During the 1400s? Wow, that’s super early.

Obviously, this would reshape European and Mediterranean politics rather dramatically – presumably the “Great Italian Wars” between the Hapsburgs and Valois would be mooted, for example – but it would really depend on how and by whom Germany and Italy were unified. Because a Germany united by the Hapsburgs is going to be quite different from one united by the Wittelsbachs or the Wettins, and an Italy united by the Papal States is going to look quite different from one united by Venice or Milan or Florence or Naples. 

I’m currently studying up on it through the Revolutions podcast, but you can’t go wrong with Black Jacobins. 

Nope. Sansa II is what I’m currently working on, so it’s not even in the normal rotation. 

RFTIT Tumblr Weekly Roundup!

Hey folks! Sansa II is coming along nicely (2400 words), but it’s not ready yet, so I thought I’d share some good stuff from the Tumblrs to whet your appetite: ASOIAF: Tywin, Joffrey, and violence for emotion vs. statecraft. The Others and the Horn of Winter. The logistical difficulties of deserting from the Night’s Watch to the Free Cities. The powers of a lord over his vassals and scutage.…

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Signing contracts in blood is pretty Mephistophelian, and certainly Tyrion is going to a dark place when he’s signing away his birthright with the substance that gives him this right in order to get revenge on his family who denied him this right. 

But it’s also rather piratical by way of Robert Louis Stephenson, and I think it’s pretty clear that Tyrion will be working to ensure that the Second Sons aren’t going to live long to enjoy the gold he’s promised them, in the same way that Captain Flint ensured that the assistants who helped him bury his treasure didn’t tell any tales…

Because in Braavos, they could rule themselves. 

Yes it does. 

1. The locals are more adapted to the water situation than would-be conquerors. They know where the wells are and which ones are and aren’t marked on maps, they’re more used to going without water, and they have the opportunity to poison the wells first to deny them to the enemy.
2. The small population actually works better with the water situation. The larger your army, the more resources it requires, and vice versa. And if and when the supply of resources if cut, the larger army feels the effects faster and more intensely. 

At the end of the day, brutality is not a magic wand against guerrilla warfare, as Lord Lyonel Tyrell found out when he tried to hold Dorne against the Dornish. 

Kicking this one over to @goodqueenaly.

No, it’s pretty clear it was after:

“A thousand years before the Conquest, a promise was made, and oaths were sworn in the Wolf’s Den before the old gods and the new. When we were sore beset and friendless, hounded from our homes and in peril of our lives, the wolves took us in and nourished us and protected us against our enemies.”

Wonder Woman comes from an all-female society because that’s the way her creator, Dr. William Moulton Marston, wanted it for a number of reasons. 

First and foremost, Paradise Island/Themyscira was meant to be a Utopia, a model society for the rest of the world to look to and emulate. Thus, having the island be ruled entirely by women was meant as an endorsement of his belief that women should rule the world…for reasons that I’ll get into in a bit. 

Second, it also heightens and emphasizes Diana’s role as a character who’s bringing a completely female perspective to the World of Men – in her original origin story, Diana was formed from clay and thus didn’t have a father, she’s raised entirely by women, and thus her worldview and background is entirely untouched by men. 

Third, Paradise Island/Themyscira being all-women is crucial to its links to Greek mythology. The Amazons of Paradise Island are supposed to be the same Amazons from Greek myth, and those Amazons were definitively women-only (although they did mate with a neighboring tribe of men to repopulate their numbers). 

Fourth, the gendered nature of Paradise Island isn’t the only significant thing about that society, and this gets us back to Marston’s pretty unique beliefs. The other main thing about Paradise Island is that BSDM is at the very heart of its polity. See, Marston believed that “the only hope for peace is to teach people who are full of pep and unbound force to enjoy being bound… Only when the control of self by others is more pleasant than the unbound assertion of self in human relationships can we hope for a stable, peaceful human society.”  He also believed that women were naturally better suited to exercise “loving authority” over the submissive, and that men wouldn’t be happy submitting unless it was to women in a sexualized context. Thus, the Amazons of Paradise Island live in a Utopia because it’s a society where women exercise loving authority over other women, through wrestling and the use of restraints.