The The titles, thrones, crowns, lands, power. These are the contested elements within the Game of Thrones. Humans will go

to great lengths to achieve those lofty heights. We've seen in fiction and in the real world

countless attempts to use military might to win these ultimate prizes. But brute force and

domination is not the only tool in the powerbroker's arsenal.

Deception can go a long way. Even now in current times, identity theft and impersonations are commonplace.

And we can only imagine how the lack of photography and centralized documentation made impersonations a lot easier.

The ancient world, the medieval world, Westeros, these are places where impersonations a lot easier. The ancient world, medieval world, Westeros,

these are places where impersonations work differently. In a Song of Ice and Fire, there are many

cases of deception used to win, claim, or hold the throne. Joffrey's true heritage, for example,

young grifts in another one. In the latter's case, babies can be swapped

or simply produced with a conjured backstory. In other words, you can claim the babies were swapped.

Doesn't mean it's true. Real old history is shockful of such examples as well, that many of which

were inspirations for George. And that's our focus today. Because there's so

many examples, we'll focus primarily on the ones that actually have a Song of Ice and Fire parallels,

using a Song of Ice and Fire to get to those examples, sometimes the other way. But most of the

times we'll start with the Song of Ice and Fire example and show the historical parallel.

And pretenders or impostors are often intertwined.

After all, what's the point of impersonating a powerful person if you're not going to

get something out of it, like claim a title or wealth or something like that?

And that's where the pretenders come in, because a pretender, it sounds like an impersonator,

but it's really just someone who's trying to claim a title. Step one, impersonate. Step two, claim the title. Step three,

live or die by the success of the plan. So profit or die, win or die, right? The back and forth

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