This is actually a really good question. If the Free Cities were monarchies, I think you’d get more interaction because you’d get cases of Westerosi and Essosi getting a dynastic claim on territory leading to war, a la the Hundred Years War. With their oligarchic republics, all it takes is an election and now there’s a new ruling family of whatever Free City, no more claim.
If instead of an oligarchy, the Free Cities (3 daughters and Pentos especially) were governed by an aristocracy/monarchy, would there be a relative increase in Westeros – Essos political intervention, or is the main reason for the canon “lack” of this prescribed to authorial intent or maybe cultural (slavery, language, etc) otherness between these Narrow Sea neighbours? *By my count, only about 5 intercontinental marriages of any real prominence in recorded canon*
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