When he opens, his cut off head has become nourishment for crows, mounted on a spikeover the Red Keep in Lord's Arrival. This is the genuine Westeros, where valor is shallow and treachery is an inheritance. George R. R. Martin has stated that A Song of Ice and Fire is based on Britain's Wars of the Roses, but he could have used any European conflict from the Middle Ages as his inspiration.The settings of those wars were frequently wonderful, radiant with the incrediblepalaces of respectability and the ethereal excellence of taking off houses of prayer. It was an age that gave empty talk to the idea of gallantry, to Geoffrey Chaucer's ideal of a "veray parfit gentil knight," yet in 1415, Chaucer's child, Thomas, led a group of troopers against Henry V's invasion of France, which resulted in the Battle of Agincourt.The ones who battled in thatfight were saturated with the legends of valor. The proficient among them had perused compositions on ethical excellencies, and the congregation taught leniency to them. However, in Sir John Keegan's words, the fight was recognized by "slaughteryard conduct." As the conflict neared its conclusion, the English had many French detainees, almost all of whom had given their parole; however, when Henry realized his foe was planning another attack and expected the unarmed detainees to come after him from behind, he ordered their execution.So they were. Consequently, valor met reality in the mud and blood of Agincourt. 46 years later, during the Wars of the Roses, another battle was fought at Towton in northern Britain, and archeologists recently discovered and uncovered the crushed's grave pits.A legalmaster decoded the injuries found on the skeletons and discovered, among other things, that a few men were so terrified of their deaths that they gritted their teeth with enough force to break them.That is the world summoned by George R. R. Martin, and he binds it with all the majesty of the archaic court."The best way to keep your kin steadfast," Cersei explains, "is to make certain they dread you more than they do the foe," and her savagery entrances us. We are drawn into Westeros, drawn into its complexities, and frequently horrified by it, yet we continue to read because A Song of Ice and Fire is, above all, a story, and we are in the hands of an expert narrator with a creative mind large enough to match his vision.It is difficult for a
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