Nostalgia4Dogges posted:

I YouTubed and googled some backstory the lore is pretty fun. We'll have a lifetime of side story HBO series for sure.

The Targaryen family tree is pretty nuts. I didn't know all this and I hope I understood it right:

Targaryens were one of four (?) dragonlord families in old Valyria. One of the dudes daughter's, Daenys the dreamer, had a nightmare of the demise of Valyria.

Dude said gently caress it and moved him and his family to Dragonstone, then 12 years later the calamity happened.

Also they liked incest because it allowed them to keep their blood pure, so they could control dragons. Which of course contributed to the "madness"

I like the idea theory that Bran's talking to them in their head made them nuts

Outrail posted:

So there was a reason for it beyond 'I like blondes I guess'? And the reason was 'Controlling sentient WMD's with your mind'?

vermin posted:

Nostalgia4Dogges posted:

I've never opened s GOT book so I'm curious exactly what is mentioned about the backstory.

or are y'all just putting it together from quotes in the books? Both?

I just wanna know more about all that poo poo. Jon the Builder, first men, the calamity

ruddiger posted:

It's missing Galactic Brain: "Westeros is a planet in the Warhammer40k universe, in the grim dark future, there is only war."

vermin posted:

It's mentioned in the books, and there's also an illustrated encyclopedia called The World of Ice and Fire that expands it. GRRM can be pervy, lazy, and unfocused but he's a hell of a worldbuilder. Anything past a certain point in their history is mixed with mythology and legend. You know how in the bible they use smaller numbers to signify a really big numbers? Same thing but backwards. The historians in Westeros sometimes say things happened a thousand centuries ago, when it was probably, like, 1,500 years.

It started out with the children of the forest, the giants, and the first men in Westeros. Magic existed back in those days and the first men had Greenseers who could possess animals and other people sometimes. The first men mostly lived in the north and fought a bunch with the children but they eventually declared a truce where men got to live in the open and the children had to live in the forest. Then the Andals immigrated to Westeros from Essos and mixed with the first men that lived in the South. They brought the worship of the Seven with them and didn't give a gently caress about tree-midgets. The children eventually got pushed way far to the north. At one point the Long Night happened, which was a winter that lasted for a really long time and everybody almost died. There were White Walkers, the dead, and giant spiders and such. Everybody in Essos has a legend about how it ended called Azor Ahai and there's a prophecy that he'll come back when the Long Night happens again.

Bran the Builder built the Wall with the help of the children to keep the dead from heading south again. The Night's Watch starts up around this point. Eventually the dead, the children, the giants, and all that turns into legends. Meanwhile in Essos, the Valyrians make this huge empire and use their inexplicable ability to control dragons to be the kings of all the poo poo. They use magic that eventually fades away from the world to create enormous wonders and build an amazing empire. Dorne is basically made up of former refugees fleeing Valyria's dominion. Eventually though (possibly because of some conspiratorial fuckery going on) a series of volcanoes goes off destroying Valyria. Pompeii times ten. The only surviving dragons and Valyrians are a freshly exiled house called the Targaryens who live on Dragonstone in Westeros.

Aegon Targaryen decides he is now the king of all poo poo and uses his dragons to conquer everybody in Westeros to make his own new empire with hookers and coke. King's Landing is where he first landed with his dragons and two incest sisters. The Targaryens are really into incest so they can keep the bloodline pure/keep Valyria alive which is eventually turns them into unstable hillbillies with political power and nukes. There's eventually a succession problem with the Targaryens involving crowning a woman, legitimized bastards, and foreign invasions backed by outcast nobles. Eventually Aerys exists and has Rhaegar. Rhaegar falls in love with Lyanna Stark and divorces his wife. Robert had a spergy crush on her and shouts RAPE and an already insane king Aerys starts killing noblemen, which turns half the kingdoms against him.

edit: TLDR there's a ton of lore channels on Youtube that do mini-documentaries on this stuff. However much backstory you think there is, there's more.

Hell Yeah posted:

lol i just did a huge fart that sounded like a monster trying to climb out of a swamp

Waltzing Along posted:

Grrm is a hell of a burger builder

ROFLburger posted:

Is there an origin to the white walker guys or a reason why they're such huge assholes?

ROFLburger posted:

Is there an origin to the white walker guys or a reason why they're such huge assholes?

Supreme Allah posted:

the little children of the forest made the white walkers (the little smurf girl that blew herself up a few eps ago)

they made them to protect the forest babies from men folk

but as events unfolded it begged the question:

even lovely men > snow zombies??

myDad posted:

What if the White Walkers actually built the wall and made the humans pay for it?

Zzulu posted:

Would YOU gently caress a giant?

Outrail posted:

They created a race that they wanted to tame and would sit around doing their work without complaining and they rebelled and ruined everything for their masters.

Basically white walkers are a nation of ex slaves and the real under dog heroes of the story.

the great deceiver posted:

there were 20 dragonlord families in valyria and the targaryens were a fairly minor one. theres noble houses in westeros pledged to dragonstone that also trace their lineage to valyria although they didnt get their incest on as hard as the targs so their blood isnt as pure and i dont think they can control dragons or whatever

ROFLburger posted:

i am NOT going to read a gameofthrones.wikia page