Based on your latest CBC Analysis and your previous Dany CBC, it appears GRRM drew a fair amount of inspiration for Slavers Bay from his home country. Would you say that other parts of Essos are inspired in part by the US? For example, Volantis feels very much like the US at its most decandant and corrupt, while Braavos seems to embody the American ideal of the city on the hill, though it’s hinted to harbour some dark secrets as well.

I think he drew more than a little bit from his research on the antebellum South for Fevre Dream, but there are other influences in no small part because there were other historical parallels available: Volantis has some strong influences from Constantinople, Braavos borrows from both Venice and Amsterdam, etc.

Slavers’ Bay is interesting, because it borrows heavily from Rome – the lockstep legions, the toga-like tokars, gladiatorial arenas, etc. – but also from Carthage, given its extended conflict with the Valyrian Freehold, the Harpy standing in for Baal Hammon, etc.