[the_af]

But the thing is, the world of GoT isn't a realistic depiction of how medieval society would mutate due to dragons and zombies; it has so many divergences that George Martin's claim to be depicting a more realistic medieval society than in other fantasy worlds just does not hold. Like ACOUP points out, Westerns looks more like the Renaissance or even Victorian England.

It's not just religion (which, by the way: why do the dragon-riding Targaryens also do NOT believe in zombies or gods?).

It's also the feudal system. It didn't work like in GoT, as Brett from ACOUP shows. Medieval tactics (without dragons, how much of the battles happen in the books and show) don't work like that either. The bannermen system cannot sustain such large armies. Kings didn't randomly mistreat their populations. Logistics don't work like in GoT -- and that's current real world logistics, not even medieval! Steppe people weren't like the Dothraki. And so on and on.

Martin's world is pretty cool (to me, anyway) but is in no way more "realistic" than the Disneyland worlds he complains against.