Two Walls

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The author of the bestselling Game of Thrones books, which have been turned into the award-winning TV show on Sky Atlantic, has revealed that seeing Hadrian's Wall planted the seeds1 of inspiration back in the 1980s for his popular fantasy tale.

In an interview with American magazine Rolling Stone, George R.R. Martin said it was the Northumberland landmark2 which first got him thinking about the plot and inspired The Wall, an integral part of the series.

Martin said “The Wall predates anything else. I can trace back the inspiration for that to 1981. I was in England visiting a friend, and as we approached the border of England and Scotland, we stopped to see Hadrian's Wall. I stood up there and I tried to imagine what it was like to be a Roman legionary, standing on this wall, looking at these distant hills.

“It was a very profound feeling. For the Romans at that time, this was the end of civilization; it was the end of the world. We know that there were Scots beyond3 the hills, but they didn't know that. “It could have been any kind of monster. It was the sense of this barrier against dark forces - it planted something in me. But when you write fantasy, everything is bigger and more colourful, so I took The Wall and made it three times as long and 700 feet high, and made it out of ice.” 

In the TV show, The Wall is a massive fortification which stretches for 300 miles along the northern border of the Seven Kingdoms, defending the realm from the wildlings4 who live beyond.

Sarah Scott, www.thejournal.co.uk , 5 June 2014

1 to plant an idea • 2 (ici) a monument • 3 further away • 4 barbarous people