"'A Song of Ice and Fire' and the British Isles,” from Dory to Lilly

So, as you may know, I’m taking a Shakespeare class this semester. The first play we read for it was Richard III, one of Shakespeare’s histories.  Well, it’s a history that Shakespeare took significant liberties with, including resurrecting a couple people that were actually dead at the time he’s talking about, speeding up events quite a bit, getting rid of the boring parts, making everyone talk in iambic pentameter all the time, etc.  This particular play is the last of his series about the Wars of the Roses, a civil war that eventually ended with the Tudors getting control of the British throne (think Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, all those folk.)

Ok, let’s switch gears for a second.  We are agreed that the culture of Westeros in George R.R. Martin’s “Song of Ice and Fire” series has some pretty stark (pun intended) correlations to that of Great Britain, yes?  I’m thinking the rough shape of the country, the wall dividing the country proper from the savages in the extreme north, the knights, the sigils, the feudalism, the fact that the country is made up of several united kingdoms, etc etc. 

Well, as I was reading Richard III, I started to notice some things that were similar to events in “A Song of Ice and Fire.”  Attend:

Richard III is about the eponymous Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and how he eventually (temporarily) comes out on top in the Wars of the Roses and is king of England for a few years, before dying in battle against the guy who will become the first Tudor king,  Henry VII.  He plots skillfully, uses people and then betrays them, and has them assassinated or executed.  The plot of the play isn’t terribly similar to that of “A Song of Ice and Fire,” but the details—some events, some names, some sigils—are.  Here are some:

--The reason this civil war is called the Wars of the Roses is because the two main families battling for control of the throne, the Lancasters and the Yorks, both had roses as their sigils.  The Lancasters were red roses, the Yorks white.  (Reminds me of the Tyrells)

--At the beginning of the play, the king, Edward, dies.  There are two very young princes who are potential heirs, and Richard is appointed Lord Protector and has them sequestered in royal apartments in the Tower of London “to keep them safe.”  Instead, to remove them as an obstacle between him and the throne, he has them killed (brutally) by a dude named Sir James Tyrrell.

--A guy gets drowned in a barrel of wine. (remind you of Ser Dontos?)

--The Earl of Richmond, Henry, eventually becomes king. He’s the wholesome, noble guy who has been off in exile and has returned to claim the throne as the preferable alternative to Richard III.

So, yeah.  I may be stretching, but some of these are kind of uncanny.  I don’t think I’m suggesting that Martin is drawing from this play in particular, but I definitely think he’s drawing from British history.  The War of Five Kings and the Wars of the Roses are rather similar.

What do you think?  All of that was terribly confusing for me to try to summarize, (civil wars are complicated, and EVERYONE in the British nobility is named Henry or Edward), so were things sufficiently explained for you?

Love, Dory