9. The Mad King Concept Came From Henry VI
Keeping with the list of characters, The Mad King was not completely fictional. Now, not all of the Game of Thrones characters line up completely with history. For example, Queen Margaret (Cersei) gave birth to Edward of Lancaster (Joffery) who married Anne Neville (Sansa). All of that is pretty straightforward, but it gets murky when you throw Henry VI into the mix. Henry was married to Margaret and the father of Edward, so his counterpart in Game of Thrones would likely be Robert Baratheon, but he and Robert share very few similarities.
Instead, Henry VI is likely one of the inspirations for The Mad King, as Henry suffered from melancholy and depression. It was rumored that he was insane. With the pressure from the great nobles being divided, his nervousness grew worse and he suffered a complete mental breakdown, during which he was nearly catatonic. It was during this period that Margaret gave birth to Edward, which is why the rumors of his legitimacy began. If he couldn’t feed himself, how could have created s son? Henry had even said that his son must have “been conceived by the Holy Ghost.”
Of course, he didn’t order anyone to ‘burn them all’ like The Mad King in Game of Thrones. The fact that he was unfit to rule, though, helped to create the powder keg that turned into the War of the Roses, just as Aerys Targaryen’s inability to successfully rule the kingdoms spiraled into several people claiming to have a right to the throne and the situation that is now in Game of Thrones.
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