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References and Homages


Ran
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[quote name='El-ahrairah' post='1708788' date='Mar 5 2009, 06.55']Apparently Westeros is a real place - a town in Sweden goes by the name of [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A4ster%C3%A5s"]Västerås [/url], anglicized [i]Westeros[/i] for example [url="http://books.google.com/books?id=YYoXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA182&lpg=PA182&dq=westeros+bishop+sweden&source=bl&ots=gqxnOaLh0Q&sig=RCulnVaPj9keUtht7Nndwi9KiXU&hl=en&ei=bmavScbzLYH8tgfsyMXQBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result"]here[/url][/quote]


Cool, though a proper translation would be "West Hill" (väster = west, westly, western) (ås = hill)
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[quote name='El-ahrairah' post='1708788' date='Mar 5 2009, 05.55']Apparently Westeros is a real place[/quote]
It is a real place, a region of the Highlands of Scotland. (Okay the Scots spell it "Wester Ross", but that just shows that they are poor spellers. :))
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[quote name='Slynt' post='1723732' date='Mar 18 2009, 14.13']Cool, though a proper translation would be "West Hill" (väster = west, westly, western) (ås = hill)[/quote]
Actually, Västerås comes from Västra Aros, i.e. Western Aros, where Aros is the old name for åmynning - a river's inlet. Östra/Eastern Aros is known these days as Uppsala. The English Westeros is pronounced more or less as Västerås apart from the initial v-sound.

Oh, and V was often spelled with a W in them olden time just as Ä and Å sometimes was mixed with an E or O respectively so I'm sure that there are historic documents bearing the name Westeros. Edited by Martin's Ghost
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[quote name='Artanaro' post='382027' date='Jul 20 2006, 10.24']Here's another good one I haven't gotten around to putting up. If anyone has googled "Davos", they'll learn about a nice ski resort in eastern Switzerland. Now, what does that have to do with our Davos Seaworth, the noble and honourable ex-mercenary in Stannis' company? Well, I have the answer.

Near the ski resort is a little town called Davos-Platz. This was the summer home of acclaimed author, Robert Louis Stevenson, who wrote the classic, [i]Treasure Island[/i]. In the novel duty is personified by Captain Smollett. He isn't the most charismatic soul, but has both intelligence and integrity, gifts equally bestowed on our Lord Seaworth.

There are a few more homages and references I want to put up, but they need quotes, and I don't have the books on hand, so they'll have to wait.

Artanaro[/quote]

Geez, some of these "homages" you guys come up with make me think you are really playing six degrees of seperation! *giggle*
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Just stumbled upon this thread and really enjoyed it - all the heraldic devices n mottos etc. must have taken a v long time to compile. (Y) i guess it's a way for martin to show us the wealth of his literary knowledge and demonstrate some of his precursors and influences.

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Has anyone commented on this yet?

ACOK Spoiler:

SPOILER: ACOK Spoiler
I noticed a LOT of similarities between Renly/Loras and Achilles/Patroclus. Both are a pair of lovers, a "knight" and his squire, driven to grief, rage and vengeance by the death of one of the pair. Because of this, I think Loras will survive to eventually kill either Stannis or Melissandre later in the story. Also, in each case, it was Renly/Patroclus' death that lead to Loras and his Tyrells/Achilles and his Myrmiddons to set aside differences with the royal family to defeat a common foe
Edited by Indigo Cloak
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if I recall correctly, bravery is animus, not valeria.

There are several nouns referring to slightly different types of bravery. Valor is late latin. Animus can mean bravery by extension and poetically. But then, it can mean practically anything, from life to spirit to energy to the human heart or mind.

valere is a verb meaning "to be well" or "to have power" but I don't think that "-ria" or even "-ia" was used to end any of the verb conjugations.

This verb and its connotations of strength are where the late latin valor come from.

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Not sure if this was already brought up, but I find it interesting that the maseters represent science and empiricism in general, but their views seem to be rendered backwards by the re-awakening of magic (dragons, greenseers, Others, Mel, Thoros). It's not often you see the rational/logic based point of view being questioned, but then again this is a fantasy series so this may not be too surprising (or the maesters know more than they let on...).

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GRRM originally lived in Bayonne, New Jersey and attended Marist High School there. Marist has, as its symbol/logo/sports teams, the moniker: "The Royal Knights". I don't know why it never clicked in my head before, but there you have it.

As he has professed less than fond memories of his years at the school (some difficulty with his being on the school newspaper or such, IIRC. Wow... Think they'd like to take a mulligan on that?), I seriously doubt it sparked his interests in knights, heraldry, etc. So, I think we can file this under coincidence rather than any homage. Still it's kind of a funny quirk...

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Allright, the last few weeks I've been reading Sharon Kay Penman's novel, When Christ and His Saints Slept. Previously I tried to read another book of hers, The Sunne in Splendour, but it was too dry and I still haven't finished the last half. But this When Christ and His Saints Slept book is a bit of a page turner, as it turns out.

My interest in reading novels like this (historical fiction) was, maybe obviously, sparked by George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. I've always liked the middle ages, but it was really George's amazing series that made me look deeper into the subject matter (and now I have a bookshelf full of medieval history, both fact and fiction lulz). But I digress and ramble.

What I am trying to get at is that I wonder whether Martin has read Penman as well (or is well versed in the history of the times she writes about). Especially when reading When Christ and His Saints Slept, I keep thinking back to Westeros and see a number of similarities both between characters and events. I don't have the book at hand, but consider the following similarities:

- There's a woman (Queen Maude) who struggles to rule a kingdom left to her by her deceased father; but those around her does not see her as fit to rule as she is a woman. She has a son for whom she fights dearly. (Cersei/Joffrey anyone?)

- There is an attack on a monastery which is very similar to Ser Amory Lorch's attack on the holdfast in ACoK

- The main character in the book has dyrehunds, quite similar to the direwolves of the Starks in the way they are described

- Three brothers which are quite different from each other, with black hair

- Assault on Winchester with fire is reminiscent of the Assault on King's Landing in ACoK

- Characters/real life persons with similar names in both books include Robert, Geoffrey/Joffrey,

- The clash for the Crown of England reminds me of the clash for the Iron Throne

- There's a secret love between two nobles from different sides of the conflict

- Civil war erupts when the King dies

- Characters hear about a fabulous, beautiful queen far away (Eleanor / Daenerys)

Well this was probably not that convincing, but I don't have the book with me. I remember a few nights ago reading a particular chapter and thinking "I got to add this to that thread about homages/references". In the chapter, there's a sequence very similar to Ser Amory Lorch's attack upon the abandoned holdfast in ACoK, someone gets half his face burned (like the Hound) and I remember there was even a line of dialogue which was exactly as in ASoIAF.

I'll come back and edit this post to be more specific.

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Well, there could certainly be references to that particular part of mediaeval history (personally, the way the Dance of Dragons war turned out reminds me of the war between the Empress Maud and King Stephen, but I can't remember enough details of either to say why exactly) without being references to that particular work of historical fiction. I guess there are lots of ideas that are going to be though of by two different authors inspired by similar things totally independently.

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"at least tolkien's casual racism doesn't seem to exist in martin, though strange things tend to be afoot when we're talking about some black folks in all these books." - I just stumbled upon this sentence, and as always when I read sentences like that, I want to ask: "Care to explain?". I dislike the attempts to shove Tolkien into the rascism-corner.

But, back to topic: The way Viserys dies reminds me of the death of the roman politican Crassus. He was the third man in the first triumpherate with Caesar and Pompey. Envying the glory from their military campaigns Caesar and Pompey enjoyed, he tried to beat the feared Parthian Empire, which was the heir of ancient Persia and had an cavalry army, mainly mounted archers. Crassus lost, was captured, and then killed. The parthians executed him by pouring molten gold down his throat - a reference to Crassus status as the richest man of Rome.

That's exactly what I thought of first too when I read the Martin passage and I'm sure it's where he got the idea.

Crassus died during the fighting against the Parthians. One ancient historian (Cassius Dio) notes a story that the Parthians poured gold down his throat after he had already died. He wasn't killed that way though.

Sorry, I'm a classics nerd so had to be nitpicky...

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Guest Other-in-law

This pretty tenuous, but the three bendlets enhanced in the arms of House Chyttering bear a distinct resemblance to those of Lord Byron. It would be nice if the name "Chyttering" or something like it appeared in one of Byron's works, but I haven't been able to find reference to it anywhere. GRRM has certainly mentioned Byron in some of his other works, though, notably Fevre Dream.

For that matter House Ball has similarities to James Bond's family blazon, but most like the explanation for both is merely that GRRM made an effort to create a broad cross section of different charges represented in his world, and the similarities are coincidental.

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