The Wheel of Time is one of the biggest fantasy franchises in history, right up there with The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and A Song of Ice and Fire. And like that last one, the series is currently getting a big boost in publicity thanks to a new TV adaptation, this one airing on Amazon Prime Video.
The first book in The Wheel of Time series, Robert Jordan’s The Eye of the World, came out in 1990. That’s just six years before George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones came out. With big sprawling fantasy series being published concurrently, naturally Martin and Jordan became friends, and Martin included several tributes to Jordan in his work. Los Siete Reinos has kindly cataloged some of them. Let’s take a look.
House Jordayne of the Tor
In Dorne, there is a noble house called House Jordayne, ruled over by Trebor Jordayne (“Trebor” is “Robert” backwards.) Obviously, this is a nod to Martin’s friend and colleague.
What’s more, the seat of House Jordayne is “the Tor.” Tor is also the name of the publisher that put out The Wheel of Time books for years. And then there are the the House Words of House Jordayne: “Let it be written.” Perfect.
Time is a wheel in Westeros
One of the fundamental ideas behind The Wheel of Time series is that the same historical events repeat over and over according to the weaving of the wheel of time. You know how everyone on the show talks about the Dragon Reborn, who we finally learned in Rand al’Thor? That’s because Rand is literally the reincarnation of the last dragon, Lews Therin Telamon, who we met in a cold open.
Martin paid tribute to this idea in the chapter “Daughter of the Kraken” from A Feast for Crows, when Asha Greyjoy pays a visit to her bookish uncle Rodrik Harlaw.
"You can read it here. It is very old, very fragile.” He scowled at her. “Archmaester Rigney wrote that history is a wheel, that the nature of man is fundamentally immutable. According to him, what has already happened will happen again, without remedy."
That’s a pretty clear reference to The Wheel of Time. Also, “Archmaester Rigney” is a reference to James Rigney, which is Robert Jordan’s real name.
George R.R. Martin wrote The Wheel of Time fanfiction
George R.R. Martin has gone on record as not being a big fan of fanfiction, but he did make one very entertaining exception: in 2010, he wrote a short story on his Not A Blog where Rand al’Thor, the Dragon Reborn, faced off with Westeros’ own Jaime Lannister, who got an assist from his brother Tyrion.
You can read the full thing here, but it’s no slip of a story; it’s well over 6,000 words long! That tracks, since Martin doesn’t seem to keep anything brief. I’d say we wouldn’t have it any other way, although if it meant finally getting to read The Winds of Winter, I’d consider having it a slightly different way.
In any case, it’s cool to see how much affection and interplay there was between these series. And with Amazon’s Wheel of Time show happening in the shadow of HBO’s Game of Thrones, that cross-pollination is still going on.
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