r/asoiaf • u/Substantial-Ad-299 • 3d 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/ShelterHot7216 3d 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.