Game of Thrones Historical and Psychological Accuracy

are you ready to take your Game of Thrones experience to the next level brace yourself because this time we're diving in with a historically accurate perspective that will blow your mind you won't believe how much richer the story and characters become when you see it through this lens it's like the History Channel on steroids and trust me you don't want to miss it but hold up before we dive in we have to give a shout out to Joseph Henrik and his book the weirdest people in the world this 500 page monster with over 1 000 sources might seem daunting why'd you read so much but fear not we'll be using Game of Thrones as a pop culture correlate to understand henrik's main thesis this book is amazing and this video is only the tip of the 500-page iceberg don't just take my word for it check out the link to the book in the description and see for yourself buckle up folks George R Martin might have taken inspiration from a bunch of historical events to create Game of Thrones but after diving into henrik's book I couldn't shake the feeling that the series is set in good old western Europe Circa 1500 A.D in the 1500s two cultural forces dominated the world religion and Technology but let's focus on the former this map shows areas of religious influence Circa 1050. the darkest shading is the western or Roman Catholic Church the next darkest to the east of the carolingian Empire is the Eastern or Orthodox Church both are branches of Christianity which to this day has more than 2 billion followers the main takeaway here is that the dividing line between these two religious territories one thousand years ago still largely defines what is considered Western Europe versus Eastern Europe in fact here's a very similar map that shows the Iron Curtain which is the line that separated Europe during the Cold War you can see how closely the Iron Curtain which crumbled in 1989 with that Berlin Wall is eerily similar to The Western vs Eastern Church's dividing line in 1050. to understand the Border we need to understand the differences between the Western and Eastern flavors of Christianity the biggest difference between the western church and the Eastern Church over the past 1 000 years was their beliefs and practices around marriage pair bonding or marriage is a defining Institution for many animals especially humans who you marry has huge consequences and the Western Catholic church had strict rules around who married who Henrik calls these rules the marriage and family program or mfp for most of History Blood Ties were how Society pair bonded families stayed close together often marrying close relations the Eastern Catholic Church didn't have a strict marriage and family program so their realm continued to use traditional Blood Ties to Define society Henrik uses the term kin-based institutions when talking about traditional Blood Ties to put the Western Church's mfp in better perspective check out this map that depicts time under mfp influence where the more time spent the darker the shading Henrik lays out 30 plus mfp rules progressively made by the western church between 300 and 1200 A.D first nuclear family marriages were banned then cousin marriage all the way up to the extremes of banning marriage to your sixth cousin that would make it illegal to marry someone related to your great great great great great great grandparent Henry states that this theoretically excludes on average 2730 cousins and potentially ten thousand total relatives to quote Henrik in the Medieval World of scattered Farms intimate Villages and small towns these prohibitions would have forced people to reach out far and wide to find Christian strangers from other communities often in different tribal or ethnic groups with this sprawl the mfp had unintended consequences that greatly influenced small-scale globalization and led to the formation of bigger cities technological and economic impacts associated with information exchange and greater individualism since people needed to make their own in-groups using their skills not blood to bring value mfp made it possible for cities like King's Landing Henrik summarizes this point by stating the western church came to hold an extreme set of incest taboos perceived to be rooted in their God's will that had big Downstream consequences and eventually opened the door to westernized educated industrialized rich and Democratic psychology Henrik uses the acronym weird to describe the new psychology of the post-mfp culture hence the title of the book the weirdest people in the world the signature of this westernized way of thinking is individualism even to this day the westernized mfp influenced weird world is more individualistic than Eastern Europe as seen on this map of individualism based on hofstades Omnibus scale from henrik's book Western Europe and North America are the descendants of mfp influence are more individualistic compare the map of mfp exposure between 500 A.D and 1500 A.D to this map of current individualism and we can really see the mfp had incredible Downstream psychological effects so now we know a bit about how things went down in Western Europe's history but what about Westeros get ready for some throne-sitting knowledge very amusing with varying religious beliefs and a continent too big for blood bonds what originally United the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros under one iron throne the answer sheer Dragon power aegon Targaryen known as Egon the Conqueror on the back of valerian the black dread imposed his will on the other houses of Westeros after his Conquest this raw Dragon power became a stabilizing Force for Westeros similar to God power in Western Europe the targaryens ruled for almost 300 years and unified the Seven Kingdoms under a single monarchy which reduced the frequency of wars and increased the stability and trade within the realm the Targaryen Dynasty built roads and bridges to connect the different regions of the realm which made travel and commerce easier the targaryens also encouraged immigration particularly to the cities of King's Landing in Old Town which were centers of trade and culture some of the Realms existing high-borne houses were United under resentment towards their dragon-backed Interlopers and like other Empires throughout history when you get too big there is challenge and collapse the targaryens eventually mismanaged their dragons and their realm leading to a successful Rebellion that placed the Baratheon house on the Iron Throne thank their gods for Bessie but the technology that United the realm Dragons Were now extinct The Genius of the story of the post Targaryen age is a dramatic struggle to reinstall kin-based institutional rule in a realm that was too big and complex for it with Dragons the Targaryen kin-based rule could barely manage without dragons the Baratheon name didn't carry enough influence Westeros had transcended Blood Ties that's not to say that Game of Thrones didn't feature a healthy dose of mfp the faith of uh faith of seven is Loosely based on the Roman Catholic church or the Middle Ages by the time we hit later in the timeline Cersei of House Lannister who is at the time one of the most powerful people in Westeros acting as queen regent is eventually imprisoned by the seven for alleged kin noodling [Music] Queen [Music] incest of this sort may have been more accepted in the early half of the Targaryen Rule and overlooked in the second half but by this time the seven had gained so much influence and their mfp aligned with the culture of King's Landing cersei's kin-based ideology was outdated in summary Western Europe and Westeros both saw kin-based rule threatened by globalization and individuation Western Europe had the Western strain of Christianity and Westeros had the seven both of which imposed an mfp that weakened kin-based rule characters like Littlefinger and Tyrion are great examples of individuated globalized Minds whereas Cersei and the targaryens are examples of kin-based Minds Westeros and Western Europe were both melting pots of education and industrialization that pushed past the traditional Blood Ties of feudalism what do you think comment below thank you for watching like subscribe have a great day you think I'm some sort of savage

Channel: Psych Extension

Views: 17,920

Keywords: Game of Thrones, historical accuracy game of thrones, History, Western Europe, Education, game of thrones lore and history, George R.R. Martin, joseph henrich weird, Christianity, Marriage and Family, Cersei Lannister, Tyrion Lannister, little finger game of thrones, jon snow, iron throne, House of the Dragon, House of the dragon season, house of the dragon season 2, House of the dragon season 2 tr, house of the dragon season 2 trailer, Aegon Targary, aegon targaryen

Id: Jw5hVs_lW7c

Length: 8min 58sec (538 seconds)

Published: Tue May 02 2023