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References and Homages


Ran
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I think this is a very interesting topic!
I don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet, but I think there are many similarities between Ramsay's macabre huntings in the woods and the novel of “Nastagio degli Onesti”, contained in Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron.
George Martin is a great admirer of Italian literature, both Medieval and Renaissance (in an interview he mentioned Machiavelli's Prince as a main source of inspiration for his A Song of Ice and Fire), and Boccaccio is one of the greatest medieval writers along with Dante and Petrarca.

In A Song of Ice and Fire Ramsay is renowned for his savage cruelty, in particular he's known for chasing girls in the woods with his dogs, killing them, raping them and feeding their bodies to his dogs. In Boccaccio's novel Nastagio is walking through a pine forest when he sees a girl running naked in tears, being chased by two dogs trying to bite her and a knight with a black sword who kills her and gives her heart to the dogs.
This novel was renowned during Middle Ages and Renaissance: the famous Italian painter Sandro Botticelli was commissioned by Lorenzo the Magnificent to paint it on the occasion of Giannozzo Pucci's wedding to Lucrezia Bini (1483).

To see the paintings click the links below.

Nastagio degli Onesti, primo episodio

Nastagio degli Onesti, secondo episodio

What do you think about it? 

Edited by *Leah
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On Invalid Date at 0:12 AM, The Bard of Banefort said:

This probably came up a long time ago, but does fAegon acting as the Westerosi Perkin Warbeck count as homage?

Right before I started watching GoT and reading ASOIAF, I read Philippa Gregory's "The White Princes." Now, I realize that Gregory doesn't exactly have the best reputation when it comes to historical accuracy, but what I found interesting is how similar her portrayal of Elizabeth of York was to Sansa in ACOK. Both of them "played dumb" in order to avoid saying the wrong thing and ending up on the chopping block. I don't support the theory that the War of the Roses can predict how ASOIAF will end, but I definitely see the parallels between Sansa and Elizabeth of York, more so than between her and Queen Elizabeth I. 

I agree Perkin Warbeck seems to be the best inspiration for Aegon (fake or not; I think he is fake).

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Hmm...

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Three conflicting accounts exist as to the manner of death of Prince Daeron Targaryen. The best known claims that the prince stumbled from his pavilion with his night clothes afire, only to be cut down by the Myrish sellsword Black Trombo, who smashed his face in with a swing of his spiked morningstar. This version was the one preferred by Black Trombo, who told it far and wide.

The Princess and the Queen

Trombo did slay the dragon...

Quote

James Dalton Trumbo (December 9, 1905 – September 10, 1976) was an American screenwriter and novelist, who scripted films including Roman Holiday, Exodus, Spartacus, and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. One of the Hollywood Ten, he refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1947 during the committee's investigation of Communist influences in the motion picture industry. He was subsequently blacklisted by that industry. He continued working clandestinely, producing work under other authors' names. His uncredited work won two Academy Awards; the one for Roman Holiday (1953) was given to a front writer, and the one for The Brave One (1956) was awarded to a pseudonym. The public crediting of him as the writer of both Exodus and Spartacus in 1960 marked the end of the Hollywood Blacklist. His earlier achievements were eventually credited to him by the Writers Guild, 60 years after the fact.

Dalton Trumbo, Wikipedia

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On 19/7/2017 at 7:15 PM, *Leah said:

in an interview he mentioned Machiavelli's Prince as a main source of inspiration for his A Song of Ice and Fire

Confirms my suspicion. I always found Varys's speech to Kevan about fAegon and him going on about the "people" as something that fits Machiavelli's ideas about a Prince uniting regions into one giant empire. Macchiavelli advocated a political system where an absolute monarch had the power without having to cow-tow to feudal noble lords. The Medicis in France and Henry VIII in England pretty much used Machiavelli's ideas to gain total power and make it one country and it was the beginning of the end of feudalism. They weren't dependent of old noble houses anymore, but could levy armies of people directly. The war that Varys helps to bring about all over Westeros certainly aims to do that. It is also Tywin's tactc.

Aegon "Egg" was frustrated over the same issue. He wanted totalitarian power for himself so he could rule for the people, but the great houses and feudal lords had too much power. And there are literary links between Varys and Egg.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 7/26/2017 at 11:09 PM, sweetsunray said:

Confirms my suspicion. I always found Varys's speech to Kevan about fAegon and him going on about the "people" as something that fits Machiavelli's ideas about a Prince uniting regions into one giant empire. Macchiavelli advocated a political system where an absolute monarch had the power without having to cow-tow to feudal noble lords. The Medicis in France and Henry VIII in England pretty much used Machiavelli's ideas to gain total power and make it one country and it was the beginning of the end of feudalism. They weren't dependent of old noble houses anymore, but could levy armies of people directly. The war that Varys helps to bring about all over Westeros certainly aims to do that. It is also Tywin's tactc.

Aegon "Egg" was frustrated over the same issue. He wanted totalitarian power for himself so he could rule for the people, but the great houses and feudal lords had too much power. And there are literary links between Varys and Egg.

I don't think Tywin had any interest in absolutism. He revoked the remainder of Egg's laws and restored some noble powers. As Hand for Joffrey and Tommen he let the Tyrells and Reach vassals take a lot of war spoils and gave them cushy political positions. Cersei is an absolutist because she has no interest in council and debate and wants to keep all the power and rewards for the crown. She even wants to build a new palace outside the city like Louis XIV.

 

Egg was probably an absolutist but not a totalitarian. Totalitarian rule would be impossible for a medieval bureaucracy and if Egg didn't even force his kids to marry it's unlikely he would want to direct total control over society and the economy like Stalin or other totalitarian dictators.

 

 

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49 minutes ago, SerBronnsMullet said:

I don't think Tywin had any interest in absolutism. He revoked the remainder of Egg's laws and restored some noble powers. As Hand for Joffrey and Tommen he let the Tyrells and Reach vassals take a lot of war spoils and gave them cushy political positions. Cersei is an absolutist because she has no interest in council and debate and wants to keep all the power and rewards for the crown. She even wants to build a new palace outside the city like Louis XIV.

 

Egg was probably an absolutist but not a totalitarian. Totalitarian rule would be impossible for a medieval bureaucracy and if Egg didn't even force his kids to marry it's unlikely he would want to direct total control over society and the economy like Stalin or other totalitarian dictators.

 

 

Henry VIII gave his in-laws good positions in his close council. He was still an absolutist.

Tywin repealed Egg's laws when he was a lord. But when his grandson becomes king, he sure went out of his way to destroy houses, giving rewards to those who helped him, but nothing anywhere near the same feudal power: Freys kill off Starks at the RW, and are rewarded with Riverrun, but without the LP-ship of the Riverlands. No that is handed to Petyr Baelish who gets Harrenhal, a castle he cannot himself occupy, for he does not have the people and the surronding lands and village went up in smoke so he cannot get money from the related lands of HH at the moment. Boltons are given wardenship of the North, but a fake Arya (and they know she's fake), while Tyrion's married to the elder sister Sansa. Storm's End will be Tommen's to distribute to his sons, etc. Lancel gets Darry, a lower house in the Riverlands, but at a crucial position near the Crossroads. The fact that he gives his in-laws a set at the small council is not a sign that he isn't an absolutist. He simply didn't live long enough after arriving at KL and having victory over Stannis to start changing laws.

Agreed on Egg: I used the wrong term. He's an absolutist, not a totalitarian. If Egg had managed to actually gain absolutist power and break down feudal power, a religious-fanatical great--great-grandson (religiously fanatical like Baelor I) could have gone totalitarian hypothetically, if he had a standing army and dragons.

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On ‎7‎/‎25‎/‎2017 at 9:05 AM, Lost Melnibonean said:

The Princess and the Queen

Trombo did slay the dragon...

Nice catch.   GRRM gives other nods to Trumbo as well - I mean, watch "Roman Holiday" and get back to me - throughout the novels, and I've long believed that he specifically references Trumbo's lone fictional published work, Johnny Got His Gun.  I mentioned a couple in this post , as well as a few others on here from time to time.

He's quoted Trumbo on NaB several times as well.   I would love to ask him about this influence at a con.  :) 

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  • 1 month later...

In Elizabeth Boyer's 1980 Norse-inspired fantasy novel 'The Sword and the Satchel', the map for which bears a passing resemblance to the style of the Westeros maps, there are places called Neck (an area where the landmass narrows, near a swamp), Reekness, and Trident.

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  • 1 month later...

The Corsair King and the pirates of the seas.

George borrowed the name "Corsair King" from the poet Lord Byron, to which his book Fevre Dream is chocked with Byron (and other poetry) references, including the fact that the poetry is the answer to a plot progressive riddle in the book. The story also takes place along the rivers and New Orleans, Louisiana is a key place in the story. This story is a prototype to many of the arcs we see in ASOIAF now, mainly with Jon at the wall. However, GRRM seems to take his inspirations and divvy them up and place a little in each section of Planetos storytelling.

The Corsair is a tale in verse by Lord Byron published in 1814 (see 1814 in poetry), which was extremely popular and influential in its day, selling ten thousand copies on its first day of sale.[1] Its poetry, divided into cantos (like Dante's Divine Comedy), narrates the story of the corsair Conrad, how he was in his youth rejected by society because of his actions and his later fight against humanity (excepting women). In this tale the figure of Byronic hero is presented by the point of view of the people.

Many Americans believed that Lord Byron's poem "The Corsair" was based on the life of the privateer/pirate Jean Lafitte; the work sold over 10,000 copies on its first day of publication. (Adding: the number 10,000 is a favorite number that GRRM likes to use in ASOAIF that relates to rivers ;)

Jean Laffite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Lafitte

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George knows and admires the author John Steinbeck.

I think George was maybe referencing Steinbeck's view on the mighty redwood tree, the sequoia, when he pictured the weirwood trees in ASOAIF. It seems GRRM merged Steinbeck's writing with the Norse tales of Yyggdrasil (no secret there), and his own oft used themes of something/someone being bone-white with red eyes when he wants to convey timeless, vast, psionic knowledge.

John Steinbeck wrote about the redwood, and it's pretty easy to see the ASOIAF relations (and not just because I highlighted them :P):

"The redwoods, once seen, leave a mark or create a vision that stays with you always. No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe. It's not only their unbelievable stature, nor the color which seems to shift and vary under your eyes, no, they are not like any trees we know, they are ambassadors from another time."

  1. The Margaery Tyrell painting meant to lure Robert was just a Lyanna "Knight of the Laughing Tree" knock-off, and it failed.
  2. Silence from the tree is Ghost.
  3. Colors that shift is Val's eyes, and she does come from the trees, leading her free folk people to Jon, dressed and pinned as a weirwood.
  4. Ambassador's from another time is just as Bloodraven describes time to a tree... like a river and such.
Edited by The Fattest Leech
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Ser Kermit Tully and Lord Elmo Tully in The World of Ice and Fire (p. 160). If no one has mentioned it yet, lol. Reference: Sesame Street. I sometimes wonder if those were placeholder names that never got revised.

I was listening to a Secrets of the Citadel (youtube) chapter analysis and she says that Littlefinger's mockingbird imagery is a reference to Harper Lee's book. I always just thought it symbolized Littlefinger's many games and schemes. Like a mockingbird disguises it's own song to sound like that of other birds and amphibians, he disguises his intentions with sweet words that people want to hear. He even manages to convince Eddard he is his friend, when clearly this was not the case.

But then, when I really thought about it, there is definitely some multi-layered thematic overlap.

"I'd rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you'll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it.

"Your father's right," she said. "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

It's a clever mask he's made using a mockingbird. Then people usually take it further and say that to kill a mockingbird is the death of innocence, which also references back to Littlefinger's childhood trauma. 

Sorry if that one has been referenced a lot on here. I didn't want to thumb through 89 pages!

 

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2 minutes ago, Traverys said:

Ser Kermit Tully and Lord Elmo Tully in The World of Ice and Fire (p. 160). If no one has mentioned it yet, lol. Reference: Sesame Street. I sometimes wonder if those were placeholder names that never got revised.

You omitted Grover Tully. Green, red, and blue... just like the forks of a certain river, and perhaps, the three heads of Rhaegar's dragon. 

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Spellsingers are mentioned once in Daenerys III, Game 23, and appear once in Daenerys VI, Game 54. They appear to be an homage to the Spellsinger series of eight fantasy novels written in the 1980s and 90s by Alan Dean Foster. 

Edited by Lost Melnibonean
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I posted this in another thread, but I believe it belongs here. 

We get this interacting as soon as Dany agrees to marry Hizdhar:

A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys VI 

"Blood?" said Dany, horrified. "Is that a jape? No. No, don't tell me, I must see him for myself." She was a young girl, and alone, and young girls can change their minds. "Convene my captains and commanders. Hizdahr, I know you will forgive me."

"Meereen must come first." Hizdahr smiled genially. "We will have other nights. A thousand nights."

As soon as I read this I thought of Arabian Nights, where Sheherazade tricks her husband into not killing her for a thousand and one nights. The original Arabic title of "Arabian  Nights" is actually "one thousand and one nights". The protagonist is the bride and queen Shererazade, the daughter of the Vizier who volunteers to marry a man she does not love and who's been killing a bride a day for the past three years (a queen puts her people before her own desires, the sons of the harpy have been murdering freedmen each night...). She is to be executed the night after the wedding but can trick him into keeping her alive, and utimately gains an oficial pardon from her husband and gets to live ("I know you will forgive me").

Whats most striking is the meaning of the name of the protagonist in the original story. From Wikipedia:

"The earliest forms of Scheherazade's name in Arabic sources include Shirazad (شيرازاد Šīrāzād) in Masudi, and Shahrazad (شهرازاد Šahrāzād) in Ibn al-Nadim, the latter meaning in New Persian "the person whose realm/dominion (شهر šahr) is free (آزادāzād)"."

sound like the breaker of chains? I'm of a mind to think Martin choose to place these words ("we'll have a thousand nights") coming from Hizdhar lips to make an allusion to Arabian Nights.

Edited by Lady Dacey
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Ned's favorite horse was saddled and waiting in the yard. Varly and Jacks fell in beside him as he rode through the yard.

Eddard VI, Game 27

Lynn Varley is, and Jack Kirby was, among the most influential persons in the comic book industry.

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Not sure if this has been mentioned before, but I think I found an early inspiration for the Hound and Braith Bretan of "The Dying of the Light."

George has listed The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester (published 1957) as one of his favorite sci-fi novels in more than one post on his LJ.  The main character, Gully Foyle, is consumed by a burning need for revenge that is his main motivator for his actions.  In the course of the story, he is captured and his face is given this shockingly horrific bestial tattoo.  His personality early on his described as brutish and blunt.  Later in the process of removing the tattoo with acid he receives equally horrific scarring that flares up when he becomes emotional.  Gully also tormented by visions of The Burning Man, which is himself on fire.   

Some very interesting cover art for the novel too.

 

Edited by Blue-Eyed Wolf
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  • 2 weeks later...

Florian the fool = Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian?

This Florian was an army officer (not strictly a knight, but a Captain of the Dragoons at a time when one had to be born a nobleman to get a commission in the French army. Which Florian's guardian, who got him the commission, was.) He retired from the army in 1788 to write comedy, having already become popular for his chivalric romances and verse.

He was imprisoned during the reign of terror, and although Robspierre was guillotined before he had time to sign Florian's death warrant, Florian died in prison of tuberculosis six weeks later.

His fables for children are probably the most widely read of his works now (not that any of his works are widely read now) and he coined the phrase "he who laughs last, laughs best"

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