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Science is coming.
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[MUSIC]
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The Game of Thrones universe is one of the most brilliantly complex and utterly FRUSTRATING
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fictional universes ever created.
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But it IS a fictional universe, and the only rule of a fictional universe is that it is
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SELF-consistent. It doesn't have to agree with our science, or logic, or even our commonly
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agreed-upon moral code that says killing people is not a good thing. There is only one god
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in that universe, and his name is Gurm.
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But despite that, many things in Game of Thrones can be linked to the real, ACTUAL world, drawing
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inspiration as if through the thirsty roots of a weirwood tree. Many of these connections
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are interpreted by fans, but some have been verified by the bearded one himself.
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There are the many competing religious philosophies, the many, many, MANY similarities to real-life
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historical characters or the fact that they LOOK like us? But we are not going to be talking
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about those...
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Here's where I would give you a spoilers warning, but . . . come on. You clicked on this. Spoilers
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are coming.
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Why are the seasons so crazy? In the Game of Thrones universe winters and summers are
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known to last years at a time and apparently show up when they damn well please. We know
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that the summer/winter cycle normally averages around 5 or 6 years apiece, and as the story
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begins the most recent summer has stretched to nearly ten years. On Earth, seasons are
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caused by our axial tilt leaning one side of Earth toward or away from the sun during
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our annual trip around it, but George's world isn't so predictable.
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The Maesters of the Citadel are the geeks of Westeros, who are supposed to calculate
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when the next Polar Doom will arrive. Westeros isn't an industrial society, but the architecture,
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metallurgy, and medicine we see in the Known World suggests that these guys are a fairly
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scientific bunch.
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Many theories have attempted to explain the reason for these seasons, but most of them
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collapse faster than a Greyjoy's loyalty.
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We know that the Westeros-ian world has a moon, and that it used to have two. Maybe
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their moon isn't as large as ours so the planet's axis, unstabilized by lunar gravity, wobbles
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like a broken top. But, according to astronomers, moons don't stabilize planets, rather a moonless
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planet should spin more evenly than one with a moon.
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Then what if its orbit, instead of a nearly circular ellipse, like ours, was extremely
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elongated? Well that doesn't work either. While it could cause extreme seasons, they'd
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still show up on a regular schedule. Even complex combinations of orbital stretches
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and wobbles, like Earth's Milankovitch cycles, could be predicted by any society that knows
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basic algebra.
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Well, then maybe it's tugged on by the gravity of a neighboring planet, or its sun has a
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variable output. George R.R. Martin did write his first novel about a planet falling away
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from its parent star.
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It's most likely that the Game of Thrones planet . . . it needs a name. Planet Hodor!
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lives in a very strange solar system, around a pair of stars. Last April, a group of graduate
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students from Johns Hopkins University published a paper showing that if the world of Game
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of Thrones was subject to the complex dynamics of three celestial bodies orbiting each other,
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predicting a planet's seasons would be impossible.
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This has interesting implications for Tatooine . . ?
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Of course, it could also be due to magic, which is cheating.
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And what about that world anyway? At the amazing planetary science blog Generation Anthropocene,
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Miles Traer and Mike Osborne have constructed a detailed geologic history of Westeros stretching
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back more than 500 million years into the fictional past.
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They determined that, since the North is cold enough to maintain a wall of ice, which we'll
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come back to, year-round, it must be near this planet's Arctic circle, and since the
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south is warm enough to be covered by deserts, which primarily exist near Earth's 30th parallel
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that Planet Hodor has a radius of 4,297 miles or about 10% wider than Earth.
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We know that the First Men crossed into Westeros on a land bridge near Dorne, and like Africa
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and South America, the coastlines of Westeros and Essos seem to fit like puzzle pieces.
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They were probably unzipped beginning 25 million years ago by a spreading rift, like the one
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in the middle of our Atlantic Ocean.
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And 40 million years ago, Westeros was likely covered by a huge ice sheet, which retreated
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as glaciers, cutting the great valleys south of Winterfell and the Riverlands between Harrenhal
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and The Twins.
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The description of the jagged Black Mountains sounds a lot like our own Rocky Mountains,
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which were born around 60-80 million years ago. This would also mark the birth of the
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Mountains of the Moon and the high Westerlands, as north and south Westeros smashed together
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just like the fault beneath the Himalayas.
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That violent uplift is what exposed all that Lannister gold from its origin deep within
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the crust. That era also would have borne the Iron Islands . . . but we have a different
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iron to talk about.
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Valyrian steel was an alloy forged in the ancient empire of the Valyrians, lighter and
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stronger than regular steel, and whose secrets were lost during the Great Doom, when volcanoes
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torched Valyria, and its dragons, into charcoal. That Valyrian steel was forged with dragon
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fire, which is not actually a thing, but it's almost certainly a reference to Damscus steel,
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an ancient steel alloy developed in India around 300 BC. Like Valyrian steel, the secrets
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of its forgery were lost to history forever.
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Speaking of dragon fire . . . what if dragons COULD exist? How COULD a living thing breathe
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flames?
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My buddy Kyle Hill came up with an interesting theory. Like the tiny bombardier beetle, dragons
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could secrete reactive "hypergolic" chemicals that, when mixed, react violently and shoot
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out of an orifice like rocket fuel.
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And if dragons chewed on certain rocks and metals, which I imagine are like cupcakes
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to them, they could coat their teeth in minerals, creating a spark with rows of deadly knife-like
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flint and steel.
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Unfortunately, our idea of a fire-breathing flying dragon is about to come crashing back
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down to Earth, because physics. As Bran Stark found out the hard way, gravity seems to work
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in Westeros just like it does here. And that means the Mother of Dragons' kids are grounded.
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The largest bird that ever lived was the giant teratorn, with a wingspan of 7 meters. Not
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big enough.
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Dragons are probably more like pterosaurs. But even the largest of those, Quetzalcoatlus,
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maxed out at 11 meters from wingtip to wingtip and 250 kg. But Daenarys' dragons are bigger
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than that by the time they hit puberty, and dragon lore says they never stop growing.
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Even with a pterosaur's hollow bones, ability to gallop on all fours to take off and huge
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stretchy wings, even Hodor could figure out that the dragons don't work. Unless, yeah
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. . . magic.
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The Wall? Won't work. A sheer cliff of solid ice stacked 700 feet tall would melt at the
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bottom under its own weight and would fall apart unless it was sloped
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Wildfire? Works. "Greek Fire" was an ancient precursor to napalm made from petroleum, sulfur,
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saltpeter and was the most potent weapon of its time. Add a little trimethyl borate, and
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you've got a flaming death that's ready for St. Patrick's Day.
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Milk of poppy? Works. Our opiate drugs from morphine to vicodin to even heroin are all
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derived from the poppy plant.
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Dire Wolf? Works. The extinct Canis dirus was the largest wolf to ever exist, covering
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North and South America, thousands have been found in the La Brea Tar Pits alone.
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Of course, the universe of Game of Thrones would live . . . or die . . . just fine whether
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or not it agrees with our science. But by combining the two, as Raymond Chandler said,
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The truth of art keeps science from becoming inhuman, and the truth of science keeps art
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from becoming ridiculous
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What do you think? Does bringing science into a fantasy story kill the wonder like a guest
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at the red wedding? Or does it help the fictional world . . . truly "exist" in our own? I think
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it makes the story richer than a Lannister. Let me know what you think in the comments.
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And remember, a Hanson always pay their debts. Subscribe, and I will pay you back with a
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new video every week.
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Valar Morcurious.