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References and Homages


Ran
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I can't remember the specific page, but Mad King Aerys is described as having fingernails that were nine inches long, an obvious reference to the band Nine Inch Nails. Also the Ironborn's saying "What is dead will never die. . . " always reminded me of a line from a Children of Bobom song "Like living dead we'll never die. . .".

Older than that would be "The Thing That Should Not Be" by Metallica from Master of Puppets album...

"Not dead which eternal lie, stranger eons death may die"

The lyrics to this song are more a collection of images from the story itself...but gives an idea of who the "Drowned God" is derived from, for those not familiar w Cthulu:

The Thing that Should Not Be

Which of course is Lovecraft's "Call of Cthulu"

"That is not dead which can eternal lie

And with strange aeons, even death may die"

Edited by Aegon's Landing
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Older than that would be "The Thing That Should Not Be" by Metallica from Master of Puppets album...

"Not dead which eternal lie, stranger eons death may die"

Which of course is Lovecraft's "Call of Cthulu"

"That is not dead which can eternal lie

And with strange aeons, even death may die"

I forgot about the Drowned God / Cthulu connection.

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I can't take credit, the drowned God/ Cthulu connection was mentioned early on in this thread...the seaweed in the hair should have tipped me off when I read AFfC.... :thumbsup:

I always loved that quote...especially since that's what's on Edward T. Head's gravestone on the cover of "Live After Death"...Up the Irons!!!

Another one of my favorites:

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil--prophet still, if bird or devil!"

that entire stanza, actually...never found any trace of Poe, sadly, in ASoIaF, in spite of all the Ravens...closest I could come was the 3EC perched on the statue of the direwolf...not quite a bust of Pallas....

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Yeah, I was just about to mention that in Red Nails Conan's female companion is named Valeria.

Valeria is a pretty common fantasy-esque sounding name, though, it would be pretty easy to come up with those syllabic combos even without Conan for inspiration.

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It's probably been mentioned in this thread already. In case not...

In my reread in ASoS, I just read Jorah telling Dany of the 3,000 Unsullied who defended Qohor against a Dothraki army several times their size. The Dothraki broke their mounted forces upon the Unsullieds' shield wall and spears.

Guessing it has to be a reference to Thermopylae.

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In aGoT, when Tyrion refers to his father as "The Once and Future Hand of the King." Quite a shallow reference to the series "The Once and Future King."

Oh, please. Which in turn came from where, do you think? The phrase antedates English, you know.

Both are simply and quite famously from “Rex Quondam Rexque Futurus”.

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Sorry if this has been posted. But this passage from A Storm of Swords seemed to me to be a joke about the evolution of modern food riffing on Heston Blumenthal's snail porridge dish at his world-famous Fat Duck restaurant.

Unfortunately the fiddlers and drummers and flutists up above were playing “Flowers of Spring,” which suited the words of “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” as well as snails might suit a bowl of porridge. Even poor Jinglebell covered his ears at the cacophony.

From my understanding, GRRM is a fair foodie so it makes sense. The placement right before the Red Wedding is interesting though.

Edited by Wolfmage
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"I can't remember the specific page, but Mad King Aerys is described as having fingernails that were nine inches long, an obvious reference to the band Nine Inch Nails"

Didn't Howard Hughes grow his fingernails real long when he went into OCD hermit mode? I thought it might just be a way of making Aerys sound even madder.

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In ACOK, Lord Manderly tells Bran that no Prince is ever late in a very similar way to how Gandalf says that a wizard is never late. Kind of a loose reference, but still.

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This might very likely be already pointed out but I just realized that history of Robert´s rebellion sounds a lot like story of Rape of Lucretia and subsequent fall of the last king of Rome.

Edited by Rhodan
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Speaking of Rome...

disclaimer: I first blew this off as my own symptom of "Blue Car Syndrome", but the more I read...

I just watched "The Eagle" (Channing Tatum, Jamie Bell) Kick-ass flick!!!

Movie based on the 1954 novel The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff. Historical fiction. Based loosely on the disappearance of the Legio IX Hispana North of Hadrian's Wall in Roman Britian in 2 AD.

A Roman commander goes on a "quest" North of Hadrian's Wall to locate and retrieve the bronze eagle standard of the lost IXth Legion, which was commanded by his father. The loss of the men and the standard was a marr on the family name, and he wished to restore it.

I was struck by the fear the men demonstrated just by the phrase "North of the Wall"...a lost legion out there (Benjen) the son (nephew) determined to learn the truth and venture there against the savage tribes (wildlings)

Admittedly, not much else in common with our beloved series....except:

This map looks familiar

and from wikki:

The Eagle of the Ninth is one of Sutcliff's earlier books, but may be her best-known title. It is the first in a sequence of novels, followed by The Silver Branch, Frontier Wolf, The Lantern Bearers, Sword at Sunset, Dawn Wind, Sword Song, and The Shield Ring. The sequence loosely traces a family, of the Roman Empire and then of Britain, who inherit an emerald seal ring bearing the insignia of a dolphin. The book has also been published as The Eagle.

Thought it worth sharing...really good movie

-A's L

Edited by Aegon's Landing
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Hi everyone, first post woooo! (GoT Spoilers in below paragraph)

I havent read the whole thread so this may have been mentioned before but I remember reading that some aspects of the story, particularly in the first three books are based on the wars of the roses, Stark and Lannister to me have always sounded like obvious synonyms for York and Lancaster and there are some similarities between the lives of Eddard Stark and Richard of York, both went to court to serve as kings advisor and were eventually killed and had their heads displayed on pikes as a result of the queens political machinations, as a result their son claims the throne and declares civil war. There are some obvious differences and I wouldn't really call it a homage or a reference, more of an inspiration for the plot or something, I dunno.

By the way as its my first post I thought I'd warn against spoilers from the first book just to be safe but I doubt its really necessarry since everyone on the boards I imagine have probably read all the books a few times, am I being too careful?

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It's probably been mentioned in this thread already. In case not...

In my reread in ASoS, I just read Jorah telling Dany of the 3,000 Unsullied who defended Qohor against a Dothraki army several times their size. The Dothraki broke their mounted forces upon the Unsullieds' shield wall and spears.

Guessing it has to be a reference to Thermopylae.

The Unsullied somehow always reminded me of the Sacred Band of Thebes, which is actually the antithesis of the Unsullied (an elite force composed exclusively of gay couples). My mind works in strange ways sometimes. Your version seems more likely to be an actual reference :)

Being a huge Lovecraft fan, I absolutely loved the references to the Cthulhu-cycle.

Edited by Maester Zoidberg
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GRRM has a mix and mach aproche to historical events in the ASOIAF.That is why its hard to pinpoint who or whar event is he based someon or something.We all know that Red wedding was based on the Bartholomeaus Night,staged by lovely Katalin Medici,but we also have another reference on her.Maggy the Frogs prophecy about Scerseys children sounds a lot like the one Nostradamus gave to Katalin abouth hers.He toled her that she will live to see all of her children wear the crown,and she will see all of them die

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Part of the inspiration for the Red Wedding might come from the "Black Dinner" as well, when young William Douglas and other leaders of Clan Douglas (which was becoming very mighty at that time) were beheaded after being invited to dinner at Edinburgh Castle. At least that struck me as a very plausible connection.

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