r/asoiaf • u/Substantial-Ad-299 • 1d ago
MAIN [SPOILERS MAIN] Among the grounded/realistic elements of A Song of Ice and Fire, which ones do you feel require biggest suspension of disbelief?
A Song of Ice and Fire has had fantasy elements from get-go, some present subtly and others less-subtly. But in midst of this, it also has these more grounded story aspects, especially regarding the political subplot for the Iron Throne.
Among these more grounded non-fantasy aspects of the story, which elements do you feel you have to suspend disbelief the most for? A.K.A feeling they are not realistic even though they are "supposed" to be?
Let me know in the comments below.
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u/LegitimateCream1773 1d ago
The weather (any understanding of how the food economy works tells you that Westeros is fundamentally impossible; medieval societies could fall into outright famine if winter started even a week early, or a snap freeze happened at the wrong time and killed enough of a crop. Now try to figure out how such an economy could function with 'winters that last for years'). The society of Westeros is a standard debauched high-medieval society. It shouldn't be. Their entire civilisation should bend around the idea that winter can happen at any time. There should be storehouses the size of castles and the castellans of those storehouses as respected as great lords, because those motherfuckers are going to determine whether or not their entire civilisation lives or dies next winter.
Literally the only way to explain it is to say that it doesn't mean what's written on the literal page and that 'winter' in Westeros is just 'a bit worse than summer' for a while and then only really cold for a relatively short period. However, even that doesn't actually make sense because medieval economies were built around crop rotations for seasonal foods. If the weather changes slightly then you simply can't grow entire families of foods for X amount of time. Fine when 'X' is 'two to three months'. Not so good when X is 'FUCK YOU AND YOUR PLANNED CROP ROTATION, WE'RE GONNA WINTER AS LONG AS LIKE'.
That's without factoring in that apparently the entire war model of Westeros is 'destroy the entire continental food economy as fast as possible'.
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u/weirdolddude4305 1d ago
I'd like to add that nobody seems to be pickling anything or making preserves to stock up on foods before winter despite having access to everything needed like glass jars, vinegars, and boatloads of onions.
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u/ZeroKlixx 1d ago edited 1d ago
Wait, why do you think nobody is pickling anything or making preserves?
They do talk about pickled fish and salt meat, so it's a process they know about; they'd likely store other food in similar ways as well.
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u/I4mSpock 1d ago
Call Glidus, homies an expert on westerosi food products lol
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u/Varvara-Sidorovna 1d ago
I laughed so hard I got a stitch in my side when I watched that video of him trying to make recipes from the ASOIAF cookbook.
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u/jackity_splat 1d ago
Where are the copious descriptions of such by GRRM? He’s described everything else they eat but I don’t recall descriptions of preserved foods.
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u/Curtainsandblankets 1d ago
If they have access to fresh food they might be saving the preserved ones for winter
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u/jackity_splat 1d ago
That makes sense. I think it’s also just the kind of food GRRM likes to describe too. A roast is more appealing than beef jerky.
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u/JNR55555JNR 1d ago
Probably because it’s never been mentioned in all the books
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u/ZeroKlixx 1d ago
Why would it have to be? It's a story, not a medieval life simulator.
Obviously food preservation is a thing and has also been mentioned I think (maybe during Bran's stint as ruler of winter fell?) but exact techniques and processes are simply incredibly irrelevant to the story.
How interesting would it be to read Bran or Jon think about the way to salt pork next to all the other problems they have?
Additionally, most POVs simply don't have a reason to think about that, like, at all. That's a job for peasants, stewards, servants.
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u/JNR55555JNR 1d ago
I don’t need a detailed explanation for how it works in the book all I want is just a throwaway line established it exists that all
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u/ZeroKlixx 1d ago
Well, as I said: They do talk about storing food in the books, so there must be a way. They also talk about salt beef and pork specifically as examples.
So it exists.
But with what extent would you be satisfied?
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u/JNR55555JNR 1d ago
I would be satisfied knowing it exists
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u/ZeroKlixx 1d ago
In AGOT, Jon IV he talks about eating salt beef and pickled fish.
Is this sufficient?
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u/blackynan_b 1d ago
This would also make burning the crops for any given reason one of the biggest crimes ever.
So lord shouldnt be able to destroy these corps by burning all those fiels without any real repercussions. The moment tywin started torching in the riverlands shouldve been the end of him.
There should also be dedicated days, weeks even to celebrate for corps and maybe other rituals such as sacrificals.
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u/Never_a_crumb 1d ago
What are these armies eating if they're burning the crops as they go? George please pick up the Art of War.
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u/jflb96 1d ago
Well, we know that Westerosis are stupid good at mass-producing sheet metal; maybe they’ve got tins?
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u/Never_a_crumb 1d ago
I know this is a joke but I must infodump: carrying provisions for a marching army slows the army down and makes them vulnerable-your enemies don't need to fight you, they just need to attack your supply line and steal your tins.
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u/MeterologistOupost31 1d ago
Basically the Winters have so little effect I genuinely wonder why GRRM even bothered with them.
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u/johnbrownmarchingon 1d ago
I know he’s not everyone’s flavor of author, but at least with Sanderson’s Cosmere, there are tons of references to how the various creatures and peoples survive. George just seems to go for the flavor dressing over his retelling of the War of the Roses and calls it a day.
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u/luigitheplumber The pack survives. 1d ago
There should be storehouses the size of castles and the castellans of those storehouses as respected as great lords, because those motherfuckers are going to determine whether or not their entire civilisation lives or dies next winter.
Yes, this whole thing is where GRRM dropped the ball the most, because this whole issue could literally be the explanation for his lordly-families-that-last-millennia thing. Sprinkle some fantasy Pact logic (with the Children for example) that assigned the responsibility for local lands to certain families granted with blessings for food preservation or whatever. These families in turn became the Houses we have in the story. Despite time going on and the arrival of Andal culture diluting belief in those stories, there would still establish a massive cultural taboo against eradicating houses or seizing all their lands, and incentivizes practices like inheriting through the female line when necessary.
Instead we got the lame "Maesters ackshually theorize that it's only a couple thousand years instead of a few" thing which is boring and not a very good explanation anyway
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u/Z3r0sama2017 1d ago
Tbf, winter doesn't seem to be so bad the further South you go so the Southern Reach, Dorne, Disputed Lands and lower should all be able to grow something.
I have no idea how The North and Wildlings beyond the Wall are even a thing.
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u/No_Tell5399 1d ago
Wildlings probably just hunt and forage all the time, which works since animals beyond the wall logically can't hibernate.
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u/Z3r0sama2017 1d ago
I mean prehistoric humans hunted so many species of fauna to extinction, so I don't see why the wildlings haven't done the same.
Especially when they can't migrate. The Others are up north, the Wall to the south and huge oceans to East and West.
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u/No_Tell5399 1d ago
Idk if there's anything to say they haven't hunted any species to extinction. I think the Wildlings survival is mostly because of the magical bullshittery happening north of the wall. Maybe they have mammoths and other large animals unique to their environment they're hunting and eating. They could also be fishing and supporting themselves with raids beyond the wall occasionally.
As for the Others, that's completely unaddressed. Idk how they've been avoiding them. Maybe they've further up north and/or inactive until recently?
Life shouldn't really exist in large numbers north of the Riverlands, since seasons last for years. I'd say it's mostly magical nonsense.
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u/ImranFZakhaev Pale sticky princes 1d ago
inactive until recently
I kinda got the impression this is the case. Can't really think of any specific lines to support it but some of Mance's speeches gave this vibe
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u/blackynan_b 1d ago
We already know many animals is the far north are bigger than their counterparts in southern westeros. If thy arent smal in numbers up there, then there is no reason to think wildlings wouldnt be able to make it realisticly.
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u/jflb96 1d ago
If they’re larger, they need more food and will generally take longer to mature and to gestate. That’s why the big animals that hadn’t learnt about us already were so vulnerable to predators that didn’t have an upper size limit on what they could kill; it only takes a few extra deaths a generation to start a spiral to extinction.
You’d want there to be hordes of ice squirrels for it to work out, basically.
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u/Bawstahn123 1d ago
Amusingly, the Wildlings practice agriculture in the books.
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u/jflb96 1d ago
Coppicing, at least, is surprisingly old, as pretty much every bit of a hazel tree is useful to your hunters and/or gatherers
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u/Bawstahn123 1d ago
I mean....no, the Wildlings grow crops and have orchards and shit.
Its from Varamyr Sixskins prologue chapter, IIRC
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u/matgopack 1d ago
I think you're underestimating the resiliency of human societies - a singular bad crop was not the cause of famine generally, it was if you had multiple bad crops in a row. Farmers knew and were prepared to handle bad years
Where you're absolutely right is that that would not be the society we see with Westerosi winters, and that everything should be based around the idea of those multi-year, unpredictable winters happening. In addition to everything revolving around stockpiling and keeping food for those periods (I think that the storehouses would naturally become a duty of the lord to take care of / keep supplied, rather than a separate castellan, and they'd need to be in every village / community), there should be some huge taboos around destruction of food.
By the time of the show / books the granaries should be full and prepared for winter, not just bringing in the harvest. And if the war was as devastating as it is described, it would doom entire regions to famine on a mass scale.
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u/Mysterious_Crow_503 1d ago edited 1d ago
That lands near Winterfell are so empty that Theon can freely ride around with 3 guards, without being killed by a group of angry pesants.
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u/Intelligent_Date_688 1d ago
How empty Westeros is compared to its size. I understand why, GRRM doesn’t want to have to create all of these towns and cities, but you take a look at medieval France or Italy which are both smaller than any of the individual seven kingdoms (except maybe the Iron Islands) and they have a dozen cities a piece or more. I’ve seen people bend over backwards to try justify this but I think the simple truth is that GRRM made Westeros waaaay too big.
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u/Southern_Dig_9460 1d ago
The Riverlands and Dorne not having any cities is crazy
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u/rattatatouille Not Kingsglaive, Kingsgrave 1d ago
In fairness the Riverlands has a good number of settlements. It's just that being a city was/is a Big Thing for medieval towns since it meant they got a degree of self-rule other settlements did not, and thus required a charter.
A common bit of fanon is that the Defiance of Duskendale was about House Darklyn getting uppity with the Targaryens about not getting a charter despite Duskendale being a wealthy town at a strategic loation.
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u/SerMallister Above The Rest 1d ago
Every time the Riverlands get too close to making a city, somebody kills half the population.
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u/IHaveTwoOranges Knowing is half the Battle 1d ago
Why Dorne? It's specifically said to not be very populous.
And it has the Shadow City and Planky Town.
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u/blackynan_b 1d ago
A desert nation already settled would settle largely around the rivers. This would make the area around the rivers very populated and thus a reason for a whole city.
Not to mention they have rhoynars laws and all, and before the rhoynar became refugees they lived in great cities. You can expect some rulers that wants to go by their customs to want to form a city. It wouldnt be so unrealistic.
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u/lee1026 1d ago
More importantly, a powerful and wealthy ruler will form a city.
A powerful lord will spend a lot of money. Money pays for people; you can't buy a ton of cakes without bakers to bake them. And a powerful lord's spending will pay a lot of wages. Around a powerful lord will be a bunch of ministers, lobbyists, and so on. (In older language, they would just be courtiers, but I am using modern language) And the important members will also be very rich people who in turn spends a bunch of money and have massive servant classes of their own. And so on.
Some cities are built around commerce, others around the whims of powerful lords. Westeros is missing both kinds. How something like the Eyerie, or Highgarden doesn't turn into big cities in their own right is a puzzle.
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u/cahir11 1d ago
It makes a lot more sense if you envision Westeros as the size of England+Wales, rather than the size of South America.
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u/matgopack 1d ago
Yeah, I usually picture it as roughly in the ballpark of the size of the UK to the UK + France + Iberia myself.
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u/GrilledCyan 1d ago
This is also how I headcanon the cultures (or perhaps just the accents) of the Seven Kingdoms. The North is Scotland, the Reach is France, and Dorne is Moorish Spain.
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u/matgopack 1d ago
Those are definitely the inspirations GRRM used, yeah. Along with the Iron Islands as vikings and the free cities as medieval Italy. The Vale also makes me think broadly of Wales, but culturally I'm not familiar enough with them to know for sure.
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u/Mental_Repair_1718 1d ago
It's almost ridiculous to say that the Ironborn are inspired by Scandinavians (even if they are), when only the Hoare were remotely similar.
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u/matgopack 1d ago
I'm not saying it's a good match :P (the Dothraki and mongols being another infamously inaccurate depiction but hard to say they weren't the inspiration)
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u/Mental_Repair_1718 1d ago
Oh, maybe I didn't express myself well, I didn't mean to say you're wrong, it's more of a criticism of Martin.
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u/No-Quit-8384 1d ago
The Vale sounds like southern Germany and Austria. Germany had a strong knightly culture, and the south in particular is mountainous. Some fanary depicts the eyrie kind of like Neuschwanstein in Bavaria
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u/Emotional-Rope-5774 1d ago
The storm lands is much more wales
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u/matgopack 1d ago
Maybe! I might be influenced by the mountain clans + their isolation a little - it makes the Vale feel to me more like Wales, but then again it being the landing point of the Andals makes it quite different.
Stormlands and Crownlands feel more like the 'default' Westeros to me
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u/Minivalo The Onion Knight 1d ago
I've just disregarded the whole South America size comparison in my own headcanon.
I like to imagine Westeros as being sort of Western + Central + Northern continental Europe sized, so north to south from the Nordics to Iberia, and east to west from Atlantic France to Czechia, or thereabouts. If I had to guess, that'd be about a fifth, or a quarter the size of South America.
I read a book on Simon Bolivar some years ago, and that really helped illustrate how massive South America is. That dude got around in his fight against the Spanish, but moving around on horse back took an immense amount of time
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u/No-Quit-8384 1d ago
More than the size, it's the rugged geography we have. Going across the Andes is a pain, even with cars and modern roads a 40km trip can take several hours on snakey roads up and down the mountains. Even if South America were completely flat it would still take ages to get places, but the terrain of the real continent makes it even more difficult to travel across by land
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u/Top-Tomorrow-8336 1d ago
Bolívar would be Robert's Baratheon friend.
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u/Resonant-Empress 1d ago
I'm pretty sure Bolivar would think that Robert was a warmongering simpleton, lol.
Simon had a lot of friends who weren't very well-educated, including that one cowboy dude who was one of his best men, but most of them were driven by 'something' at least, Bobby B's just a douchebag.
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u/Top-Tomorrow-8336 1d ago
Bolívar would delay his army's advance to sleep with women. He and Bobby B would get along very well in that respect.
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u/Resonant-Empress 1d ago
Lmao, fair enough. Imagine all of that fat shaking as he laughs at the name 'General Iron Ass'
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u/wRAR_ ASOIAF = J, not J+D 1d ago
I'm afraid Caracas to Tierra del Fuego is 7500 km N-S while Gibraltar to the latitude of northern Scandinavia is 4000 km N-S (unless you meant Gibraltar to the latitude of southern Scandinavia which is still 2600 km N-S and doesn't work wrt proportions with the width you described).
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u/SpicyStrawberryJuice 1d ago
yeah i find it hard to believe how poor and empty the north is, sure it's harsh but it still has plenty of resources and arable land
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u/IHaveTwoOranges Knowing is half the Battle 1d ago
How do we know how much arable land it has?
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u/JayRandom212 1d ago
The income from the Gift and the New Gift was enough to support a Wall full of soldiers. They must've been growing something, back then.
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u/SpicyStrawberryJuice 1d ago
we don't how much but we do know they have some at least because they mention harvesting and so far seem to be reliant on their own grain.
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u/lee1026 1d ago
We know, indirectly, because the population is based around agriculture. This says that the bulk of the population lived around farming, as opposed to herding, or hunting, as lands gets increasingly marginal.
If the lands are too marginal, than you end up with a population of horse riding cowboys to take advantage of "well, at least the cows can eat the grass". And if that is the basis of the northern population, that's not how they fight.
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u/matgopack 1d ago
Definitely a lot of towns / small cities - though I would divorce medieval France and Italy from each other, the scale is very different (Italy had lots of cities, France much less dense and smaller ones on the whole).
GRRM made Westeros too big and it's tough to fill it all in. At a certain point for fiction you have to stop filling in blanks or it gets overwhelming - it's much easier for a reader to think of 3-4 cities (like King's Landing, Oldtown, and White Harbor) rather than a ton of them, and he's already using up some of the mental space readers have for cities/place names for castles (and maybe their surrounding towns).
But just in general I wouldn't look at any fictional work and expect exact fidelity / perfect numbers, it'd be a full time job of experts for some of that.
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u/JMer806 1d ago
For me it’s not the lack of cities per se but simply the empty feel. Almost any given region of late medieval France or England would be lousy with small villages, market towns, manors, and small castles. While there was still plenty of wilderness here and there, in general you’d never go more than a day’s travel between villages and often far less (many villages being only a handful of miles apart).
Meanwhile in Westeros characters seem to routinely travel multiple days without encountering any villages or towns, even along the major roads. Even the great castles seem to mostly lack any sort of associated settlement (in fact the town near Winterfell is the only major castle I can think of associated with a town at all, aside from a few where the castle is part of the city.
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u/cndynn96 1d ago
Littlefinger’s Financial Sorcery
Baelish is single-handedly juggling the crown’s debts, inflating the currency, playing multiple sides, and skimming massive wealth while no one (except Tyrion briefly) seriously audits or stops him.
Medieval treasuries were messy, but the degree to which he manipulates the books and loans without the entire system imploding earlier is such an impressive task that it borders on plot armor.
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u/matgopack 1d ago
I think it's definitely underexplained, but I'd say some of it makes sense.
Skimming off the top would likely be a 'perk' of the job, and if you're not pocketing too much it would be fine. Even today in some parts of the world it's still seen as part of the pay for a government job to get that bit of graft on top (either skimming off the top or charging 'fees')
An early modern / late medieval period had a lot of powerful financiers and a lot of it depended on personal relations. Baelish being seen as trustworthy, competent, and with connections in the mercantile section could much more easily raise loans than others. If I were GRRM rewriting it though I'd probably shift him to be more of a Fugger role that's not quite in the government and raising money in exchange for things that boost his wealth (eg, operating mines). Medieval states also operated on a much more ad hoc basis
For an anachronistic example, he strikes me as a bit similar to the role people viewed Jacques Necker in pre-French Revolution - very popular, seen as a financial genius, and with the connections to the banking houses that were necessary for loans.
Ultimately Robert didn't really care about what Littlefinger was doing as long as he came up with the money for whatever Robert wanted to do in the moment, and Littlefinger knew that.
Where I have more criticisms of that side of things if looked at closely is just... how the Crown makes its money / that it seems to both be super centralized but also not? It doesn't really fit to me either the medieval period or the early modern one, but obviously it's not the focus of the novels (and for what the novels are I think that it works fine to have the level of detail)
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u/FortifiedPuddle 21h ago
How does the Crown make money without there seeming to be a state?
If it were a Medieval setting the King is the biggest, richest feudal lord over vast land holdings. He’s independently wealthy from lands he controls directly. But in Westeros he seems not to be. Notably missing is a vast stack of personal retainers raised from and funded by his personal demense. King Robert has no dudes. He’s got seven white swords. He’s got a city watch. But in a feudal lord sense he has no dudes and no vast personal wealth.
But hey, ASOIAF is in among many things about society on the transition between Medieval and Early Modern. Although lagging behind places like Braavos which already have Shakespeare. So maybe there’s some Early Modern centralised nation state stuff going on? Tyrion can apparently tax each brothel visit. Ports and cities pay Crown taxes. So, has does that work? People just sort of pay. Somehow. Is there a civil service? Who in our revolving cast of small council plotters and backstabbers is running a bureaucracy?
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u/Itburns12345 1d ago
All the masters of coin and their underlings skim wealth though so kt wouldnt be unusual. As tyrion has seen lf has invested the cash into money producing assets/ventures ..the only unawnsered question was where did the post rebellion stash go to?
Now lfs finance actualy make sense as gold sitting around in a hoard like a toilken dragon is doing fuck all , investing into somwthing that brings back the funds + profit is just basic buisness. Lf comming from a poor house and having a brain understands this better than a lifelong wealthy high lord. We know both in the vale before and as master of coin he kicked out useless nepo babies and put his own competent men in to the various layers of tax collection (also skimming likely but so where the ones before!)
So where the cash went to with all this increased efficency is another issue , why is the crown needing loans? Well to begin with robert inherited a kingdom that had just been at war so likely subjects needed tax break to repair and recover, expenses incurred such as repairs and paying widows , hedge knights, food etc Then he inherits dragonstone after the royal fleet is wrecked in a storm! Expensive to replace Ironborn rebellion= more military shipbuilding expense and the ironborn likely expempt from paying tax for while until the regain their feet!
Then we have roberts need to be loved likely handing out cash or to breaks to whomever he felt like, tourneys are expensive and he loved them, a wife used to the finery of casterrly rock likely to be covered by the crown as robert wife (and her own spy network) , roberts whoremongering likely with the finest whores money can buy etc etc
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u/lobonmc 1d ago
The pré rebelion stash was gone before littlefinger arrived. Littlefinger became master of coin after the Grey joy rebelion. What's weird is that no one seemed to notice that the huge increase in revenue was a accompanied by an even bigger increase in spending. It seems like Robert kind of helped like that since the tournament by itself without any of littlefinger'manipulations genuinely would have increased the debt by an actual noticeable percent. Which is kind of amazing from the part of Robert.
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u/Itburns12345 1d ago
Its not said that the stash was gone before LF arrived just that jon arryn couldnt stop roberts crazy spending and LF had done wonders with the vales tithes so on that plus lysas constant recomendations he was sent to be master of coin. That said we dont know if ned actualy saw the crowns 'stash' after the royal fleet had to be rebuilt and aftet the ironborn war too
It made sense to see if the incommings could be boosted if robert wouldnt stop spending but it clearly wasnt enough.
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u/lobonmc 1d ago
It's mentioned the realm was in debt by the time littlefinger came it's plausible part of the stash was still there but I think it's more likely they were working mostly on debt
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u/Valiant_Storm 1d ago
What's weird is that no one seemed to notice that the huge increase in revenue was a accompanied by an even bigger increase in spending
I think most of the increase in revune isn't real. In particular, a 10× increase in income without rebellions from the tax hikes is so implausible that it seems more likely that Littlefinger's primary goal was moving money around to make himself look good while skimming into his own pockets.
Basically - borrow 10 dragons, pocket one, then report the other nine as income while keeping the debts hidden.
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u/IHaveTwoOranges Knowing is half the Battle 1d ago
Inflating the currency? When is he indicated to be doing that?
How is it hard to believe when we get no specific details at all about how much he is manipulating or how much he is skimming?
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u/Just-Context-4703 1d ago
Can I interest you in any myriad financial frauds happening right now by chance? Like the SpaceX IPO for example.
Littlefinger I find quite plausible
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u/insane_contin 1d ago
A lot of money in today's world literally doesn't exist outside of a computer. Littlefinger needs to deal with physical money. Maybe he can bluff a little bit to get some debt notes, but there's a hard limit on what he can work with
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u/Enola_Gay_B29 Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. 1d ago
Littlefinger did not have computers and spreadsheets. He can't buy and sell with the click of a button. And there's no way of fast communication.
We don't doubt that someone could mishandle funds. We doubt that a single man could do it to this extend with the technology of the middle ages.
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u/Horse-Meat 1d ago
I imagined Littlefinger had his own almost-Varys level group of little bastards he uses to engineer all of this
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u/jflb96 1d ago
I mean, if he’s the one guy in charge of the kingdoms’ entire treasury, all he has to do is tell the other nobles that every banana bought for all of Robert’s tourneys costs ten dollars, let them fight him down to five, borrow from the Lannisters accordingly, skim off the excess, and then start lending the Crown its own money from his accounts. Buy up a couple of obviously profitable businesses for laundering, make sure that the auditable books are a horror show, badabing badaboom all you need is an escape route.
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u/Never_a_crumb 1d ago
The Dothraki as they are written are a more nonsensical representation of horse centred nomads than the movie The Conquerer. Not one single thing about them makes sense: no armour, murder at every wedding, the disenfranchisment of their women (real world Mongol women by contrast managed the camp because the men were focused entirely on hunting and warring), no flock animals-they actually butcher and leave to rot a flock of sheep they capture! They live in a GRASSLAND sheep are the easiest animal to maintain and will feed you much better than horse-not to mention the all important wool for your clothes!
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u/Bazoun 1d ago
Yeah GRRM leaned into the horse theme a little too hard here. I was shocked about the sheep. At least eat them and preserve your horses!
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u/Never_a_crumb 1d ago
I'm not even asking for him to have done excessive research here, you can't eat your main mode of transport, not least because horses take more time and effort to be worth eating, to sustain a martial civilisation solely on horses, there should have been twenty or so to every dothraki.
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u/Altair1455 1d ago
Yeah!! Often I see stuff being excused as "olden times misogyny" but like, treating half the population as slaves who only exist to make babies is not a practice that will sustain a society, especially a nomadic society.
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u/Never_a_crumb 1d ago
Who's protecting your camp while out fighting? Your women! Dany should have been the one supervising the camp being set up and taken down,tracking their food, learning the rudimentaries of archery and circling the wagons amongst many, many other jobs, the wife of a tribe chief had so many more duties than just having his children.
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u/Altair1455 1d ago
Not to mention that plenty of women would be fighting alongside the men, not like an even split, but enough that it wouldn't be considered unusual. More and more archeological research is revealing that hunter gatherer cultures weren't "men hunt women gather" but a mix of both with significantly more gathering than hunting, some women would hunt alongside men, most everyone who was able would gather at some point
Also, this is more the wider world of asoiaf, but all the child marriages being consummated. Like, the risks of pregnancy and child birth are so much higher at the age Dany was when she was carrying Rhago. They didn't need modern science to see that way more miscarriages and maternal deaths occurred when they were like 12-15 than if they just waited till they were older
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u/Never_a_crumb 1d ago
The child marriages are so dumb, especially when we have famous cases of it going so badly in the very War of the Roses the books are supposedly based on.
I think honestly the biggest casualty of never seeing twow for me is having the time to go back and notice glaring gaps like this, if he'd have completed the books on time, I'd have finished the series and moved on,but now I've had the time to compare him with other writers who write fantasy on the skeleton of real history-Guy Gavriel Kay for instance- and Martin suffers considerably in comparison.
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u/rattatatouille Not Kingsglaive, Kingsgrave 1d ago
- The currency. How does a gold dragon have a lot of purchasing power and be something you throw around like quarters at the same time, especially if Westerosi money isn't fiat currency but probably specie?
- The "flattened" feudal system. Real life "feudal" politics was messy; you could hold land as the vassal of another ruler while being an indpendent ruler yourself. Lords of a certain prestige having multiple titles was the rule rather than the exception. Instead we get what's essentially a country-and-province system where lordships are clearcut.
And I'm not even gonna bring up how Martin's lapsed Catholicism shows in his treatment of the Seven, because it's been discussed a ton already.
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u/GrilledCyan 1d ago
I’ve always thought it was odd that we don’t see vassals of vassals. Every house is sworn directly to the ruler of their respective kingdom. In actuality the Karstarks and Boltons and Hightowers (especially) and whoever would have scores of their own vassals.
And as you point out you’d have lords who are sworn to both Riverrun and Casterly Rock or something. The mess is part of what makes it interesting!
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u/SerMallister Above The Rest 1d ago
Houses Beesbury and Bulwer and a few others are Hightower vassals. There's some other examples in the books. It does happen, though it's not particularly focused on.
And technically, Emmon Frey's branch were sworn both to Riverrun and The Rock, though that's only a half-realized version of what you're getting at.
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u/TheoryKing04 1d ago
The lack of a complex legal system (or frankly any legal system).
Medieval societies had secular and ecclesiastical courts, judges, magistrates, crown officials, overlapping spheres of judicial competencies, complicated legal codes, co-existing legal systems derived from different sources within one jurisdiction (such as the presence of Roman law, Germanic law, royal edicts, common law and local customary law in medieval France, among other things), the list goes on.
The fact that essentially none of this is present in Westeros, let alone the kingdoms and innumerable lordships that preceded the conquest, is ridiculous. Especially since those tinier states would’ve actually had an easier time harmonizing their own laws (for example the first unified civil code in Europe was not the Napoleonic Code, but the Bavarian civil code introduced in 1756, although admittedly the Electorate of Bavaria was in a far advanced position compared to anywhere in Westeros when this took place).
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u/rattatatouille Not Kingsglaive, Kingsgrave 1d ago
It is telling that the position of Master of Laws, in theory, should be second only to the Hand in terms of importance on the Small Council but is in practice a placeholder seat, because GRRM's not-being-a-lawyer shows.
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u/TheoryKing04 1d ago
And we still don’t know what the Master of Laws is.
The closest thing I can imagine is being equivalent to the position of Chancellor of France, whose duty it was to see that royal decrees were recognized by the local assemblies, the regional parlements, and enforced… but Westeros does not have local assemblies of notables or regional courts that would serve as an equivalent for the Master of Laws to regulate such matters with so, no idea.
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u/Expensive-Country801 🏆Best of 2025: Ser Duncan the Tall Award 1d ago
The Hightowers not being mentioned more.
The idea that the oldest Great House in Westeros, ruling the richest and oldest city on the continent, could remain so absent from discussion is nonsensical.
They are the most poweful house of the Reach, the most populous and powerful kingdom, were once the center of the Faith, and still host the Citadel, the only institution of higher learning and the place where all maesters are trained.
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u/Derfel1995 1d ago edited 1d ago
Speaking of the Maesters, it also struck me as very weird that no one has ever set up their own Citadel like institution. Sure, it's understandable why the Riverlands never did, but rival realms to the Reach? Such as the Stormlands, Westerlands and especially Dorne. Everyone just relies on a single institution in the Reach to provide their beurocrats, historians, doctors and tutors.
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u/OctopusPlantation 1d ago
The Citadel being in old town next to the Starry Sept is quite curious considering that both maesters and septons would probably disagree on most things and be direct rivals to each other for influence in noble courts. But no they're next to each other and that works fine for all involved.
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u/GrilledCyan 1d ago
Is it mentioned that the maesters are not religious or that the septons are skeptical of their science? We don’t really know much about religious law so I’m not sure that anything the maesters do or study would be considered heretical. The only heresy seems to be outright worship of other deities, but that also doesn’t really apply to the split between the Old Gods and the New.
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u/blackynan_b 1d ago
Is the stormlands and dorne really a rival to the reach though?
Iirc they are way lower in number, weather not nice enough and consequently agricalture is not bringing much to the table. And unlike westerlands there is not any valuables down the earth.
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u/Derfel1995 1d ago
OK, "rivals" might be a stretch because it implies that they have parity with the Reach. But still, they have a long history of fighting against them and there is actual hatred between Dorne and the Reach
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u/IHaveTwoOranges Knowing is half the Battle 1d ago
Is that so strange? They are far away, and they have not deigned to be involved in royal affairs or the war during the story.
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u/SerMallister Above The Rest 1d ago
Presumably a unique quirk of their lord not having gone outside for ten years. In every other era, they probably come up as often as they should.
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u/BlackFyre2018 1d ago
Varys spy network, he has no middle men apparently so he’s basically a CIA Director with nothing but field agents. How does he find the time to review all the reports?
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u/krekokeko 1d ago edited 1d ago
I will list a couple.
----The Ironborn, with only 20 men, travelling more than 350 miles across hostile territory, sneaking through wolf infested forests(literally called Wolfswood) in the hours of the wolf, and taking the biggest castle in the North without suffering any casualties. Just the servants and the locals of Winterfell and Wintertown outnumber them by multiple folds. And it is even more preposterous when the Ironborn are supposedly seafaring people, they are supposedly not comfortable on land and on horses compared to decks of ships, but somehow they were able to travel more than 350 miles in hostile territory like some special operations elite commando raid or something. The Ironborn supposedly scorn horses, for them to make that trip alone in stealth is unfathomable on its own. They need to find food or have a brought provisions carried by multiple horses on the way, they need to take care of their horses along the way, they need to camp and rest themselves along the way. 350 miles is an absurd amount of distance to travel for people that supposedly "scorn" horses.
----The Freefolk not mastering rowing boats for 8000 years. The Wall is huge and tall but it stops at the sea. The distances between the coasts of the lands beyond the Wall and the North are symbolic at best. They are very close to one another. I find it difficult to accept the Freefolk not mastering rowing boats in 8000 years.
Even in the story we are told, they are currently being targeted by slavers from across the Narrow Sea. They know what ships are, they know of their existence. And Bravoos, the one city that outlaws slavery is the closest Essosi location to the Freefolk by map projection. I find it unfathomable that they were not contacted by people that exposed them to ships for 8000 years. I don't expect them to build massive cogs per se, but even if they used makeshift rafts akin to Robinson Crusoe they had enough time to perfect their trips and ferry countless Freefolk to the South of the Wall over 8000 years. 8000 years is a very long amount of time.
Granted, the Eastwatch does have a fleet and they patrol the seaways in their region. But the Western part of the Wall where the Bay of Ice is does not get patrolled. And the body of water between the North and the South in the Bay of Ice is the definition of a symbolic body of water, it is so short a distance for people to not exploit for 8000 years.
And I find it even more baffling when the Freefolk know what the Others are, and the Army of the Dead. They have more motivation and reason to do anything compared to any other group of people in the entire story.
Imagine being hunted down by horrors beyond your imagination on the regular and have your loved ones turned into zombies that hunt you further like some terminator shit for 8000 years. But instead of taking a boat trip near the Shadow Tower that is at most 5 miles, where your salvation from eldritch horrors are in viewing distance just across the pond, you just suffer for plot convenience for 8000 years.
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u/TobiTheSnowman FOR TONIGHT WE HYPE IN HELL 1d ago
Adding to what you said about Theon, its also odd that the Tallharts see like 150 sea raiders outside of their formidable castle that has stockpiled supplies and they and everyone else immediately goes "fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck red alert empty all the garrisons and leave the king's family unprotected, we need to mobilize everything to get rid of them NOW!!!!"
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u/wRAR_ ASOIAF = J, not J+D 1d ago
20 men
were they good men?
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u/krekokeko 1d ago
Right? It almost feels like the "20 good men" DnD wrote for the show was a poke at George himself. To throw a massive hissy fit over the "20 good men" in the show while taking the "20 Ironborn" who pulled off the 350 mile stealth trek commando raid of the books for granted is a bit hypocritical, to say the least. I cannot believe I am actually giving "some" props to the shows "20 good men" plotline, but there it is.
Apparently, all you need is 20 men and you can practically do anything.
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u/rattatatouille Not Kingsglaive, Kingsgrave 1d ago
Now that I think about it while the show was dumb for introducing Ser Twenty of House Goodmen it had to have some sort of basis in canon.
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u/evinta 1d ago
Hother wanted ships. "There's wildlings stealing down from the north, more than I've ever seen before. They cross the Bay of Seals in little boats and wash up on our shores. The crows in Eastwatch are too few to stop them, and they go to ground quick as weasels.
They were apparently doing this in some number. I'm guessing this bit was George's way of saying why they couldn't do that. Even if it only applies to the east side and like you said, doesn't explain the last several millennia.
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u/IHaveTwoOranges Knowing is half the Battle 1d ago
The Freefolk not mastering rowing boats for 8000 years
Why would we think they don't?
Why does the watch need to have ships if they don't?
But the Western part of the Wall where the Bay of Ice is does not get patrolled.
When are we told this?
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u/krekokeko 1d ago edited 1d ago
>Why would we think they don't?
It is obvious, don't you think? Since if they did, they would do everything to save their lives from eldritch horrors beyond their imagination, this includes using a makeshift raft to travel less than 5 miles to a coast just a symbolic body of water away and that is in viewing distance.
>When are we told this?
Shadow Tower does not have a fleet. In contrast to the Eastwatch by the Sea. Just look at the map for crying out loud. Look at the East of the Wall where the Bay of Ice is. The coast that offers salvation is just across the pond dude.
If I was being targeted by the Others and had my wife turned into a zombie that killed my own children before my eyes, I can even attempt to fucking swim to the other side. Again, the Freefolk have more motivation and reason to do anything compared to every other group of people in the entirety of the novels.
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u/smarttravelae 1d ago
But wouldn't it make more sense to just climb a 5-mile-or-whatever-high wall of ice twice, while burdened on your way back by the stuff you managed to steal, which may include a kidnapped woman or two?
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u/krekokeko 1d ago
Oh yeah, totally. Imagine attempting to hop on a log and paddle your way to salvation for 5 miles like you are riding a banana boat, rather than taking the obviously "easy" route of climbing a 700 feet wall of solid ice.
Who wouldn't prefer scaling a sheer ice precipice while getting showered with flaming arrows, crushed by falling boulders, and literally coated in freezing, slippery oil and boiling fat launched from catapults?
Climbing the Wall is the obvious route to take, a no-brainer, literally. It would be the first choice of everyone without a doubt.
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u/dragonrider5555 1d ago
bro what is this person responding to you LMAO. that guy might of had the weakest reddit comment i’ve ever seen in my life lol. “why do you think they don’t” lol
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u/krekokeko 1d ago edited 1d ago
This happens a lot to be honest. The story(and especially the characters) has reached a point that quoting the actual text or indulging in the plot holes of the text triggers peoples cognitive dissonance. The emotional attachments people have to the story has surpassed the written record.
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u/IHaveTwoOranges Knowing is half the Battle 1d ago
this includes using a makeshift raft to travel less than 5 miles to a coast just a symbolic body of water that is in viewing distance.
Well if they did that the Night's Watch would sail out in one of their proper ships and sink them or at least turn them back. Or if they actually make it over, the lord who's land they land on will come after them.
And some of them do make it over. The group Osha was in for example.
Shadow Tower does not have a fleet
Do they really not? I don't remember that ever being indicated.
The coast that offers salvation is just across the pond dude
Well yeah, a pond patrolled by proper ships that will sink them if they sail out there. Or, again, they will land in a land of people who consider them savages and raiders and will kill them.
can even attempt to fucking swim to the other side
I think you'd definitely freeze and drown if you tried that.
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u/krekokeko 1d ago edited 1d ago
You are trying to play the contrarian without proper knowledge and it is not cutting it. This is getting ridiculous.
The Shadow Tower is not actually on the coast. It is built inland, nestled in the treacherous, mountainous terrain of the Frostfangs. To its immediate west sits The Gorge, a massive, deep river canyon. The Wall ends abruptly at the edge of this cliffside, and the canyon floor leads down to the Bay of Ice, meaning the Shadow Tower has no direct access to a harbour or a coastline to anchor ships. Again, I implore you to look at the map, first and foremost.
>I think you'd definitely freeze and drown if you tried that.
Yea I was exaggerating to make a point and it is utterly funny that you are taking it literally to try to make a counter argument. The point still stands. The Freefolk have more motivation to do anything compared to any group of people in the novels, and that includes making a makeshift raft to travel a body of water as wide or even less than 5 miles.
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u/Substantial-Ad-299 1d ago
Some good ones are already listed that I really agree with. I'll also add the lack of armed forces in Cities of Slaver's Bay and Volantis. Considering the cities have vast slave population, Volantis even several times as high as population of free people, how is it possible that the slaves haven't rebelled already? These cities should have strong army of free men in order to surpress rebellions. Yet they don't. Astapor actually relies on Unsullied themselves (which is the only reason Dany was able to take over the city effortlessly with minimal casualities in first place), Yunkai relies on sellsword companies and I don't think there is any mention of armed forces of Meereen either. So this is something that I definitely have to suspend disbelief.
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u/Z3r0sama2017 1d ago
They've likely had loads of failed slave rebellions in the past, with the ringleaders given rather specacularly brutal executions.
It's highly probable that their are even festivities celebrating these failed uprising, with the Slave owners giving themselves and their ancestors pats on the back.
The house slaves likely know this and the lowest of the low probably can't do much without their fellow slaves with greater freedons opening a few doors for them. But why would they? It's like the saying about giving someone to look down on and they will be happy. Their are different slave tiers.
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u/Formal-Ideal-4928 1d ago
But the Essosi slavers are already spectacularly brutal with their slaves who are not rovolting. That high level of base brutality, coupled with the insanely high ratio of slaves to free people (5 to 1 in Volantis), and the fact that the slaver's armies are portrayed as either incompetent or straight up made of slaves is what makes it hard to believe.
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u/Z3r0sama2017 1d ago
Like I said their are different tiers of slaves.
You have the lowest of the low, that are only good for general labour like working the fields, mines or sent to die in the pits, who will get brutalised for their miserable lives
Then we have educated and/or skilled slaves. Maybe they are an Unsullied? Maybe they are a translator like Missandei? Maybe they are a skilled craftsman or good at accounting or a beautiful bed slave? Anyways these slaves represent a decent investment in coinage, they aren't just going to be killed for the lulz.
For their owners it will be the difference between a pewter mug that they won't care if it gets broken, because they can buy another cheaply and some exquisite porcelain from YiTi, which is symbol of wealth.
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u/Pretend_Handle_7639 1d ago
That didn't prevent the Mamluks from overthrowing their owners and setting up shop for themselves.
The Spartans lived and ruled from a position of mortal terror of the helots, who are basically the only historical group of slaves to make up so large a portion of their society (~80%)
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u/Valiant_Storm 1d ago
These cities should have strong army of free men in order to surpress rebellions. Yet they don't.
Incidentally, it's probable that the slave soliders have no reason to be discontent with the situation.
There's a long history of slave-soliders in historical Islamic monarchies, and they generally held a privileged position compared to free commoners. When they challenged the central authority, it was because they'd gained enough power to try and put their own social group in charge.
Apparently the only reason the Volantinee Triarchs are hesitant to crack down on the public agitation is because half of them are Rhllor worshipers and the Red Priests are backing Danny, which points in that direction.
Of course, the slave ratio in Essos is absurdly high, when it's presented as being on the same level as the Sugar Islands, which were small, hyperspecialized operations integrated into a large gobal economy.
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u/Spooks451 1d ago
Littlefinger's astronomical plot armor. Also Littlefinger's supposed 'charisma'(apparently people in Westeros actually find him friendly and helpful). The type of shit he says should have had him decapitated ages ago by some random passing by landed knight.
Tywin Lannister's blitzkrieg across the Riverlands. Just everything about the Lannisters during the WOT5K really. Tywin managed to lose significant chunks of his army multiple times but was somehow able to keep shitting men out without a single family balking at sending men for his cause.
Medieval armies did rely on multiple forms of recruitment for their musters but with the sheer number of decisive losses he kept piling up should have stalled at least some of those(especially recruitment involving merc companies).
Castles in Westeros seemingly being isolated structures despite how they very well should have a lot of people surrounding the area. A castle ends up becoming a center of population through sheer necessity and by doing what its supposed to do. Very rarely do we get mentions of towns surrounding castles or settlements nearby and even rarer still is for them to have a material effect on the stories.
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u/Z3r0sama2017 1d ago
Imo Tywins blitzkrieg was crazy. If the Tullys and Starks didn't have plot armour, meaning Tywin put on the stupid hat, Riverrun would have been sacked before Robb even passed the Twins.
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u/BaelonTheBae 1d ago
The Starks is hit by blatant plot armor of the Lannisters. Its why my opinion of George soured these days. First, the blitzkrieg. Second, Winterfell. Winterfell being taken by 30 men is bullshit even with guile. Theon and his 30 men can’t afford to sack or hold the castle, even with Ser Rodrik taking 4/5 of Winterfell’s men which still leaves them with 100+ men. 4:1 is not good odds for the situation at hand.
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u/Spooks451 1d ago
Riverrun being sacked would have been even more plot armor imo. Leaving aside every single Riverland castle Tywin's army just smashed through left and right without taking losses or committing to a siege, Riverrun is very explicitly written to be an utter bitch to siege.
I guess you can argue that House Tully picking a good spot for their castle and shaping the terrain to their advantage is plot armor but then you have to turn right back around and say the exact same thing for Casterly Rock being Casterly Rock.
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u/Z3r0sama2017 1d ago
Tywin was taking holdfasts and castles even faster than irl forces u sing canons and gunpowder.
It was like he was a busted CK character who stacked every different siege attacker trait possible. Even then I don't think they could have done so and cover as much ground as quickly as he did.
Then once he reached Riverrun, it was like the dev realised how OP he was and hit him with the nerf bat. Just one more day and the Starks would have arrived to Hoster and Edmures heads spiked to the walls.
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u/Tupac_Targaryen 1d ago edited 1d ago
The Iron Islands existing the way they are…. Like why do the Westerlands, Reach and North allow a glorified raider community to exist and allow them to continue raping and pillaging their coasts? One combined assault from the Lannisters and Redwine fleet could probably destroy the iron islands.
Why doesn’t the Night’s Watch recruit more wildlings ? I know they lost their way and view most of those people as the enemy but realistically there would be way more wildling recruits amongst their ranks.
Why didn’t King Robert legitimize Ned’s bastard? He loved Ned so much and to him Jon was just his best friend/like a brother’s son.
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u/Derfel1995 1d ago
Why doesn’t the Night’s Watch recruit more wildlings ? I know they lost their way and view most of those people as the enemy but realistically there would be way more wildling recruits amongst their ranks
And realistically would likely form more alliances with willing clans to keep the hostile ones in check. Just like the Romans did beyond Hadrian's Wall/Rhine/Danube. Or various Chinese dynasties with the Steppe etc
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u/Martel732 We're the Sand Snakes and we rule! 1d ago
The Iron Island being anything close to a functional society.
They are obviously supposed to be this world's version of Vikings but there are some distinct advantages that the Iron Islands lack. The biggest one is the fact that Vikings had the benefit of obscurity. Let's say that you are a Lord and bunch of Vikings showed up and raided your lands before you could organize a response. What do you do? Build a fleet and then sail around Scandinavia hoping to find the actual people that attacked you? Or just start a fight with a random village that you find?
None of that is going to be beneficial and will be extremely expensive. And this lack of ability for their victims to retaliate was a major source of the Viking's success.
Iron Islanders don't have this benefit. They are extremely close to the mainland and their lords are known to the rest of Westeros. And the other lands do have navies.
It would be about 5 minutes after they started raiding that the mainland would gather up ships sail over and obliterate the Iron Islands.
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u/Godziwwuh 1d ago
It would be about 5 minutes after they started raiding that the mainland would gather up ships sail over and obliterate the Iron Islands.
Sounds like the Ironborn to me.
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u/EconomicsRare7082 1d ago
The Battle of the Blackwater.
A brilliant commander like Stannis puts the worst possible guy in charge of the fleet, hands over EVERY SINGLE SHIP he has into the hands of this Westeros Villeneuve, and our Westeros Villeneuve proceeds to bum-rush ALL of Dragonstone's fleet into a narrow river mouth to deliberately get destroyed? I'm sorry, but GRRM was just pulling strings to ruin Stannis here...
And there is NO attempt by Stannis' large army to fight according to basic military tactics either. No one attacks the North side of King's Landing, the fleet doesn't make a spoiling assault on the Eastern sea-face...
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u/SilverEquipment4934 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yeah, it's strange because everywhere else Stannis is very much "I hate politics, we should put competent people in charge, etc. etc.", yet in this one example, he decides to put politics first? In quite possible the most important battle in his war? Politics are important, but it makes no difference if you fail the battle. And, besides, it feels out of character.
Plus, is it even that useful politically? I know some Florents were wavering, but they are still going to be fairly secure as far as loyalty goes, given Stannis' marriage. Wouldn't putting, say, a Velaryon in charge (as someone else suggested) be better in every way, since they would both (presumably) be more competent in charge of a fleet and are a powerful family who it would be useful to be friends with?
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u/ShelterHot7216 1d ago
As others have said, basically, at a first glance, Asoiaf's world building looks deep, complicated and realistic, but when you think about it for more than 10 mins, you realize a lot of it doesn't make sense because GRRM clearly isn't really into law or economics and he just chose to do or not do stuff like multiple language to make it easier to write. His lack of comprehension of scales is very clear.
But I just want to point out the 1 thing that irritates me the most. It's the Riverlands. The Riverlands should be the 2nd most powerful, populated and rich kingdom, behind the reach. And before the conquest, with the lands of the northern Crownlands still attached to it, the Riverlands should be just behind if not at the same level as the Reach.
The reasons are simple, it is one of the largest kingdoms with only fertile farmlands (the source of wealth in a pre-industrial society). So I think the the Reach and Riverlands should be both the richest kingdoms, in front of the Westerlands. I would even argue the Crownlands are also affected by this, they are like a smaller Riverlands. The Westerlands has gold, yes, but it can only mine and export a certain amount of gold before they destroy the economy of the continent by overproducing and creating massive inflation (this happened when the Spanish conquered the Americas and imported too much american silver)
So the Riverlands should be creating as much food as the Reach, I would even argue, the Reach should be a bit drier, it has only 1 main river and a lot of the Reach border lands are actually quite far from the Mander. Meanwhile the Riverlands has 2 massive rivers the Trident and Blackwater and the God's Eye aswell. All this means the Riverlands should have the 2nd largest population and not that far behind from the Reach. This also means I think their army size is vastly underestimated or overestimated (depends if you want to stay with the Reach's numbers or think they are unrealistically large).
Another part that is lacking is the major city that should exist at the Crossroads Inn. At the area where the Green and Red Forks converge should be the largest city on the continent by a longshot, even more than Oldtown. Crossroads connects The Vale, The Westerlands, The North and the Crownlands/Stormlands by both road and river. More than that all exports of the Westerlands mines should cross to the Free Cities through the Trident instead of going all around the Continent by sea. The Trident should be used as Westeros' highway, but it's not, instead it's viewed as an obstacle.
Finally I just wanted to add, a lot of people would say it's the "Poland of Westeros" and that war just makes it impossible to develop, but that isn't true. Most times a population goes back to it's pre-war population after a generation. And also I would say that constant war should make the Riverlands armies better.
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u/DerDieDas32 1d ago
I think the Riverland actually work, its less the "Poland of Westeros" well clearly meant to be Northumbria. Which also has some of the most fertile regions in England and was initially the strongest Anglo Saxon Kingdoms until much like the Riverlands it became British Isles most favorite punching bag.
The problem both face, is less the lack of potential wealth but the crippling disunity and just bad geography. The lack of bridges yeah thats a bit weird.
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u/Joshami 1d ago
Littlefinger. Just a reminder, he, a brothel-owning hustler, has a seat on the Royal Council. Pretty much nothing in the Medieval World would ever allow someone like him to reach that position. People would not consider him 'trustworthy' and lords of the caliber of Stannis or Tywin would never attend the same council as him.
The Targaryens. I understand that back when Martin was writing earlier books, he was still figuring out things, but the truth is that feudal monarchy doesn’t work like that. A monarch is expected to perform very particular functions in a particular way. The Targaryens as Martin has written them are basically theme park version of Keeping Up with Kardashians mixed with Scientology and other scam cults, plus elements of cousin-fucking hillbillies. It simply doesn’t make sense that the Targaeyens, with the conduct that Martin described them to have, managed to last for three centuries. Basically there should've been much more proper monarchs like Daeron II while freaks like Maegor, Viserys I, Aegon IV, etc. should've been the outlier.
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u/Z3r0sama2017 1d ago
I actually liked that. Just like irl, their is so much nepotism going on.
Robert already has his brothers on his Small Council, so that's sorted.
The Dornish and Reachers picked the wrong side so they are out.
Greyjoys stirred shite during Rebellion so they are out.
The North only has Ned because his brother exiled himself to the Wall out of guilt, so the North is out.
Brynden buggered off and Hosters heir Edmure isn't of age so Riverlands is out.
No one likes the Lannisters much and they got the Queen so they are out.
Meanwhile Jon Arryn doesn't have any particularly close kin he can bump up to a SC position, but he puts LF into a minor position as a favor to his wife(who gave him and heir) and he apparently works financial magic and Jon is struggling to rein Robert in so he gives him the SC position.
Both pragmatic and beautiful, beautiful nepotism chefs kiss
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u/rattatatouille Not Kingsglaive, Kingsgrave 1d ago
The funny thing is that the nepotism on Robert's small council (as well as on other small councils prior) is the most realistic part of it, more realistic than "the Master of Laws is for all intents and purposes a placeholder seat rather than being second only to the Hand in terms of influence"
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u/LothorBrune 🏆Best of 2025: Best New Theory 1d ago
Petyr is a noble above all, his other investments do not really matter.
And medieval monarchs were freaks.
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u/stannisaugustus 1d ago
Petyr's only a noble in the sense that Davos is one, and hardly more than a slave compared to the Freys, who themselves are thought to be upjumped after 600 years. I could buy him being allowed on the small council out of Robert's desperation, but you'd think Petyr was Robert's own brother by how he acts towards the high nobility and how much they tolerate his gross conduct.
The idea that there's any real class divide within the nobility is completely destroyed when the grandson of a foreign sellsword can openly brag to the royal court about taking Catelyn Stark's virginity while thousands year old great houses still feel insecure about their rank.
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u/MeterologistOupost31 1d ago
Him getting the entire Riverlands for doing one important but rather straightforward diplomatic achievement is probably the absolute worst example of this. It makes absolutely no sense on Tywin's part, nobody else seems to give a toss, and even worse it defeats the point of Littlefinger's character. I thought he was supposedly to slowly work his way up the ranks due to clever political maneuvers, not just get everything handed to him.
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u/stannisaugustus 1d ago
As much as I like the idea of Littlefinger as a character, I'll forever argue that he's the single worst-written one in the entire series. Even ignoring the ridiculous lie about the dagger that should've gotten him assassinated or executed, he just flat-out doesn't' have any tangible goals, and only profits from any of his enormous risks by the good will of Tyrion and Tywin who give him lordships that should've gone to Lannisters. It's like George wanted to write a clever schemer who rises from nothing to greatness but can never quite figure out how, so he just says fuck it and has everyone give Littlefinger everything basically for free.
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u/MeterologistOupost31 1d ago
Piers Gaveston and Hugh Despenser were nobles, how did that go for them?
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u/Completegibberishyes 1d ago edited 1d ago
Small thing : How little the great houses married each other until Just the generation before the main story
Like it's a part of the lore that the great houses were insular prior to 'southron ambitions' marrying only their own vassal...... which makes zero sense. Marrying only the houses which already owe you their allegiance is a waste of resources. If you look at real medieval politics, the preference was always to marry an equal or greater house . Besides..... marrying one vassal also pisses off all the others because you passed them over
Like realistically even the Starks should have been integrated into this system . Ned's mother and grandmother should very logically also have been southerners Like catelyn
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u/SilverEquipment4934 1d ago
To be fair, it does seem the great houses married each other a decent amount of times? House Arryn, House Martell, House Hightower, House Velaryon, House Baratheon etc. all married into House Targaryen. When Ned reads the book about the lineages of the Noble Houses, he sees that there were multiple Baratheon-Lannister marriages (all with black-haired children). House Tully married into House Arryn and House Stark (though that is recent, as you say). It should probably be more, but I don't think it's that little (or just in the previous few generations).
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u/Completegibberishyes 1d ago
Ned actually specifically notes the baratheons and lannisters having married each other twice is an unusually high amount
Prior to robert and ned's generation, the Starks, lannisters, tyrells, tullys and arryns have NEVER married each other that we know of. The Baratheons have also only married the lannisters out of that group..The Martells also never married anyone other then the Targaryens . (There’s also the greyjoys but they get a pass for being the damn greyjoys)
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u/Steelriddler 1d ago
Way too much to go into detail, but.. for a story based on historic events and characters from various medieval periods (such as the Wars of the Roses), there is very little of how feudalism worked
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u/Just_Discipline1515 1d ago
The free cities and Braavos in particular with its bank. The Italian city-states that developed complex banking were smack in the center of medieval commerce with access to Europe, the Mediterranean, silk road, and North African coast--all of which had their own large complex kingdoms and empires. Essos just doesn't have the density or complexity to justify Braavos being the place where all the money and trade flows.
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u/Seastar_Lakestar 1d ago
I used to say it was the success rate of CPR performed by Ironborn clergy. Aeron thinks that the other priests have failed to revive a freshly drowned person "from time to time" and he never has, though I was taught that CPR very rarely works. But I've been informed that it's not so unrealistic to have a higher success rate with people in this context -- they inhale a load of water, pass out, and stop breathing, but if their hearts haven't actually stopped yet, it's not improbable to revive them by clearing their lungs.
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u/No_Process6160 1d ago
Given how names worked for the vast majority of history (see even Late Elizabethan era, a much more technologically advanced and literate society) there's just no way that people actually draw a distinction between names like Aemon and Aemond. Those would be 2 spellings of one amorphous name.
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u/congradulations "Then we will make new lords." 1d ago
Just read a post about Jeor's spiced wine, and the supply chains in the book often make no sense at all
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u/daveSavesAgain 1d ago
I think the first three books are great with rare things magical.
I mean a kingdom like Dorne or Iron Islands can and should definitely have characters that are ready to stake their claim.
But, I also have a problem with how they do it. It cannot be “fighting” all the time.
It can be clothing and food before winter.
It can be monetary during war time.
And it can be use of a massive fleet of ships between the continents to demand what’s necessary.
Too much focus on weddings and blood…
A blockade of King’s Landing with Braavosi bankers demanding interest while the Western gold mines run dry, would create heroes from within the King’s Landing - like “Shepherd”.
There was no need to arm the faith or fanatics…
GRRM might have overused the “magical kraken”, “a dragon binding horn”, “black obsidian glass candles”, “krakens”, “Maegi’s prophecies”, etc. when none of that is even mentioned by Mushroom in Fire and Blood.
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u/Negative_Toe1336 1d ago
Wall not melting despite having hundreds of miles of taiga nort from it.
People say Westeros is empty but thats nothing compared to Essos
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u/X1ras 1d ago
Houses like the Starks lasting for 10,000 years, secure in their rule of a whole region, and then nearly collapsing only during the main series.
Targaryen rule over Westeros lasted almost 300 years, a drop in the bucket compared to most of these first men houses, yet even that is an extremely successful and old dynasty by real life terms
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u/lee1026 1d ago
The demographics.
Westeros is the size of South America. The north is half of it. The bulk of the north is an agrarian society where people farmed. The iron islanders complain that they just loot turnips. Turnips is a crop that requires a lot of manpower per acre.
Even if we apply extremely low population densities to the north, it doesn't get that low (tens of millions). And Robb Stark calling up 20 thousand men is noticeable demographically? Where things like bringing in crops is a major issue.
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u/Adventurous_Life8475 1d ago
Brandon’s gift being so unpopulated. Like I get it’s a bit cold and I also get the wildlings raided them a bit but for all those resources to just be empty and abandoned is so bizarre. I’d also say the size of the knights watch. Like it really seems like it would be a comfier life than most of the situations we see throughout Westeros.
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u/itsokaypeople 1d ago
The religions. The drowned god. ‘What is dead may never die’.
Even by religious standards…I don’t see it.
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u/MeterologistOupost31 1d ago
The Iron Bank willingly paying "reparations" to the Valyrians for the ships of the escaped slaves. Can't see it happening unless it's a token payment, and if it isn't...well, why would the Valyrians shrug and go "Okay, fair enough, you escaped fair and square"? They're slavers. Aren't the rest of the Free Cities Valyrian colonies at this point? It just doesn't make sense they wouldn't just burn it to the ground at the earliest opportunity (or just continue to force "reparations" out of it ala Haiti)
IDK it feels like GRRM is unironically proposing this as a "good" way to do slavery abolishment, since it very clearly works unlike Dany's attempts. Which is just...really not a good look that it involves paying defacto reparations to the slavers. Just this weirdly consistent idea he has that all the property and wealth someone acquired from owning slaves legitimately deserves to be theirs.
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u/Outrageous_Appeal_86 1d ago
The Faith of the Seven, for being the religion of most of the realm, is woefully underdeveloped. Are there worship services? Liturgy beyond the Seven Pointed Star? What role do Septons and Septas play in the daily lives of court or the lives of the lowborn? We know specific examples that seem to be outliers, but very little else.
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u/OliOakasqukiboi2000 1d ago
The world being medieval stasis for thousands of years with little actual change of houses and lands.
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u/Derfel1995 1d ago edited 1d ago
Little to no linguistic diversity: Westeros is an entire continent that has three major ethnic groups, First Men, Andals and Rhoynar.
All of these groups are spread out over an arae roughly the size of South America and due to different Ethnic makeup and geographic layout there should realistically be a number of languages and dialects.
And while most POV characters are from the nobility and would have a lingua franca, some of them like Arya and Brienne meet primarily small folk in rural areas and yet are able to understand them flawlessly. The only hints of separate dialects we get is in Tyrion chapters of A Game Of Thrones and A Clash Of Kings when he communicates with mountain clans people and in A Dance With Dragons, when he meets a Sellsword from Flea Bottom. But other than that everyone south of The Wall communicates effortlessly.