Maester Steven, a while back I remember you stating it was strange that there was no port city where the Mander met the sea. However, could it be the Hightowers used their influence to prevent the rise of a city that could rival Oldtown? The Manderly’s are famously good at running a port, and they take their name from the river. So, could the mouth of the river have been where Dustonbury was located, and could the Hightowers have played a role in the Manderly’s banishment?

Dunstonbury could have been at the mouth of the river, although I’ve suggested somewhere else.

The problem with the Hightower theory, to me, is that the Hightowers weren’t always part of the Gardener polity, and the Mander was incredibly central to House Gardener’s rise.

Is there any significance to Hoster Tully using the phrase “crabs inside my belly” and Euron later repeating it in the context of hearing people pray? Or do you think it’s just a common Westerosi idiom for a stomachache?

I thought it was an idiom for cancer, personally.

In science fiction, feudalism is often treated as a natural stage of economic development. Colonies “slip back into feudalism” and aliens haven’t “progressed past feudalism”, and so on. But feudalism just seems to be a response to the specific situation where you have to fight off bandits, but don’t have the cash economy to pay soldiers. It didn’t seem that popular outside Europe and Japan. What do you think?

I don’t know if I’d go as far as “it didn’t seem that popular outside Europe and Japan” – once you add in Russia, India, and China to your list of historical feudalisms, you’ve got a big chunk of the globe right there – although I will agree that it’s not a universal experience either (since you don’t see pretty much all of Africa or any of the Americas on that list, although you can make some quibbles about certain periods of colonialism).

That being said, treating feudalism (or arguably any social order) as natural or inevitable is a major error in thinking. I blame Hegel and Marx for that one.

How would Guest Right be reconciled with Westerosi customs around holding hostages, particularly killing them? A hostage would live beneath a person’s roof and eat their food, which should in theory protect them from being killed. Is this perhaps why, while taking hostages is common, killing them isn’t? Aside from other practical considerations?

I don’t think it’s an accident that there is a conflict between these two customs: guest right exists somewhat to create a systemic dis-incentive to kill hostages. And that’s not a bad thing, because the point of hostage-taking (and especially true with hostage-exchanges) is to create an alternative to wiping out your enemies root and branch, similar to how the custom of ransoms is there to encourage people to take defeated nobles prisoner instead of murdering them for the rings on their fingers.

However, there are cases where you need to execute a hostage. My guess is that the cultural circle is squared through giving hostages guest gifts:

“The Freys came here by sea. They have no horses with them, so I shall present each of them with a palfrey as a guest gift. Do hosts still give guest gifts in the south?“

“Some do, my lord. On the day their guest departs.”

“Perhaps you understand, then.“ (ADWD)

Thus, the hostage is no longer a guest and can be executed without violating the taboo.

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Hey folks! Now that Politics of Dorne (and with it, the entire Politics of the Seven Kingdom series) is done, it’s back to ASOS (which I know will make some of you very happy indeed). Also, I should have an exciting book-related announcement in a day or two. In the mean-time, we’ve got Tumblrs: ASOIAF Karma for the Pie Man? Political maps of Westeros. Dornish support for the Blackfyres. Dorne’s…

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Is it possible for a Riverlander King to win the Great Game, or at least dominate it for an extended eriod ?

I think anything’s possible, and certainly there have been periods of stronger and weaker Kingdoms of the Rivers and Hills.

I think a couple different things would be necessary for a Riverlander King to become dominant:

economic/political/military development so that the Riverlands can bring its full potential to bear on its various challenges. If the Riverlands could raise 40-45,000 men as their population indicates they ought to be able to raise, or if their borders were better guarded by stronger castles, then they’d stand a much better chance against the Westermen, the Ironborn, the Valemen, the Reachermen, and the Stormlanders.
a stroke of geostrategic luck. Given the multi-front nature of the great game, it’s much easier for the Riverlands to do well if the Vale is fighting the North and/or the Westermen are fighting the Ironbron and/or the Stormlands/Dorne/Reach are all fighting eachother.
good leadership who can combine diplomatic and military talent to achieve one doable objective at a time. For example, if the Riverlands could work out deals with other kingdoms that would allow it to redistribute resources from one or two fronts, that would allow them to concentrate their resources in another direction. LIkewise, while absorbing the Crownlands is a reasonable goal, making a frontal assault on the Bloody Gate or picking simultaneous fights with all of its neighbors at once.

In your answer to an ask about manderly, you said you think he’s planning to die. Could you please elaborate on that or link relevant metas?

“So young,” said Wyman Manderly. “Though mayhaps this was a blessing. Had he lived, he would have grown up to be a Frey.”
Ser Hosteen slammed his foot into the tabletop, knocking it off its trestles, back into Lord Wyman’s swollen belly. Cups and platters flew, sausages scattered everywhere, and a dozen Manderly men came cursing to their feet. Some grabbed up knives, platters, flagons, anything that might serve as a weapon.

These are not the words of a man who’s trying to survive a dangerous situation. These are the words of someone trying to bring down the very wroth of the Old Gods on the heads of the Boltons and the Freys for breaking guest right, even if that means provoking them into murdering him under Roose Bolton’s roof.

Any thoughts on how to make an Invaders movie (doesn’t have to be in the MCU)?

Flashback sequences when Namor is introduced? Cap and/or Bucky do a double-take and say something like, “have we met before?”

Cue some sort of joke about it being hard to forget someone who only wears a green Speedo.

Hi !! Great work with politics of Seven kingdoms. I have a question on the dornish question : What is the role of dorne in the Great game ? In the essays i have not found this section

Thanks!

The role of Dorne in the Great Game was twofold:

to act as a check on the Reach and the Stormlands – neither could “win” by permanently absorbing one of their neighbors because every time they focused their efforts in that direction, Dorne would hit them with raids that would either force them to pull back to keep what they had or weaken them to the point where they would be become too weak to hold on to what they’d grabbed.
to act as a scavenger in times of weakness – hence invading the Reach during the reign of Garth X or attacking the Stormlands repeatedly when the Stormlands are on their way down – although this isn’t unique to Dorne.

During your ACOK Jon VI analysis, you wondered why Ygritte said that Jon Snow as an “evil name”, and ultimately said: “The only explanation that makes sense to me, but I have to admit there’s no direct evidence for this theory, is that while Old Nan says that the Night’s King might have been a Bolton, Magnar, Umber, Flint, Norrey, Woodfoot, or Stark, he may well have been a bastard son of any of those houses, with the given name of Jon.” It’s been a few years…have you thought anymore on this?

Haven’t found anything else in my reading that brought it up, but I’ll keep looking.