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What Country Does Each Kingdom Represent Historically?


I.Know.Nothing

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Well, there's obviously various layers of the story. A direct retelling of a historical story would just be boring after all, and would not have any benefits - or rather negatives as it would blur the real story. And one should distinguish between the storyline similarities (War of the Roses analogy f.e. or the Fall of Rome/Valyria) and the "flavour" similarities, or the context: Colossus and Banks in Braavos, Dornish = Moorish similarities, the Horse culture of the Dothraki. And here, you can have various combinations that don't really affect the story or analogy. Does it really matter if the outside culture of Dorne versus the other kingdoms is painted more like Moors or more like Wales? So it's more additive: The Riverlands can be Holy Roman Empiric in the sense of the 30 years war and Harrenhall as a symbol for strong kings but high Federalism at the same time. It can also be linked to the English devastation of France in the 100 years war, the BwB does take things from the Robin Hood story,

So, various layers don't contradict each other, is what I am saying. Two thing I would like to add which I haven't read in here already:

1) What about the "Heptarchy"/England in the 700 AD's? the various kingdoms (!) who acknowledge in the end the hegemony of Mercia? I also count 6 to 8 big regions, depending on how you count: Wessex, Essex, East Anglia, Kent, Sussex, Mercia, Northumbria, Wales. Also somehow is reminding of how difficult it is to count the seven kingdoms (with the Iron Islands and the Riverlands, the Kinglands...), could anyone better versed in English history tell how far this analogy would go?

2) The Vale = Switzerland is really not a good analogy. During the middle Ages, the Alps were seen as scary and deadly, also until the 30 years war, the Swiss were very active in most of the wars, also the nobility which seems to be very active in the Vale, is losing battles after battles against either Valley Communities (the Hill Tribes?) but mostly against City Republics (Berne, Zurich, Basel). And I didn't have the impression that there were big cities in the Vale... So, the Scottish Analogy seems better to me.

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Umm... the Vale kind of participated in that small war known as Robert's Rebellion. You know just a tiny war that didn't really matter to the point that they effectively remained neutral. Yep. That's right. The Vale is much closer to Switzerland in terms of geography in that it is a mountainous region.

Whoa someone called Rome a shithole? They had bloody sewers and toilets! It's nowhere near medieval towns/cities where people just chucked their stuff onto the streets.

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Umm... the Vale kind of participated in that small war known as Robert's Rebellion. You know just a tiny war that didn't really matter to the point that they effectively remained neutral. Yep. That's right. The Vale is much closer to Switzerland in terms of geography in that it is a mountainous region.

Whoa someone called Rome a shithole? They had bloody sewers and toilets! It's nowhere near medieval towns/cities where people just chucked their stuff onto the streets.

I was making a sarcastic joke, not really anything else. I know they participated in Robert's Rebellion. It's really hard to portray tone over the internet, so I was hoping the smiley at the end would show that. =/

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most of the 7 kingdoms are generic

but

dorne= north africa

The wall= hadrians wall to keep out the wildlings/scots

the free cities are the cities held by Rome/Valaria

iron islands= scandinavia at the time of the vikings

The rest of the 7 kingdoms are pretty much the same except the weather/dominant religion

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The Vale is clearly Switzerland - because they always remain neutral no matter what. ;D

Neutrality in the sense as we know and understand it stems from 1815 and was first practicioned in 1914, not really the timeframe GRRM is writing about, isn't it?

And the strength of the Swiss against the Habsburgs lied with the cities, not the valleys. Again, history shows how much Fantasy "the Vale" really is that we see in ASOIAF: the mountains are a harsh, violent, cold region, not a power base in any case. All I want to say is that Switzerland = Alps is just a stereotype, nothing more and certainly can't be found as a topic before the 18th century

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Whoa someone called Rome a shithole? They had bloody sewers and toilets! It's nowhere near medieval towns/cities where people just chucked their stuff onto the streets.

LOL, plus it was entirely overcrowded and diseased and the people acted as a mob. There was no other city like it in it's day.

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This is something that I have been wondering since getting into ASOIAF. Martin must have modeled them after some sort of culture in history.

That's ancient Rome. ASOIAF is more or less set in the equivalent of the Middle Ages.

I don't think it matters hun. 'Some culture in history' doesn't mean ONLY middle ages. Ancient Rome is still history. And there are similarities. I am not saying KL is definitely based on the city of Rome because it probably isn't.

It's just my opinion.

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Slaver's Bay is probably New York because they both speak bastardized versions of a great language.

So do the inhabitants of every region of the world - you should visit Ireland and hear the variation of accents within tiny geographic spaces.

As far as I can see valyrian is like Latin during the medieval period, and the various dialects of it are like what developed into the Romance languages.

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So do the inhabitants of every region of the world - you should visit Ireland and hear the variation of accents within tiny geographic spaces.

As far as I can see valyrian is like Latin during the medieval period, and the various dialects of it are like what developed into the Romance languages.

Although it shares some linguistic similarities to Greek, by some horrible, unfortunate coincidence

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Although it shares some linguistic similarities to Greek, by some horrible, unfortunate coincidence

Not really 'linguistic similarities' other than they have some similar names. Other parts dont't seem to fit. For example, the only Valyrian example we have. I would say the names and words look like greek passed through latin and words reminiscent of Brythonic but passed through different transliterations.

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