Author: stevenattewell

Why wasn’t the main currency renamed after Robert’s Rebellion? After all, Robert didn’t seem like a guy who wanted to hear the word “dragons” everyday. Why not just go with “golden stags” and “silver stags”?

rewenzo:

racefortheironthrone:

Because it would be very difficult, time-consuming, and expensive to replace all the dragons in circulation or being hoarded with new “golden stags.” 

Why’d they bother doing it with silver stags?

They didn’t. The silver stag has always been a stag. 

Anon Asks:

gazyrlezon:

racefortheironthrone:

How much land would huge cities like Rome or Constantinople or Athens or the free cities in ASOIAF need to feed the population of just that urban city?

Great question! The answer is: large cities in any period of history, be it during classical antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, well into the Industrial Revolution, require a very large hinterland to provide the necessary food to feed their populations. 

On a general rule of thumb, you’d generally expect cities of those size to command the resources of the countryside around them for at least several day’s travel distance from the city (basically, as far back as you can reasonably get goods to market before they go bad).

However, all of the cities you mention are port cities, which changes the story somewhat: Rome drew its food supply not just from Italy but also from western North Africa etc., Constantinople drew its food supply both from nearby Anatolia and Thrace but also from Egypt, and the Free Cities can draw their food both from their hinterlands but also from Westeros or other parts of Essos. 

Actually, this got me thinking: Were there ever any cities of comparable size that were entirely landlocked and supported purely by their surroundings (before, say, the Renaissance, or even the industrialization)?

@racefortheironthrone: Your answer seems to imply there were some, but I can’t think of any. What have I missed?

Well, there is a middle ground between a port city and being landlocked – being on a river (think the city of York, on the confluence of the Ouse and the Foss) or on a major overland trade route (Florence). 

But yes, there were landlocked cities although they tended to skew somewhat smaller than port or riverrine cities: for example, landlocked Madrid was 30,000 strong in 1561, whereas Paris was more than 150,000 strong by that time. Similarly, Vienna in 1500 had 45,000 residents, while London had about 100,000 at that time. 

Can you tell me who the Sinister six are. Also it was mentioned that Homecoming were setting them up so do you think that by the third movie(probably Graduation)that this will be the main antagonists? Also do you think Marvel can pull off the Sinister Six movie?

The Sinister Six are originally Doc Ock, Vulture, Kraven, Electro, Mysterio, and Sandman. Spiderman 3 attempted to set up the Sinister Six as part of Sony’s doomed bid to establish a Spiderverse, but Homecoming hasn’t really done that – of the six, only Vulture has been shown, and it looks like Scorpion will be the villain in the next movie. 

And sure, I think Marvel could pull off the Sinister Six, in the long-term. It’s important that the villains have individual pasts with Spiderman so their decision to team up against him makes sense, so you can’t do it right off the bat. But as I’ve said before, the key thing is making sure they’re all part of one story as opposed to six stories in one movie. 

Do you think the Small Council still existed during the Regency of Aegon III? Between a SC with up to 7 people + 7 Regents + a Hand (although it seems like the Hand was usually also a regent), that seems like too many cooks in the kitchen. That time was chaotic and we don’t know much about it, but how do you think that hierarchy working? Regents vote and then the SC enacts their will? Is the Hand the chair of the Regents even though he’d ostensibly be beholden to them as a collective “king”?

The Small Council’s responsibilities are probably too pressing to avoid filling those seats, and Unwin Peake had to have some offices to fill with his kin. Oakenfist’s the one person from that era we know had a Small Council position, as Master of Ships, but we don’t know when he was given that title (possibly after his victory against Racallio Ryndoon, but could have been after the regency). 

But yes, too many cooks in the kitchen is kind of the dominant theme of the Regency period. In terms of the hierarchy, it was supposed to go Regents>Hand>Small Council, but quite frequently you had Regents who were Hands, or conflicts between the Hand and the Regents, and lots of turnover, which got the Great Council in the mix, etc..