References in Heavensward

[Enkidoh]

I've seen two Game of Thrones references so far.

trial by combat

That's hardly a GoT reference though, given the fact it's actually from real-world history (and given the fact the Tribunal is clearly based on the historical Catholic Inquisition this makes the real-world connection even more obvious).

Another possible film reference in Heavensward though is the name of Ishgard's advanced (and broken) battle airship the Protector - this may be a parody of the ship the NSEA Protector featured in the Star Trek spoof Galaxy Quest - the joke being furthered that the Ishgardian airship is broken and that it was apparently a design the Ishgardians based on Cid's designs (hence they didn't completely understand the technology and ended up messing it up, eventually having to call in Cid himself to fix it).

This is a reverse of the situation on Galaxy Quest where the ship was originally fictitious (being depicted in a sci-fi show-within-the-movie), but which the aliens in the film actually thought was real and made their own fully functional version, including working versions of technologies that actually didn't exist! I thought that was a clever reference to one of my favourite films.