When George R. R. R. Martin wrote his series of books that eventually would be adapted

into the Game of Thrones series on HBO, One of the things that he did that was

brilliant in the world building phase is he took a map of Great Britain and he

flipped it upside down and then he threw a bunch of towns and provinces and

regions and stuff all over that map and started building that way.

And hidden in the map is one of the thematic ciphers to understanding the

whole world because what Martin really did is he took all

the juiciest most grotesque shocking outlandish stuff from Western history not

just English history but from Western history and he found ways to weave it into his own narrative.

And so as a result, I think part of the popularity of that program, in addition to interesting characters and

shocking images, is that you really do get a mirror held

up to our own history, religiously, philosophically, and politically.

And one of the things that I thought he did a great job of emulating is the idea of

feudalism and the relationship between peasants and lower-ranking lords and their regional lords are even kings.

And so in the whole game of Thrones universe,

one of the things that big time high ranking lords might do from time to time

would be to call in their bannermen. These are people who

had sworn loyalty to that leading house and who would need to show up and provide men and provide

support to support the vision for the kingdom or the region held

forth by the king or the highest ranking nobleman and the idea of being a

Bannerman is that you take an oath to this other house and it's not really up to you

whether you agree with what they're doing or not or whether it fits your vision or

...