Game of Thrones: Which claimant do you support?

[Sheilbh]

Well yes if you are willing to retreat to the bit of argument where it's just "oh as a reader I can find a few random elements" then sure.

I've always thought it's about the reader finding resemblances which'll be based on their other readings and interpretations. I've never said I think Tyrell is Anne Boleyn, or is based on her, but I think there's enough there that I can get it. Similarly with me seeing Cromwell in Littlefinger - that's no doubt shaped because I've recently read Wolf Hall - but I think there's enough there to see how it happens.

As I say I think it's maybe not a mark, but a cause of the book's success that it's fantasy that reads like historical fiction.

[garbon]

I've always thought it's about the reader finding resemblances which'll be based on their other readings and interpretations. I've never said I think Tyrell is Anne Boleyn, or is based on her, but I think there's enough there that I can get it. Similarly with me seeing Cromwell in Littlefinger - that's no doubt shaped because I've recently read Wolf Hall - but I think there's enough there to see how it happens.

Fair enough. I guess I don't find that particularly interesting though as I'm not really sure what that does - beyond I guess coloring how you'll view a character

As I say I think it's maybe not a mark, but a cause of the book's success that it's fantasy that reads like historical fiction.

Hmm, I'm not sure I can agree on this one - but on the weak basis that I hate historical fiction.

[Sheilbh]

Hmm, I'm not sure I can agree on this one - but on the weak basis that I hate historical fiction.

That's fair. But there's hundreds of historical fiction bestsellers while fantasy is far less popular with the general audience.

I think that it seems like history or has characters we kind of think we maybe recognise it makes it more real for most people. When you've got a show with dragons that's a good thing for the general audience.

[garbon]

Hmm, I'm not sure I can agree on this one - but on the weak basis that I hate historical fiction.

That's fair. But there's hundreds of historical fiction bestsellers while fantasy is far less popular with the general audience.

I think that it seems like history or has characters we kind of think we maybe recognise it makes it more real for most people. When you've got a show with dragons that's a good thing for the general audience.

I'd disagree I think. Just randomly off the top of my head - Twilight, Harry Potter (and possible even 50 shades) all fall on the fantasy side over any semblance of history.

[garbon]

Actually scratch 50 as I'm just conflating fantasies.

[Sheilbh]

A fantasy isn't necessarily fantasy.

Point taken, but I think 'young adult fiction' is the better way of describing those

Edit: Though there's a whole other story about adults reading books written for kids - Potter, His Dark Materials etc. I think it's quite new that it's so public. My impression is you wouldn't see men in suits on the bus 50 years ago reading Narnia.

[Martinus]

I agree with Sheilbh. Perhaps rather than "channeling Boleyns", I should have said there are some Boleyn-like tropes present in the Tyrells.

Just as York-like tropes are simultaneously present in Starks and Tyrion Lannister, for example.

[Martinus]

One more thing: several people said that GRRM wrote the Tyrells in the 1990s so couldn't have been inspired by Tudors and other depiction of Boleyns - I dispute that.

The HBO show Tyrells (especially the Brother-Sister Team* of Loras and Margaery) are quite different than the ones in the books - which is also a reason why it has not occurred to me before to compare them to the Brother-Sistem Team of George and Anne Boleyn in Tudors. The way these two are written (already in the second season, when they are both essentially seducing Renly, and being given a very precise agenda, rather than being his playthings - as was more the case in the books) bears really striking similarities to George and Anne in Tudors (sans of course Henry being gay so no seduction agenda for George) - so I don't think that casting Natalie Dormer was a coincidence (the only question is whether the show writers did it on purpose or was it subconscious).

*A narrative trope recognized by TV Tropes and Idioms website.

[Martinus]

Of course, by the same token, Jaime and Cersei are also following Boleyn tropes albeit quite differently - there are the Boleyns that would have been if (i) all accusations of incest and treason levied against them historically (or in The Other Boleyn Girl) were true, and (ii) they actually succeeded in assassinating Henry.

[The Larch]

That said, Martinus is right *shudder* about how the Tyrells are relatively new amongst the Great Houses.  They were jumped up by Aegon when he conquered Westeros.

Like the Targaryen themselves. And the Baratheons. And the Tullys. And the Greyjoys. It's ridiculous to sugest that the Tyrells were seeking recognition after three centuries in charge.

[Martinus]

All House Tyrell write-ups on all fan wiki pages etc. refer to their reputation as upstarts or newcomers to the great houses. Whether this is justified or not does not matter - it's how (again) the narrative is presented (and we are talking here about the narrative tropes, not "facts"). So I will not debate this further - just read your background material.

Incidentally, Tullys are also upstarts - but Tullys are not ruling one of the seven kingdoms.

Targaryens and Baratheons, on the other hand, are simply conquerors - so they are not upstarts by the right of conquest (whereas Tyrells, for example, simply turned on their own lieges and that's how they got elevated to their current position). If Boltons were given the North, following Rob's rebellion, they would be viewed as upstarts as well.

[The Larch]

The only people badmouthing the Tyrells as upstarts are the Florents, and that's because they wanted to be the upstarts themselves.

[Martinus]

Just saw a Brienne/Jaime scene from the ep 302 preview and Jaime probably gonna win the best line in the episode award. 

[The Minsky Moment]

I'm not going to respond in detail to Sheilbh's response; I think it is clear that historically-speaking the comparison is a very big stretch (as is Cromwell-Littlefinger for that matter other than the fact of their relatively humble origins and ambition).  The attraction of the Tudors as a point of comparison is that they are more familiar to many of us amateur historians than other possible points of comparison and their coverage in another HBO series with a common actress.  Not in the fact that the comparison is actually close.