By Nolan Feeney
You don’t need a history degree to know that plenty of what goes on in Game of Thrones is entirely fictional. (Hello, fire-breathing dragons!) But that doesn’t mean the bloody conflicts in Westeros don’t draw on real-life history, either. Author George R.R. Martin has said he was inspired by the War of the Roses in 15th-century England while writing the books that later become the hit HBO series. But if scrolling through a 9,000-plus-word Wikipedia article and parsing the parallels yourself doesn’t seem like a good use of your time, the folks at TED-Ed have provided a six-minute animated lesson (above) that will teach you the difference between your Lancasters and Lannisters.
More Must-Reads From TIME
- The 100 Most Influential People of 2024
- The Revolution of Yulia Navalnaya
- 6 Compliments That Land Every Time
- What's the Deal With the Bitcoin Halving?
- If You're Dating Right Now , You're Brave: Column
- The AI That Could Heal a Divided Internet
- Fallout Is a Brilliant Model for the Future of Video Game Adaptations
- Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time
Write to Nolan Feeney at nolan.feeney@time.com