fun video and actually informative...anyone else sick of characters that are played to be "too stupid?"

These would be great if they didn't have the talking guys.

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George R.R. Martin himself describes Maurice Druon's series "The accursed kings (Les Rois maudits)" as being "The Original Game of Thrones".

http://www.georgerrmartin.com/maurice-druons-the-iron-king/

*length=209 (meant to put that in the last one)

The duration of this video has been updated from unknown to 3:29 - length declared by oritteropo.

1. Monarchies historically existed.
2. Contested thrones and succession wars really happened
3. We built a wall in Germany, and a metaphorical Iron Curtain.
4. Polytheistic beliefs really were in tension with monotheistic ones
0. Natalie Dormer played Anne Boleyn
5. People used to fight with swords.

But of course, the genre - Fantasy - is practically defined by being set in a period analogous to a mashup of 800-1500 CE with the twist that some of the ideas of the time are actually true (gods, demons, magic, fantastic animals etc).

I say dragons, ice zombie hordes, and prolific bewb and butt shots makes GoT a transformative work. Real Life History© can go fuck itself.

how come i can't vote against this video?

You need to sift a few more vids first. I think the idea is that once people have bronze star they will know which vids belong here and which ones deserve the down-vote.... but every member gets to state their case in the comments

They should do one on how the Lord of the Rings Universe is basically the Bible!

I'd concur but I'd like to see you (or Cracked I guess) expand on just how many parallels can be made.

I'd start with the opening of the Silmarillion, the creation story that is pretty much a better version of Genesis (the gods singing the universe into existence). Then I guess quite a bit of the rest of the Silmarillion is pretty Old Testament-ish; lots of begats, chosen people being kicked out of/leaving Eden/Valinor, more angry and active creator(s), etc.

I suppose maybe that makes the Hobbit and LOTR itself the New Testament, but no parallels are jumping out at me there. Frodo dies (almost) and then comes back to life, helps everybody out, and then ventures off to Valinor, so maybe he is Jesus...

Is it just me, or is Hat Guy just impersonating Michael Swaim http://www.cracked.com/members/MichaelSwaim/ instead of having his own personality?