About the canals. Given the limits of Westerosi technology it would be impossible to build the canals you proposed. Most canals of any great size weren’t built until the Industrial revolution, and even then they were incredibly expensive. The required money to build them would probably increase the debt to the point that even charging for them wouldn’t gain any money for the Iron Throne.

marxism-leninism-memeism:

racefortheironthrone:

I don’t think they are impossible. Mander to Blackwater is 50 miles, Blue Fork to Ironman’s Bay is half that. Compare that to the Naviglio Grande, built between the 12th and 13th centuries, which is more than 30 miles long, or the Canal de Briere, built in the 17th century, which is 35 miles long, let alone the Canal de Midi, also built in the 17th century, which is 150 miles long. And those are just the European canals – the Grand Canal of China is over a thousand miles long, and that was built in the 7th century. 

here’s the problem, as far as i’m aware, there’s no tradition of corvee labour in westeros like there was in europe and china during the respective periods, and coming up with enough coin to pay wage laborers on top of that required for materials and so forth would be difficult, to say the least

Given how much of the legal status of the peasantry is in question, I wouldn’t rule it out. Given that the Westerosi are capable of building Storm’s End and the Eyrie and Winterfell and Casterly Rock, I think labor is not in short supply for construction.