George R.R. Martin, the author of the Song of Ice and Fire series, based his books on real-life medieval history. The Red Wedding, for instance, drew some inspiration from the Black Dinner, a particularly brutal even in 15th century Scotland.
However, A Song of Ice and Fire (and its TV adaptation Game of Thrones) are not actual history, although some fans have been known to make that mistake. So although you could roughly say that it’s set in the medieval period…it’s the fake medieval period.
But who needs actual history when Martin has made up his own? The history of the world of ice and fire is plenty fascinating by itself.
When is Game of Thrones set?
According to the timeline of the show, Game of Thrones begins in 298 AC, that is, 298 years after Aegon Targaryen’s conquest of Westeros. That’s when Aegon Targaryen and his sisters took to their dragons and united the seven warring kingdoms of Westeros with fire and blood, forging the Iron Throne and setting up a dynasty that lasted hundreds of years.
Plenty of interesting things happened between Aegon’s Conquest and the start of Game of Thrones, including a brutal Targaryen civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons. That conflict will be topic of HBO’s upcoming Game of Thrones spinoff House of the Dragon.
But there’s a lot more to explore before that. About 100 years before Aegon’s Conquest, the civilization of Valyira collapsed on Essos. Valyria was the most powerful civilization the world had ever known, in large part because they’d discovered how to raise and make use of dragons. But it all came crashing down in a cataclysm known as the Doom of Valyria. The Targaryens were the one powerful dragon-riding family to survive, since they were living on Dragonstone near Westeros at the time.
And about 6,000 years before the Conquest, the Andal people of Essos invaded Westeros; from them would descend powerful houses like the Lannisters, Baratheons and Tyrells. And before that, Westeros was mostly populated with the First Men, from whom the Starks are descended. They had their own conflicts to deal with, including the first war against the White Walkers, known as the Long Night.
And there’s a lot more detail to look into if you’re interested. Martin took his time plotting all this out.
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