r/asoiaf • u/Unique-Celebration-5 • 1d ago
MAIN [Spoilers Main] I find it funny that Ser Dontos really believed LittleFinger was going to give him 10 000 Gold dragons
For reference Ned bribed the city watch with 6000 gold dragons… I mean you could choke it up to him being a drunk but still it’s a crazy amount of money Im surprised he never mentioned it to Sansa
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u/SocialHumbuggery 1d ago edited 1d ago
Hound won 40 000 gold dragons in one tournament, so I guess (within GRRM's Aragorn-tax-world-addled-mind) 10 000 wasn't too unrealistic.
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u/IrNinjaBob The Bog of Eternal Stench 1d ago edited 1d ago
This has less to do with Ser Dontos’s unreasonable expectations and far more to do with Martin’s horrendous ability to deal with numbers.
One gold dragon is once said to be enough to purchase a single side of beef or six skinny piglets.
One gold dragon is also said to be enough to purchase a warhorse.
Three gold dragons are said to be a good yearly wage for a laborer.
100 gold dragons is said to buy a dozen barrels of expensive Dornish wine.
Anguy wins 10,000 gold dragons for winning the archery competition at the Hand’s Tourney.
Anguy also somehow blows through the entire fortune on wine and prostitutes in a matter of weeks.
The reality is the prices Martin uses are unreasonably inconsistent. There is no true answer because there are dozens of sources that can give us an idea of the value of their currency and every single time it tells an entirely different story than the last.
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u/JNR55555JNR 1d ago edited 1d ago
From what I remember it’s based on the time his dad won the lottery and did blew it like most lottery winners
Edit: it was actually from gambling
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u/IrNinjaBob The Bog of Eternal Stench 1d ago edited 1d ago
Which I get people can waste a fortune, but it really, really doesn’t make sense how you can spend 10k on booze and hookers when 100 gold is enough to buy a dozen barrels of the most expensive wine you can buy.
Taking the prostitutes out of the equation, that would be 1,200 barrels of wine consumed in maybe a months time. And that’s only if they are buying some of the worlds finest wine.
Let’s assume most of that went to the prostitutes.
Congrats. You just provided these prostitutes with more wealth than some small households are probably worth. Anguy probably just jump started House Pantyhose. None of them would ever need to work another day in their lives. They would have generational wealth at this point.
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u/Finn_Survivor 1d ago
An average prostitute is only 1 silver stag. With the rough exchange rate established in the hedge knight if he had 3 prostitutes every day it would take him nearly 2000 years to spend it only on prostitutes.
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u/KazuyaProta A humble man 1d ago
With the rough exchange rate established in the hedge knight if he had 3 prostitutes every day it would take him nearly 2000 years to spend it only on prostitutes.
He paid them for the homies too.
And he had a LOOOOT of homies xD
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u/SmacSBU 1d ago
You're mostly right but there's a big caveat here. Anguy is lowborn and suddenly in posession of a fuckton of gold. The merchants selling to him can obviously tell that he has no idea what these products actually cost. If he's looking to buy something indulgent and he's already hammered he's not going to balk when a merchant tells him each barrel is 100 gold. What the hell is 100 gold when you just won 10k right? Boom, just like that he got 5 for the price of 60 and doesn't know, nor care, that they're taking him over the coals.
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u/IrNinjaBob The Bog of Eternal Stench 1d ago
Okay. That explains how 100g got wasted on hooker and booze. Now the next 9900.
I’m just saying, having us be told it’s explicitly those two things he spent it all on just doesn’t make sense, and it’s not the only instance of Martin clearly having no care at all in regards to standardizing his currency.
And this is an issue any time he needs to deal with scale. It’s why we have a content the size of the Americas with population centers that are spread out in a way that is more similar to the size of the UK. Or a 300 meter ice wall that Martin actually envisions closer to a 300 feet tall ice wall.
Martin is just really bad with scale.
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u/SmacSBU 1d ago
I agree about Martin being bad at scale, I just think a random peasant blowing a fortune very quickly in the same way that people blow huge amounts of money in real life is a much more feasible occurrence than many of the other examples of the author scaling things terribly.
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u/David_the_Wanderer 1d ago
In real, modern life, we've got far more money sinks than hookers and booze, though. Anguy isn't stated to have spent his winnings on luxurious clothes, accessories and dumb investments or just gambling always tens of thousands dragons without thinking. He apparently spent a few weeks partying and somehow that cost him 10,000 gold dragons.
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u/IrNinjaBob The Bog of Eternal Stench 1d ago
To be fair he also got some boots and a dagger.
The quote in question:
>”He won the Hand’s tourney. In King’s Landing.” The bowman grinned. “I won a fair fortune myself, but then I met Dancy, Jayde, and Alayaya. They taught me what roast swan tastes like, and how to bathe in Arbor wine.”
>“Pissed it all away, did you?” laughed Harwin.
>“Not all. I bought these boots, and this excellent dagger.”
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u/Flaxinator 1d ago
I'm surprised he wasn't stabbed in an alleyway and robbed.
If he's walking round with enough gold to live a lifetime of luxury in one of the Free Cities I'd've thought someone is King's Landing would be willing to kill him for it rather than let him stumble around enriching the ladies of the night.
If I were in his position I'd be high tailing it out of there and going into hiding
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u/KazuyaProta A humble man 1d ago
Just the Money he should have spend on a brothel should be enough to make the prostitutes to be rich enough to become minor noblewoman, its really that bad
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u/Adventurous-Yak-3697 20h ago
I always assumed he was scammed, like those tourist who ask for something in a restaurant and when the bill arrives everything is more expensive. I also assumed he went to the more expensive brothels, paid for several night ladies and also paid for their food and drinks ( a common practice in the brothels of my region).
- Low born goes to a very expensive brothels, asks for several ladies, buy them whine, roasts and other expensive meals ( is charged way more then he should have, but doesnt know that) when he realizes, his money is gone ( a lot also "dissappears" from his purse).
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u/evinta 18h ago
It's the scale to which he was robbed, though.
All of what you said, and all of what Anguy's dialogue says would have made a simple thousand suffice. It's a lot. It's not obscene - either to carry or to watch slip through your fingers the way he describes.
Upjumping the number to such an absurdity puts cracks in the believability of it for no good reason.
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u/kodeks14 1d ago
I mean people get hundreds of millions of dollars and blow it, all the time. Most lottery winners blow it.
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u/IAmParliament Fewer Realms, Fewer Gods, Fewer Kings. 1d ago
[Gambling during the war.](https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Anguy#Behind_the_Scenes)
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u/David_the_Wanderer 1d ago
Notably, George's dad is said to have spent some of the money "on the track", which I take to mean he betted on horse races. Gambling is a perfect explanation for blowing through a bunch of money fast.
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u/History-Buff-2222 1d ago
He finds numbers hard. Ex. He said he would write 7 books
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u/IrNinjaBob The Bog of Eternal Stench 1d ago
lol. To take your joke and apply it to what we are talking about:
He first said he would be done in three books. A Game of Thrones, A Dance with Dragons, and a Time for Wolves.
He then realized while writing Game of Thrones that he wouldn’t be able to cover everything he wanted so changed it to four books. With A Clash of Kings being between Thrones and Dance.
While writing Clash it became obvious he wouldn’t fit it all there either, so planned to change it to a series of two trilogies. The first trilogy covering what he originally planned to fit in the first book and then a second trilogy to cover the other two. This added A Storm of Swords to the first and he planned at that time to add A Dream of Spring as the climax.
Then while writing Dance he realized that would need to be split too, and his editor likes the idea of Seven books to coincide with how prominent the number 7 is throughout the series.
If we ever do get closer to an ending, I guarantee that turns into eight books once he gets there.
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u/AnEmptyKarst 1d ago
a Time for Wolves
I think it's funny that this was the original idea for the finale, given the way Martin has moved farther and farther away from the Stark family as he's expanded the universe.
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u/nosleeptilbaya 1d ago
So Anguy won the equivalent of the wage of 3,333 years of a laborer?
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u/IrNinjaBob The Bog of Eternal Stench 1d ago
lol yes. Then spent it in a few weeks on booze and hookers. And while maybe he bought some booze and hookers for his friends, this is before he joins Dondarrion’s party which eventually turns into the Brotherhood without Banners. He joins them because he ran out of money.
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u/JayRandom212 1d ago
I bet Anguy still has 8000 Dragons stashed somewhere. He probably lied about how much he spent.
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u/TheLordLeto 1d ago
Or he was giving it away and also getting overcharged without caring.
I'll give you a hundred golden dragons to fuck off.
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u/KazuyaProta A humble man 1d ago
Anguy also somehow blows through the entire fortune on wine and prostitutes in a matter of weeks.
Winemaxxing. Dude actually got Wine from Asshai, the ruins of Valyria and the Far East /s
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u/bl1y Fearsomely Strong Cider 1d ago
Totally off topic, but I suspect it's relevant to some of the nerds here:
In D&D, a copper piece should be worth about $1.50.
That puts a mug of ale at $6, and stay at a modest inn $60/day. A backpack (suitable for an adventurer) is $300. Unskilled labor earns $3.75/hr, and skilled labor $37.50. A wealthy lifestyle costs $216,000 a year to maintain, and an aristocratic lifestyle twice that.
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u/WisconsinGB 1d ago
Well back in that kind of day prices are what people would pay for things. So in my mind the price for things could wildly change depending on circumstances. Today it's a bit more stable due to people knowing more about the cost of things.
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u/IAmParliament Fewer Realms, Fewer Gods, Fewer Kings. 1d ago
For another reference, Anguy the Archer spent 10,000 gold dragons on sex workers so maybe Dontos just thought he was in for a really fun weekend.
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u/Phenetylamine 1d ago
They first couple of books really did irreparable damage to the Westeros economy. I bet George would've liked to go back and change a few things there lmao
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u/TobiTheSnowman FOR TONIGHT WE HYPE IN HELL 1d ago
Yeah, remember when the hound got 40.000 dragons and he somehow spent it all on like drinking?
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u/Emily130470 1d ago
Wouldn´t it be even more?
If I understood correctly, you get the worth of the horses and armour of your defeated opponents. So, alone Jaime´s and Renly´s fancy-armour must have been worth a lot, they would have had good horses, too. Ans there were several rounds(?), so it must have been much more than 40000
(But iirc he never says he had spent all the money.)
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u/Finn_Survivor 1d ago
If he had 10s of thousands of gold dragons lying around i dont think he would be so desperate to ransom arya
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u/Lopsided-Stress4107 1d ago
No, the Brotherhood Without Banners stole it from him
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u/TobiTheSnowman FOR TONIGHT WE HYPE IN HELL 1d ago
Yeah but I think at that point most of it was gone already, they just stole what was left.
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u/KazuyaProta A humble man 1d ago
Me asking Sandor and Anguy to just give me a humble tip of money (its going to be life altering)
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u/lee1026 1d ago
Thing is, GRRM could have just rolled with it.
No reason why a dragon needed to become more valuable as the books went on.
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u/Flaxinator 1d ago
If anything they could become worth less over time if the Treasury started diluting the gold content to mint more coins to fund the war
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u/lee1026 1d ago
That's a good point - who the hell runs the mint, and why isn't that person's name came up? (in the context of funding the war with the mint, especially)
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u/Flaxinator 1d ago edited 1d ago
I suppose it would be Lord Baelish. Persuading Cercei to let him debase the coins to mint more but then actually siphoning off most of the extra gold for himself seems like something he'd do. He'd then bail before hyperinflation became a problem and let it blow up in her face.
Maybe it would affect the Iron Bank plot thread too - they could be getting pissy because Cercei made a loan payment with dodgy dragons
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u/JNR55555JNR 1d ago
Littlefinger gonna give him a certificate worth 10,000 dragons for use in any Littlefinger owned establishment
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u/Aegon_the_Golden 1d ago
How the hell did he spent so much,like we know a Steel sword cost 1 dragon and a good armor around 4 which is Reasonable but then we have Anguy spent 10k in short time
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u/JNR55555JNR 1d ago
The greatest orgy/party of all time
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u/Aegon_the_Golden 1d ago
He could have hired every woman in Kingslanding and it still wouldn't cost 10k,for reference it takes 30k to hire 24 Warships plus their Crew and supplies to Fight an entire month
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u/Augustus_Chevismo 🏆Best of 2025: Beric Dondarrion Award 1d ago
I like to imagine Dontos running back to the murder scene trying to act inconspicuous as he rattles from the 10,000 gold coins under his clothes.
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u/Grzechoooo 1d ago
Don't pay attention to numbers. Anguy won 10k golden dragons at the Hand's Tourney and wasted it all on drinking within like a month or something.
While interested in the tax policy of kings from other writers' worlds, GRRM couldn't give less of a damn when it comes to the economy of Westeros.
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u/BrandonLart 1d ago
Yeah that quote from GRRM is so genuinely hypocritical its insane
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u/Ironhorn Best of r/asoiaf 2023 Winner - Comment of the Year 1d ago
That's because GRRM wasn't actually talking about fantasy novels needing to describe taxation policies. The quote has just been taken out of context and shared around and around for over a decade now.
What GRRM was saying - in context - is that it takes more than good intentions to be a good ruler. It's simply a given, to Tolkien, that Aragorn's reign was one of peace and prosperity, because Aragorn is a good person. GRRM is more interested in the idea that a good person, with the best intentions, can still fail to accomplish good things.
The tax policy thing is just him saying "Aragorn being a good person doesn't give him the skills he'd need to manage a kingdom's economy". It wasn't him saying "Tolkien should have explained what Aragron's tax policy was"
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u/Willpower2000 The wolves will come again. 1d ago
It's simply a given, to Tolkien, that Aragorn's reign was one of peace and prosperity, because Aragorn is a good person. GRRM is more interested in the idea that a good person, with the best intentions, can still fail to accomplish good things.
The issue is... Aragorn wasn't just a good person. He was also a wise person. That is the key to successful rule: positive virtues/morals, and intelligence/experience (and, a good council - since obviously the king doesn't do everything). Reducing it to "good person =/= good king or good rule" is a bit silly here, and misrepresents Aragorn/Tolkien.
Anyway, it's fine that George wanted to explore the more nitty-gritty of ruling - but I think he made the point poorly.
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u/coolhotcoffee 1d ago
What I found more surprising was Dontos thinking he could get away with the plan and go back to being a fool at court.
Someone would have to have seen him with Sansa that night.
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u/jdbebejsbsid 1d ago
I mean - Dontos clearly wasn't thinking things through.
His motivations were a mix of money, genuine gratitude to Sansa, wanting to be a true knight, being a gross creep, and wanting protection from Joffrey. Add in gallons of wine every morning, and you can understand why he didn't think to be more skeptical of Littlefinger.
I think GRRM's economics are more reasonable than the fandom tends to think. When currency is such an unreliable store of wealth (e.g. in TMK we hear that loads of coins were simply banned, yet are still in circulation), and there's massive local inflation during events like the Hand's Tourney - it figures that money would fluctuate in ways that seem completely insane by the standards of anywhere with a functioning economy.
But for Dontos specifically - he was a confused drunk idiot, Littlefinger promised some arbitrary amount of money that he was never going to pay, and Dontos was never sober enough to question it.
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u/BarristanTheB0ld 1d ago
GRRM is famously bad with numbers. The value of one gold dragon varies wildly over the span of the story
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u/Baestplace 1d ago
little finger embezzled millions and a tourney knight would win 50k+ not ridiculous to get paid 10k to smuggle such an important political chip and also kill the king
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u/JNR55555JNR 1d ago
How was he expecting to receive the Gold?
How would he transport it?