Game of Thrones is a HBO show, based on the Song of Ice & Fire series by George RR Martin. Though post Season 5, the show is moving on it’s own direction. Call it Fanfic, if you will.
When the show had first started airing, I was very skeptical about the hype. I caught couple of episodes, which were full of violence & nudity. Not to my taste, I left it at that.
Recently, out of curiosity I started reading the book A song of ice & fire & boy was I hooked! I read all the books in the series – A Song of Ice & Fire, Clash of the Kings, A Storm of Swords & Dance of Dragons – 5 books in all, with two books having 2 parts. I also watched all the 7 seasons of the show. The level of obsession is such that all my Quora & FB feeds are full of Game of Thrones references, fanfic, jokes & memes! I also designed a presentation for work with the theme of GOT (as Game of Thrones is lovingly called) I do not do anything half heartedly, you see! :p
After my recent visit to Delhi & reading books by William Darlymple, I am also very much fascinated with Delhi, Agra & Mughal Architecture. Someone recommended me to read Alex Rutherford series on Mughals because of this. And I don’t know if I have a hangover of GOT, or was George RR Martin inspired by the Mughals as well (I knew he was inspired by the War of Roses) or people in the medieval era were just the same.
The Mughal Era is also full of violence, incest, homosexuality, kinslaying and kingslaying. You can see lots of nuances of GOT characters in the Mughal princes, Kings & Queens.
Timur Lang was definitely the Mad King. Babur & Baburi (Baburi was a companion *ahem* of Babur and Babri Masjid, yes, the controversial one, is named after Baburi) can be Robert Baratheon & Ned Stark or can also be Renly Baratheon & Loras Tyrell. I can also see hints of Jon Snow in the young Babur. There is a hint of incestuous relationship between Shahjehan & his elder daughter JahanAra (there goes the romance out of Taj Mahal) like the incestuous relationship between Cersei & Jamie Lannister. Tyrion (I hate to do this) was hated by Tywin, so was Aurangzeb hated by Shahjehan.
Also, there is Shaybani Khan, a Uzbek ruler, who Babur could never defeat. His name means Obsidian. And *hold your breath* what does obsidian do in GOT?? Kills the white walkers!
Normal Obsidian
Dagger made of Obsidian
I also found Shaybani Khan’s character quite similar to Khal Drogo & the Dothrakis. He even marries Babur’s sister like Drogo marries Daenerys. I could go on & on about this! I am so fascinated by all the similarities that I HAD to write a post about it! Wait, is this how fanfiction gets written??
