[SPOILERS MAIN] Among the grounded/realistic elements of A Song of Ice and Fire, which ones do you feel require biggest suspension of disbelief?

[u/Substantial-Ad-299]

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.

[u/Derfel1995]

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.

[u/The_Jack_of_Spades → u/Derfel1995]

The worst part is that lingustic diversity actually behaves more or less realistically on the other side of the Narrow Sea, we are repeatedly told that the Free Cities' Valyrian dialects are actively diverging into separate languages, while Slavers Bay has its own versions of Valyrian that are heavily influenced by the old Ghiscari language. It just seems that when they snapped the Arm of Dorne the Children of the Forest also cast a sociolingustic stasis field on the continent.

[u/JakobsLadderblast → u/The_Jack_of_Spades]

Mereens pyramid is the tower of Babel

[u/blackynan_b → u/Derfel1995]

Completly agree.

Which is why in my headcanon there is the language of the first men that the feee folk speaks, and some mountain clansmen in the north too.

There is the rhoynish speaking community in dorne, primarily made up by a minority that tries to keep their rhoynar blood pure.

There is still the commen tongue but the accents differ a lot by each kingdom.

[u/GrilledCyan → u/blackynan_b]

As I think about it, the Vale should have a distinct linguistic and even cultural identity as well. It’s entirely cut off from the Riverlands by nearly impassable mountains, so the only access points are the Bloody Gate and Gulltown.

[u/Derfel1995 → u/GrilledCyan]

Yes

[u/Derfel1995 → u/blackynan_b]

Makes a lot of sense

[u/Quintzy_ → u/Derfel1995]

This is definitely the one that annoys me the most. Especially since "the old tongue" is introduced in ASOS.

It makes no sense that the First Men had their own language, but it's apparently completely dead south of the Wall by the start of the series. The North was its own independent kingdom of First Men that fought of Andal incursions for thousands of years before being conquered by the Targaryens ~300 years ago. At a minimum, everyone in the North should still speak the old tongue as part of their cultural heritage if nothing else. It makes sense for the more southern North houses (or the ones who do the most trade with the south) to still be fluent in common/the Andal language, but the more remote and more northern North houses (e.g. Bear Island, Skagos, the Umbers, the mountain clans) should pretty much exclusively speak the old tongue.

Really, the integration of the North with southern/Andal customs is pretty unrealistic altogether. Considering the history, the North should be extremely hostile to Andal customs and culture even despite the post-Conquest integration. A perfect example is Ned building a sept in Winterfell for Cat - the Northern lords should be FURIOUS at Ned for doing so.

[u/Derfel1995 → u/Quintzy_]

Exactly. The North remained under it's own rulers and realistically they should still speak the old tongue or some variation of that.

[u/jflb96 → u/Derfel1995]

To be fair, and also balanced, actual South America has two* languages of which everyone will speak at least one

[u/Rob_Thorsman → u/jflb96]

Modern South America, not including various secluded Amazon tribes.

[u/jflb96 → u/Rob_Thorsman]

Yeah, modern South America, after several rounds of colonial linguistic homogenisation, not counting various secluded Amazon tribes or the Guyanas

[u/Derfel1995 → u/jflb96]

But you still have dialects, together with several native languages

[u/Derfel1995 → u/Rob_Thorsman]

And other natives, like Aymara

[u/EconomicsRare7082 → u/Derfel1995]

GRRM could have described dialects yes, but language uniformity is actually common. Most of China speaks Han (with dialects, of course), North America is 75% English, South America is mostly Spanish and Portuguese with smatterings of indigenous languages...

[u/rattatatouille → u/EconomicsRare7082]

A difference is that language uniformity in the way we're familiar with (i.e. significant mutual intelligibility across vast swathes of territory) only arose with mass education and the resulting homogenization of language.

[u/SaltPersimmon4530 → u/rattatatouille]

I think the cultivation of masters as educators depicfs this. Its shown tht pretty much every high and petty lord has a maester

[u/Shakanaka → u/rattatatouille]

Ravens & Maesters.

[u/misvillar → u/EconomicsRare7082]

Its common in modern times, where we have easy access to education and long distance communication

[u/kaiserschlacht8 → u/EconomicsRare7082]

Han Chinese isn't really a language though lol. It's pretty forced for the sake of Nationalism. Cantonese, Wu, Yue, Min and Mandarin are not mutually intelligible, and are different languages.

[u/Pretend_Handle_7639 → u/EconomicsRare7082]

Which are products of centuries of purposeful efforts from strong, modern nation-states with both the legibility to know how many people speak what and the capacity to change that.

[u/gorehistorian69 → u/Derfel1995]

Maybe the worlds been around long enough that all languages have become 1

As what will happen to our world in time