What I Learned on My Vacation to Westeros

Fascinating piece. I almost didn't read it as I thought it was simply Game of Thrones fanfare. I've often thought Martin derived many of the Thrones conflicts from the Irish Annals, as they are replete with violent episodes that rival anything in the show. As I said elsewhere recently, the history of Ireland is one of constant violence for the control of land. The idea that a Game of Thrones marketing stunt might be viewed centuries hence as depicting real events is certainly evidence that the thin line between fiction and history occasionally evaporates in places. Surely, when the archaeologists of the future find that faded and moth eaten tapestry abandoned in an Ulster ruin, the battered bones they dig from the earth will be real.

I read once that Ireland has been beset by “too much reading of history by moonlight” (in the sense of mythologizing the conflict, with one’s own side being heroes and one’s opponents seen as monsters.). One of the best things about Game of Thrones is the complexity of characters. There are no pure heroes, just people in impossible situations trying to find their way to a brighter future. Even many of the villains have the possibility of redemption, or at least a back story that inspires empathy for their circumstances if not their actions. Martin has criticized The Lord of the Rings for its bright lines between good and evil, but Tolkien was writing Christian allegory at the same time that the Northern Hemisphere was engaged in the titanic struggle against Naziism and the Axis powers. Martin, who is still working on his magnum opus, is doing so as the world’s leaders bicker, posture and fight, ignoring the dangers that await due to climate change. Summer is coming....

It is not Britain that is imposing the border after exit but the EU. The EU’s borders to the East and South are completely porous but the EU has decided that the border with Northern Ireland must be policed. The only reason for this is to cause the British Government problems.

Really enjoyed reading this, very interesting and informative. Great writing. I've never seen GoT but I understand its wide appeal and huge following.

Happy to see an article that mentioned GoT and Northern Ireland without NI being mentioned as a location. NI has been in conflict since the Good Friday Agreement. Almost 94% of the schools remain segregated by identity, social housing is segregated and divisions within and between communities remain. Brexit has put the Good Friday Agreement at risk, there's been no functioning government for years and London (Westminster, not Westeros) has been as out of touch, if not more, than Dubliners and it's those in London who have historically made the decisions. And, who apparently, only recently, woke up to the reality that the Brexit vote could have massive consequences for NI. It's also about how quickly we want to move on from mass violence, how little we want to think about what it takes to help a society and people move from conflict and division to living together in genuine peace and with stability and the possibility of a shared future. For too long, stories of Rwandans linking hands and South Africa's rainbow nation and NI as a new site for filmmakers have dominated the news until something awful happens and then everyone is surprised. Just as the US continues to struggle with our history, the divisions in our society and now, especially, tribal partisan divisions, these places are even more fragile. Media could do a service by helping citizens to understand this so they could imagine what it takes to be truly supportive of policies and programs that support peace.

"It is extremely common to hear Dubliners say that they have never been to Belfast, the next-largest city on this tiny island, and that they have no special sense of urgency about ever going." Isn't this a shocking indictment of Dublin's intellectual and political culture, at least as bad perhaps as Game of Thrones fantasy TV culture? Or in its complacency, even worse?

I suppose Money is the one true God and the only thing that, therefore, matters. However, how sad and pathetic that the "children" of Generation Trump visit a place to relive a fantasy TV show...instead of learning about the place's history, cultures, language, people, environment, etc! I do want to visit Sicily because of the Italian crime series "Montalbano." But not to pretend I'm a character in the show fighting criminals. I want to swim off the beach where Montalbano swims, and eat in the restaurants where Montalbano eats.

The photo shows pretty crude sword fighting. The duelists should wear gambesons that do not budge on the torso when one makes violent movements of the arms covered by the sleeves. Second, a sword fight with the two samurai swords, one long and the other shorter, is much more elegant and versatile in how the weapons can be used.

"The point of our being here was that its beauty had led to its being featured on “Game of Thrones.” There was a sense in which we could have been anywhere." I am originally from Dublin and when we were small the family went to many Irish beauty spots [though never the North because of the troubles - Donegal a lot] At any particularly beautiful spot we would exclaim: "It could be anywhere." Later I took this be a peculiarly Irish inferiority complex: if it was good, it must be more than or other than Irish. My father was from Derry, and always said we Dubliners had an inferiority complex [I suppose because we had been colonized for so long. Anyway, sorry for the tangent about a very telling turn of phrase. Perhaps we are all colonized by "Hollywood" now. I went with my brothers and sisters last May along the spectacular Antrim coast, including visiting Belfast for the first, before the hard border inevitably returns. We saw one GOT site, but luckily were all completely and happily innocent of GOT, so we had none of the pleasing metaphysical profundities that the author nicely describes. Instead it was just beautiful - and both our country and a foreign country; although it seemed more foreign I think to all of us.

Mr. O'Connell's writing touches on disquieting, Orwellian themes of today. The U. S., in particular is rife with the creation of alternate 'truths' about allies, opponents, current events and the historical past. We are seeing hegemonic plays for power by widely disparate groups including fanatical religions, ideologues, self-dealers, and marginalized fringe thinkers of all sorts. Chaos is a ladder, indeed.

in '71 i stood on an unauthorized road to the North and encountered British troops; In '72 my dad drove the family to the border but would not cross, although our Irish relatives resided in the North. Blessed with good fortune ,we visited the Northern Irish relatives throughout the first two decades of the new millenium..alas my dad never did met them nor did he see the beauty of the North

I was expecting to dismiss this piece partly because I think culture is declining and commerciality has numbed us to what is important. But it is such an informative, thoughtful and well written article. I get inspired by real history, however fiction often conveys real emotion and deep thought. Thank you NYT.

This kind of show bores the heck out of me. So I don't watch it. But I do like Ireland (I'm l/4 Irish) and greatly miss Ballykissangel on PBS.

I ain't ever watched no GoT. I played D&D in the early 80's. So even the D&D I played was pretty deep-nerd stuff. We had to write down campaigns in text, roll real dice and look things up in multiple tomes. But for us it was pure fantasy, there was no thought of LARP or any other insanely stupid nerdisms. Therefore all yawl who have this thought that dragons and swords is romantic because they show pretty girls...it is stupid, yes? Like almost believing what you saw in a movie.

Fantastic article! (Pun initially unintended.) I spotted two allusions to James Joyce's writing, the celebrated architect of Dublin, and June 16 is around the corner. I'd like to see an episode in which Bloom fights one of those pesky little dragons from Winter Wonderland. (Confession: I've never watched the show.)

The Brexiters fulminate about the tyranny of Brussels but had no problem with the tyranny of the British Empire.

Profoundly thoughtful essay, weaving pop culture, real history, literary history. and contemporary politics. It skirts close to, but wisely holds back from, an unspoken sub-text about a solution to the Irish hard border question: reunification of the entire island nation as an independent member of the European Union. The author alludes to a fear of renewed Troubles if a hard border returns. The flip side of this fear is the happy promise of renewed community if the Irish can fully define themselves as a nation, and Northern Ireland can become simply northern Ireland. It can keep on being Westeros as long as it likes, a dark but fictitious shadow (reminder?) of a happier present reality.

Having last night watched the begining of the end of GoT, I was gladened to see this essay in my feed. What I read was far from what I was expecting, for that I thank you. An essay so well written and thought-provoking I reread it. To imagin Northern Ireland once again bordered, would be a tradgedy brought on by the Brexit hubrius. If I were more the traveler, I'd go now, the land is stunning, the real and imagined history brought together in your story, offered an unthought of perspective.

An excellent, thought-provoking essay. My wife and I were in the area last week. We don’t watch Game of Thrones (yet; resistance may be futile). We were in Northern Ireland for its beauty and history, but were seemingly outnumbered by other tourists drawn only by its role as a movie set. That would be unfortunate no matter where it occurred (do you visit Normandy because of what happened there in 1944, or are you more excited by Ireland’s southeast coast, where “Saving Private Ryan” was shot?), but it seems especially tragic in the case of Northern Ireland, a real place with a real and tragic history, enjoying a real peace now threatened by the Game of Brexit fantasy.