All stories of note have historical parallels, but I think it's fair to say that there have been new bits of history since then, that would heavily distract fro

All stories of note have historical parallels, but I think it's fair to say that there have been new bits of history since then, that would heavily distract from the meaning of the work, if the window dressing stayed the same. AGOT would hit a little differently if it just so happened that there was a horrifying civil war caused by a poorly planned incestuous relationship sometime in the 2010s. I've just seen the second film, and I think it does many of the book's messages justice (Great Man in particular). Perhaps you can criticize that removing the window dressing has destroyed some of the setting's cohesion. It's a reasonable argument. But I do think that the film would lose more if was buttressed with an allegorical context for, uh, more recent world history.