12 years ago, this game of Game of Thrones had blown away all fans, and it was inspired by a true story just as sinister

Multiple poisonings, massacres and other atrocious abuse sessions, humiliations, struggle to death between family clans, relentless revenge … Welcome to the universe of George RR Martin, the venerated creator of Game of Thrones!

The author, who affirmed in an iNterView given to the CBC channel in March 2012 “Take epic fantasy in Tolkien's tradition […]and combine it with a realistic genre “,, has largely nourished his work and of course the cult series of HBO, by borrowing many factual elements or events which took place in the Middle Ages, its favorite period.

As such, one of its models is the cycle of Cursed kings by Maurice Druon, composed of seven volumes written between 1955 and 1977 and which was wonderfully adapted to TV in 1973. “This is the original story of Game of Thrones” Even let go of Martin, evoking the Druon river saga, the first volumes of which were reissued in Great Britain in 2013, To the great joy of Martin.

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Martin who also develops a very dark vision of the Middle Ages. “Bad authors [de fantasy] are inspired by social structures of the Middle Ages […] But they don't seem to realize what it means. They write scenes in which the young courageous peasant woman rumbles the bad prince “ explained George Rr Martin in an interview with Times Entertainment in April 2011.

“”[Dans la réalité] The bad prince would have raped her. He would have put her on the irons and would have ordered that she was thrown on him. I mean that the social structure in places like these was hard. They had consequences. And people have been raised since childhood to know […] the homework and privileges of their class. It was always a source of tensions when someone came out of their condition. And I tried to reflect this “ said the author.

If the novelist's words deserve some real shades-social oppression in the Middle Ages being much more subtle than what it suggests, it is not, however, here of developing the realistic aspect or not of his approach in his saga. But to put in historical perspective certain facts and / or elements borrowed during this period.

Walder Frey's fatal banquet, TV version of the “black dinner” …

Immersed in the 9th episode of season 3, broadcast already 12 years ago. If it is called in French Castamere rainsthe episode is otherwise known as purple wedding. Viewers discovered there, absolutely horrified and dumbfounded by the extreme violence of the sequencethe massacre of the Stark and all their present men, orchestrated by the ignoble Walder Frey and Roose Bolton. Talisa Maegyr, Robb's promise, pregnant, was ripped; Catelyn and Robb Stark were touched by crossbow tiles, to finish stabbed and slaughtered.

A paralyzing and chilling blood bath, to review below, if the heart tells you …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD3_3iynlyi

In this anthology scene, George RR Martin was in fact inspired by two events which took place in the tormented Scotland of the 15th and 17th century: what was called “black dinner” and “the Glencoe massacre”. Two tragic events that also saw the rules of the flouted hospitality …

The “black dinner” came on November 24, 1440. Succeeding his father at the age of seven, while the regents had all those who participated in the plot who led to the assassination of Jacques I by members of the Douglas clan (the “Douglas Black”), his son Jacques he was crowned king Holyrood by Michael Ochiltree, the bishop of Dunblane, March 25, 1437.

His mother Jeanne Beaufort tried to get him out in 1439 from the castle of Stirling where he was under the thumb of a governor named Alexandre Livingstone. The young king is abducted by Sir William Crichton, governor of the Château d'Edinburgh, and taken there.

The two men compete in order to ensure his guard after having excluded his mother from the regency after his remarriage in 1439, and the death the same year of Archibald Douglas, who assured the regency of the Kingdom of Scotland from 1437 to 1439.

On the death of his father Archibald Douglas, his 16 -year -old eldest son William, takes the lead of the family, and wishes to become, as his father was, Regent. But Alexandre Livingstone and William Crichton do not really hear him like this … For them, the Douglas clan becomes far too powerful and constitutes a threat to the king and the kingdom.

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A beheaded black bull head, death symbol

This is where the Machiavellian plan is set up. Crichton invites William Douglas and his young brother, David, to come to Edinburgh, so that they can, according to him, “Better get to know their future king”. Under the rules of use of hospitality, normally sacred, their integrity and their safety are guaranteed by their host during their stay. But the trap closes …

In full rejoicing, a drum sound is suddenly heard. The doors are closed. A man walks in a hurry in the dining room, and serves them on the table the head of a freshly beheaded black bull, still dripping with blood. In Scottish folkore, it is the symbol of death. Driven outside, after a simulacrum of trials for high betrayal, William and David Douglas are beheaded, as well as their advisers.

Twelve years later, in 1452, King Jacques II invited William, 8th count of the Douglas clan. The goal? Provide reconciliation between the murderous clan of his father and the royal family. But, instead of now peaceful relationships, the opposite is happening …

William Douglas refuses to make allegiance to a king that his clan no longer wants to support, and with whom he is at war. King Jacques II then stabbed him with the throat with a dagger. While William is choking, unable to breathe, he is finished with a war ax on his head, and swayed by a window of the Stirling castle …

The Glecoe massacre

251 years after the infamous “black dinner”, Guillaume d'Orange, who was crowned king of England, Ireland and Scotland in 1689, tried to watch the Scottish rebellion. He sends 128 of his men, commanded by Captain of Arms Robert Campbell, asking for asylum from the Macdonald clan in Glecoe, who has just made him allegiance late. The soldiers take advantage of the cottage and the cover for two weeks. The order of the massacre is sent by the senior officer of Campbell, Major Duncanson.

This order has been preserved. Here is what he says:

“We order you by this to assault the rebels, the McDonald of Glenco, and to execute by the sword all those under seventy years. You must take particular care that the old fox and his sons do not escape from your hands under any pretext, you must secure the roads so that no man escapes.

You will be executed at five o'clock precisely; At this hour, or soon after, I will join you with a more numerous company: if I do not come at five o'clock, you should not expect me, but attack. This is in special order of the king, for the good & the security of the state, so that these disbelievers are annihilated, root and branch.

Make sure that this is executed without quarrel or favor, or you will be treated as an unfaithful man to the king and the government, and unworthy to execute the missions of the king's service. Certain that you will not fail to fulfill this, I write this from my hand to Balicholis, 12 Feb. 1692 “.

For the service of their majesties

At CAPT. Robert Campbell de Glenlyon

On February 13, 1692, in the first light of dawn, Captain Campbell and his men took advantage of the sleep of their hosts to massacre them. The massacre actually began simultaneously in three places in Glencoe – Invercoe, Inverrigan and Achacon – but the murders extended to the whole valley during the Macdonald flight. In total, 38 men from the Macdonald clan were murdered, in their homes or trying to flee in the Glen. About 40 women and children died due to the cold after their houses were burned.

This massacre has long haunted the Scottish collective imagination, and continues to do so. A memorial was erected in the village of Glencoe, about 200 meters from the place where the road crosses the Coe river. Each year, on February 13, the Donald Society clan D'Édinburgh organizes a wreath removal. Members of the Donald clan from around the world attend the ceremony alongside the inhabitants of Glencoe.

Revenge is a dish that …

Strangely, the McDonald and Douglas clan have never sought reveal to the terrible spell which was reserved for their members, against those who had violated the most sacred customary laws of hospitality.

The Stark family will remember. Especially Arya Stark. After preparing a pie garnished with songs from the legitimate son of Walder Frey and her bastard, she made her eat at the Patriarch before revealing her true identity.

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Right after, using Walder Frey's face and voice, Arya organizes a feast and invites the rest of the men of the Frey house. She serves them wine that she nicknamed “Muscat de la Treille”, which is actually poisoned. While she begins to “congratulate” them saying that they are courageous men for having massacred those to whom bread and salt had been offered and to have stabbed a pregnant woman, the men begin to choke and die as they spit blood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osrruergkke

At the same time, Arya removes the face of Walder Frey, revealing to the women of Frey and the servants. And to contact Kitty Frey, Walder's last wife: “When you ask you what happened here, tell them that the North remembers. Tell them that winter came for the Frey house …”