Do you have any rational line of reasoning that they’re a similar outfit other than “Black Badge = Black worn by the Night’s Watch”?
If you paid attention to my original post, you would have noticed that it's not just the black symbolism but a combination of parallels.
Not to crap on your ideas, but this is just random speculation. You don't have a watertight case here.
Random, in this case, means lacking a clear plan, purpose, or pattern. The original title of my post was "Discovery: Game of Thrones" to observe clear parallels, with specific evidence-backed examples, between the two television series. Plus, the "black badges" topic has already spawned its own article with a fan theory on the internet.
What happens if this thread grows into hundreds of pages? Will anything new resembling a theory always be redirected here for new readers to dig through?
Anyway, what's done is done. Let's move on.
So, for one thing, the combined traits of eating hearts of enemies, shaving heads, and self-scarification didn't even exist in GOT until the TV show, somewhere around 2013-2014.
The
Game of Thrones Wiki that was linked to is specifically for the television series:
...an encyclopedic guide to the HBO television series Game of Thrones
The linked-to
Thenns page simply mentions the differences with the books for comparison. It even includes the following clarification, which you've already quoted, as the main reason for those differences:
Due to time constraints, the TV series version of "the Thenns" is basically a conflation of the book-Thenns with the book-ice river clans - combining the most advanced and refined wildling clan with the most savage and animalistic. Again, making the Thenns cannibals in the TV series does have some precedent in the books, as there is a separate group of wildlings who are cannibals, but the TV show (somewhat paradoxically) combined them both together. That being said, the TV-Thenns do not appear to (primarily) eat other people as a survival tactic (like the savage ice-river clans in the books), but as a terror-tactic to frighten their enemies (i.e. the old trope of eating an enemy's heart to take his courage).
This actually only strengthens the parallels between the two series.
The idea that the black badges are a military joined to absolve past crimes is interesting, but I'm pretty sure that hasn't been established, and even if it were, I don't see how that and a color would make it "an undeniably close parallel". If they also end up sterilized and stationed at the border for the rest of their lives, maybe.
Try putting it all together: convicts, black badges aboard the USS
Discovery, Michael Burnham as a convict with a black badge, "top secret tech" that may go against the Federation rules and ethics, Lorca's power to defy the Federation laws and values,
Discovery's registry number being NCC-10
31, Section 31's black uniforms and being a clandestine group that claims to protect the interests of the United Earth and the Federation, while being accountable to no one.
Combine it with the new Klingons being like the Thenns in
Game of Thrones (TV series).
It doesn't have to be identical in every detail to be a close parallel.
Burnham is actually wearing a super rare Gray Badge.
It’s as clear as day that DSC’s Gray Badgers are exactly like the Grey Wardens from Dragon Age.
And the new Klingons are the Discovery’s Darkspawn.
Ironically, now that you mention it, they might very well be like the Grey Wardens in
Dragon Age.
The
Grey Wardens (
Dragon Age):
“You will guard them and they will hate you for it. Whenever there is not a Blight actively crawling over the surface, humanity will do its best to forget how much they need you. And that's good. We need to stand apart from them, even if they have to push us away to make us do it. That is the only way we can ever make the hard decisions.” ―Kristoff, Commander of the Grey of Orlais during the Blessed Age
[. . .]
Beholden to no temporal lords, they were free to sacrifice villages and fortresses that could not be won, preserving their might for the clashes that truly mattered.
... they acquire whatever resources they can regardless of the method, and employ whomever they must, regardless of their defects of morals or character. They often turn a blind eye to blood magic, deal with demons of the Fade, and do whatever else they must so long as those efforts led to the Blight's end.
... the ranks of the Order are filled with dangerous men and women, some unscrupulous in the extreme, but the Wardens make a point of suspending judgment of any who are effective against the darkspawn.
[. . .]
Grey Wardens are also known to recruit criminals, giving them a chance to redeem themselves by pledging to a good cause.
Clear as day.
