Jon Flowers

No, the patterns are there. It's just, I wonder which of them were part of Martin's thought process at the time he wrote the book. Were certain name choices like Creon, subconscious responses to something half remembered, or not knowingly remembered at all? These sorts of things fascinate me. There is a giant web of prior experience/knowledge out there and who knows which threads have been encountered by an author and if that author is even aware of them half of the time. Fun stuff to ponder for sure.

I haven't read Ulysses unfortunately. I still think that the nature of the river journey to Volantis is too far afield from Marlowe's journey literally into "the heart of darkness". Over and over again the primal, nature of the place they are going is talked about by the narrator. With Tyrion's journey, it's the opposite. He thinks about the people he's with and the people he's going to meet when he gets to the city, and about the political situation that he's going to encounter. I also think that the overarching theme of Heart of Darkness is about Marlowe's journey, as Kurz's before, bringing evil into this place that they were seeking (the Belgian colonization of Congo specifically). I don't see that in Tyrion's trip down the river either (unless one supposes that Aegon and Connington or Tyrion himself are evil). I'm not saying that there aren't similarities, but they don't go very deep (like Oh Brother and The Odyssey). I'm coming from the perspective of looking for common themes rather than certain specific similarities or references from one work to another. None of that makes your perceptions invalid and as I mentioned earlier, I do regret the tone of my post perhaps giving that impression.

There's the Athenian Cleon as well, a strong opponent of the aristocracy, said to be bloodthirsty by his opponents, a successful general against Sparta and politician who relied heavily on the support of the demos, rather than the upper classes. He was killed in battle as well; at a place called Amphipolis. I doubt, Martin has anything like this in mind, but it's a good example of how easy it is to take what we know from our own experiences and seek out analogues for them in someone else's writing.

That's a much less arrogant sounding way of putting it. Thanks for the paraphrase :). The Cleon/Creon link looks plausible as well.

I see too many dissimilarities between Tyrion's boatride and Conrad's Heart of Darkness (the movie is really something different entirely). The object is The Golden Company and ultimately Daenarys, not Connington. The journey isn't one into the Heart of Darkness but rather toward civilization. And most importantly, the main theme of Heart of Darkness, the "Pilgrims" really have no analogue as far as I can tell. That isn't to say that Martin didn't just think "Heart of Darkness? River journey? Cool!" and throw one in his book, hell I've heard Oh Brother Where Art Though was supposed to be the Odyssey despite only the most surficial of similarities.

I remember being struck by the Gladden thing when I read it.  I'd completely forgotten about it since then though.  Nice catch.

Wrong companion.  Gerris was "Dornish Gerold" if memory serves.  You mean the Big Man, Arch.

and that would make Duck... :) I just got a mental image of Andre the Giant as Duck. It was worth a little grin at least.

That's one of my favorite things about Tolkein. Talk about intricate world design... I have never seen a fantasy setting with that much detail. His indices have such a wealth of useful information.

I can see that. They certainly do capture that same sense of timelessness. As to the relationship dynamic though, I don't know for sure. I would definitely like to learn more about the Children and the Weirwoods, in the time before the Firstmen arrived. You may well be spot on and the Ents could have been his inspiration to begin with.

It had a lot more to do with politics than with desirability. And as mr. Snark pointed out, the politics of the day had significantly narrowed the pool of perspective matches (due to religious and political concerns) to the point where they would have to either marry below their station, marry in such a way as to give political advantage to their enemies, or continue with that terribly narrow family tree of theirs. Besides, by that point, power was often in the hands of high officials rather than the monarch in question and as such, consolidation of power was a far greater concern than providing the "ruling" monarch with a good match who provided the prospect of healthy offspring. So, long live the under-slung jaw and feeble wits of the later Habsburg emperors.

Short of even closely examining that family tree, the shape alone is enough to give one pause. Branches should never rejoin one another and come together at the bottom like that. Yikes. I'm sure we've all heard about the Habsburg's inbreeding, but to see it represented visually like that, over so many generations really is instructive. And as you say, comparing them and their physical, mental and emotional handicaps to those of the Targaryens, who are similarly inbred, is very instructive as well.