12. Several of the military orders that appear throughout the world of Game of Thrones, including the Night’s Watch and the Unsullied, are based on real historical organizations
A military order, charged with guarding The Wall and holding it against attacks from the lands beyond, the Night’s Watch was founded approximately eight thousand years before the events of Game of Thrones. Swearing an oath renouncing marriage, family, lands, or titles, members of the order, having forsworn prior allegiances, are inducted for life under penalty of death for desertion. Retaining significant parallels, the Knight’s Templar, formally known as the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, was an order of elite fighting men founded in 1119 at the behest of the Pope and existing until disbandment in 1312.
Typically joining for life, members were required to take vows of poverty and chastity so severe that any physical contact with any woman, even a relative, was strictly forbidden. Prominent throughout the Crusades, the order fought for the alleged common good of all peoples of Christendom. Reflecting Martin’s knowledge of archaic military orders, another distinguished grouping in Game of Thrones – the Unsullied – are also drawn from history. Inspired by the Ottoman Janissaries, this elite fighting corps, comprised of enslaved children taken at a young age, were spared the castration inflicted upon their fictional counterparts but were required to remain celibate during their service.