I know what you must be thinking, “there is no way that these three series are connected, but I’ll read this blog for a bit of fun anyways”. And that is exactly what this is, a good bit of fun. I know that J.R.R. Tolkien died while J.K. Rowling was still in elementary school. There is no way that these three universes are connected on purpose, the same way that there is no way that all of the Pixar movies are not connected, on purpose. However, what I am saying is that these three universes are three of the top best selling fantasy books of all time for a reason (Harry Potter is the top selling fantasy book series, followed by the lord of the rings, followed by the hobbit and A Song Of Ice And Fire currently sits at number 10). There are a million books that are published every year but how do these three stand out so far from the crowd. It might be because they all captured the perfect story at three different times in the past 100 years.
Let me explain.
SIMILARITIES
I first watched Lord of the Rings when I was in middle school and saw that the movies had dragons, wizards coming back from the dead, kings fighting for power and a center piece everyone was fighting for (The One Ring).
I first watched Harry Potter when I was in high school and saw that the movies had dragons, wizards coming back from the dead, different characters fighting for power and center pieces people were fighting for (Horcruxes & The Deathly Hollows).
I first watched Game of Thrones when I was a freshman in college and I saw the show had naked people, dragons, witches bring people back from the dead, kings fighting for power and the center piece everyone was fighting for (The Iron Throne).
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Okay, there are a few similarities in these three series but that does not prove that they are all connected. It would be like saying Twilight and High School Musical are connected because they’re both stories about a guy meeting a girl and falling in love.
We have to go further.
For all three to be in the same universe they have to all be on the same timeline and line up correctly. The only problem is that all three use different methods of documenting time. This might seem like a difficult problem to overcome but the same is true with other cultures in our world in the not too distant past along with the far far away past. Fortunately, there is an easy way of figuring out where everyone fits in on that world history timeline.
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TIMELINE
H.P.
Harry Potter is pretty simple when it comes to dating because they use our worlds form of dating.
Harry was born in 1980. The last Harry Potter movies ends in 2017. Pretty cut and dry. Now if we want to see how far back the books speak of we might ask a question like, “When was Dumbledore born?” or “When was Hogswart founded?” or even, “When was 
Salazar Slytherin born?” And the answers to those questions are 1881, 990 and 976. The books do give out earlier dates than 976 but the details are a little bit fuzzy, so we will stop there and put the Harry Potter universe as taking place from 976 A.D. to 2017 A.D.
Game of Thrones
It is more difficult to figure out when Game of Thrones is taking place because the year number is based on the corresponding “AGE”. The year is either labeled with an “AC” or “BC” at the end of the year. A good example of this is The Age Of Aegon’s Conquest. This started the year 1 A.C.
A Song Of Ice And Fire (The GOT TV Series) takes place in 298 AC.
It is widely accepted, even by the author himself (George R.R. Martin), that based on the weapons, tactics and other factors (such as cork technology) A Song Of Ice And Fire takes place in the mid to late 1400s (let’s say roughly 1470) in Western Europe. We can then conclude that 298 A.C. = 1470 A.D. We will use this conversion from here on out to make things easier and faster.
The latest Game Of Thrones story takes place is with A Song Of Ice And Fire. – 1470 A.D.
Before that was Aegon’s conquest in 1172 A.D.
Way back when The Long Night happened, along with The Night’s King and the building of The Wall was during the time period of 4828 B.C. – 6828 B.C.
The furthest the novels go back before the records fall out of the category of fact into the category of legend is in the Age Of Heroes in 8828 B.C.
Conclusion: Game of Thrones take place from 1470 A.D. – 8828 B.C.
Lord Of The Rings
In a similar way to Game Of Thrones, Lord of the Rings uses different “Ages” when restarting their year system. The books use a system based on the First Age, Second Age and Third Age. The movies take place in the Third Age. In the book, the events of The Fellowship of the Ring take place in the year 3018 of the Third Age.
It is widely accepted based on similar factors used to figure out when Game of Thrones takes place that Lord of the Rings takes place from the year 4000 B.C. up until the Bronze Age. We will use this to convert all other dates of Lord of the Rings.
Year 1 of the Third Age was 7018 B.C.
Year 1600 of the Second Age (8859) is when The One Ring was created by Sauron.
The furthest back the Lord of the Rings go back before also falling into legend is at the beginning of the Second Age, which takes place 10459 B.C.
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MATCHING UP OVERLAPPING TIMELINES
Where Game Of Thrones Overlaps With Lord Of The Rings:
8859 B.C. – Sauron creates the One Ring (LOTR)
8828 B.C. – Age Of Heroes (GOT)
6828 ~ 4828 B.C. – Building of The Wall (GOT)
4000 – 3000 B.C. – Frodo & Sam destroyed the One Ring (LOTR)
Where Harry Potter Overlaps With Game Of Thrones:
976 A.D. – Salazar Slytherin was born.
990 A.D. – Hogwarts was founded.
1172 A.D. – Aegon’s Conquest
1455 A.D. – John Snow & Tyrian Lannister live.
1881 A.D. – Dumbledore is born.
1980 A.D. – Harry Potter is Born
The real question with seeing where all of these time lines overlap, “is everything consistent and does anything in one book of absolute cannon contradict anything in anther book of absolute cannon?”
The answer, oddly enough is, no.
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EVERYTHING LINES UP
There are so many similarities to these three fantasy books series but for the sake of time let us look at the most glaring of them.
DRAGONS
In all three series, dragons are pretty straight forward. They can all fly, breath fire and cannot do anything too crazy like talk. The only time we see any deviation from the normal idea of an archetypical dragon is where Daenerys Targaryen gets to know dragons on a deeper, more personal level as their mother. This however does not contradict Harry Potter’s or Lord of the Ring’s depiction of dragons in any way.
OTHER MAGICAL CREATURES
HOW MAGIC ACTUALLY WORKS
When humans first discover that a select few are born with magical abilities it is very mysterious and confusing. Out of this confusion and incising power, comes religions that are centered around this newly discovered gift, along with men who have a desire for power. We see this song and dance for millennia. From the creation of the One Ring in 8859 B.C. (A king using magic focused through a ring to become the most powerful being on earth), to the children of the forest creating the White Walkers to protect themselves, all the way to the Red Witch bringing back John Snow from the dead to fulfill his destiny.
There were only a few small groups of wizards and witches that chose to dedicate their lives to understanding magic, such as Salazar Slytherin, who was born in 976, nearly 500 years before the time of John Snow or the Red Witch. The difference between Salazar and Melisandre is that Salazar was in a different culture/community of witches and wizards who were constantly learning and practicing the arts. These wizards and witches eventually began creating their own schools to master the craft of magic. And much like with the renaissance of math, science or biology that took place from the 1400s to the 1600s, the same thing happened with magic.
The Game of Thrones TV show actually takes place during the very beginning of the renaissance and the year of Dumbledore’s birth (1881) is around 200 years after the end of the renaissance. The availability of books along with the literacy rate drastically increasing around this 200 year time period, magic began to build on the previous years of knowledge (like any other “muggle science”) to become what we see in the Harry Potter movies.
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