Comparing Each House To A Country In Our World

[Sulfurion Blackfyre]

Because they are still in a middle-ages type of economy.

So? Portugal started colonizing Africa in the 1400's :P

[Zar Lannister]

I would now like to purport that Tully=Poland. Easily invaded and conquered, and a front line for any war.

This!

House Tully reminds me way too much of Prussia. A Piece of Land Right in the Middle of Everything.

I know this is about Houses, but Oldtown sounds a lot like Alexandria

[Winterfell is Burning]

So? Portugal started colonizing Africa in the 1400's :P

This was very late middle-ages. Navegation really took off when Constantinople was taken and middle-ages ended.

[FuliginEyes]

House Stark - Celtic influences... the First Men as the original Britons, Celts, Gaels, and Picts who lived in Britain before the arrival of the Angles and Saxons (Andals I suppose)... yet in a much more high medieval setting... the wildlings would share these same influences also (and be more in tune to the way of life the Celts had than the Northmen below the Wall).

The Lannisters and many of the other noble houses in the south are reminiscent of Norman medieval England and France...

The Greyjoys and the Dothraki I feel are some of the strongest in their cultural parallels - Vikings and Mongols respectively.

Braavos does have an Italian, port feel, a la Venice of Genoa...

[voodooqueen126]

Beyond the Wall: Ireland (if the North=Scotland) or Scotland if the North=North of England.

North: Scotland or the North of England

Riverlands: The Midlands or hmn... they have sort of Welsh names and often have red hair. Belgium is invaded often.

Westerlands: Westcountry/Wessex or England

Kings Landing: London

The Reach: Suffolk or France (very into their courtly form like the French Middle Ages).

The Vale: East Anglia or Switzerland

The Stormlands: South East England, I think that's Essex or Kent

Dorne: Wales and Cornwall but with Spanish weather

Iron Isles: Orkneys or Scandinavia

Lothar: Holland (Jaqen had sort of red hair which reminded me of William of Orange)

Braavos: Bruges which is a city of canals, bankers, and is cold like Braavos

Pentos: Florence and Northern Italy

Myr: Naples or Spain

Norvos: Rome but Areo Hotah reminds me of a Serbian Orthodox priest I met once, certainly he seems more serious than any Roman I have ever met.

Qohor: Germany in the way they are craftsmen and engineers but Romanian in Language

Lys: France (sexy time)

Tyrosh: Madeira or Portugal (with their maritime sellswordness)

Volantis: Constantinople

Slavers Bay: Carthage and Phoenicians, but without Phoenician culture's redeeming features.

Quath: Persia

Dothraki: Mongols and Turks (especially if Volantis falls to them)

Jhogos Nhai: India

Yi Tai: China

Summer Isles: Andaman and Nicobar Isles (since all the summer islanders are dark, but not African, sex positive like ancient indians and they live on an island so not India proper) I have seen people from these Islands without clothing...

Basilisk Isles; Madagascar

Sothorys: Africa proper

I am hopeful that Naath and the Lhazareen are sort Jewish (intelligence and picked on by vile people) especially the way the Lhazareen are located between two empires (as Israel is located between Europe and the Far East-hence the economic impetus behind the crusades)

[TheCasualObserver]

Why is the Lannister = England analogue so prevalent? Besides the Lion crest of course. Do the Lannister's have naval power? That was Englands greatest strength. Apart from the Tyrells I think most of the Main houses (Tully, Lannister, Stark, Baratheon, Targs,) are pretty interchangeable with the Kingdoms of Medieval Europe. The Tyrells are a dead ringer for France though: Flower crest, flamboyant, noble, highly Chilvaric, boasts a very large army ect.

[Winterfell is Burning]

Why is the Lannister = England analogue so prevalent? Besides the Lion crest of course. Do the Lannister's have naval power?

They had, until Euron and Victarion burned it. What they rebuilt was destroyed by the chain.

[Toiltoil]

Greyjoys=viking/(Norway,Sweden, Denmark)

Dorne= spain

Tyrells= France

Stark = Scotland

House Baratheon= Germany

Arryns= Switzerland

Lannister= England

Tully= Italy

The Targaryens= Not sure about this one, maybe a eastern country, like Egypt....

Dothraki - Huns / Tatars / Cossacs

[Aemon Stark]

I think it should be clear that House Stark = House of York and House Lannister = House of Lancaster. At least... that's the idea I think.

[seanbean4lyfe]

Why is the Lannister = England analogue so prevalent? Besides the Lion crest of course. Do the Lannister's have naval power? That was Englands greatest strength. Apart from the Tyrells I think most of the Main houses (Tully, Lannister, Stark, Baratheon, Targs,) are pretty interchangeable with the Kingdoms of Medieval Europe. The Tyrells are a dead ringer for France though: Flower crest, flamboyant, noble, highly Chilvaric, boasts a very large army ect.

I AGREE!

I don't think any of the main houses have any particular characteristics of a certian country.

Except the Tyrells, Martells, and Greyjoys.

Everyone else is whatever

[blackseer]

To me, the Lannisters, at least in Tywin's reign, remind me of 20th century USA.

They are the richest of houses. Check.

They want to be rememberd as the most powerful and merciless. Check.

They are remembered for the two houses they completely obliterated and everyone is affraid it might happen again. Check.

When their foes bend the knees, they help them rise again as an ally. Check.

[Azerate]

Now I'll try to keep it without any prejudices etc but it may be hard, no offense intented.

Starks are definitely Poland for me! Mostly due to their old gods and how they are nearly last in the world to worship them. Also they are destroyed pretty hard throughout the series to finally (I hope) rise again.

Lannisters - Russia! Scorn and hatred towards Starks, lust for power, using whatever means need to be used to get what they want. Red wedding = Pact Ribbentrop - Molotov etc. I dont wanna even continue with comparing tywin to one of the ruthless "Great" leaders of soviet union im sure we all know who that is.

Freys - this one would be hard but by going with the previous comparison I'd say Germany.

Greyjoy - pretty easy, some scandinavian country, like for example norway, without going into historical details

Targaryens - USA, foreign continent country, that has to save other nations (like starks for example) from the Lannisters tyranny^^

I think it should be clear that House Stark = House of York and House Lannister = House of Lancaster. At least... that's the idea I think.

Pardon my english skills as they are not enough to deduct if this is a sarcasm or not. I certainly hope it is, if not... well no further comments from me.

PS. Starks have to be some slavic country, their "old gods" are strong indication of that. That's why countries with christianity since 0 AD cant be taken into account. Also scandinavia is ruled out as they didnt worship the trees.

[Galen M]

To me, the Lannisters, at least in Tywin's reign, remind me of 20th century USA.

They want to be rememberd as the most powerful and merciless. Check.

They are remembered for the two houses they completely obliterated and everyone is affraid it might happen again. Check.

Uh, political propaganda much? Powerful, sure, but not merciless. Anyway, if I know my world events correctly, Japan and Germany are two of the most powerful/richest countries in the world right now.

[Winterfell is Burning]

To me, the Lannisters, at least in Tywin's reign, remind me of 20th century USA.

They are the richest of houses. Check.

They want to be rememberd as the most powerful and merciless. Check.

They are remembered for the two houses they completely obliterated and everyone is affraid it might happen again. Check.

When their foes bend the knees, they help them rise again as an ally. Check.

Trying to crush their foes, they create new powerful and dangerous enemies (Littlefinger, Varys, Tyrells) often out of nowhere and are surprised when it comes back to bite them. Check.

[DireLlama]

I think it should be clear that House Stark = House of York and House Lannister = House of Lancaster. At least... that's the idea I think.

Nope. The names are similar, but that's about it. For the real historical parallels, the Lancastrian kings are analagous to the last Targaryens, and the Baratheons are the Yorkists. The most obvious one being Robert Baratheon as Edward IV.

The closest matches for Stark and Lancaster seem to be William Hastings for Eddard Stark, and Richard Neville for Tywin Lannister.

Why is the Lannister = England analogue so prevalent? Besides the Lion crest of course. Do the Lannister's have naval power? That was Englands greatest strength. Apart from the Tyrells I think most of the Main houses (Tully, Lannister, Stark, Baratheon, Targs,) are pretty interchangeable with the Kingdoms of Medieval Europe. The Tyrells are a dead ringer for France though: Flower crest, flamboyant, noble, highly Chilvaric, boasts a very large army ect.

At this stage of history, England was not a particularly strong naval power. That only came about I'd say ~1600 onwards, only really becoming the dominant European navy around 1750 or so. In the late middle ages, any fleet that the king put together would have been requisitioned merchant ships to use as troop transports so he could land his men in France. That was about it.

[blackseer]

Germany and Japan are powerful countries by the end of ths 20th century because the US helped them get them on thier feet. In ASoS, Joff says he'd rather crush all his enemies, but Tywin responds that when enemies bend their knees, the winner should helpe them up. That's exactly what the US did to the losers of WW2.

There is also the fact that Casterly Rock is impregnable. So was the US... until exactly 10 years ago.

It's not like US is some kind of villain. Even I can relate to what Tywin did, not that I approve of it. It's all a matter of point of view.

[SketchBoy]

The Wall is the 49th Parallel, so clearly us Canadians are the wildlings.

[Spornicus]

I don't think every major house in Westeros can be linked with a real world power, but some can be. For example, Dorne seems to be very much like Spain, and the Iron Islands are like Vikings, since they make all of their money from plundering.

The most obvious is definitely Valyria, which is like the Roman Empire. Extremely militaristic, technologically advanced, lived on a peninsula, and are long gone but constantly emulated. Since technology in ASoIaF appears to be middle-ages, no one has been able to emulate the Valyrians, and any kind of artifacts are extremely valued.

[blackseer]

So? Portugal started colonizing Africa in the 1400's

Portugal and Spain weren't medieval countries anymore by the 1400's. They got early at unifing their countries and started colonizing others, which would be their downfall a couple centuries later, since they had so much income from the colonies that they paid no attention to the industrialization that was happenning across Europe.

Another reason I believe there hadn't been any colonies at Southros is the way the continents are aligned. In our world, to reach the far east by sea, they had to get around the african continent. In the books, there is a path between continents.

[Esram]

PS. Starks have to be some slavic country, their "old gods" are strong indication of that. That's why countries with christianity since 0 AD cant be taken into account. Also scandinavia is ruled out as they didnt worship the trees.

Without going into too much of a discussion on all the point you raise, I'd like to point out, in regards to religion, that:

A) The vikings had, in some iterations of the Asatrú, a sort of house god/spirit that was represented by a carved wood statue. This probably differed from region to region as well as the various social layers, but still it's wood. B) And if the Old Gods religion is supposed to be a nod to a real world religion, it could as well be Asatrú. It is true that the whole pantheon parts don't fit, but the Old Gods are being chased away by the Seven, and I'd guess the amount of worshippers dwindle each generation. The same was true about the Scandinavian Asatrú. I don't know about Norway or Sweden, but around the 10th century Harald Bluethooth claimed to have converted the Danes to christianity, because the religion was pressing on from the south (France, Germany) and to avoid a crusade, the danes claimed christianity as their own.

So to sum up, the Seven are slowly killing the Old Gods from the south, just as Asatrú was killed over time by christianity. Sure, I am not claiming that this is definitive proof of Scandinavia being the North, I am just pointing out (In a long post) that there are parallels to many things, and many connections can rightly be made about the houses. However, I would like to note that Moat Cailin sure seems to me to be Dannevirke (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danevirke), a series of fortifications in the south of Denmark, at a place that could be compared to the Neck. Also, Dannevirke was adjacent to marshes with many wetholes and swamps, where a peasant army once killed off a royal army because the buggers got stuck in waterholes and bogs. Just sayain'.