Since the rock-hard appendage of Game of Thrones forcefully thrust itself onto television screens in 2010, viewers have been transfixed with the goings on in Westeros and Essos beyond the Narrow Sea. The lies, politics (though surely they're the same thing), deceit, sex, power plays, sex murder and sex. A particularly pleasant quirk for viewers from the United Kingdom is that George R.R. Martin has based Westeros on medieval Europe, with rivalries such as the Starks and the Lannisters being based loosely on The War of the Roses between the Yorks and the Lancasters. Featuring a largely British cast, with some old, familiar faces (I'm thinking Jerome Flynn, here) the show immediately provides a brilliantly nostalgic feel, along with being utterly fascinating to anyone with so much as a mild interest in British history. One dynamic that the show - and indeed, the books - depend on is the North-South divide, as it is the catalyst for all that is to come. Obviously, this is fiction and melodrama, but several of the stereotypes the writers have used to illustrate just how different these two points of the compass are were absolutely bang on the money. The following 12 points are instances where Game of Thrones have got North absolutely right, proved by the fact that we all like the Northerners better in fiction as well as real life...
12. The Weather
Bearing in mind that, at the time of writing, it's currently 14 degrees in Leedsat the beginningof August, it's safe to say the North gets a raw deal when it comes to the weather. Whilst we see Cersei lounging in her solar in King's Landing, sun spilling gloriously through the stained glass, handmaids in light, silk dresses attending to her, we then cut back to Winterfell, where it's blowing a gale and everyone's trussed up in fur. The conditions they suffer on The Wall is instantly recognisable as anywhere north of Birmingham between October and March. The only difference is, you won't see anyone wearing coats and gloves up here. It's not just where the Starks live, though, that gets the worst of the weather. The Eyrie is grey and windy, The Fingers, The Riverlands and The Twins never seem to see the sun crack through the clouds. Of course, this all makes far more sense when you discover that most of the North's locations were filmed in Northern Ireland. The weather in the North of Westeros and England absolutely stinks, but it may go some way towards explaining the next point.
