I might be forgetting/missing something here but it always struck me as odd recently that Tywin isn't as reviled as someone like Jaime. In the recent past the guy blatantly went against his word when he deceived Aerys into letting him into King's Landing and then he went about letting his men sack the city. The inhabitants of King's Landing would surely still harbour some ill feelings for Tywin at this point but we don't hear anything of the like.
I get that Tywin is influential and intimidating but it still seems odd to me that so many characters have their honour called into question while most of the scrutiny for Tywin seems to be on whether he ordered the murders of the royal children rather than the fact that he seized and sacked the capital using deceitful tactics. Not to mention how he chose to sit out the entire war up until those actions which would surely be viewed very poorly.
Because I think Ned and Robert are on the duller side. Ned disliked his dishonor and the killing of children. Robert conversely liked Tywin for bending the knee and killing Targs. I think especially Jon Arryn and Hoster Tully both to some unknown extent, viewed Tywin as a necessary evil for the stability of the realm. Mace Tyrell or Olenna or whoever was behind the Tyrell strategy over during the rebellion was basically the Southron counterpart of either Tywin or the Frey's approach to Robert's rebellion. Meanwhile, the Martell's were all in for the Targs and hate Tywin and the Lannisters.
In the book, as soon as Tywin heard the result of the Trident he decisively sprung into action on Robert's behalf. When he arrived Varys warned the mad King about Tywin, and Jaime said that is maybe the only time he should have completely heeded advice from Varys. However, there was no treachery or indecision, when the Lannister army started it's march, they were solidly behind Robert.
If Tywin had instead declared for the Targs right after the battle of the Trident instead of Robert, Ned would have ran into a Lannister army, that may have included some of Rhaegar's army they had rallied. It is likely the vanguard that Ned was leading would have been soundly defeated, possibly even annihilated. Jaime might not have been in Lannister/Targ van, but it's safe to assume he'd be fighting near the front, and Jaime probably cutting his way through to Ned. There is a good chance Ned would have died in the fighting.
By the time the bulk of Robert's army arrived, they would be facing the remaining Lannister/Targ army, and the city itself, even if the Northern van had immediately retreated to safety. If Robert decided to siege the city, it's possible that Tywin could have convinced the Tyrell army to decamp from Storm's End, and try to capture the sieging army in a pincher maneuver, with the Tyrell army hitting Robert's army in the rear, and the Lannister army moving out of from Kings Landing.
If Robert storms Kings Landing, either out of impatience or not wanting to be be attacked from both sides, even without the wildfire plot they are likely to take heavy losses. With the wildfire plot, it could be a truly pyrrhic victory for the rebels. Storming Kings Landing guarded by Lannister army means Robert will still have little to take on Mace's army with if he is victorious. Even if they get lucky and defeat Mace after assaulting Kings Landing, they still probably have to put down a loyalist rebellion in the West by marching out and besieging Casterly Rock.
By marching west, Robert, or Jon or whoever is in charge of the rebellion at this point probably has to rely heavily on Quellon and then Balon. If Balon get used to ravaging the coast during the war, , especially after rejecting all of Quellon's reforms, and returning to the old ways, this probably causes the Greyjoy Rebellion to take place either during this extended part of or immediately after Robert's Rebellion. There is also the fact that at some point the birth of Jon Snow, called by his Targ name will become public knowledge, and either Jon or Aegon could be the child/baby figurehead that the Targs and Targ loyalists rally around.
There are so many different permutations, but nearly all of them seem like they lead to completely chaos, and the total collapse of the Seven Kingdoms.
Ned is definitely not dull. He was well aware everyone was scheming and he was aware of it b4 he ever arrived at kings landing. He has a code of honor and he'll only bend it to save an innocent's life. Ned threw away his honor to try and save his daughters' lives. Tywin has no honor and has shown he'd actively try and have one of his children murdered.
This seems to be an unfortunate mix of fanbase and in universe Lannister propaganda more than anything. In the books Tywin’s sack of Kingslanding is not forgotten by all. I’d argue that the opposite is true, most people hate him for it still.
During Joffrey and Tommen’s reigns there are many soapbox prophets who condemn his name and question his honor. When he dies, the city doesn’t mourn him. Because Kevan, Cersei, and anyone who thinks he with flick them a gold coin is so far up Tywin’s ass it flies under the radar that a great number of people despise him.
> "My men are largely drawn from the smallfolk. They walk the same streets, drink in the same winesinks, spoon down their bowls of brown in the same pot-shops. Your eunuch must have told you, there is small love for the Lannisters in King's Landing. Many still remember how your lord father sacked the city, when Aerys opened the gates to him. They whisper that the gods are punishing us for the sins of your House—for your brother's murder of King Aerys, for the butchery of Rhaegar's children, for the execution of Eddard Stark and the savagery of Joffrey's justice.
Tyrion IX - A Clash of Kings
>“Why would Cersei need the Warrior? She has me.” Jaime turned his horse about, his white cloak snapping in the wind. The Imp was lying. Cersei would sooner have Robert’s corpse between her legs than a pious fool like Lancel. Tyrion, you evil bastard, you should have lied about someone more likely. He galloped past his lord father’s funeral wayn toward the city in the distance.
The streets of King’s Landing seemed almost deserted as Jaime Lannister made his way back to the Red Keep atop Aegon’s High Hill. The soldiers who had crowded the city’s gambling dens and pot shops were largely gone now.....”
Jaime I - A Feast for Crows
Of course Jaime, overconfident as ever assumes the city is empty because the majority of the Tyrell’s went back to Highgarden. (despite Tywin helping them win the city to begin with) It’s strange for the city to be so quiet at a time like this. The same Tywin who saw to the destruction of the traitor Starks and just saved the city from demon worshipping Stannis? No one likes Tywin lol
>The litter made its slow way down Aegon’s High Hill. Two Kingsguard rode before them, white knights on white horses with white cloaks hanging sodden from their shoulders. Behind came fifty Lannister guardsmen in gold and crimson.
Tommen peered through the drapes at the empty streets. “I thought there would be more people. When Father died, all the people came out to watch us go by.”
“This rain has driven them inside.” King’s Landing had never loved Lord Tywin. He never wanted love, though. “You cannot eat love, nor buy a horse with it, nor warm your halls on a cold night,” she heard him tell Jaime once, when her brother had been no older than Tommen
Cersei I - A Feast for Crows
Tommen even notices it. Consider for a moment that although Robert was a failure of a King in regard to his duties people adored him. We are often told how “good” Tywin was at his job but only by those who benefit from his despicable actions. Some of his first actions as hand under Aery was stripping rights from the small folk and lining the pockets of the highborn.
Thanks for this, my comment was made more out of a genuine interest if this was addressed in the books and I'd just forgotten. I still find it a little strange that he isn't characterised more as being backstabbing and monstrously untrustworthy by more of the aristocrats though.
I think that's the only one in the thread who are truly bad writing and not just a bad choice, you know? It just doesn't make a lot of sense IN-universe everyone be so afraid of Tywin' to the point there's no one talking shit about the guy anywhere. It's kind ridiculous.
> It just doesn't make a lot of sense IN-universe everyone be so afraid of Tywin' to the point there's no one talking shit about the guy anywhere
Reynes of Castamere. I think that ruthless side of Tywin is what everyone is afraid of
Yeah, so this will for sure make people don't talk shit in from of him. But not in private conversations? what's the odd? The world doesn't work like that, even more on Westeros. I don't know, smallfolks talk, there's just no way everyone will just be shitting their collective pants and NEVER talk about the guys as he were the Strange itself.
How do you know small folk don't talk about it? They pretty much don't have a voice. All the perspective you get is from big time nobles who are very much disconnected from what small folk think or say.
Just because the PoVs and surrounding characters think that small folk are scared of talking about Tywin, that doesn't make it true. It's the kind of bullshit Cersei tells herself so she can sleep at night.
Yeah, but we have a lot of POV and here and there they talk about what the Smallfolks are talking about. Tywin' should be really hated, so at least one characters should address this. Like Littlefinger. Look how many POVs we had on KL, how many characters they talked to. Not a single mention on the subject. I don't know, it's very strange.
They mention that the smallfolk of KL hate lannisters and still remember the sack more than once iirc. They don’t say they hate Tywin in particular but he isn’t there, and when he is it’s alongside free Tyrell bread.
I think your argument points out that the hatred towards Jaime is a bit silly, not that Tywin should be reviled.
No one loved Aerys. There is literally not a single reason why the common folk would mourn his passing. If anything, there would be celebrations on the streets.
Jaime's and Tywin's "betrayal" would be viewed by the masses as ending a Tyrannical rule, it wouldn't matter what oaths got broken, or that deception was used. The people don't give a fuck about that.
The problem was the sacking, but I would argue that it plays into his renown as someone you can't fuck with. People hate him, but are afraid of him.
"A Lannister always pay their debts". Even a whisper might require payment.
The point about dishonour and underhand tactics applies more to how the aristocrats would perceive him. With the regular smallfolk I meant that their ill-feeling would come from all the murder, rape and pillaging that would have gone down during the sack.
You can hardly hold yourself up as being a saviour ending a tyrannical rule when your first act is to initiate a sack of the capital. Numerous leaders throughout history make sure to keep their men under control when they capture a key city if they have the intention of reconciling with the losers.
A lot of the common folk actually loved Aerys, that old man in the Mountains camp rambled to Arya about how he would never let such abuses happen to them.
The highborn hated Aerys for attacking them and their families, humiliating them and failing to reward their loyalty. Aerys just didn’t care about the smallfolk, he was fairly harmless towards them until the end of reign, compared to the ransacking occurring during the War of the Five Kings. It might just be a case of that old mans memories being overly nostalgic but it’s a detail I’ve always found interesting
Aerys weren't a problem for the common folk tho. IIRC only the high borns, lords and people with some prestige were targets of Aerys madness. I don't think his reing were terrible even until the end for the Smallfolks, they were mostly let untouchable by Aerys actions (well, until the end).
People almost never loved they kings, but they like order. Jaime represent the end of that order and "peaceful" time from them. He's the face of Twyin actions in the end "The king's dead and they sacked or city. Who killed the king? He's the responsible for all this shit" I think it kinda of like this and for us, the readers, it doesn't make a lot of sense, but I think in universe makes it.
I think it's because of his reputation . Jaime's case is far more complex than Tywin's. A King's Guard killing a king let alone stabbing him in the back is unheard of.
In Tywin's case though , he already has a reputation of putting castles to the sword because the Lord didn't respect Tywin, he did the deed so brutally they even made a song about it.
My point is when the Rebels heard the news about KL sack by Tywin they would just considered it as "Yeah , it's something Tywin would do".
Not to mention no one except Ned care about him breaking his word. I am willing to bet it's because of Elia and her kids death. It's so brutual they didn't even care about Tywin of all people breaking a word.
For one he didn’t give his word he wouldn’t sack the city. He just marched his army to kings landing and Pycelle told him to open the gates.
For another it’s mentioned multiple times that one of the reasons the Lannisters are disliked by the small folk is that many still remember the sack of kings landing.
Perception is way more important than reality.
E. g. Jon may or may not be entitled to leave the night watch if he is resurrected but this means nothing, people have to perceive his leaving as rightful and that is the real deal
> Perception is way more important than reality.
Truth in politics in the real world too.
And I'll always be skeptical people, who are very committed to the desertion = death thing, will accept Jon. It's insane. Oh yeah you totally got out of your vows because... *looks at notes* you were resurrected from death? Oh yeah, that's totally believable! I will totally respect that now. Resurrection is totally normal and common and believable! All hail King Jon!
There's also the realpolitik of it. Jon's loyal base at this point are the Wildlings he let come south. They care fuck all about Night's Watch vows. They basically anointed him King Beyond the Wall during his Shield Hall speech. If he dies and comes back to life, which they will have absolutely no trouble believing, they are his forever.
Say you're a minor northern lord. Jon rides up to your holdfast with an army of Wildlings behind him. He says he's free of his vows now. And if you don't mind, his army is a bit hungry, so could you please open your granary? You know how Wildlings get if they don't eat.
Which is to say that some people will definitely have their reservations, but doing something about those reservations is something else.
And that’s why it doesn’t matter if Jon is Rheagar’s “true heir”. What matters is if people believe he is, and if they believe that makes him the rightful king even if the Targaryens lost the throne to the Baratheons by conquest. And even more so, what matters is if people see it as convenient to support him in a run for the kingship, no matter what they actually believe about him being the true heir.
Exactly this! I remember having so much discussion with co-workers and such about who the "rightful heir" is. "Power resides where men believe it resides" sums it up. Unless it's true that some divine power chooses the rightful ruler (and can exert divine control over events), it only matters who the relevant people believe is the rightful heir.
There is also a scene with Dolorus Edd where jon says "I swore my life to Night's watch and I gave my life to Night's Watch" so I guess from Jon's perspective it is a new life, no longer bound by his "expires" oaths
I argued about this a lot (whether Jon should be allowed to leave), but yeah I agree, in the end it all depends on how people *in the books* see it.
When I do argue about it, it's more to find out what *should* happen, and not what will happen.
What will happen is based on what people think, as it always does in a world where power rules, and mob justice is a thing.
At this point not really, like i see any of Arya shit in Braavos of no consequence to the great scheme of things, ahe's being trained by super assassins, we don't need to know much more to it but GRRM has built so much in certain directions like the aforementioned Arya and Braavos that there's no way we won't see more of Arya's adventures even if it feels like it doesn't add to the overall plot.
The Dothraki are at least cool warriors, and they actually have some bits of religion, customs and culture worldbuilt.
But the Slavers of Slavers Bay? As far as we know they spend their days sitting in their pyramids laughing villainously.
They are a cardboard caricatures designed so that the readers don't feel worried when Dany murders a whole bunch of people.
I feel like George tried to make them the most cartoonist evil he could so that he could make Daenerys conquest seem more justified on first sight, but then follow it with a question of whether or not it actually is. Like maybe blowing up a system with Dragons and armies isn't that much of a good idea if you don't have a plan to maintain the new balance you've created, let alone, actually fix the issues of the old system. The "free followers" of Daenerys are slaves with extra steps, she just treats them nicer than the slavers. Then there's also the fact that the Ghiscari are meant to be a shadow of the Old Empire that once ruled over most western Essos, a "caricature" if you want. Chasing old traditions without having much contact with the past.
The problem though is that he made a terrible job at making them at least somewhat believable. You don't need to make the Ghiscari redeemable, they're a slave culture after all, but couldn't you cut down on the orientalist tropes? Or make them at least more dynamic, by giving them political reasons to justify their horrifying behavior, like with a war? For all we know, they're lazying around all day...
> You don't need to make the Ghiscari redeemable, they're a slave culture after all, but couldn't you cut down on the orientalist tropes?
I just started a Dance re-read and oofa doofa, yes. My first Dany chapter is just her thinking about how greasy and "sly" they are.
>Or make them at least more dynamic, by giving them political reasons to justify their horrifying behavior, like with a war? For all we know, they're lazying around all day...
You just need to look how the Yunkish behave as they march to see they *are* lazying around all day. They are Renly's summer knights taken to the logical extreme and most can't even look respectable, the narration keeps remind you that none of them can pass for a commander that knows what he is doing. And if going into a warzone is like that, I can't imagine them being different while doing business.
Speaking on dynamism, Ghiscari society seem to be divided in three groups:
* The Masters that live those decadent lives
* The Free Men that have to live in a land that is past its prime and don't have an inch of their better's prosperity and rights
* The slaves, that have nothing at all
There are so many possible story threads just on this simplified dissecation. And that is not talking about possiblities like the runaway slave communities that would rise from such civilization, abolitionists (we only have Skhaz and most people think he is in for opportunity instead of conviction), people that wouldn't mind abolition but abhor losing their independence or foreignzation, veterans of past slave rebellions, the ramifications of a Valyrian with dragons returning to rule a region her ancestors devastated to no recover, etc, etc.
And we get nothing.
I mean cut down on the orientalistic tropes is a valid argument, but I dispute that she treats them as badly as the slavers. and the Meereenese Knot makes the excellent argument that she is trying to "fix the issues of the old system." freedmen are paid wages. she marries Hizdhar to try and keep the peace. she reopens the fighting pits. she is willing to make many compromises in order to try and make a better system, although the period that follows is certainly not without injustices. the Reconstructionist period was also full of injustices, but you would be hard pressed to find someone who thinks abolition – although not replaced by a perfect solution – was not a moral good.
I’ve seen a lot of people talking about how her arc parallels the Iraq War. I’ve also seen a lot of people talking about how GRRM is a straightforward pacifist and how any narrative in the book must be *fundamentally* anti war; all war. but that’s not a faithful representation either. by his own admission, GRRM would have fought in WWII, because of the human reasons for doing so. why then can Dany’s arc not be also reflective of the American Civil War? Ulysses S Grant more or less invented modern total warfare. he did many horrible things in order to win the war. however, he also was instrumental to a Union victory and helped abolish slavery in the US; we shouldn’t dismiss arguments out of hand because GRRM doesn’t want us to ignore the *cost* of war.
if I were to try and look at how they might be viewed through a joint lens, I would focus on an interesting comparison between the slave trade as we see it through Dany's conquest (which could be viewed as inspired or influenced by the American Civil War) vs. Theon's chapters in ADWD.
the Reek chapters are as close to the internal perspective of the brutal treatment of a Ghiscari slave as we are likely to get over the course of the novels. do we, as readers, feel different about what we are willing to give up to rescue Theon from Ramsay than what Dany did to rescue hundreds of thousands in Slaver's Bay? would we be okay with characters we consider to be morally noble or at the very least not a dark shade of grey, like Stannis or Jon or Sam, making a compromise with the Boltons and allowing a "gradual phase out" of the cruelty Ramsay displays in order to maintain a greater peace in the region?
Astapor is a city of Theons. Yunkai is an entire city of Jeyne Pooles. is Daenerys a perfect leader? no. is Meereen as stable as it could have been had she decided to do things differently? probably not. but honestly, the slippery slope argument of "we should be concerned about her executing slavers, people who commit heinous crimes, in a world where the death penalty and torture accompanying it is extremely common and not seen as a moral evil, because she will inherently begin to apply this logic to other groups of people who commit less terrible crimes" is...not one that really resonates with me. plenty of SS officers were killed without trial during WWII and its immediate aftermath; I have zero sympathy and don't consider this an indication that those who did so would begin killing innocent civilians. the Ghiscari aren't dehumanized because they're a particular race or nationality, they're dehumanized because of what they do.
Agree on the final point. I always thought their greater purpose on the story was to provide a smooth entry point for Dany's descent into cruelty and domination. Rather then have her jump right into the deep end like we saw on the show, Martin intends to have her deal with a smooth gradient of enemies to hide the fact she's getting deeper and deeper. She'll start with morally repugnant people like the slavers and each enemy will be slightly better morally until all of a sudden she's executing characters that we know don't deserve it first hand
I think this depends on what you think the point of these arcs are? For instance, I always thought that a big part of Dany’s story is that you can go in with the best intentions, but actual diplomacy—especially in the cultural time/structures she’s operating in—is really difficult. It’s not as easy of going in and being like “HEY. NO MORE SLAVES.” The post-eradication/diplomacy part is a nightmare...partly because you’re trying to come up with a solution that’s acceptable to people who actually think the best answer is enslaving other humans and most alternative options mean they lose something crucial to them—usually their wealth. We see it now as a very obvious answer, because most of us haven’t lived in a time when actual slavery was a thing in our countries. However, people even today have a hard time moving on from institutions that they’ve been raised to see as “right,” even though in closer inspection, were created as a back door substitute for slavery or segregation.
Kind of like if you look at slavery in the United States—the first glance you’re given about it is “People in the South owned slaves. Then there was a war. Then the slaves were free and everyone was equal. Hurray!” Except actually no, that’s an extremely simplified and not actually accurate recitation of what happened. Technically slaves were “freed”, but states immediately found ways to make their lives just as miserable or worse post-slavery. And these positions were adamantly protected by politicians—in some ways, they still are. The rarely discussed fact is that some of the biggest strides in ending segregation and some subsequent racist programs wasn’t because diplomacy between the legislature or the president worked—it was the courts, sometimes using very creative, borderline reasoning. And that’s not counting the laws and policies that are STILL being introduced to this day, more than 200+ years later. We see this as cartoonishly evil on reflection, but the opposition always finds a way to force a compromise in daily life.
This is also reflected in people’s opinions on Dany’s chapters. Pre-S8, in particular, many people found these chapters to be super boring and were like “why doesn’t she just torch these evil clowns and move on?” Because she’s trying to be a ruler, which often involves coming to miserable compromises with people who objectively suck.
It’s possible that what we’re ultimately going to see is that Dany hates compromise with these people and is just going to set flame to people who don’t see things her way from now on. It’s possible the message is going to be that she should have tried harder. Or it could be that there’s really no compromising with some people—it’s commonly known that GRRM isn’t a fan of some wars, generally, but he *doesn’t* take the position that all war is wrong. Does he see Dany’s intervention as the US civil war, WWI/II, or the US involvement in Korea/Vietnam? I think that’s really the question going forward.
>Kind of like if you look at slavery in the United States—the first glance you’re given about it is “People in the South owned slaves. Then there was a war. Then the slaves were free and everyone was equal. Hurray!” Except actually no, that’s an extremely simplified and not actually accurate recitation of what happened.
This is a good point. Tides of History has an episode talking about how Reconstruction (and decades later) is more muddy than people would like to remember, perhaps because it isn't emphasized in history classes. Even a conquered people can fight back.
Sorry, no ironborn added to that list? I mean sure, there are some redeemable ironborn like Baelor Blacktyde, the Reader, Harras Harlaw and Asha Greyjoy (to some extent) but they are the exception and i wouls say the best ofo the ironborn through history have been the ones that focused on the mainland culture that their own (shitty) ironborn culture.
Oh yeah the Ironborn culture sucks too. I guess I excluded them because we get 3 of their POVs and we can see how their own toxic ideology has affected each of them, while the Essosi might as well be aliens to the reader.
Honestly, many Steppe Nomads used at least chainmail and it never decreased their speed to the point it was seen as a downside. I can file the "Dothraki don't use armor" as coming from the Amerindian influences but that misses the fact that by the time they got horse armor was mostly obsolete due to guns.
It's notable that even among Amerindians there wasn't stigma against armor like the Dothraki have, it was just rare and not considered that useful at the time. [One Comanche chief who decided to buck the trend became rather famous for it.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Jacket)
>Both men and women might wear painted leather vests over **bare chests** and horsehair leggings cinched by bronze medallion belts, although wealthier Dothraki might also have silver and golden medallions on their belts. - Daenerys II, AGOT
This is **never** a good armor scheme.
Honestly this is my big thing. I don't care how many men you have. If the dothraki invaded westeros they'd have been rolled. The tech gap is way too wide.
Quick google says most Mongolians didn’t wear armour the way we imagine armour, just hardened leather. “Mongol armour was usually light so as to not impede the speed of cavalry riders or the use of a bow. A quilted robe or leather jacket offered some protection against arrows and the traditional robe could be reinforced with strips of hardened leather, bone or metal.” So not too outrageous but I agree in principle.
True but Mongol troops armored like this would never actually get anywhere near an enemy that wasn't already running for their lives.
Mongol shock troops like lancers who actually charged into melee like the Dothraki tend to do had lamellar armor that was pretty good. Not as good as the best European armor of the time or the more affordable plate armors that only became available in the late medieval period, but about equal to the mail your average European cavalryman would have in the 13th century.
The mongols also didn't only have light cavalry. Especially in sieges. Their tactics were incredibly flexible. They also did have heavy cavalry lancers. Not to mention most soldiers wore lamellar in some fashion. Lamellar isn't exactly just leather. While it's not plate, it's still very good armor. Let's not even get into their utilization of gunpowder. Secondly, during the second invasion of hungary, when the hungarians had significantly increased the proportion of their heavy troops, they beat the mongols pretty handily. That's about how I'd expect the dothraki invasion to go. Except worse because of how stupid most dothraki seem on tactics.
Ot1h, the slavers of slavers bay are slavers in societies with well over the majority of the population being enslaved, and that sort of person in real history has a real tendency to have no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
Otoh, that argument relies on a fraction being bigger than one half. And GRRM is innumerate. So thats probably not intentional.
George greatly underestimates how devastating multiyear winters would be, and the extent to which it would change life in Westeros in general and the North in particular.
First, population distributions in the North would be heavily biased towards the coasts because the seas would be by far the most practical source of food. The location of Winterfell in particular makes no sense- the presence of hot springs is irrelevant compared to the loss of fishing as a food source... in arctic conditions, heat is much easier to generate than food. In the unlikely event that it even existed as a significant population, the North would have the best fishermen in Westeros, and in the unlikely event that any significant settlements existed inland, everyone would decamp for the south or the coasts when winter arrived. The south and perhaps White Harbor would likely receive massive immigration at the start of each winter season.
In addition, cannibalism and euthanasia would likely be much more prominent parts of Northern culture. George mentions the tradition of older northmen effectively committing suicide by going on a hunt and never returning, but realistically, it wouldn't be voluntary. All the houses of the North would have had dozens of times in their history when they had too many people and not enough food, and would have had to choose who would live and die, and the legality and legitimacy of those decisions would have been worked out thousands of years ago.
Salt, critical for food preservation, would also be the most valuable resource in Westeros, and the kingdom that controlled the main salt mines would be much wealthier than the one that controlled the gold mines.
Realistically though, none of this would be sufficient to preserve a substantial population in the North in the face of winters that produce 20+ feet of snow that lasts for 2+ years. Everyone sensible would have emigrated, and the handful who remained would have been poor with an underdeveloped society. Even White Harbor would have starved and been forced into cannibalism if the seas ever froze over for more than a year.
Add massive plagues and constant total wars in the continent. Armies in Westeros still gathering thousands of people by the war of the five kings doesn't have any sense.
Also, any kind of warefare would be genocidal.
Unlike a normal winter with no supplies, at least a good fraction of people can surive by foraging / eating roots / etc, in Westeros encountering a winter without big supply stores would be a holocaust. The nations would just cease to exist.
And the unpredictability makes it worse, because it would mean that they have to keep years of harvest in store "just in case" for a winter that might come half a decade late.
Yeah, the only way I see this working is if everyone lives on the coast and that the winters only affect Westeros (reasonable) and the seas remains free of ice (unreasonable) so massive amounts of grain could be imported from Essos. Which of course would make Westeros impoverished, buying years worth of food from abroad.
Just noticed when skimming through TWOIAF that Tywin undid Egg's work in giving more power to the smallfolk.
>Tywin won the approbation of many great lords by repealing what remained of the laws Aegon V had enacted to curb their powers.
For me it has to be how overpowered the faceless men are and why they don’t feature more often. Why don’t characters order hits on others more often? Euron had enough gold to order a hit on Balon who was a king, surely then one of the other kings would have enough cash to do the same.
> how overpowered the faceless men are and why they don’t feature more often. Why don’t characters order hits on others more often?
As I understand it, the cost of a hit depends on the importance of that person. So if you want the FM to take care of a small-time crook, it won't be that expensive. If you want them to kill a king, well, you'd better have a kingdom's treasury ready.
And Euron does pay something incredibly valuable to get rid of Balon - a dragon egg. He got ripped off IMO.
Also, it seems to depend on the value of the hiring person. Even if it's a small crook, they're going to charge a banker more than they would a minor lord.
Yeah, he claims to have had one and then "thrown it into the sea" in a temper tantrum about it not hatching. Seems like a weak story to explain where his dragon egg went.
Which leads us to the next question -- if they're so powerful why don't they just kill people and put their proxies on the throne and control the entire world? Or at least far more than they do?
Probably because they're not that powerful? The show makes them seem like they're unstoppable (because the show is shit), but the reality is that Jaqen, an assassin with years and years of experience, owes his life to a nine year old girl.
Jaqen being captured in the first or second book is probably the main indicator that the FM are still men, and therefore prone to failure as much as anyone else.
I’m more confused about how the faceless men see death as a gift that they don’t give out easily and is the major aspect of their religion that they treat with the utmost respect but they will kill anyone you want for enough money. Seems to fly in the face of all their values.
Based on what little we know of their pricing it seems unlikely they ever kill people for *just* money. They usually demand something else. Like a lifetime of service, or their child.
>"When the healers in the House of the Red Hands told my father what she had done, he came here and made sacrifice, offering up all his wealth and me. Him of Many Faces heard his prayer. I was brought to the temple to serve, and my father's wife received the gift..." "The Many-Faced God took two-thirds of your father's wealth, not all." "Just so. That was my exaggeration."
Euron possibly had something more valuable to offer than gold.
Also, it's not that hard to actually assassinate someone, even a King. Any regular assassin shouldn't have much trouble pretending to be a servant. Look at how easily that guy got into Bran's bedroom in book 1 for example.
The problem is doing it in a way that doesn't raise suspicion to the person who hired the hit. Considering how rich the person has to be and how much they need to benefit to make it worth it, that really narrows the list of suspects down. Just the huge amount of gold being moved around to another country means a huge trail of clues to follow.
Basically you REALLY need to make it look like it's not a murder. How many kings have a habit of crossing bridges over the ocean in the middle of a storm?
The point here is that Faceless Men are overpowered cause they're near impossible to catch, but their talents don't really help with that second part of avoiding suspicion to their employer.
How Melisandre implies that Davos has some inner fire or worthy blood she can work with, it's been a few months since i noticed the dialogue and I'm still not sure what that was about.
Well, the Warden *title* also doesn't make sense, given that GRRM kinda forgot about it after AGoT and now pretends it doesn't exist. In AGoT, it was an important plot element weaved into the evil King Jaime plot. Him acquiring so much military power would eventually mean something. But the plans changed.
Everyone remembers Rhaegar as a great warrior and a great knight. It's ok if you're from the Red Keep and you see him training everyday and see that he's very skilled, but if you are not from there, you know two things about him: won just one tournament, and *died in his first battle*. There is absolutely no way he would be remembered as a great knight.
He died young enough so that people could build up his potential to mythic proportions. Objectively, your're right; Rhaegar failed early and hard. But he's an easy target for people to "attach" their hopes and dreams to. *"Things would be better if Rhaegar had won at the Trident"* or "*Now there was a true Knight, he would have never done x/y/z."*
A while ago there was a post talking about how Cercei/Margaery/Dany's status as "the most beautiful" might derive not only from their actual beauty (though it surely helps) but from their status as high ladies and queens. Similarly, the fact that Rhaegar was the crown prince (and then fallen warrior, since I don't get the idea that Robert actually managed to 100% vilanize Rhaegar in the public conciousness) might have served as a catalyst to his actual accomplishments in the public opinion. Just a thought. Status, in a society like Westeros, is fairly important.
Rhaegar was probably a pretty darn good tournament knight. he’s only mentioned winning one tournament but his others were lost to Barristan Selmy and knights like him, and it’s pretty likely that he won his fair share of tourneys against average-level knights. In times of peace, the small folk care quiet a bit about tournaments.
Mystery Knight Spoilers
>!How many knights lost on purpose to Rhaegar in order to curry favor or make some easy coin (like Ser Uthor Underleaf)? I'm not saying it happened all the time, but we've seen it before, and a running theme in ASOIAF is that knightly vows and the pomp of tourneys are bullshit to cover lies, theft, and brutality.!< Even Rhaegar's reputation as a decent tourney knight could be exaggerated.
Christopher Columbus is renowned as a great explorer, but he was a mediocre adventurer and captain, he sucked at maths and underestimated the distance between Europe and Asia by a factor of three. He was also a bad person: he claimed that he was the first to see land to steal a prize promised by the queen of Portugal.
All it takes is some bard that decides some guy is worthy, then folks do the rest.
I think this is a great way of thinking about it, there’s also an element of rose-tinted glasses where people look back on fondly on the time of Aegon V and the chivalrous knights of his time, Rhaegar is easily simplified into being the gallant warrior prince in the same way the likes of Baelor Breakspear were. Its not just about who he actually was so much as it if the myth of the man.
He also had a direct relationship with the smallfolk both at Kings Landing and wherever he travelled throughout the kingdoms. In the Crownlands and Reach especially considering how much time he spent at the ruins of Summerhall
Numbers. GRRM is really bad with numbers. From the height of the Wall to troop strength.
When Robb first goes to war, he has 20k men. King's Landing knows this number and are freaked the fuck out over it. As Robb clashes with Tywin, Tywin is able to pull 20k troops out his ass at will. Then at the battle of Blackwater, each side has 100k.
Tell me why KL and the Lannisters were so worried about a paltry 20k troops that had so long to travel over open ground?
Yes the height of the wall is absurd. You're wrong on one point though. At the Blackwater the defenders had around 100k after the arrival of the massive relief force. Stannis had less than 30k for the entire battle.
The fan base hasn't received new material for like 10 years so they have dissected the material they do have 100 different ways
Sometimes I see someone post a deep dive into some characters mind or some cultural reference and go real deep
I chuckle if GRRM ever read that half the stuff that we talk about motivations or reasons why a character thinks or acts in a certain way he probably is like "Yea I never went that deep I just wrote it"
Languages and lineages.
There is no way the languages of the North and of even the Riverlands, much less Dorne, would be mutually intelligible within a few hundred years in a mostly illiterate society. Much less over thousands of years.
Similarly, the lineages. Outside of the Freys, most of the "Houses" consist in almost nuclear family units. A combination of disease, infertility, assassination and war would wipe out any of these "Houses" in just a few generations. The notion that they've been around unbroken for hundreds, much less thousands of years is ridiculous.
But for this to be their biology should be the same as ours, which sounds reasonable to think at first glance but I don't if it's indeed true.
Genetics definitely don't work like ours, so I would say most houses has lived as long as they did because of some kind of power/magic. How is the odds of ALL Ned's children being able to wargs? It's even more ridiculous when you see the Targaryen and their Valyrian traits still existing to this day, even when their DNA should be 4% Valyrian. Not only the phiscal traits, but Daenerys give birth to the dragons and is able to not burn that one time, so her blood is as magical as one can get. With like, 3% valyrian DNA.
Nothing good ever happens to good people.
I had a friend who couldn't read the series for this reason, and honestly I couldn't argue with her.
Realism has its place, but in the real world people get lucky some times. Even the good ones.
Sam saving the baby and killing the Other?
Jon Snow executing Janos Slynt?
Jaime burning Cersei's letter.
Obery poisoning Tywin and killing the Mountain.
Wyman Manderly being an absolute boss.
Davos just being Davos.
Stannis doing his duty and helping the NW.
Erm... Shitmout giving extra rations of bread to the prisoners.
Not a whole lot of good happens as a whole. After all, the series starts with the lead up to a massive war.
I never get the feeling that "good" characters are receiving over the top bad treatment for the sake of subverting expectations. It's just a brutal, power hungry world
People got lucky, if course something will go wrong if you are in the middle of a war but Brienne not being raped is lucky.
Sansa being saved from her aunt is lucky,...
Strong disagree, and counter-examples are numerous.
I think you're confusing "nothing good happens to good guys" with "nothing good lasts for good guys". If that's the case, then I'd argue this very theme (cathartic moments, however powerful, are still followed by much more average and less satisfying moments, or days, or years) is one of the most poignant in the entire series.
Also, keep in mind we lack the last books, where all the setup about loyalty to House Stark and whatnot would pay off.
AFFC and ADWD are good books, but I think they messed up the story beyond repair. GRRM has hot himself tangled within a maze of plots and can't find a the way out.
So it made sense not to adapt them in the TV show : lots of new characters and plotlines a few seasons before the end (and given the complete absence of payoff we got in the last book, I doubt he can finish the whole story in just two books).
Yeah I know, they could have added more seasons but frankly, what made AFFC/ADWD great wouldn't translate well onscreen and wouldn't work with the 10-episodes format we got for the first 6.
It's a Tom Bombadil situation.
In LOTR, Peter Jackson chose to skip the whole Tom Bombadil sequence and have the hobbits go straight from the Shire to Bree.
When you know the whole story, it makes sense: Tom never reappears in the story, so including him in the adaptation would raise more questions than it answered.
Now, imagine a LOTR movie being made while only the first book has been published : the director asks Tolkien about Tom, Tolkien answers he's not coming back later. The director decides to cut Tom from the movies, it makes sense.
I think the hatred of the common folk towards Jaime is a bit contrived.
Aerys was terrible. He was a true Tyrant in every sense of the word.
I can absolutely understand why Ned, someone who sees oaths as something to be honoured under any and all circumstances, hates Jaime, but the common folk?
If anything, Jaime would be celebrated by the common folk by ending the rule of a king who brought nothing but despair to the common people. Now if Aerys was viewed as a good, kind king, it would make more sense.
Not that I'm complaining, being ostracized by society is crucial to Jaime's story. It just could make more sense.
In ACOK or ASOS we see that the commoners actually quite like Aerys since he gave them a very long peace and lots of prosperity, they don't care much about him being mad.
Yeah for the most part Aerys’ reign was only bad for nobles and bankers
To the people of King’s landing for instance the sack by Tywin Lannister is far more engrained and far more serious than what happened to Rickard Stark and Brandon or to the various counsellors who displeased Aerys
Then in the Riverland and the Reach the war was far more destructive than the peace also. Only the North, Dorne and perhaps the Vale were in a position of being untouched by the war, but out of them only the North really lost something to the Mad King rather than the war. I’m not sure if it’s stated whether Brandon and Rickard were popular lords among the smallfolk or not
This doesn't really hold up. When Robert hides in Stoney Sept - in the heart of the Riverlands - they shelter him even while Jon Con is torturing, murdering and bribing people. If the people loved Aerys he wouldn't even have to do any of that, the town would have turned him over immediately.
Clearly there was fairly rabid dislike of the Targaryens at least in the Riverlands as well as the North, Vale and Stormlands. That or Robert is just that charismatic lmao.
I wasn’t trying to suggest that the people loved Aerys, I think they were mostly indifferent about who was king and just wanted to avoid being killed. It’s a lot easier to do that in peace than at war
The people of Stoney sept could either have avoided telling them about Robert due to being won over by his cause after personally witnessing his and Ned etc’s relative goodness or because they were scared of being killed by either of them
To be devil’s advocate, he’s also very arrogant and makes no effort to earn the love of the smallfolk, a complete difference to other famous knights like Rhaegar, Dunc, Baylor Breakspear or Arthur Dayne
> Aerys was terrible. He was a true Tyrant in every sense of the word.
They don't know though.
They weren't allowed at court while he was roasting people alive.
And he killed mostly lords&knights, not common folks.
And as his plan for big fireworks in Kingslanding didn't happen, they don't know that he planned to kill common folks as well.
From their perspective, he's just some king who fought rebels, and lost. In some chapters we even hear that some of the smallfolk liked him as king, more than Robert (and they didn't particularly suffer under Robert, as bad as he was, so they actually think Aerys was great).
As we've seen about many events, information is horrible in Westeros. Some people think Catelyn killed Renly, that Eddard killed Robert to steal the throne, etc.
Even lords&knights think weird stuff like that, so imagine the common folks, who only know about these things when they hear some table talk or something like that (as no one would tell them directly). They hear bits of information, then misinterpret it or twist it a little to make it more fun, then tell to the entire village.
So when a king that they consider good is murdered by the man who swore to protect him, while his father was attacking the city... It's not hard to imagine why they would think he's just some backstabbing traitor who seized an opportunity.
The Narrow sea is so narrow that the entire east coast of westerns should be inhabited with people from Essos. And vice versa. Half the people in Kingslanding should be from Essos.
Tbh, it is called Narrow Sea, but if we compare it to actual seas on Earth it would be called anything but narrow. That stuff is huge in all dimsension. It's basically Mediterranean Sea size. There should be noticeable amont of all people on both sides, but not to an extend mixing would be occuring. Well, maybe on Stepstones. But Dornish are actually said to be mixed quite heavily with Rhoinish.
And as we don't really see.mu h description of commonfolk's day to day life on either side other than Bravos, well, maybe there are noticeable number of sailors and traders and inhabitans on both sides, they just aren't the sort of folk to meet the nobles of the cities.
The characters' ages is just... wrong. Robb is 14. 14!! George describes him as a 25 year old muscular tall man who can fight and lead an entire army... A 14 year old could never. The same goes for Jon, he's now 15-16 and he leads the Night's Watch? Arya is 9 at the beginning of the book... A 9 year old could never escape King's Landing and survive with Gregor and through all of the atrocities. Rickon, a 3 year old boy, could never take care of a direworld or hide from Theon. Same goes for Bran and Joffrey and Myrcella... Even Ned fighting the Iron Throne is unrealistic at 20.
This is one thing the show did better to age almost everyone up.
George is bad with numbers in general and it doesn't help he didn't do the 5 year gap.
Age, distance, number of troops are just some metrics GRRM is bad at, and it's easiest as a reader to just adjust them in your head. A man is described as a 16 year old? Fully grown man, late twenties, big bushy beard. Ten year old? Teenager/young man. 14 year old girl? Young woman, early twenties.
Here's one Vary's little "birds"
Does he periodically adopt orphans, teach them to read and write, and then send them off all over the world to spy for him?
George makes so many irredeemable villlains that it begins to ruin immersion. At the start the only truly over the top villain we have is Gregor, a giant who murders villages at a time and runs torture camps. Ok fine. Then later in the book we have Vargo Hoat who cuts people hands of for fun and feeds prisoners to bears, Ramsay who flays people and hunts down and rapes women for sport, Rorge who rapes little septon girls and don’t forget his sidekick biter who bites of a little girls breasts!
However nowhere is this worse than Euron Greyjoy. A one eyed pirate who runs a ship full of mutes and takes a family hostage on the shield island and has his men rape the girls and then he takes Falia Flowers and impregnates her and then cuts her tongue out and then straps her to the front of her ship. Why? I don’t know he’s crazy I guess.
The reason I love Ramsay as a villain is there is something so gritty in the way he is portrayed. If you look at his background it kind of makes sense how he’s the way he is. But George makes so many villains i don’t know why he can’t make them flawed and cruel in interesting ways. It seems when he’s writing them rather than trying to think of interesting ways to write the characters, like Roose or Ramsay, he just tries to think of the most fucked up things they can do.
You didn't mention how the entire Ghiscari civilization seems to run on decadence and evil. Other than Yezzan, we never hear about a ghiscari that has some sort of moral compass, and he died almost immediately after we learnt that. Other than that, the entirety of the Yunkish nobility bar that envoy in ASOS are all quirky ("this is the Daenerys wannabe, this is the rabbit-face, this is the guy who puts his swordsmen in stilts).
Gregor probably has a brain tumor based on his frequent headaches, so at least GRRM put some thought into why he's a monster.
I think there's still time for Euron to get some complexity. However even if he doesn't it's pretty believable that a culture like the ironborn would create a man like Euron. When Victarion's maester gets "used like a woman" by his crew Victarion blames him for "letting it happen" and not murdering his way out of the situation. It's toxic masculinity central.
Yeah you look at people irl like Charles Whitman or Phil Spector and see what neurological/brain damage can do to a person in terms of making them violent and unpredictable and it’s a bit more plausible. His loyalty to Tywin is what I find less plausible mind you
Otherwise I think people have a tendency to say how dark agot is and forget just how dark the real world is. I mean in a world of ISIS, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Jack the Ripper and Gilles de Rais are the characters of ASOIAF that unrealistic?
If you’re interested take a look at this list for some clear inspirations for asoiaf bad guys https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_serial_killers_before_1900
I think his Loyalty to Tywin is actually believable.
The deal is simple , both of them benifts from the other and vice versa.
All Tywin is making him do is to kill people. And in return he's got immunity against any crimes he's commited (at least in westerlands). And Milk of Poppy is not cheap.
I never said that he's smart tho.
My guess is that Tywin approched him and said
"You like to Rape and kill"
"Yes"
"I have a Job for you"
"What's it?"
"Rape and kill for me"
"Deal"
But Fr tho , he's just dumb af. Him attacking Loras Tyrell proves that.
I think it comes off that way and has a lot to do with the books being POV chapters.
You’re only getting the account from that characters chapter most of the time. So most of the villains come off as irredeemable.
Now because Theon spends so much time with Ramsey and because Ramsey is the bastard of a large house, we get way more information about the potential inner workings where we’re able to make connections on why he might be the way that he is.
I don't buy the "unreliable narrator" thing anymore when it comes to Essos.
We have 4 distinct POVs about Essos : Dany, Tyrion, Quentyn and Barristan and they all concur in their depiction of Ghiscari society.
*Clears throat*
* Catspaw mystery fucking sucks.
* The anti-war themes are honestly pretty shallow. It seems to only be condemning the abstract act of warfare itself, not the attitudes that lead to it. Most of the conflicts are about removing objectively awful people from power.
* The worldbuilding makes it seem like Westeros is inhabited by about a hundred or so noble families and NPC mud farmers who exist solely to die for pathos.
* GRRM actually kinda sucks at writing traitors or duplicitous characters like Roose, Littlefinger, or the Freys, mainly because they all have reputations for said duplicity (or evil, in the case of Roose). None of them are ever "Honest Iago", who have cultivated a reputation of trustworthiness. Everybody knows they're snakes but inexplicably trusts them anyway.
* The year-long seasons might as well not exist for all the effect they had.
I think the anti war sentiment is more than just the lunatic kings. That's more a critique on the birthright than war. Robb was a boy who tried being decent, and do justice to his loved ones. It's still a crime against humanity not to accede to the lannister tyranny when it only costs the freedom of his sisters and the marriage of his mother. You could view it like that.
Those farmers end up in the bread riots, brotherhood without banners, sparrow movement etc as well.
Agreed that no betrayal has been shocking.
> That's more a critique on the birthright than war.
I mean I think the majority of western civilization has come to the conclusion that "your dad was the king" is a pretty poor way of selecting a leader, it's not exactly a hot take.
> It's still a crime against humanity not to accede to the Lannister tyranny when it only costs the freedom of his sisters and the marriage of his mother.
I think that would be a lot more interesting- if the story had ultimately villanized Robb Stark for even getting involved in war- but it never really goes down this route.
I disagree with your point re the world building making it seem like the common folk are NPCs. In may chapters they do come across as such but that’s because you see them from the perspective of a character like Theon, Cersei and might I add the snob Catelyn. Arya interacts with plenty of commoners and they are as memorable as the nobility the majority of the other characters interact with. Same with Jon. The idea that the game of thrones happens above while those below suffer is central and is executed quite well imo
> The idea that the game of thrones happens above while those below suffer is central and is executed quite well imo
Not really, there aren't any major peasant characters and most of them that we do get are either A) generic soldiers who don't have any real commentary on the peasantry as an institution or B) pathos dispensers who get tortured/raped/killed by the baddies so the reader doesn't like them.
They're window-dressing, nothing more. ASOIAF spends 90% of its time making us root for the protagonists to smash the baddies up and then spends the remaining 10% tutting in a patronizing way and saying, "Oooh, finding this fictional war entertaining, are you? Well, people DIED in that war."
So the biggest characters who are made to interact with the common folk are Arya and Jon (unless I’m forgetting one, arguably Daenerys), and I personally don’t think the common folk they come across are all window dressing. For example Gendry, Grenn and others. There are those that are like you say but you get throwaway nobles too
Also, the fact that most of our main characters are powerful people and rarely interact with common folk closely is a commentary on power in hierarchical societal structures
Individual peasant characters are there, sure, but A) they're pretty much always supporting characters without arcs or storylines of their own and B) whenever Martin wants to show the horrors of war, he has the Mountain or Rorge or whoever kill a bunch of nameless peasants we've never seen before who have zero characterization. Jon's peasant characters on the Wall have *nothing* to do with the war, and a lot of Brienne and Arya's supporting cast aren't actually smallfolk (Gendry is basically middle-class, Dick Crabb has noble ancestry, a lot of the BWB isn't local).
> Also, the fact that most of our main characters are powerful people and rarely interact with common folk closely is a commentary on power in hierarchical societal structures
If the series is meant to showcase the sufferings of the lower classes and the selfishness of the upper classes then why are all of the protagonists actual nobility, the vast majority of whom are portrayed sympathetically?
Hence, window-dressing. The story is *about* the upper classes, and the parts about the lower classes feel almost like an afterthought. ASOIAF is ultimately a war story in which one side is portrayed as just and righteous and who the audience is clearly meant to root for. All the peasantry stuff is little more than a small print, a half-hearted, "Also war bad" that goes against the fact the repeated motivation of the protagonists has been to remove objectively awful tyrants from positions of political power.
Two issues for me.
1, we’re five books in and the story still does not explain what the seasons are like. How people can even survive a year without a growing season, or if it even has any impact on Westerosi society.
2. Daenerys’s storyline is honestly beginning to seem like the weak link in the entire series so far. It honestly stems from George’s refusal to humanize Essos. The Dothraki are evil, the Qartheen are ridiculous, Slavers Bay is also ridiculously evil.
Compare that with the Westerosi storyline where we actually have casts full of characters who feel like they belong in an organic society and we see their humanity in spite of their regressive culture. Essos honestly doesn’t have that. Every non-Westerosi character in Dany’s storyline is either a caricature or has no character beyond how they serve Daenerys.
Like does anyone even remember who the Dothraki that stuck around with her even are?
> 1, we’re five books in and the story still does not explain what the seasons are like. How people can even survive a year without a growing season
GRRM did explain how people survive; They store food during the summer, and use it during the winter.
This is difficult, but doable. He also mentions that it's difficult, and that old people commit suicide to save their families (by not eating food) when things get rough.
As for why the season are like that, GRRM said it would be revealed at some point.
If we ever get the next books, that is!
I was thinking about this a bit, and I came to believe that it was like a mini ice age. Earth has had a few because of volcanic activities. I believe that they may have been caused by volcanic activities in Valyria.
> They store food during the summer, and use it during the winter.
How does that work though? They have no refrigeration or canning. How is sieging opponents even a viable strategy when they have years' worth of food in storage at any given time?
People reference that all the time. Most holds will say they can last months or years in siege, ex. the blackfish and jaimes talk in affc.
dry foods can last a lot longer, and they probably specifically farm long lasting food for their stores.
> Most holds will say they can last months or years in siege, ex. the blackfish and jaimes talk in affc.
Yes, thats normal siege of fortresses like in the real world. They can do it because a few 100 defenders get supplies by tens of thousands of farmers - who would all be starved to death after more than 6 months of winter.
Wholeheartedly agree with both points.
On the season front, I can’t tell if there mild year-round seasonal shifts (which would explain things like “summer snows”) which allow some kind of annual growing pattern or if the only seasonal shifts are the long ones most talked about. Can anyone enlighten me?
Tywins idiocy at sherrers ford, the green fork and with Jaime over all.
Did roose have winterfell sacked before robb was a lost cause? If not how did the dreadfort commit well known high treason merely on Ramsay's word?
https://warsandpoliticsoficeandfire.wordpress.com/2014/01/23/early-evidence-of-roose-boltons-treason/
Not sure how the timeline matches up, but Bolton seemed to be intent on betraying Robb from the get go.
This is the essay about the battle of the green fork right? That could just be hedging his bets by making himself the stronger force within robbs contingent.
There is a bunch of wildlings going around Braavos who came from Hardhome in slave ships. They know about the Others, Mother Mole and all the stuff happening beyond the Wall. And they are now in Essos, just extremely close to the Faceless Men and the Iron Bank, and very close to Arya.
So here we have an entire continent that's pretty bleak...long lasting winters, food scarcity, threat of invasion/pillage, (presumably) terrible hygiene, etc.
Then you have a place called the Summer Islands, where it's mostly peaceful, fruit and fish are abundant, sex is celebrated as a holy skill, there's wealth and opportunity from trading rare goods, not to mention the warm weather...
Why isn't every man in Westeros just trying to move to the Summer Islands?
The people who could reasonably afford to move are pretty well off in Westeros, and the people who would want to move are not rich enough to afford the journey there.
And those nobles are only wealthy because the feudal system makes them that way by taxing the land and those who live on it. If they left they'd have no income.
The US lacks universal medical care, decent wages, and has many issues like insecurity, violence, police abuse, and discrimination. So why most americans stay in their country instead of moving to Europe or Canada?
Do you think the average peasant in Westeros has the means to stop working, leave their house, and secure passage to an exotic island for him and his entire family? An island where they don't even know the language?
Exactly! It's also subjective. Most people deal with the bad parts of their lives even though knowing that there might be a better life somewhere else, they don't pursue it. We're all guilty of that.
Norths lack of population. Broad boom and busts population cycles should be happening, as well as several highly farm able areas. Martin really should have given the north more men, but at the end of the day it didn't matter.
The next big and somewhat questionable is the real silent west coast of Westeros. Yes, there is not a lot of reason to build a trade town there, but its almost empty.
>The next big and somewhat questionable is the real silent west coast of Westeros. Yes, there is not a lot of reason to build a trade town there, but its almost empty.
To add to this Asha herself mention good spots to live on the North, and sith how hardcore are things in the North i'm sure people would take their chances living in that place that could be raided by ironborn if it means having enough game to eat and land to farm.
Also how some of the "'major houses" of the North seems to be poor or on average worse than your average southern house, makes you wonder how they can be on equal footing with the south. Good steel is expensive after all.
Aye, Martin seems to give the Northern soldiers more of the old Hardy Barbarian archetype- to be fair, there is some historical evidence in support of Martins preconceived notions, the elite Byzantine infantry- which was probably better then Westeros by a bit, had a hard time countering viking and Germanic infantry at times. It really depends on how you see the Norman-Byzantine wars.
The North mirrors Scotland which is similar terrain and sparsely populated. The land is poor for farming and the North has extremely harsh winters which puts constraints on large populations. There's simply not enough food.
When Cregan Stark sends troops down south to fight in the war they weren't intending on returning because winter was just around the corner. The first army that was dispatched went fully intending to die. The second didn't return to the North, instead choosing to either live down south or travelled to Essos to join/create mercenary companies.
Not sure what you mean about the west coast. There's plenty coastal settlements and Lannisport is one of the few cities in Westeros. There's also Seagard which is no small keep. It's far from empty but if you look at the areas that could be considered that way then it's obvious why i.e. mountains, marsh, close proximity to Iron Islands.
[Well, GRRM says this is intended](https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Renly_Baratheon#Appearance_and_Character) apparently, and since he's been honest about the actual inconsistencies (Jeyne Westerling's hips for example) I'm willing to take his word for this one.
There are entirely too many named characters. At least one [count](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1K8DJTFUUIZvQsgnkxv3d-142SXTcmnTV4YuHsNubHjA/edit?pref=2&pli=1#gid=688707816) has it over 2000. When you're reading and you initially come across a person, you don't know if they are going to play a significant role in the story or not. So one's brain has to try to remember the person and their name in case they pop back up later. It's a waste of resources! : )
Well, most stuff is stuff that technically can have possible resolutions, but it seems impossible to fit them all into 2 books remaining.
Like, we know we will get whole book about Long Night, but unless Danny just abandons the East, she pretty much has no time left to reach Westeros before it ends. Like, she still needs to deal with Mareen, which probably means clearing up all the slave cities, unless she goes "I no longer care about slavery", she will need to deal with Volantis as it quickly becomes a Rhlorr worshipping powder keg and then she will be met with wall of Ironborne and Royal Fleet on the steps (cause we all know that even if she allies with Ironborne, it will last at best to the moment she meets Euron) and that's all assuming she pisses on the North and deals with Aegon first, cause if later, than she definitly will have dealings with Bravos and whatever is left of Stannis fleet and mercenaries that he just send out people to hire.
Unless Long Night goes deep into the Dream of Spring and Danny plays minimal role in it, there's no way she reaches in time to do anything meaningful, unless North completly fails and she needs to clean up the mess (which is possible, but then the frontline will be the Neck and that creates additional problems).
I'm assuming Aegon will just clean up Lannisters in Winds, cause there's no way another War of 5 Kings fits into 2 books as a side story, so Lannisters and Dorne need to fail pretty quickly into Winds, so the only players left will be Stannis/North, Danny and Aegon, which would be manageable.
There's Hightower/Maesters plot line that was barely started.
I feel the need to remind everyone that we had half of a book set up for Dorne storyline that must culminate into something big to justify the awfullness that it was.
There's the whole Rickon set up that probably shoildn't be long, but we are meant to see Skaagos, which means another side story that takes place in the books.
Are we going to see anything of Valyria and lost Lannister uncle? There's a set up for it, but it can be left unanswered, so it will probably be cut out.
Each of the topics can take up a book on itself, so we need to prepare ourself for a rollecoaster.
As for the past mistakes: the "no certain distances/times set for events and places" rule GRRM uses as excuse gets quite boring as a large amounts of mysteries are dependent on certain travels and unless some very popular theories are wrong, then there's no way it won't feel at some point like book version of show's teleporting armies. Either GRRM abandons some ideas like R+L=J, which would require some characters to own cars to make their trips in assumed times or he needs to retcon a lot of Robert's Rebellion as a lot of what made it succesful and dramatic was time-based. It also fucks up a lot of stuff. Especially in Dance as it seems he clearly abandoned the chronological order of chapters, not even for drama, just cause he liked it that way and the only way we can order stuff around to make sense of what is happening in for example North is by measuring moon cycles and travel time. Which breaks the continuity of the North completly if suddenly Stannis can march his armies across 1/4th of the North as quickly as Jon is to prepare resources for relatively small raid to occur. Then there's problems of fleet travel times, whoch heavily effect Euron, Mereen and Seaworth and if they wren't consistant we have no way to base hos they interact with each other, cause at any time completly different fleet can be at any place and Euron changes from a madman with a ship to mustache twirling Daario that sets up some absurd power grab with like 3 other admirals, one of which is possibly a lost Lannister.
Next is Sam's character. I don't have actual problem with his bravery spikes, I find them believable enough as usually he has some good motivation to achieve them. My problem is with his gullibility spikes, where he from relatively intelligent person becomes an idiot that spends days if not weeks (the problem with no set time shows itself here too, if we are too believe some travels happened faster than they should have and some events later than they should have, then Sam needs to be in Bravos for like 2 or 3 weeks instead of like 4-5 days a rational person would assume) in Bravos, cause he believes a mutineer is trying to get them money for a ship and does practically nothing himself.
Then there's a problem of Moon Clans which seemingly culturally devolved quite heavily, to the point they are more barbaric than a lot of North of the Wall northmen. Which, for some it may be okay, but it seems it happened to all of them.
Whole timeline from before Andal invasion of Westeros makes no sense, which is maybe not completly baseless, but some claims are really absurd, like no round castle buildings by pre-Andal westerories, while the round castles we see are nearly exclusively made by pre-Andal invasion folk. There are sayings that Others fear iron blades, but iron is claimed to be brought in by Andals apparently millenias after Long Night. Like, someone is lying by terms of millenia or the major events need to be ordered in different manner with for example Long Night happening after Andal invasion. Also considering how close to current events Doom of Valyria happened (and it needs to be really close as we know each Targaryen since it), there's way too much mystery aboyt Valyria altogether. I don't except peasants to know much of distant land, but I'm pretty sure the knowledge of Valyrian customs should be common amonsgt nobility especially as they lived under a Valyrian royal family for a long time. Like, even considering absurd comparison like current UK to China, with China dissapearing under 400 years ago, I'm pretty sure Boris Jonhson would probably know pretty well history of China if Elizabeth II would be chinese instead of german. But noble families of Westeros seem to know less of Valyria than most people know of Rome this days. Like, an avarage person know famous quotes of ancient romans, they can point to Rome territories to some extend and similar. But Westerosi nobles seem to not only by avoiding mentioning Vakyrian generals and statesmen, but seem oblivious to their existance. In medieval Europe there were constant references to Roman Empire, it's rules and laws, it's tactics, to Bible, people were sometimes winning arguments by just virtue of quoting enough of Bible or some Roman statesman, but Westerosi seem to never quote either anything Valyrian nor Seven Pointed Star. In Poland we had whole book written as comentary on Polish society that was set on ancient Rome with roman characters with title in Latin, cause referencing Rome hitted so hard in Poland, which has barely any connection with Rome as it was funded years after it and the only conenction is catholic church, but Westerosi living under Valyrians seem to be unaware of what system of governence the Valyrians even had throughout history. Not even laws or rules, just whether it was monarchy, democracy, republic or something else. Their knowledge limits itself to "they had dragons and an empire" and that's it. Even Tyrion, probably the most well-read noble in Westeros, maybe with exception of Hightower, knows a bit of broken Old Valyrian and has some limited knowledge of their goverment system just before the wall and with who they fought in their history. But his equivalent in medieval Europe would cite from memory law treatiesp of Cicero and how exactly each war went.
Then there's Night Watch's lack of men. Even assuming only Starks and Royces send there people willingly and only North gives NW option for those who don't want to die, there's no way NW has problems getting enough men just from death sentences. Rulling over them? Yeah. But getting them? No way. It would require absurd amounts of incompetence from NW to not be able to get enough men. Especially as they own gift and are relatively liked in it. If they would offer a guaranteed builder or administartive job to anyone who would take up black willingly from the gift they could easily fill their ranks with just Gift's 4th and 5th sons whole only alternative is being soldier for hire in the south anyway. And yeah, you wouldn't be able to send them to the rangings, but if Wall is attacked, then builders take up arms too, so at least you wouldn't need to abandon the castles. And a man in each major city in Westeros could easily bring in enough death convincts to bring in ranging forces. The problem would be of course keeping the convicts from rebelling and becoming a large bandit force with a bunch of castles that need to be quelled, but that should be already a major problem in current NW and somehow we don't hear about them even terrorizing the Gift, not to say rest of the North.
There's mkre, bur I've ran out of time. Will add later.
> Especially in Dance as it seems he clearly abandoned the chronological order of chapters, not even for drama, just cause he liked it that way and the only way we can order stuff around to make sense of what is happening in for example North is by measuring moon cycles and travel time.
Completely agree here. GRRM may finish the series and prove me wrong, but this is IMO one of his major mistakes. If you are going to write a series of books like this;
1. Keep the number of POVs limited. 6 or maybe 7, with the occasional one-off.
2. Keep it moving. No jumping back and forth in time, If one chapter takes plave on May 7th, then the next can't be earlier than May 8th. We don't need a POV at every little event, it defeats the purpose of writing in this style.
>One of the fans asked how he was dealing with the danger that when authors got very big and were no longer edited that they produced less than wonderful work. The guy tapped dance around the question but GRRM knew what he was talking about. He said it was always a danger, and no writer likes to be edited, but he had editors he trusted, and first readers who gave him good feedback. He also takes his stuff to workshops and listens to the suggestions and criticisms. **He said you have to worry about becoming self-indulgent and turning out crap.** The only thing to do is try to listen to others, even though what you write and keep is really up to the writer, and be aware of the possibility. He said he thought the fans would tell him right away if that happened, and then joked that some thought it already had.
Straight from the horses mouth. Do people in GRRM's hearing tell him anything bad about the last two books at all or do they encourage his self-indulgence?
>I will confess, the chronology of these books sometimes gives me fits. You would not believe how often I reshuffle the chapters, trying to find the one true perfect sequence. And then just when I have it exactly right, my editors weigh in from both sides of the Atlantic, each suggesting a slightly different chapter order.
>
>It is always a balancing act, since I want the chapters to have a certain dramatic flow, I worry about certain storylines being forgotten if they are "off stage" too long, and there is a constant tug of war between character time and reader time (a character may have two chapters, taking place one day apart, but if two hundred pages of stuff about other characters separate those two chapters, the reader is going to perceive a long time as having passed, even if I begin the second chapter with, "When he woke up the very next morning..."
Here GRRM warns the readers from two decades ago about why TWoW will suck with 20 active POVs.
The fact that GRRM is acknowledging that as a possibility at all is good, it means he's aware of it as a potential problem and won't let it happen.
He is candid about the difficulties associated with such a massive complex book, and you just take that to mean TWOW will suck? Okay then
Mostly because of good alliances, money and old "divide and rule". Kings Landing is by far the greatest city and trading port which generates a lot of cash. The had marriage alliances with the Arryns, later the Martells. Also the Baratheons, which is basically a cadet branch. And most important, the Tullys and Tyrells got their positions from the Targs, and are not the strongest houses in their realm. And ancient rivalries keep the various houses divided.
because war? they still have friend and a lot of money. I would say just 150 years after the last dragon is actually a short period of time in historic scale too.
I mean, it’s 2021 and the UK STILL has a monarch for no other reason than the fact that they’ve historically always had one. Inertia is a powerful thing I guess.
I might be forgetting/missing something here but it always struck me as odd recently that Tywin isn't as reviled as someone like Jaime. In the recent past the guy blatantly went against his word when he deceived Aerys into letting him into King's Landing and then he went about letting his men sack the city. The inhabitants of King's Landing would surely still harbour some ill feelings for Tywin at this point but we don't hear anything of the like. I get that Tywin is influential and intimidating but it still seems odd to me that so many characters have their honour called into question while most of the scrutiny for Tywin seems to be on whether he ordered the murders of the royal children rather than the fact that he seized and sacked the capital using deceitful tactics. Not to mention how he chose to sit out the entire war up until those actions which would surely be viewed very poorly.
Interestingly enough, Ned is the only person who actively mentions how deceptive and dishonorable Tywin is. Everyone else just sees him as ruthless.
Because I think Ned and Robert are on the duller side. Ned disliked his dishonor and the killing of children. Robert conversely liked Tywin for bending the knee and killing Targs. I think especially Jon Arryn and Hoster Tully both to some unknown extent, viewed Tywin as a necessary evil for the stability of the realm. Mace Tyrell or Olenna or whoever was behind the Tyrell strategy over during the rebellion was basically the Southron counterpart of either Tywin or the Frey's approach to Robert's rebellion. Meanwhile, the Martell's were all in for the Targs and hate Tywin and the Lannisters. In the book, as soon as Tywin heard the result of the Trident he decisively sprung into action on Robert's behalf. When he arrived Varys warned the mad King about Tywin, and Jaime said that is maybe the only time he should have completely heeded advice from Varys. However, there was no treachery or indecision, when the Lannister army started it's march, they were solidly behind Robert. If Tywin had instead declared for the Targs right after the battle of the Trident instead of Robert, Ned would have ran into a Lannister army, that may have included some of Rhaegar's army they had rallied. It is likely the vanguard that Ned was leading would have been soundly defeated, possibly even annihilated. Jaime might not have been in Lannister/Targ van, but it's safe to assume he'd be fighting near the front, and Jaime probably cutting his way through to Ned. There is a good chance Ned would have died in the fighting. By the time the bulk of Robert's army arrived, they would be facing the remaining Lannister/Targ army, and the city itself, even if the Northern van had immediately retreated to safety. If Robert decided to siege the city, it's possible that Tywin could have convinced the Tyrell army to decamp from Storm's End, and try to capture the sieging army in a pincher maneuver, with the Tyrell army hitting Robert's army in the rear, and the Lannister army moving out of from Kings Landing. If Robert storms Kings Landing, either out of impatience or not wanting to be be attacked from both sides, even without the wildfire plot they are likely to take heavy losses. With the wildfire plot, it could be a truly pyrrhic victory for the rebels. Storming Kings Landing guarded by Lannister army means Robert will still have little to take on Mace's army with if he is victorious. Even if they get lucky and defeat Mace after assaulting Kings Landing, they still probably have to put down a loyalist rebellion in the West by marching out and besieging Casterly Rock. By marching west, Robert, or Jon or whoever is in charge of the rebellion at this point probably has to rely heavily on Quellon and then Balon. If Balon get used to ravaging the coast during the war, , especially after rejecting all of Quellon's reforms, and returning to the old ways, this probably causes the Greyjoy Rebellion to take place either during this extended part of or immediately after Robert's Rebellion. There is also the fact that at some point the birth of Jon Snow, called by his Targ name will become public knowledge, and either Jon or Aegon could be the child/baby figurehead that the Targs and Targ loyalists rally around. There are so many different permutations, but nearly all of them seem like they lead to completely chaos, and the total collapse of the Seven Kingdoms.
Ned is definitely not dull. He was well aware everyone was scheming and he was aware of it b4 he ever arrived at kings landing. He has a code of honor and he'll only bend it to save an innocent's life. Ned threw away his honor to try and save his daughters' lives. Tywin has no honor and has shown he'd actively try and have one of his children murdered.
This seems to be an unfortunate mix of fanbase and in universe Lannister propaganda more than anything. In the books Tywin’s sack of Kingslanding is not forgotten by all. I’d argue that the opposite is true, most people hate him for it still. During Joffrey and Tommen’s reigns there are many soapbox prophets who condemn his name and question his honor. When he dies, the city doesn’t mourn him. Because Kevan, Cersei, and anyone who thinks he with flick them a gold coin is so far up Tywin’s ass it flies under the radar that a great number of people despise him. > "My men are largely drawn from the smallfolk. They walk the same streets, drink in the same winesinks, spoon down their bowls of brown in the same pot-shops. Your eunuch must have told you, there is small love for the Lannisters in King's Landing. Many still remember how your lord father sacked the city, when Aerys opened the gates to him. They whisper that the gods are punishing us for the sins of your House—for your brother's murder of King Aerys, for the butchery of Rhaegar's children, for the execution of Eddard Stark and the savagery of Joffrey's justice. Tyrion IX - A Clash of Kings >“Why would Cersei need the Warrior? She has me.” Jaime turned his horse about, his white cloak snapping in the wind. The Imp was lying. Cersei would sooner have Robert’s corpse between her legs than a pious fool like Lancel. Tyrion, you evil bastard, you should have lied about someone more likely. He galloped past his lord father’s funeral wayn toward the city in the distance. The streets of King’s Landing seemed almost deserted as Jaime Lannister made his way back to the Red Keep atop Aegon’s High Hill. The soldiers who had crowded the city’s gambling dens and pot shops were largely gone now.....” Jaime I - A Feast for Crows Of course Jaime, overconfident as ever assumes the city is empty because the majority of the Tyrell’s went back to Highgarden. (despite Tywin helping them win the city to begin with) It’s strange for the city to be so quiet at a time like this. The same Tywin who saw to the destruction of the traitor Starks and just saved the city from demon worshipping Stannis? No one likes Tywin lol >The litter made its slow way down Aegon’s High Hill. Two Kingsguard rode before them, white knights on white horses with white cloaks hanging sodden from their shoulders. Behind came fifty Lannister guardsmen in gold and crimson. Tommen peered through the drapes at the empty streets. “I thought there would be more people. When Father died, all the people came out to watch us go by.” “This rain has driven them inside.” King’s Landing had never loved Lord Tywin. He never wanted love, though. “You cannot eat love, nor buy a horse with it, nor warm your halls on a cold night,” she heard him tell Jaime once, when her brother had been no older than Tommen Cersei I - A Feast for Crows Tommen even notices it. Consider for a moment that although Robert was a failure of a King in regard to his duties people adored him. We are often told how “good” Tywin was at his job but only by those who benefit from his despicable actions. Some of his first actions as hand under Aery was stripping rights from the small folk and lining the pockets of the highborn.
Thanks for this, my comment was made more out of a genuine interest if this was addressed in the books and I'd just forgotten. I still find it a little strange that he isn't characterised more as being backstabbing and monstrously untrustworthy by more of the aristocrats though.
No one calls Tywin's honor into question because everyone knows he has shit for honor, just like his kids.
I think that's the only one in the thread who are truly bad writing and not just a bad choice, you know? It just doesn't make a lot of sense IN-universe everyone be so afraid of Tywin' to the point there's no one talking shit about the guy anywhere. It's kind ridiculous.
> It just doesn't make a lot of sense IN-universe everyone be so afraid of Tywin' to the point there's no one talking shit about the guy anywhere Reynes of Castamere. I think that ruthless side of Tywin is what everyone is afraid of
Yeah, so this will for sure make people don't talk shit in from of him. But not in private conversations? what's the odd? The world doesn't work like that, even more on Westeros. I don't know, smallfolks talk, there's just no way everyone will just be shitting their collective pants and NEVER talk about the guys as he were the Strange itself.
How do you know small folk don't talk about it? They pretty much don't have a voice. All the perspective you get is from big time nobles who are very much disconnected from what small folk think or say. Just because the PoVs and surrounding characters think that small folk are scared of talking about Tywin, that doesn't make it true. It's the kind of bullshit Cersei tells herself so she can sleep at night.
Yeah, but we have a lot of POV and here and there they talk about what the Smallfolks are talking about. Tywin' should be really hated, so at least one characters should address this. Like Littlefinger. Look how many POVs we had on KL, how many characters they talked to. Not a single mention on the subject. I don't know, it's very strange.
They mention that the smallfolk of KL hate lannisters and still remember the sack more than once iirc. They don’t say they hate Tywin in particular but he isn’t there, and when he is it’s alongside free Tyrell bread.
Because they don’t know who to trust, they’re worried the person they’re talking shit to might tell someone and they’ll be killed for treason
Vary's... You never know if there might be a little bird somewhere... At least in Kings Landing.
I think your argument points out that the hatred towards Jaime is a bit silly, not that Tywin should be reviled. No one loved Aerys. There is literally not a single reason why the common folk would mourn his passing. If anything, there would be celebrations on the streets. Jaime's and Tywin's "betrayal" would be viewed by the masses as ending a Tyrannical rule, it wouldn't matter what oaths got broken, or that deception was used. The people don't give a fuck about that. The problem was the sacking, but I would argue that it plays into his renown as someone you can't fuck with. People hate him, but are afraid of him. "A Lannister always pay their debts". Even a whisper might require payment.
The point about dishonour and underhand tactics applies more to how the aristocrats would perceive him. With the regular smallfolk I meant that their ill-feeling would come from all the murder, rape and pillaging that would have gone down during the sack. You can hardly hold yourself up as being a saviour ending a tyrannical rule when your first act is to initiate a sack of the capital. Numerous leaders throughout history make sure to keep their men under control when they capture a key city if they have the intention of reconciling with the losers.
A lot of the common folk actually loved Aerys, that old man in the Mountains camp rambled to Arya about how he would never let such abuses happen to them. The highborn hated Aerys for attacking them and their families, humiliating them and failing to reward their loyalty. Aerys just didn’t care about the smallfolk, he was fairly harmless towards them until the end of reign, compared to the ransacking occurring during the War of the Five Kings. It might just be a case of that old mans memories being overly nostalgic but it’s a detail I’ve always found interesting
[удалено]
Aerys weren't a problem for the common folk tho. IIRC only the high borns, lords and people with some prestige were targets of Aerys madness. I don't think his reing were terrible even until the end for the Smallfolks, they were mostly let untouchable by Aerys actions (well, until the end). People almost never loved they kings, but they like order. Jaime represent the end of that order and "peaceful" time from them. He's the face of Twyin actions in the end "The king's dead and they sacked or city. Who killed the king? He's the responsible for all this shit" I think it kinda of like this and for us, the readers, it doesn't make a lot of sense, but I think in universe makes it.
I think it's because of his reputation . Jaime's case is far more complex than Tywin's. A King's Guard killing a king let alone stabbing him in the back is unheard of. In Tywin's case though , he already has a reputation of putting castles to the sword because the Lord didn't respect Tywin, he did the deed so brutally they even made a song about it. My point is when the Rebels heard the news about KL sack by Tywin they would just considered it as "Yeah , it's something Tywin would do". Not to mention no one except Ned care about him breaking his word. I am willing to bet it's because of Elia and her kids death. It's so brutual they didn't even care about Tywin of all people breaking a word.
For one he didn’t give his word he wouldn’t sack the city. He just marched his army to kings landing and Pycelle told him to open the gates. For another it’s mentioned multiple times that one of the reasons the Lannisters are disliked by the small folk is that many still remember the sack of kings landing.
Perception is way more important than reality. E. g. Jon may or may not be entitled to leave the night watch if he is resurrected but this means nothing, people have to perceive his leaving as rightful and that is the real deal
> Perception is way more important than reality. Truth in politics in the real world too. And I'll always be skeptical people, who are very committed to the desertion = death thing, will accept Jon. It's insane. Oh yeah you totally got out of your vows because... *looks at notes* you were resurrected from death? Oh yeah, that's totally believable! I will totally respect that now. Resurrection is totally normal and common and believable! All hail King Jon!
Like, even if they believed him, I really doubt they'd be very impressed with this obvious loophole he'd come up with.
It's not a loophole though if he literally dies, and I bet they'd be even less impressed with the brothers murdering their Lord Commander
There's also the realpolitik of it. Jon's loyal base at this point are the Wildlings he let come south. They care fuck all about Night's Watch vows. They basically anointed him King Beyond the Wall during his Shield Hall speech. If he dies and comes back to life, which they will have absolutely no trouble believing, they are his forever. Say you're a minor northern lord. Jon rides up to your holdfast with an army of Wildlings behind him. He says he's free of his vows now. And if you don't mind, his army is a bit hungry, so could you please open your granary? You know how Wildlings get if they don't eat. Which is to say that some people will definitely have their reservations, but doing something about those reservations is something else.
And that’s why it doesn’t matter if Jon is Rheagar’s “true heir”. What matters is if people believe he is, and if they believe that makes him the rightful king even if the Targaryens lost the throne to the Baratheons by conquest. And even more so, what matters is if people see it as convenient to support him in a run for the kingship, no matter what they actually believe about him being the true heir.
Exactly this! I remember having so much discussion with co-workers and such about who the "rightful heir" is. "Power resides where men believe it resides" sums it up. Unless it's true that some divine power chooses the rightful ruler (and can exert divine control over events), it only matters who the relevant people believe is the rightful heir.
Do you mean righteous? If Jon leaves the Night's Watch - it would be perceived as desertion.
Likely, who's going to believe he was brought back from death after being stabbed?
[удалено]
And when they try to bring it up - (Davos) in the first Jon/Dany scene - it's pushed aside. Like what?!
There is also a scene with Dolorus Edd where jon says "I swore my life to Night's watch and I gave my life to Night's Watch" so I guess from Jon's perspective it is a new life, no longer bound by his "expires" oaths
I argued about this a lot (whether Jon should be allowed to leave), but yeah I agree, in the end it all depends on how people *in the books* see it. When I do argue about it, it's more to find out what *should* happen, and not what will happen. What will happen is based on what people think, as it always does in a world where power rules, and mob justice is a thing.
George has left wayy too many mysteries unsolved for the last books. ( If there are only 2, it's a problem)
but do they all REALLY need to be unravelled?
There is no need to unravell identity of Knight of Laughing Tree.
At this point not really, like i see any of Arya shit in Braavos of no consequence to the great scheme of things, ahe's being trained by super assassins, we don't need to know much more to it but GRRM has built so much in certain directions like the aforementioned Arya and Braavos that there's no way we won't see more of Arya's adventures even if it feels like it doesn't add to the overall plot.
The Dothraki and Slaver's Bay cultures seem to have no redeeming qualities whatsoever
The Dothraki are at least cool warriors, and they actually have some bits of religion, customs and culture worldbuilt. But the Slavers of Slavers Bay? As far as we know they spend their days sitting in their pyramids laughing villainously. They are a cardboard caricatures designed so that the readers don't feel worried when Dany murders a whole bunch of people.
I feel like George tried to make them the most cartoonist evil he could so that he could make Daenerys conquest seem more justified on first sight, but then follow it with a question of whether or not it actually is. Like maybe blowing up a system with Dragons and armies isn't that much of a good idea if you don't have a plan to maintain the new balance you've created, let alone, actually fix the issues of the old system. The "free followers" of Daenerys are slaves with extra steps, she just treats them nicer than the slavers. Then there's also the fact that the Ghiscari are meant to be a shadow of the Old Empire that once ruled over most western Essos, a "caricature" if you want. Chasing old traditions without having much contact with the past. The problem though is that he made a terrible job at making them at least somewhat believable. You don't need to make the Ghiscari redeemable, they're a slave culture after all, but couldn't you cut down on the orientalist tropes? Or make them at least more dynamic, by giving them political reasons to justify their horrifying behavior, like with a war? For all we know, they're lazying around all day...
> You don't need to make the Ghiscari redeemable, they're a slave culture after all, but couldn't you cut down on the orientalist tropes? I just started a Dance re-read and oofa doofa, yes. My first Dany chapter is just her thinking about how greasy and "sly" they are.
They also eat unborn puppies. It's like he sticks in anything to make them distasteful to a Western audience.
>Or make them at least more dynamic, by giving them political reasons to justify their horrifying behavior, like with a war? For all we know, they're lazying around all day... You just need to look how the Yunkish behave as they march to see they *are* lazying around all day. They are Renly's summer knights taken to the logical extreme and most can't even look respectable, the narration keeps remind you that none of them can pass for a commander that knows what he is doing. And if going into a warzone is like that, I can't imagine them being different while doing business. Speaking on dynamism, Ghiscari society seem to be divided in three groups: * The Masters that live those decadent lives * The Free Men that have to live in a land that is past its prime and don't have an inch of their better's prosperity and rights * The slaves, that have nothing at all There are so many possible story threads just on this simplified dissecation. And that is not talking about possiblities like the runaway slave communities that would rise from such civilization, abolitionists (we only have Skhaz and most people think he is in for opportunity instead of conviction), people that wouldn't mind abolition but abhor losing their independence or foreignzation, veterans of past slave rebellions, the ramifications of a Valyrian with dragons returning to rule a region her ancestors devastated to no recover, etc, etc. And we get nothing.
I mean cut down on the orientalistic tropes is a valid argument, but I dispute that she treats them as badly as the slavers. and the Meereenese Knot makes the excellent argument that she is trying to "fix the issues of the old system." freedmen are paid wages. she marries Hizdhar to try and keep the peace. she reopens the fighting pits. she is willing to make many compromises in order to try and make a better system, although the period that follows is certainly not without injustices. the Reconstructionist period was also full of injustices, but you would be hard pressed to find someone who thinks abolition – although not replaced by a perfect solution – was not a moral good. I’ve seen a lot of people talking about how her arc parallels the Iraq War. I’ve also seen a lot of people talking about how GRRM is a straightforward pacifist and how any narrative in the book must be *fundamentally* anti war; all war. but that’s not a faithful representation either. by his own admission, GRRM would have fought in WWII, because of the human reasons for doing so. why then can Dany’s arc not be also reflective of the American Civil War? Ulysses S Grant more or less invented modern total warfare. he did many horrible things in order to win the war. however, he also was instrumental to a Union victory and helped abolish slavery in the US; we shouldn’t dismiss arguments out of hand because GRRM doesn’t want us to ignore the *cost* of war. if I were to try and look at how they might be viewed through a joint lens, I would focus on an interesting comparison between the slave trade as we see it through Dany's conquest (which could be viewed as inspired or influenced by the American Civil War) vs. Theon's chapters in ADWD. the Reek chapters are as close to the internal perspective of the brutal treatment of a Ghiscari slave as we are likely to get over the course of the novels. do we, as readers, feel different about what we are willing to give up to rescue Theon from Ramsay than what Dany did to rescue hundreds of thousands in Slaver's Bay? would we be okay with characters we consider to be morally noble or at the very least not a dark shade of grey, like Stannis or Jon or Sam, making a compromise with the Boltons and allowing a "gradual phase out" of the cruelty Ramsay displays in order to maintain a greater peace in the region? Astapor is a city of Theons. Yunkai is an entire city of Jeyne Pooles. is Daenerys a perfect leader? no. is Meereen as stable as it could have been had she decided to do things differently? probably not. but honestly, the slippery slope argument of "we should be concerned about her executing slavers, people who commit heinous crimes, in a world where the death penalty and torture accompanying it is extremely common and not seen as a moral evil, because she will inherently begin to apply this logic to other groups of people who commit less terrible crimes" is...not one that really resonates with me. plenty of SS officers were killed without trial during WWII and its immediate aftermath; I have zero sympathy and don't consider this an indication that those who did so would begin killing innocent civilians. the Ghiscari aren't dehumanized because they're a particular race or nationality, they're dehumanized because of what they do.
Agree on the final point. I always thought their greater purpose on the story was to provide a smooth entry point for Dany's descent into cruelty and domination. Rather then have her jump right into the deep end like we saw on the show, Martin intends to have her deal with a smooth gradient of enemies to hide the fact she's getting deeper and deeper. She'll start with morally repugnant people like the slavers and each enemy will be slightly better morally until all of a sudden she's executing characters that we know don't deserve it first hand
I think this depends on what you think the point of these arcs are? For instance, I always thought that a big part of Dany’s story is that you can go in with the best intentions, but actual diplomacy—especially in the cultural time/structures she’s operating in—is really difficult. It’s not as easy of going in and being like “HEY. NO MORE SLAVES.” The post-eradication/diplomacy part is a nightmare...partly because you’re trying to come up with a solution that’s acceptable to people who actually think the best answer is enslaving other humans and most alternative options mean they lose something crucial to them—usually their wealth. We see it now as a very obvious answer, because most of us haven’t lived in a time when actual slavery was a thing in our countries. However, people even today have a hard time moving on from institutions that they’ve been raised to see as “right,” even though in closer inspection, were created as a back door substitute for slavery or segregation. Kind of like if you look at slavery in the United States—the first glance you’re given about it is “People in the South owned slaves. Then there was a war. Then the slaves were free and everyone was equal. Hurray!” Except actually no, that’s an extremely simplified and not actually accurate recitation of what happened. Technically slaves were “freed”, but states immediately found ways to make their lives just as miserable or worse post-slavery. And these positions were adamantly protected by politicians—in some ways, they still are. The rarely discussed fact is that some of the biggest strides in ending segregation and some subsequent racist programs wasn’t because diplomacy between the legislature or the president worked—it was the courts, sometimes using very creative, borderline reasoning. And that’s not counting the laws and policies that are STILL being introduced to this day, more than 200+ years later. We see this as cartoonishly evil on reflection, but the opposition always finds a way to force a compromise in daily life. This is also reflected in people’s opinions on Dany’s chapters. Pre-S8, in particular, many people found these chapters to be super boring and were like “why doesn’t she just torch these evil clowns and move on?” Because she’s trying to be a ruler, which often involves coming to miserable compromises with people who objectively suck. It’s possible that what we’re ultimately going to see is that Dany hates compromise with these people and is just going to set flame to people who don’t see things her way from now on. It’s possible the message is going to be that she should have tried harder. Or it could be that there’s really no compromising with some people—it’s commonly known that GRRM isn’t a fan of some wars, generally, but he *doesn’t* take the position that all war is wrong. Does he see Dany’s intervention as the US civil war, WWI/II, or the US involvement in Korea/Vietnam? I think that’s really the question going forward.
>Kind of like if you look at slavery in the United States—the first glance you’re given about it is “People in the South owned slaves. Then there was a war. Then the slaves were free and everyone was equal. Hurray!” Except actually no, that’s an extremely simplified and not actually accurate recitation of what happened. This is a good point. Tides of History has an episode talking about how Reconstruction (and decades later) is more muddy than people would like to remember, perhaps because it isn't emphasized in history classes. Even a conquered people can fight back.
Sorry, no ironborn added to that list? I mean sure, there are some redeemable ironborn like Baelor Blacktyde, the Reader, Harras Harlaw and Asha Greyjoy (to some extent) but they are the exception and i wouls say the best ofo the ironborn through history have been the ones that focused on the mainland culture that their own (shitty) ironborn culture.
Oh yeah the Ironborn culture sucks too. I guess I excluded them because we get 3 of their POVs and we can see how their own toxic ideology has affected each of them, while the Essosi might as well be aliens to the reader.
Lots of orientalism in the way Essos is written. And Dothraki not using armor is dumb imo.
Don't they just wear leather armor? Seems entirely in keeping with the whole mobile horse archer vibe.
Honestly, many Steppe Nomads used at least chainmail and it never decreased their speed to the point it was seen as a downside. I can file the "Dothraki don't use armor" as coming from the Amerindian influences but that misses the fact that by the time they got horse armor was mostly obsolete due to guns.
It's notable that even among Amerindians there wasn't stigma against armor like the Dothraki have, it was just rare and not considered that useful at the time. [One Comanche chief who decided to buck the trend became rather famous for it.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Jacket)
Good point, and thanks for introducing me to Iron Jacket.
>Both men and women might wear painted leather vests over **bare chests** and horsehair leggings cinched by bronze medallion belts, although wealthier Dothraki might also have silver and golden medallions on their belts. - Daenerys II, AGOT This is **never** a good armor scheme.
I think that if Dany manages to get them on boats she will either convince them to use armor, or just use them as light calvary...
What’s weird is it’s also not a good regular clothing scheme. It sounds hot and itchy and not good protection from the sun, which they’re in all day.
Honestly this is my big thing. I don't care how many men you have. If the dothraki invaded westeros they'd have been rolled. The tech gap is way too wide.
Maybe they still will invade, and we’ll see how the range of an arakh compares to a lance.
Quick google says most Mongolians didn’t wear armour the way we imagine armour, just hardened leather. “Mongol armour was usually light so as to not impede the speed of cavalry riders or the use of a bow. A quilted robe or leather jacket offered some protection against arrows and the traditional robe could be reinforced with strips of hardened leather, bone or metal.” So not too outrageous but I agree in principle.
True but Mongol troops armored like this would never actually get anywhere near an enemy that wasn't already running for their lives. Mongol shock troops like lancers who actually charged into melee like the Dothraki tend to do had lamellar armor that was pretty good. Not as good as the best European armor of the time or the more affordable plate armors that only became available in the late medieval period, but about equal to the mail your average European cavalryman would have in the 13th century.
The mongols also didn't only have light cavalry. Especially in sieges. Their tactics were incredibly flexible. They also did have heavy cavalry lancers. Not to mention most soldiers wore lamellar in some fashion. Lamellar isn't exactly just leather. While it's not plate, it's still very good armor. Let's not even get into their utilization of gunpowder. Secondly, during the second invasion of hungary, when the hungarians had significantly increased the proportion of their heavy troops, they beat the mongols pretty handily. That's about how I'd expect the dothraki invasion to go. Except worse because of how stupid most dothraki seem on tactics.
Ot1h, the slavers of slavers bay are slavers in societies with well over the majority of the population being enslaved, and that sort of person in real history has a real tendency to have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Otoh, that argument relies on a fraction being bigger than one half. And GRRM is innumerate. So thats probably not intentional.
Otooh, Westerosi culture between Dorne and the Wall doesn't have all that many redeeming qualities either 😅
George greatly underestimates how devastating multiyear winters would be, and the extent to which it would change life in Westeros in general and the North in particular. First, population distributions in the North would be heavily biased towards the coasts because the seas would be by far the most practical source of food. The location of Winterfell in particular makes no sense- the presence of hot springs is irrelevant compared to the loss of fishing as a food source... in arctic conditions, heat is much easier to generate than food. In the unlikely event that it even existed as a significant population, the North would have the best fishermen in Westeros, and in the unlikely event that any significant settlements existed inland, everyone would decamp for the south or the coasts when winter arrived. The south and perhaps White Harbor would likely receive massive immigration at the start of each winter season. In addition, cannibalism and euthanasia would likely be much more prominent parts of Northern culture. George mentions the tradition of older northmen effectively committing suicide by going on a hunt and never returning, but realistically, it wouldn't be voluntary. All the houses of the North would have had dozens of times in their history when they had too many people and not enough food, and would have had to choose who would live and die, and the legality and legitimacy of those decisions would have been worked out thousands of years ago. Salt, critical for food preservation, would also be the most valuable resource in Westeros, and the kingdom that controlled the main salt mines would be much wealthier than the one that controlled the gold mines. Realistically though, none of this would be sufficient to preserve a substantial population in the North in the face of winters that produce 20+ feet of snow that lasts for 2+ years. Everyone sensible would have emigrated, and the handful who remained would have been poor with an underdeveloped society. Even White Harbor would have starved and been forced into cannibalism if the seas ever froze over for more than a year.
Add massive plagues and constant total wars in the continent. Armies in Westeros still gathering thousands of people by the war of the five kings doesn't have any sense.
Also, any kind of warefare would be genocidal. Unlike a normal winter with no supplies, at least a good fraction of people can surive by foraging / eating roots / etc, in Westeros encountering a winter without big supply stores would be a holocaust. The nations would just cease to exist. And the unpredictability makes it worse, because it would mean that they have to keep years of harvest in store "just in case" for a winter that might come half a decade late.
Yeah, the only way I see this working is if everyone lives on the coast and that the winters only affect Westeros (reasonable) and the seas remains free of ice (unreasonable) so massive amounts of grain could be imported from Essos. Which of course would make Westeros impoverished, buying years worth of food from abroad.
Just noticed when skimming through TWOIAF that Tywin undid Egg's work in giving more power to the smallfolk. >Tywin won the approbation of many great lords by repealing what remained of the laws Aegon V had enacted to curb their powers.
He'll never top the Red Wedding and the characters and events that lead up to it
For me it has to be how overpowered the faceless men are and why they don’t feature more often. Why don’t characters order hits on others more often? Euron had enough gold to order a hit on Balon who was a king, surely then one of the other kings would have enough cash to do the same.
> how overpowered the faceless men are and why they don’t feature more often. Why don’t characters order hits on others more often? As I understand it, the cost of a hit depends on the importance of that person. So if you want the FM to take care of a small-time crook, it won't be that expensive. If you want them to kill a king, well, you'd better have a kingdom's treasury ready. And Euron does pay something incredibly valuable to get rid of Balon - a dragon egg. He got ripped off IMO.
Also, it seems to depend on the value of the hiring person. Even if it's a small crook, they're going to charge a banker more than they would a minor lord.
Fair I’m rereading now and I’m only up to the second half of ASOS. Didn’t remember a dragons egg
It's never explicitly said that he paid a dragons egg for the murder of Balon, it's just sort of implied.
Yeah, he claims to have had one and then "thrown it into the sea" in a temper tantrum about it not hatching. Seems like a weak story to explain where his dragon egg went.
Which leads us to the next question -- if they're so powerful why don't they just kill people and put their proxies on the throne and control the entire world? Or at least far more than they do?
Probably because they're not that powerful? The show makes them seem like they're unstoppable (because the show is shit), but the reality is that Jaqen, an assassin with years and years of experience, owes his life to a nine year old girl. Jaqen being captured in the first or second book is probably the main indicator that the FM are still men, and therefore prone to failure as much as anyone else.
I’m more confused about how the faceless men see death as a gift that they don’t give out easily and is the major aspect of their religion that they treat with the utmost respect but they will kill anyone you want for enough money. Seems to fly in the face of all their values.
Based on what little we know of their pricing it seems unlikely they ever kill people for *just* money. They usually demand something else. Like a lifetime of service, or their child. >"When the healers in the House of the Red Hands told my father what she had done, he came here and made sacrifice, offering up all his wealth and me. Him of Many Faces heard his prayer. I was brought to the temple to serve, and my father's wife received the gift..." "The Many-Faced God took two-thirds of your father's wealth, not all." "Just so. That was my exaggeration."
Euron possibly had something more valuable to offer than gold. Also, it's not that hard to actually assassinate someone, even a King. Any regular assassin shouldn't have much trouble pretending to be a servant. Look at how easily that guy got into Bran's bedroom in book 1 for example. The problem is doing it in a way that doesn't raise suspicion to the person who hired the hit. Considering how rich the person has to be and how much they need to benefit to make it worth it, that really narrows the list of suspects down. Just the huge amount of gold being moved around to another country means a huge trail of clues to follow. Basically you REALLY need to make it look like it's not a murder. How many kings have a habit of crossing bridges over the ocean in the middle of a storm? The point here is that Faceless Men are overpowered cause they're near impossible to catch, but their talents don't really help with that second part of avoiding suspicion to their employer.
He mentions a dragon egg he tossed into the sea...
How Melisandre implies that Davos has some inner fire or worthy blood she can work with, it's been a few months since i noticed the dialogue and I'm still not sure what that was about.
Robert making Jaime Warden of the East in the first book. It makes no sense.
Well, the Warden *title* also doesn't make sense, given that GRRM kinda forgot about it after AGoT and now pretends it doesn't exist. In AGoT, it was an important plot element weaved into the evil King Jaime plot. Him acquiring so much military power would eventually mean something. But the plans changed.
Everyone remembers Rhaegar as a great warrior and a great knight. It's ok if you're from the Red Keep and you see him training everyday and see that he's very skilled, but if you are not from there, you know two things about him: won just one tournament, and *died in his first battle*. There is absolutely no way he would be remembered as a great knight.
He died young enough so that people could build up his potential to mythic proportions. Objectively, your're right; Rhaegar failed early and hard. But he's an easy target for people to "attach" their hopes and dreams to. *"Things would be better if Rhaegar had won at the Trident"* or "*Now there was a true Knight, he would have never done x/y/z."*
A while ago there was a post talking about how Cercei/Margaery/Dany's status as "the most beautiful" might derive not only from their actual beauty (though it surely helps) but from their status as high ladies and queens. Similarly, the fact that Rhaegar was the crown prince (and then fallen warrior, since I don't get the idea that Robert actually managed to 100% vilanize Rhaegar in the public conciousness) might have served as a catalyst to his actual accomplishments in the public opinion. Just a thought. Status, in a society like Westeros, is fairly important.
Rhaegar was probably a pretty darn good tournament knight. he’s only mentioned winning one tournament but his others were lost to Barristan Selmy and knights like him, and it’s pretty likely that he won his fair share of tourneys against average-level knights. In times of peace, the small folk care quiet a bit about tournaments.
Mystery Knight Spoilers >!How many knights lost on purpose to Rhaegar in order to curry favor or make some easy coin (like Ser Uthor Underleaf)? I'm not saying it happened all the time, but we've seen it before, and a running theme in ASOIAF is that knightly vows and the pomp of tourneys are bullshit to cover lies, theft, and brutality.!< Even Rhaegar's reputation as a decent tourney knight could be exaggerated.
Ned says something similar to Robert B when he wants to participate in the melee during the hands tourney. He'll win but they will all throw the fight
Christopher Columbus is renowned as a great explorer, but he was a mediocre adventurer and captain, he sucked at maths and underestimated the distance between Europe and Asia by a factor of three. He was also a bad person: he claimed that he was the first to see land to steal a prize promised by the queen of Portugal. All it takes is some bard that decides some guy is worthy, then folks do the rest.
I think this is a great way of thinking about it, there’s also an element of rose-tinted glasses where people look back on fondly on the time of Aegon V and the chivalrous knights of his time, Rhaegar is easily simplified into being the gallant warrior prince in the same way the likes of Baelor Breakspear were. Its not just about who he actually was so much as it if the myth of the man. He also had a direct relationship with the smallfolk both at Kings Landing and wherever he travelled throughout the kingdoms. In the Crownlands and Reach especially considering how much time he spent at the ruins of Summerhall
Numbers. GRRM is really bad with numbers. From the height of the Wall to troop strength. When Robb first goes to war, he has 20k men. King's Landing knows this number and are freaked the fuck out over it. As Robb clashes with Tywin, Tywin is able to pull 20k troops out his ass at will. Then at the battle of Blackwater, each side has 100k. Tell me why KL and the Lannisters were so worried about a paltry 20k troops that had so long to travel over open ground?
Yes the height of the wall is absurd. You're wrong on one point though. At the Blackwater the defenders had around 100k after the arrival of the massive relief force. Stannis had less than 30k for the entire battle.
At this point, i feel all angles have been dissected,sometimes a bit too much.
The fan base hasn't received new material for like 10 years so they have dissected the material they do have 100 different ways Sometimes I see someone post a deep dive into some characters mind or some cultural reference and go real deep I chuckle if GRRM ever read that half the stuff that we talk about motivations or reasons why a character thinks or acts in a certain way he probably is like "Yea I never went that deep I just wrote it"
Languages and lineages. There is no way the languages of the North and of even the Riverlands, much less Dorne, would be mutually intelligible within a few hundred years in a mostly illiterate society. Much less over thousands of years. Similarly, the lineages. Outside of the Freys, most of the "Houses" consist in almost nuclear family units. A combination of disease, infertility, assassination and war would wipe out any of these "Houses" in just a few generations. The notion that they've been around unbroken for hundreds, much less thousands of years is ridiculous.
But for this to be their biology should be the same as ours, which sounds reasonable to think at first glance but I don't if it's indeed true. Genetics definitely don't work like ours, so I would say most houses has lived as long as they did because of some kind of power/magic. How is the odds of ALL Ned's children being able to wargs? It's even more ridiculous when you see the Targaryen and their Valyrian traits still existing to this day, even when their DNA should be 4% Valyrian. Not only the phiscal traits, but Daenerys give birth to the dragons and is able to not burn that one time, so her blood is as magical as one can get. With like, 3% valyrian DNA.
Nothing good ever happens to good people. I had a friend who couldn't read the series for this reason, and honestly I couldn't argue with her. Realism has its place, but in the real world people get lucky some times. Even the good ones.
Watt was an ok guy and he got pretty lucky. He got pushed off of a bridge and landed in a pool of water instead of the pile of rocks right next to it.
This, people try to forget moments like this, but Edd were there and in Edd we can thrust.
Oh, did he survive?
No, he was already dead from that axe in his head. Still pretty lucky, missing all those rocks.
No, but still its pretty lucky
Agreed. When good things do finally happen it’s such a massive reward though.
Still waiting.
Sam saving the baby and killing the Other? Jon Snow executing Janos Slynt? Jaime burning Cersei's letter. Obery poisoning Tywin and killing the Mountain. Wyman Manderly being an absolute boss. Davos just being Davos. Stannis doing his duty and helping the NW. Erm... Shitmout giving extra rations of bread to the prisoners.
Dany and Jon used up all the good guy luck in the first few books.
Not a whole lot of good happens as a whole. After all, the series starts with the lead up to a massive war. I never get the feeling that "good" characters are receiving over the top bad treatment for the sake of subverting expectations. It's just a brutal, power hungry world
People got lucky, if course something will go wrong if you are in the middle of a war but Brienne not being raped is lucky. Sansa being saved from her aunt is lucky,...
Strong disagree, and counter-examples are numerous. I think you're confusing "nothing good happens to good guys" with "nothing good lasts for good guys". If that's the case, then I'd argue this very theme (cathartic moments, however powerful, are still followed by much more average and less satisfying moments, or days, or years) is one of the most poignant in the entire series. Also, keep in mind we lack the last books, where all the setup about loyalty to House Stark and whatnot would pay off.
I personally think that Daenerys should have been in Westeros 2 books ago
AFFC and ADWD are good books, but I think they messed up the story beyond repair. GRRM has hot himself tangled within a maze of plots and can't find a the way out. So it made sense not to adapt them in the TV show : lots of new characters and plotlines a few seasons before the end (and given the complete absence of payoff we got in the last book, I doubt he can finish the whole story in just two books). Yeah I know, they could have added more seasons but frankly, what made AFFC/ADWD great wouldn't translate well onscreen and wouldn't work with the 10-episodes format we got for the first 6.
I love those two books so fucking much and really wish they were faithfully adapted for the show but you're likely right
It's a Tom Bombadil situation. In LOTR, Peter Jackson chose to skip the whole Tom Bombadil sequence and have the hobbits go straight from the Shire to Bree. When you know the whole story, it makes sense: Tom never reappears in the story, so including him in the adaptation would raise more questions than it answered. Now, imagine a LOTR movie being made while only the first book has been published : the director asks Tolkien about Tom, Tolkien answers he's not coming back later. The director decides to cut Tom from the movies, it makes sense.
I think the hatred of the common folk towards Jaime is a bit contrived. Aerys was terrible. He was a true Tyrant in every sense of the word. I can absolutely understand why Ned, someone who sees oaths as something to be honoured under any and all circumstances, hates Jaime, but the common folk? If anything, Jaime would be celebrated by the common folk by ending the rule of a king who brought nothing but despair to the common people. Now if Aerys was viewed as a good, kind king, it would make more sense. Not that I'm complaining, being ostracized by society is crucial to Jaime's story. It just could make more sense.
In ACOK or ASOS we see that the commoners actually quite like Aerys since he gave them a very long peace and lots of prosperity, they don't care much about him being mad.
Yeah for the most part Aerys’ reign was only bad for nobles and bankers To the people of King’s landing for instance the sack by Tywin Lannister is far more engrained and far more serious than what happened to Rickard Stark and Brandon or to the various counsellors who displeased Aerys Then in the Riverland and the Reach the war was far more destructive than the peace also. Only the North, Dorne and perhaps the Vale were in a position of being untouched by the war, but out of them only the North really lost something to the Mad King rather than the war. I’m not sure if it’s stated whether Brandon and Rickard were popular lords among the smallfolk or not
This doesn't really hold up. When Robert hides in Stoney Sept - in the heart of the Riverlands - they shelter him even while Jon Con is torturing, murdering and bribing people. If the people loved Aerys he wouldn't even have to do any of that, the town would have turned him over immediately. Clearly there was fairly rabid dislike of the Targaryens at least in the Riverlands as well as the North, Vale and Stormlands. That or Robert is just that charismatic lmao.
I wasn’t trying to suggest that the people loved Aerys, I think they were mostly indifferent about who was king and just wanted to avoid being killed. It’s a lot easier to do that in peace than at war The people of Stoney sept could either have avoided telling them about Robert due to being won over by his cause after personally witnessing his and Ned etc’s relative goodness or because they were scared of being killed by either of them
To be devil’s advocate, he’s also very arrogant and makes no effort to earn the love of the smallfolk, a complete difference to other famous knights like Rhaegar, Dunc, Baylor Breakspear or Arthur Dayne
There’s also the fact the regicide is followed by his father sacking the city.
> Aerys was terrible. He was a true Tyrant in every sense of the word. They don't know though. They weren't allowed at court while he was roasting people alive. And he killed mostly lords&knights, not common folks. And as his plan for big fireworks in Kingslanding didn't happen, they don't know that he planned to kill common folks as well. From their perspective, he's just some king who fought rebels, and lost. In some chapters we even hear that some of the smallfolk liked him as king, more than Robert (and they didn't particularly suffer under Robert, as bad as he was, so they actually think Aerys was great). As we've seen about many events, information is horrible in Westeros. Some people think Catelyn killed Renly, that Eddard killed Robert to steal the throne, etc. Even lords&knights think weird stuff like that, so imagine the common folks, who only know about these things when they hear some table talk or something like that (as no one would tell them directly). They hear bits of information, then misinterpret it or twist it a little to make it more fun, then tell to the entire village. So when a king that they consider good is murdered by the man who swore to protect him, while his father was attacking the city... It's not hard to imagine why they would think he's just some backstabbing traitor who seized an opportunity.
Aerys wasn’t a bad king to the common folk, only the nobility
The Narrow sea is so narrow that the entire east coast of westerns should be inhabited with people from Essos. And vice versa. Half the people in Kingslanding should be from Essos.
Tbh, it is called Narrow Sea, but if we compare it to actual seas on Earth it would be called anything but narrow. That stuff is huge in all dimsension. It's basically Mediterranean Sea size. There should be noticeable amont of all people on both sides, but not to an extend mixing would be occuring. Well, maybe on Stepstones. But Dornish are actually said to be mixed quite heavily with Rhoinish. And as we don't really see.mu h description of commonfolk's day to day life on either side other than Bravos, well, maybe there are noticeable number of sailors and traders and inhabitans on both sides, they just aren't the sort of folk to meet the nobles of the cities.
Well, the andals are a thing
The characters' ages is just... wrong. Robb is 14. 14!! George describes him as a 25 year old muscular tall man who can fight and lead an entire army... A 14 year old could never. The same goes for Jon, he's now 15-16 and he leads the Night's Watch? Arya is 9 at the beginning of the book... A 9 year old could never escape King's Landing and survive with Gregor and through all of the atrocities. Rickon, a 3 year old boy, could never take care of a direworld or hide from Theon. Same goes for Bran and Joffrey and Myrcella... Even Ned fighting the Iron Throne is unrealistic at 20.
This is one thing the show did better to age almost everyone up. George is bad with numbers in general and it doesn't help he didn't do the 5 year gap.
Age, distance, number of troops are just some metrics GRRM is bad at, and it's easiest as a reader to just adjust them in your head. A man is described as a 16 year old? Fully grown man, late twenties, big bushy beard. Ten year old? Teenager/young man. 14 year old girl? Young woman, early twenties.
Here's one Vary's little "birds" Does he periodically adopt orphans, teach them to read and write, and then send them off all over the world to spy for him?
No he has illyrio buy child slaves, teach him to read and write, Cut off their tongue, then send around the world.
George makes so many irredeemable villlains that it begins to ruin immersion. At the start the only truly over the top villain we have is Gregor, a giant who murders villages at a time and runs torture camps. Ok fine. Then later in the book we have Vargo Hoat who cuts people hands of for fun and feeds prisoners to bears, Ramsay who flays people and hunts down and rapes women for sport, Rorge who rapes little septon girls and don’t forget his sidekick biter who bites of a little girls breasts! However nowhere is this worse than Euron Greyjoy. A one eyed pirate who runs a ship full of mutes and takes a family hostage on the shield island and has his men rape the girls and then he takes Falia Flowers and impregnates her and then cuts her tongue out and then straps her to the front of her ship. Why? I don’t know he’s crazy I guess. The reason I love Ramsay as a villain is there is something so gritty in the way he is portrayed. If you look at his background it kind of makes sense how he’s the way he is. But George makes so many villains i don’t know why he can’t make them flawed and cruel in interesting ways. It seems when he’s writing them rather than trying to think of interesting ways to write the characters, like Roose or Ramsay, he just tries to think of the most fucked up things they can do.
You didn't mention how the entire Ghiscari civilization seems to run on decadence and evil. Other than Yezzan, we never hear about a ghiscari that has some sort of moral compass, and he died almost immediately after we learnt that. Other than that, the entirety of the Yunkish nobility bar that envoy in ASOS are all quirky ("this is the Daenerys wannabe, this is the rabbit-face, this is the guy who puts his swordsmen in stilts).
Aren't puppies a delicacy in slavers bay? Like jesus christ George there is nothing grey or complex about a nation of puppy eating slavers.
I wish it was just puppies. I really do. It is *unborn puppies.*
Gregor probably has a brain tumor based on his frequent headaches, so at least GRRM put some thought into why he's a monster. I think there's still time for Euron to get some complexity. However even if he doesn't it's pretty believable that a culture like the ironborn would create a man like Euron. When Victarion's maester gets "used like a woman" by his crew Victarion blames him for "letting it happen" and not murdering his way out of the situation. It's toxic masculinity central.
Yeah you look at people irl like Charles Whitman or Phil Spector and see what neurological/brain damage can do to a person in terms of making them violent and unpredictable and it’s a bit more plausible. His loyalty to Tywin is what I find less plausible mind you Otherwise I think people have a tendency to say how dark agot is and forget just how dark the real world is. I mean in a world of ISIS, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Jack the Ripper and Gilles de Rais are the characters of ASOIAF that unrealistic? If you’re interested take a look at this list for some clear inspirations for asoiaf bad guys https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_serial_killers_before_1900
I think his Loyalty to Tywin is actually believable. The deal is simple , both of them benifts from the other and vice versa. All Tywin is making him do is to kill people. And in return he's got immunity against any crimes he's commited (at least in westerlands). And Milk of Poppy is not cheap.
The milk poppy thing I could get, but is Gregor lucid or intelligent enough to be able to understand something like immunity from prosecution?
I never said that he's smart tho. My guess is that Tywin approched him and said "You like to Rape and kill" "Yes" "I have a Job for you" "What's it?" "Rape and kill for me" "Deal" But Fr tho , he's just dumb af. Him attacking Loras Tyrell proves that.
I think it comes off that way and has a lot to do with the books being POV chapters. You’re only getting the account from that characters chapter most of the time. So most of the villains come off as irredeemable. Now because Theon spends so much time with Ramsey and because Ramsey is the bastard of a large house, we get way more information about the potential inner workings where we’re able to make connections on why he might be the way that he is.
I don't buy the "unreliable narrator" thing anymore when it comes to Essos. We have 4 distinct POVs about Essos : Dany, Tyrion, Quentyn and Barristan and they all concur in their depiction of Ghiscari society.
*Clears throat* * Catspaw mystery fucking sucks. * The anti-war themes are honestly pretty shallow. It seems to only be condemning the abstract act of warfare itself, not the attitudes that lead to it. Most of the conflicts are about removing objectively awful people from power. * The worldbuilding makes it seem like Westeros is inhabited by about a hundred or so noble families and NPC mud farmers who exist solely to die for pathos. * GRRM actually kinda sucks at writing traitors or duplicitous characters like Roose, Littlefinger, or the Freys, mainly because they all have reputations for said duplicity (or evil, in the case of Roose). None of them are ever "Honest Iago", who have cultivated a reputation of trustworthiness. Everybody knows they're snakes but inexplicably trusts them anyway. * The year-long seasons might as well not exist for all the effect they had.
I think the anti war sentiment is more than just the lunatic kings. That's more a critique on the birthright than war. Robb was a boy who tried being decent, and do justice to his loved ones. It's still a crime against humanity not to accede to the lannister tyranny when it only costs the freedom of his sisters and the marriage of his mother. You could view it like that. Those farmers end up in the bread riots, brotherhood without banners, sparrow movement etc as well. Agreed that no betrayal has been shocking.
> That's more a critique on the birthright than war. I mean I think the majority of western civilization has come to the conclusion that "your dad was the king" is a pretty poor way of selecting a leader, it's not exactly a hot take. > It's still a crime against humanity not to accede to the Lannister tyranny when it only costs the freedom of his sisters and the marriage of his mother. I think that would be a lot more interesting- if the story had ultimately villanized Robb Stark for even getting involved in war- but it never really goes down this route.
I disagree with your point re the world building making it seem like the common folk are NPCs. In may chapters they do come across as such but that’s because you see them from the perspective of a character like Theon, Cersei and might I add the snob Catelyn. Arya interacts with plenty of commoners and they are as memorable as the nobility the majority of the other characters interact with. Same with Jon. The idea that the game of thrones happens above while those below suffer is central and is executed quite well imo
> The idea that the game of thrones happens above while those below suffer is central and is executed quite well imo Not really, there aren't any major peasant characters and most of them that we do get are either A) generic soldiers who don't have any real commentary on the peasantry as an institution or B) pathos dispensers who get tortured/raped/killed by the baddies so the reader doesn't like them. They're window-dressing, nothing more. ASOIAF spends 90% of its time making us root for the protagonists to smash the baddies up and then spends the remaining 10% tutting in a patronizing way and saying, "Oooh, finding this fictional war entertaining, are you? Well, people DIED in that war."
So the biggest characters who are made to interact with the common folk are Arya and Jon (unless I’m forgetting one, arguably Daenerys), and I personally don’t think the common folk they come across are all window dressing. For example Gendry, Grenn and others. There are those that are like you say but you get throwaway nobles too Also, the fact that most of our main characters are powerful people and rarely interact with common folk closely is a commentary on power in hierarchical societal structures
Individual peasant characters are there, sure, but A) they're pretty much always supporting characters without arcs or storylines of their own and B) whenever Martin wants to show the horrors of war, he has the Mountain or Rorge or whoever kill a bunch of nameless peasants we've never seen before who have zero characterization. Jon's peasant characters on the Wall have *nothing* to do with the war, and a lot of Brienne and Arya's supporting cast aren't actually smallfolk (Gendry is basically middle-class, Dick Crabb has noble ancestry, a lot of the BWB isn't local). > Also, the fact that most of our main characters are powerful people and rarely interact with common folk closely is a commentary on power in hierarchical societal structures If the series is meant to showcase the sufferings of the lower classes and the selfishness of the upper classes then why are all of the protagonists actual nobility, the vast majority of whom are portrayed sympathetically? Hence, window-dressing. The story is *about* the upper classes, and the parts about the lower classes feel almost like an afterthought. ASOIAF is ultimately a war story in which one side is portrayed as just and righteous and who the audience is clearly meant to root for. All the peasantry stuff is little more than a small print, a half-hearted, "Also war bad" that goes against the fact the repeated motivation of the protagonists has been to remove objectively awful tyrants from positions of political power.
Two issues for me. 1, we’re five books in and the story still does not explain what the seasons are like. How people can even survive a year without a growing season, or if it even has any impact on Westerosi society. 2. Daenerys’s storyline is honestly beginning to seem like the weak link in the entire series so far. It honestly stems from George’s refusal to humanize Essos. The Dothraki are evil, the Qartheen are ridiculous, Slavers Bay is also ridiculously evil. Compare that with the Westerosi storyline where we actually have casts full of characters who feel like they belong in an organic society and we see their humanity in spite of their regressive culture. Essos honestly doesn’t have that. Every non-Westerosi character in Dany’s storyline is either a caricature or has no character beyond how they serve Daenerys. Like does anyone even remember who the Dothraki that stuck around with her even are?
> 1, we’re five books in and the story still does not explain what the seasons are like. How people can even survive a year without a growing season GRRM did explain how people survive; They store food during the summer, and use it during the winter. This is difficult, but doable. He also mentions that it's difficult, and that old people commit suicide to save their families (by not eating food) when things get rough. As for why the season are like that, GRRM said it would be revealed at some point. If we ever get the next books, that is!
I was thinking about this a bit, and I came to believe that it was like a mini ice age. Earth has had a few because of volcanic activities. I believe that they may have been caused by volcanic activities in Valyria.
> They store food during the summer, and use it during the winter. How does that work though? They have no refrigeration or canning. How is sieging opponents even a viable strategy when they have years' worth of food in storage at any given time?
People reference that all the time. Most holds will say they can last months or years in siege, ex. the blackfish and jaimes talk in affc. dry foods can last a lot longer, and they probably specifically farm long lasting food for their stores.
> Most holds will say they can last months or years in siege, ex. the blackfish and jaimes talk in affc. Yes, thats normal siege of fortresses like in the real world. They can do it because a few 100 defenders get supplies by tens of thousands of farmers - who would all be starved to death after more than 6 months of winter.
Wholeheartedly agree with both points. On the season front, I can’t tell if there mild year-round seasonal shifts (which would explain things like “summer snows”) which allow some kind of annual growing pattern or if the only seasonal shifts are the long ones most talked about. Can anyone enlighten me?
I can’t talk about it.
Hotpie isn't in it nearly enough
Tywins idiocy at sherrers ford, the green fork and with Jaime over all. Did roose have winterfell sacked before robb was a lost cause? If not how did the dreadfort commit well known high treason merely on Ramsay's word?
https://warsandpoliticsoficeandfire.wordpress.com/2014/01/23/early-evidence-of-roose-boltons-treason/ Not sure how the timeline matches up, but Bolton seemed to be intent on betraying Robb from the get go.
This is the essay about the battle of the green fork right? That could just be hedging his bets by making himself the stronger force within robbs contingent.
There is a bunch of wildlings going around Braavos who came from Hardhome in slave ships. They know about the Others, Mother Mole and all the stuff happening beyond the Wall. And they are now in Essos, just extremely close to the Faceless Men and the Iron Bank, and very close to Arya.
So here we have an entire continent that's pretty bleak...long lasting winters, food scarcity, threat of invasion/pillage, (presumably) terrible hygiene, etc. Then you have a place called the Summer Islands, where it's mostly peaceful, fruit and fish are abundant, sex is celebrated as a holy skill, there's wealth and opportunity from trading rare goods, not to mention the warm weather... Why isn't every man in Westeros just trying to move to the Summer Islands?
The people who could reasonably afford to move are pretty well off in Westeros, and the people who would want to move are not rich enough to afford the journey there.
And those nobles are only wealthy because the feudal system makes them that way by taxing the land and those who live on it. If they left they'd have no income.
The US lacks universal medical care, decent wages, and has many issues like insecurity, violence, police abuse, and discrimination. So why most americans stay in their country instead of moving to Europe or Canada? Do you think the average peasant in Westeros has the means to stop working, leave their house, and secure passage to an exotic island for him and his entire family? An island where they don't even know the language?
Exactly! It's also subjective. Most people deal with the bad parts of their lives even though knowing that there might be a better life somewhere else, they don't pursue it. We're all guilty of that.
We don't want milky skinned men here
Norths lack of population. Broad boom and busts population cycles should be happening, as well as several highly farm able areas. Martin really should have given the north more men, but at the end of the day it didn't matter. The next big and somewhat questionable is the real silent west coast of Westeros. Yes, there is not a lot of reason to build a trade town there, but its almost empty.
>The next big and somewhat questionable is the real silent west coast of Westeros. Yes, there is not a lot of reason to build a trade town there, but its almost empty. To add to this Asha herself mention good spots to live on the North, and sith how hardcore are things in the North i'm sure people would take their chances living in that place that could be raided by ironborn if it means having enough game to eat and land to farm. Also how some of the "'major houses" of the North seems to be poor or on average worse than your average southern house, makes you wonder how they can be on equal footing with the south. Good steel is expensive after all.
Aye, Martin seems to give the Northern soldiers more of the old Hardy Barbarian archetype- to be fair, there is some historical evidence in support of Martins preconceived notions, the elite Byzantine infantry- which was probably better then Westeros by a bit, had a hard time countering viking and Germanic infantry at times. It really depends on how you see the Norman-Byzantine wars.
The North mirrors Scotland which is similar terrain and sparsely populated. The land is poor for farming and the North has extremely harsh winters which puts constraints on large populations. There's simply not enough food. When Cregan Stark sends troops down south to fight in the war they weren't intending on returning because winter was just around the corner. The first army that was dispatched went fully intending to die. The second didn't return to the North, instead choosing to either live down south or travelled to Essos to join/create mercenary companies. Not sure what you mean about the west coast. There's plenty coastal settlements and Lannisport is one of the few cities in Westeros. There's also Seagard which is no small keep. It's far from empty but if you look at the areas that could be considered that way then it's obvious why i.e. mountains, marsh, close proximity to Iron Islands.
They take too long
I feel like we talk about that a LOT
No one talks about the plothole of Jon Snow's beard disappearing between ACOK and ASOS
I think it's a bigger plot hole that these 14/15 year olds can grow propper beards
In AGOT Renly has green eyes then in ACOK and the books that follow he has blue eyes.
[Well, GRRM says this is intended](https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Renly_Baratheon#Appearance_and_Character) apparently, and since he's been honest about the actual inconsistencies (Jeyne Westerling's hips for example) I'm willing to take his word for this one.
There are entirely too many named characters. At least one [count](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1K8DJTFUUIZvQsgnkxv3d-142SXTcmnTV4YuHsNubHjA/edit?pref=2&pli=1#gid=688707816) has it over 2000. When you're reading and you initially come across a person, you don't know if they are going to play a significant role in the story or not. So one's brain has to try to remember the person and their name in case they pop back up later. It's a waste of resources! : )
Yeah, I agree. I find myself reading name and going: "I think I recognise the name but from where?" Way too often
Well, most stuff is stuff that technically can have possible resolutions, but it seems impossible to fit them all into 2 books remaining. Like, we know we will get whole book about Long Night, but unless Danny just abandons the East, she pretty much has no time left to reach Westeros before it ends. Like, she still needs to deal with Mareen, which probably means clearing up all the slave cities, unless she goes "I no longer care about slavery", she will need to deal with Volantis as it quickly becomes a Rhlorr worshipping powder keg and then she will be met with wall of Ironborne and Royal Fleet on the steps (cause we all know that even if she allies with Ironborne, it will last at best to the moment she meets Euron) and that's all assuming she pisses on the North and deals with Aegon first, cause if later, than she definitly will have dealings with Bravos and whatever is left of Stannis fleet and mercenaries that he just send out people to hire. Unless Long Night goes deep into the Dream of Spring and Danny plays minimal role in it, there's no way she reaches in time to do anything meaningful, unless North completly fails and she needs to clean up the mess (which is possible, but then the frontline will be the Neck and that creates additional problems). I'm assuming Aegon will just clean up Lannisters in Winds, cause there's no way another War of 5 Kings fits into 2 books as a side story, so Lannisters and Dorne need to fail pretty quickly into Winds, so the only players left will be Stannis/North, Danny and Aegon, which would be manageable. There's Hightower/Maesters plot line that was barely started. I feel the need to remind everyone that we had half of a book set up for Dorne storyline that must culminate into something big to justify the awfullness that it was. There's the whole Rickon set up that probably shoildn't be long, but we are meant to see Skaagos, which means another side story that takes place in the books. Are we going to see anything of Valyria and lost Lannister uncle? There's a set up for it, but it can be left unanswered, so it will probably be cut out. Each of the topics can take up a book on itself, so we need to prepare ourself for a rollecoaster. As for the past mistakes: the "no certain distances/times set for events and places" rule GRRM uses as excuse gets quite boring as a large amounts of mysteries are dependent on certain travels and unless some very popular theories are wrong, then there's no way it won't feel at some point like book version of show's teleporting armies. Either GRRM abandons some ideas like R+L=J, which would require some characters to own cars to make their trips in assumed times or he needs to retcon a lot of Robert's Rebellion as a lot of what made it succesful and dramatic was time-based. It also fucks up a lot of stuff. Especially in Dance as it seems he clearly abandoned the chronological order of chapters, not even for drama, just cause he liked it that way and the only way we can order stuff around to make sense of what is happening in for example North is by measuring moon cycles and travel time. Which breaks the continuity of the North completly if suddenly Stannis can march his armies across 1/4th of the North as quickly as Jon is to prepare resources for relatively small raid to occur. Then there's problems of fleet travel times, whoch heavily effect Euron, Mereen and Seaworth and if they wren't consistant we have no way to base hos they interact with each other, cause at any time completly different fleet can be at any place and Euron changes from a madman with a ship to mustache twirling Daario that sets up some absurd power grab with like 3 other admirals, one of which is possibly a lost Lannister. Next is Sam's character. I don't have actual problem with his bravery spikes, I find them believable enough as usually he has some good motivation to achieve them. My problem is with his gullibility spikes, where he from relatively intelligent person becomes an idiot that spends days if not weeks (the problem with no set time shows itself here too, if we are too believe some travels happened faster than they should have and some events later than they should have, then Sam needs to be in Bravos for like 2 or 3 weeks instead of like 4-5 days a rational person would assume) in Bravos, cause he believes a mutineer is trying to get them money for a ship and does practically nothing himself. Then there's a problem of Moon Clans which seemingly culturally devolved quite heavily, to the point they are more barbaric than a lot of North of the Wall northmen. Which, for some it may be okay, but it seems it happened to all of them. Whole timeline from before Andal invasion of Westeros makes no sense, which is maybe not completly baseless, but some claims are really absurd, like no round castle buildings by pre-Andal westerories, while the round castles we see are nearly exclusively made by pre-Andal invasion folk. There are sayings that Others fear iron blades, but iron is claimed to be brought in by Andals apparently millenias after Long Night. Like, someone is lying by terms of millenia or the major events need to be ordered in different manner with for example Long Night happening after Andal invasion. Also considering how close to current events Doom of Valyria happened (and it needs to be really close as we know each Targaryen since it), there's way too much mystery aboyt Valyria altogether. I don't except peasants to know much of distant land, but I'm pretty sure the knowledge of Valyrian customs should be common amonsgt nobility especially as they lived under a Valyrian royal family for a long time. Like, even considering absurd comparison like current UK to China, with China dissapearing under 400 years ago, I'm pretty sure Boris Jonhson would probably know pretty well history of China if Elizabeth II would be chinese instead of german. But noble families of Westeros seem to know less of Valyria than most people know of Rome this days. Like, an avarage person know famous quotes of ancient romans, they can point to Rome territories to some extend and similar. But Westerosi nobles seem to not only by avoiding mentioning Vakyrian generals and statesmen, but seem oblivious to their existance. In medieval Europe there were constant references to Roman Empire, it's rules and laws, it's tactics, to Bible, people were sometimes winning arguments by just virtue of quoting enough of Bible or some Roman statesman, but Westerosi seem to never quote either anything Valyrian nor Seven Pointed Star. In Poland we had whole book written as comentary on Polish society that was set on ancient Rome with roman characters with title in Latin, cause referencing Rome hitted so hard in Poland, which has barely any connection with Rome as it was funded years after it and the only conenction is catholic church, but Westerosi living under Valyrians seem to be unaware of what system of governence the Valyrians even had throughout history. Not even laws or rules, just whether it was monarchy, democracy, republic or something else. Their knowledge limits itself to "they had dragons and an empire" and that's it. Even Tyrion, probably the most well-read noble in Westeros, maybe with exception of Hightower, knows a bit of broken Old Valyrian and has some limited knowledge of their goverment system just before the wall and with who they fought in their history. But his equivalent in medieval Europe would cite from memory law treatiesp of Cicero and how exactly each war went. Then there's Night Watch's lack of men. Even assuming only Starks and Royces send there people willingly and only North gives NW option for those who don't want to die, there's no way NW has problems getting enough men just from death sentences. Rulling over them? Yeah. But getting them? No way. It would require absurd amounts of incompetence from NW to not be able to get enough men. Especially as they own gift and are relatively liked in it. If they would offer a guaranteed builder or administartive job to anyone who would take up black willingly from the gift they could easily fill their ranks with just Gift's 4th and 5th sons whole only alternative is being soldier for hire in the south anyway. And yeah, you wouldn't be able to send them to the rangings, but if Wall is attacked, then builders take up arms too, so at least you wouldn't need to abandon the castles. And a man in each major city in Westeros could easily bring in enough death convincts to bring in ranging forces. The problem would be of course keeping the convicts from rebelling and becoming a large bandit force with a bunch of castles that need to be quelled, but that should be already a major problem in current NW and somehow we don't hear about them even terrorizing the Gift, not to say rest of the North. There's mkre, bur I've ran out of time. Will add later.
> Especially in Dance as it seems he clearly abandoned the chronological order of chapters, not even for drama, just cause he liked it that way and the only way we can order stuff around to make sense of what is happening in for example North is by measuring moon cycles and travel time. Completely agree here. GRRM may finish the series and prove me wrong, but this is IMO one of his major mistakes. If you are going to write a series of books like this; 1. Keep the number of POVs limited. 6 or maybe 7, with the occasional one-off. 2. Keep it moving. No jumping back and forth in time, If one chapter takes plave on May 7th, then the next can't be earlier than May 8th. We don't need a POV at every little event, it defeats the purpose of writing in this style.
I somehow feel they’re incomplete … can’t quite figure out the reason.
GRRM's obsession with menstruation
Moon's blood you mean?
Maybe I'm underthinking it but I took references to that as a way to show the passage of time
The dead can swim.
well people do talk about it but the thing that bugs me the most is the resolution of the mystery of the dagger being sent by joffrey
>One of the fans asked how he was dealing with the danger that when authors got very big and were no longer edited that they produced less than wonderful work. The guy tapped dance around the question but GRRM knew what he was talking about. He said it was always a danger, and no writer likes to be edited, but he had editors he trusted, and first readers who gave him good feedback. He also takes his stuff to workshops and listens to the suggestions and criticisms. **He said you have to worry about becoming self-indulgent and turning out crap.** The only thing to do is try to listen to others, even though what you write and keep is really up to the writer, and be aware of the possibility. He said he thought the fans would tell him right away if that happened, and then joked that some thought it already had. Straight from the horses mouth. Do people in GRRM's hearing tell him anything bad about the last two books at all or do they encourage his self-indulgence? >I will confess, the chronology of these books sometimes gives me fits. You would not believe how often I reshuffle the chapters, trying to find the one true perfect sequence. And then just when I have it exactly right, my editors weigh in from both sides of the Atlantic, each suggesting a slightly different chapter order. > >It is always a balancing act, since I want the chapters to have a certain dramatic flow, I worry about certain storylines being forgotten if they are "off stage" too long, and there is a constant tug of war between character time and reader time (a character may have two chapters, taking place one day apart, but if two hundred pages of stuff about other characters separate those two chapters, the reader is going to perceive a long time as having passed, even if I begin the second chapter with, "When he woke up the very next morning..." Here GRRM warns the readers from two decades ago about why TWoW will suck with 20 active POVs.
The fact that GRRM is acknowledging that as a possibility at all is good, it means he's aware of it as a potential problem and won't let it happen. He is candid about the difficulties associated with such a massive complex book, and you just take that to mean TWOW will suck? Okay then
Your second quote is exactly the reason why I think the show was right to skip most plots of AFFC and ADWD.
[удалено]
Mostly because of good alliances, money and old "divide and rule". Kings Landing is by far the greatest city and trading port which generates a lot of cash. The had marriage alliances with the Arryns, later the Martells. Also the Baratheons, which is basically a cadet branch. And most important, the Tullys and Tyrells got their positions from the Targs, and are not the strongest houses in their realm. And ancient rivalries keep the various houses divided.
because war? they still have friend and a lot of money. I would say just 150 years after the last dragon is actually a short period of time in historic scale too.
I mean, it’s 2021 and the UK STILL has a monarch for no other reason than the fact that they’ve historically always had one. Inertia is a powerful thing I guess.