rohynar case) but ultimately are able to unite the populace into one larger hybrid culture. Their movements were localized and limited in both cases (being contained in Spain for the Moors or Dorne for the Rohynar) but proved impossible to dislodge once there. Both of them ended up occupying peninsulas (The Dornish Peninsula and the Iberian Peninsula) hemmed in by mountains (The Pyrenees for the Moors and the Red Mountains for Dorne) which made their positions incredibly defensible. Even attempts by legendary warrior kings (Charlemagne and Aegon) could not dislodge them, and they thus remained a thorn in the side of their neighbors whose culture they did not share. Moreover they shared dress and recreational habits, and while Dorne and Spain remained more directly connected to the larger world, the rest of Westeros and Europe remained more detached. Moreover, while the Dornish did ultimately bend the knee to the Iron Throne, their Moorish counterparts ultimately fractured and were incorporated into one Christian Kingdom or another in a similar fashion. Both, however, maintain a swelling pride in their ancestry, history, and cultural uniqueness, thereby remaining unique alternatives to the greater cultural order to which they are geographically (though not ethnically) attached.

…Although the Dornish appear to embrace sexual promiscuity more than their Moorish counterparts… hey… don’t judge… George had to entertain himself somehow when he was writing all them pages…

History Behind the Throne: The Westerosi Population Migration Situation

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(Photo from bensmind - http://bensmind.wordpress.com/2013/05/24/game-of-thrones-westeros-map-17x11-poster/ )

(Photo from bensmind – http://bensmind.wordpress.com/2013/05/24/game-of-thrones-westeros-map-17×11-poster/ )

So I’ve been babbling about the English historical lens Martin used (which carried over to Benioff and Weiss) to craft his world for quite a bit in these articles so I thought I might as well get around to elucidating some of the more overt examples. To get into this, though, we’re gonna need to run through a fair bit of Westerosi history in addition to real world history. Meaning this one should be particularly nerdy, ergo fantastic for me.

Alrighty, so lets start at the purported beginning of Westeros. The first “people” living there were the Children of the Forest who we’ve heard hinted about in the show, but don’t really know anything about. These little dudes are called “children” in spite of the fact that they are full grown adults because of their diminutive stature. They are purported to have had some sort of magical powers. Moreover, they’re the dudes who carved all the creepy faces into the Heart Trees that are in every godswood in Westeros (the “gods” referred to here are the Old Gods although people in the south have retrofitted the various godswoods to incorporate the Seven and exclude the Old Gods).

Oh look Ned what a pretty tree! Hey whats that over your left shoulder?

AHHHH WTF IS THAT?!?!! Creepy ass Children of the Forest…

Awww what a touching moment!! Sam and Jon saying their vows together!!! Hey wait a minute whats that above Sam’s head??

AHHH DAMMIT NOT AGAIN!!! DAMN YOU CHILDREN OF THE FOREST!!!

Ok so the Children of the Forest are magical, they were the first inhabitants of Westeros, they had creepy carving habits, and they got their asses conquered. Somewhere along the line The First Men came over from Essos and began a war of conquest with the Children. In the end the two made peace before either was truly eliminated. As part of the peace treaty the First Men even adopted The Old Gods as their gods and began to worship them alongside the Children. This is why Ned Stark (and most northmen) pray to the creepy ass heart trees and worship the Old Gods. Its also why Jon Snow wants to say his vows before a heart tree rather than in the Sept (where the Seven are worshiped). The Northmen claim descent from the First Men, and still keep their religion and customs alive, and in doing so they keep the customs of the Children of the Forest alive. So do the Wildlings who, because they are north of The Wall, consider themselves to be less tainted descendants of the First Men than those descendants (like the Starks, Umbers, Boltons, etc) south of the wall.

HOWEVER you may be wondering why those lazy children of the forest don’t keep their own damn customs alive, yes? Well with that truce the Children agreed to stick to the forests and the first men got the rest of the land. (Sounds like a fair deal right? “Heyoh first children, how about you go live in that pretty tree and give me the other 82% of the land. Deal? C’mooooon its a REALLY nice tree!! Ok deal.”) Over time they kindof receded from the world and from the histories into their forests as the First Men entered the so called Age of Heroes. This was the golden age of the First Men as they established themselves in Westeros and wrote all their fancy stories and stuff talking about what badasses they were BUT all good things must come to an end.

The Andals were the next mass migratory invasion to overtake Westeros and they displaced the First Men almost everywhere but the North. This is why the Old Gods still hang on there while worship of The Seven, along with a general widespread cultural shift, took place for the rest of the continent. After the Andals came a smaller migration of people called the Rhoynar who settled only in Dorne, but we’ll discuss them more in another article. They’re a different case because their migration was limited geographically and in terms of population. Anyway, the last cultural influx came at the hands (wings?) of the Targaryens the (last remnants of the Valyrians). They were so small in size, however, that they only managed to add themselves as a new top layer to the Westerosi hierarchy rather than revolutionizing the entire population and culture. OK!! SO just to review before moving on… it goes Children of the Forest, First Men, Andals, then the two little invasions of Rhoynar and Valyrians. Got it? Excellent.

OK so with that history lesson what I wanted to show was the pattern of migratory waves impacting Westerosi society and culture and either displacing the old peoples or fusing with them and hybridizing the culture. This is essentially the story of England from the Iron Age to… like… the Tudors or something. America always gets the credit of being a melting pot, but really these melting pot tendencies started for us in our Anglo-Saxon roots. England built a reputation in the 19th and 20th centuries of being an impregnable island fortress. This reputation popped up during the era of the British Empire when British fleets ruled the seas, and for all intents and purposes England was impregnable. However, this hasn’t always been the case. England has been hit by wave after wave of migratory invasions over its history which shaped the culture and people of Britain (not the British Isles because the Irish have their own separate story BUT ANYWAY) into what they are today. In short, the doors to Britain were more wide open than a Dutch hooker in Amsterdam. But I digress.

Author’s note… I can’t actually speak a Scandinavian langauge… this is my best attempt

So, George R. R. Martin has said that Westeros is supposed to be a continent about the size of South America. However I like to think of them as a giant Britain. Let’s take a look at British history and see why. To start with we’ll just say there are the original Stone Age peoples of the island (Referring to Britain alone. Not Ireland). They’re just hangin’ out, buildin’ cool Stonehengey things, herdin’ sheep… y’know… British stuff. Over time, however, they begin to be inundated with Celtic tribes migrating in from the continental mainland. While tribal groups like the Iverni in Ireland remained relatively untouched, their cousins in Britain were gradually overtaken and became a largely Celtic population. These original tribes, however, are more or less the real world equivalents to the Children of the Forest. Now, they don’t really have magic unless you’re including leprechauns and the blarney stone BUT you get the point.

You had a previously untouched native population which was now radically altered by an influx of new culture groups. In the end, however, these two culture groups more or less merged into these new hybrid Celtic tribes, such as the Iceni or Trinovantes among others. In a lot of ways then the Celts had a similar experience in Britain as the First Men had in Westeros. They came into an initially hostile territory, and over the years were assimilated into a new hybrid culture in the region. While purist pockets of the initial inhabitants did persist (the Irish in the case of the real world and the Children who returned to the forests in Westeros) the result of the migration was a new hybridized culture in the area (for Britain this meant the new Celtic speaking tribes and for Westeros it meant a new caste of First Men who had converted to the Children’s worship of the Old Gods).

In any event there were lots of reasons for the Celts to come into Britain. Sometimes it was just natural migratory patterns of populations who had outstripped the resources of their old environs, but other times it was “encouraged” by external catalysts… namely motha fuckin Romans…

The Roman conquests of Iberia, following the Punic Wars, and Gaul, by Julius Caesar in the 1st century BC, pushed Celtic tribes out of their ancestral homes, and some of them fled to Britain. Unfortunately for them, the Romans, under Emperor Cladius in the 1st century AD, were like “lol jk we’re not done yet we’re conquering Britain too.” This in turn set off another massive wave of migrations into Britain as Roman settlers were brought in, fused with the populace, and created a new hybrid culture of Romano-Britons on the island. Moreover, this migration was even more established culturally and generally civilized than earlier ones, meaning the impact it would have on the island was much greater. The Romans brought with them religious infrastructure in the form of Christianity as well as political infrastructure, turning Britain into a Provincia. In this sense then we see a parallel for the Andals coming to Westeros. The Andals were more well organized and unified than the First Men who came before them in large part because they were bound together by their shared religion, The Faith of the Seven. The same can be said for the Romans who were well versed in the conquest, conversion, and administration of foreign territories.

The parallels do get slightly muddled here in that the Romans could serve as examples of both the First Men and the Andals. They work as the Andals in that they brought their religion and a new hierarchy to the society they invaded, but also as the First Men in the sense that they brought “civilization” to the region in the first place. Moreover, for all intents and purposes they supplanted the old British society (in spite of the fact that they also intermarried with the Celts) rather than forming a hybrid culture outright as the First Men and Celts did in their respective territories. However, the broader point here is not to find direct parallels but to match the cultural and societal shifts that impacted both places (Britain and Westeros) over time. Ok… end aside…

More importantly, the Romans were the ones who built Hadrian’s Wall. Hadrian was a Roman Emperor in the 2nd century AD who decided that Rome had overextended and was beginning to struggle to hold on to all its conquests. In light of this he began falling back from certain areas (he pulled Roman forces back to the west bank of the Rhine for instance, leaving the rest of Germany to the Germans) and halting expansion elsewhere. In the case of Brittania (Roman provincial name for the island) this meant exclaiming “fuck it,” throwing up his hands, and building a damn wall across the entire island. Now, as any good Game of Thrones fan would be, I’m certain you are aware of Bran the Builder’s Wall. (Yay for overt parallels!) Both these walls had similar effects even if the motivations for their construction were slightly different. On the surface the motivations were identical. Bad scary things thisaways so lets throw a wall right about here and keep’m where they belong. Simple. Its just that in the case of the Romans, they simply wanted to keep the more savage northern Celts (eventually known as the Pict Tribes) but in the case of Westeros their primary concern was the White Walkers.

(image from wikipedia)

In either event, however, the construction of a wall divided a formerly unified(ish) people. The First Men trapped north of the wall became known as “Wildlings” and were considered different than their cousins south of the wall (in spite of ethnic homogeneity) until they became different. The same applied in the real world where the peoples cut off in what would become Scotland developed their own culture and civilization of sorts. In this narrative the Romans work better as The First Men, since it was The First Men who built the Wall (just as the Romans built Hadrian’s wall) especially when you consider the Roman immigrants would later form yet another hybrid culture in England once the Roman Empire itself pulled out of the region entirely over the period between 380 and 410 AD. BUT MOVING ON

Britain’s troubles were not done however. The next great migration came about as a part of the “Great Wandering” (or Völkerwanderung in German since it involved a lot of Germanic Tribes). This was a massive reshuffling of the deck so to speak of all the various nations of the Central Eurasian Culture Complex which we discussed in the Dothraki article BUT for our purposes here all you need to know is that this meant Saxons were on the move. Other tribes had been moving into their lands, there wasn’t enough food to sustain them, and their former patrons whom they served as mercenaries (the Western Roman Empire) were on the verge of (and ultimately did) collapse.

Moreover, back in England with the Romans gone, the Picts (those Celtic speaking tribes pushed into Scotland by Roman expansion, and cut off from their southern cousins by Hadrians Wall, and our Wildling parallels) began ravaging the Romano-Briton settlements. The Briton leaders then decided to call in these now unemployed Saxon mercenaries to help them stem the tide. This worked at first. The Saxons were battle hardened badasses from their years of service in the Roman army as Foederati (“federates” aka “barbarian” tribes who served the Empire as mercenaries and were granted land within the Empire in exchange) Buuuuut eventually the Saxons decided they didn’t wanna go home. Why return to a homeland that was currently being contested by other migratory tribes, and doesn’t even produce enough food when you control it? England was much richer territory in comparison and since the natives couldn’t even beat the Picts (whom the Saxons just crushed) then it would certainly be easy for them to reach out and take it.

saxons in england

So anyway you began to get wave after wave of Saxon migrants (invaders) into England until the Britons had been pushed all the way back into what is now Whales. The Saxons (Anglo-Saxons) now controlled all of modern day England on the British Isle, the Britons (who would become known as Welsh) controlled Wales and Cornwall on the southwest tip of the island (which explains why Cornwall is part of wales in spite of the fact that they lack a contiguous border), the Celtic Picts controlled Scotland, and the Irish were still hanging out like “lol sweet wars of conquest guys, but ima just grab another Guinness” in Ireland.

Images via wikipedia

Now we have a setup in England similar to that of Westeros. The Scots represent Wildlings who are ethnically identical to the Northmen (they’re all First Men) but considered different cuz they landed on the wrong side of a wall (be it Hadrian’s or Bran the Builder’s). These men now raid their cousins south of the wall and the two groups are openly hostile. Moreover you have another, entirely different ethnic group in domination of most of the island (or continent for Westeros) in the form of the Anglo-Saxons (or the Andals for Martin’s world) They are each intermingled with Romano-Britons or First Men respectively. Furthermore, the remaining “southern” natives (meaning the First Men who ruled in central Westeros before the Andals came or the Romano-Britons who ruled before the Saxons came), are either assimilated or pushed to the fringes (pushed northward in the case of Westeros to become Houses such as the Umbers, and Boltons or pushed westward in the case of the Welsh).

Ok, I know you’re getting bored but we’re almost to the finish line. The migrations don’t totally stop there. There were also Scandinavian raids and invasions into England, and even a Danish Kingdom (the Danelaw) established at one point. This is paralleled by the Ironborn in Westeros who share myriad traits with the Vikings (they sail in viking longboats, raid along coastlines while avoiding decisive pitched battled, and are all around hoodlums and rabble rousers). Moreover, the Ironborn had even established a Kingdom in the Riverlands (what we think of as Tully lands) under Harren the Black, with its seat at the (now devastated) castle of Harrenhall, in much the same way that the Vikings established the Danelaw. But THAT is an article for another time.

(Image by Hagenau http://hagenau.deviantart.com/art/Sad-viking-portrait-159482206)

Sorry Bjorn Bjornson the viking chief… I’m already 2,500 words into this thing and people are getting bored. You have to wait your turn until next week’s articles. (Image by Hagenau http://hagenau.deviantart.com/art/Sad-viking-portrait-159482206)

The last short migration that I DO need to talk about, however, is the Norman conquest. Through various political and marriage alliances there came about a situation in the 11th century wherein William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy in Northern France, held a claim to the throne of England. He pressed this claim and eventually conquered all of England, uniting it under his rule. However, the Normans (nominally French although they too had Viking roots [Norman = shorthand by the French for North Man aka, the invaders who came from the north, the Vikings]) did not come in massive migratory waves as the Saxons did. This was not a migration, and the Normans were not a displaced group looking for a new home. Rather, they came as foreign conquerors. As such they did not radically alter the culture of the population they conquered, but instead simply replaced the old elites with themselves. They did not even alter the form or structure of the Anglo-Saxon government in place in England (indeed, doing so would have forced William to forfeit his legitimacy as it was Anglo-Saxon Law which granted him his claim to the English throne).

IN ANY EVENT this is the exact same mindset with which Aegon the Conqueror (oh wouldja look at that! William and Aegon of the same Cognomen!) conquered Westeros. The legend says that he came over with just his 2 sisters and 3 dragons and conquered the majority of the continent. Now, I have no experience running a Kingdom, but I doubt that would provide you with the requisite administrative infrastructure to manage a state… unless dragons can do accounting work… in which case I have been seriously underestimating dragons my entire life…

(Image from John E. Kaufmann http://jek2004.com/FANTASY.HTM )

BUT ANYWAY Aegon and the Targaryens essentially conquered through military might (specifically with Dragons who may or may not have been math savants), set themselves up as leaders, and left the rest of Westerosi society and culture intact (from religion to politics). Its true that certain Houses were destroyed completely and viciously if they resisted such as Harren the Black (whose castle Harrenhall was burned by Aegons Dragons… which is why the place is such a wreck now… BUT MOVING ON) and House Gardener of The Reach. Others, however, were left entirely untouched after they agreed to submit to Targaryen over-lordship (such as the Starks) while some were even up-jumped in the Westerosi hierarchy (such as the Tyrells who were given all the Gardeners lands and made Lords of The Reach in place of the now extinct Gardeners for their loyalty to the Targaryens).

Trust me... William the Conqueror was a lot more badass than he looks here...

I assure you William the Conqueror was a lot more badass than he looks here… you can just see it in those shifty eyes

In this sense there were certain aspects of William’s conquest which were more radical than Aegon’s. William enacted near total replacement of the old English Aristocracy with his own followers. Virtually the entire top layer of English hierarchical society was replaced, new Lords became landed and old Lords were killed or stripped of land and title. Aegon on the other hand had to employ the infrastructure already in place if his conquest was to last. He was conquering a continent, not just a country. As such, even though he clearly surpassed the Westerosi in terms of military might (because of his unbeatable math dragons) he could not control them politically without ruling from within. The Targaryens were simply made “Kings of the Kings” and set themselves up as the proverbial cherry on top of the lords of Westeros.

In any event we can clearly see that, while Westeros represented a grander stage and a much large scale, it is essentially a recreation of the various population and leadership shifts which impacted (or plagued) England throughout its history from antiquity through the Middle Ages. Both societies represent various hybrid cultures and fusions of populations which have led to the creation of dynamic, fluid societies in perpetual (though apparently not disastrous) flux. Most cultures experience this kind of flux over time which changes them for better or worse, helping them evolve over time. In England’s case it seems to have been more prevalent than we would think given the fact that Britain is an island. It feels like they’ve had a whole continents’ worth of migrations into their territory so it seems perfectly natural to me that Martin would blow the nation up to the size of a continent in order to accommodate all the changes over time. The only other difference between Martin’s world and the real world appears to be that one had number crunching Dragons… sooooo… Martin – 1, real world – 0.