Author: stevenattewell

Hi, I went back to AGoT and wondered about Ned’s guard. Would he have been within his rights to bring much more men to KL or would this be perceived as distrusting the king/taking over the city? Also, to your estimate, what would be the number of men to make a difference?

hedrigal:

harlawdecimalsystem:

racefortheironthrone:

Absolutely he was within his rights to bring as many men to the capitol as he wanted – as far as we can tell, there are no limitations on the size of retinues one can bring to King’s Landing. Moreover, as Hand of the King, Ned has military authority second only to the King; he could have brought or raised as many soldiers as he wanted.

In terms of how many it would have taken to make a difference, I think at a minimum you’d need a 3:1 advantage over Cersei’s Lannister guardsmen, so about 300-350 men. 

He definitely should have brought more men, not just his swords but also a few bannermen or heirs. Put a Manderly on the Council or at least have one sail to Dragonstone. A Karstark son now is in charge of the gold cloaks. Also invite some allies/non underlings to court as well like Edmure, Blackwoods and Royces. Bring as much of a precession as Oberyn did or stack the deck like the Lannisters and Tyrells do.

It also seems that he can just add on new seats to the small council if he desires to. Wylis Manderly, Robar Royce, and Edmure Tully could have literally just been given new seats on the council, with the legitimacy that they each represent the three kingdoms which put Robert on the throne in the first place not currently on the council.

Those are all good suggestions. And you’ll notice, all of these things – changing the composition of the Small Council, making lower-level royal appointments – are squarely within his purview as Hand of the King. 

Hi. I really like your work, specially your Chapter by Chapter analysis. I am very fond to Eddard Stark as a character and you did a great job analyzing him through the political lens of Lord Paramount and Hand of the King in contrast to his behavior as best friend of Robert. After all, do you like him as a character or do you find it annoying? What do you think about his impact through the Saga in Planetos and to us as readers? English is not my native language, please excuse my writing.

Thanks very much! 

I like Eddard a lot, and a big part of my motivation for doing a chapter-by-chapter analysis of AGOT was to try to rehabilitate his reputation among the fandom. And judging from more recent discourse in the fandom, I think I’ve been reasonably successful. 

As far as his impact on Westeros, look at how the North remembers “the Ned” and is willing to rise up against the Boltons in allegiance to his memory and his children. 

What do you think happened to Simon Strong and his grandsons? Executed by Aemond and Cole? Died as prisoners of Daemon or the Lads?

Something of a mystery, isn’t it? Something must have happened to them, because none of them inherited Harrenhal, and instead it reverted back to the crown and then was given to the Lothstons only twenty years later. 

One thing that’s noticeable is that while Simon Strong is described as among the “dozen valuable hostages, amongst them Ser Simon and his grandsons” when Daemon captures Harrenhal, he doesn’t show up again when Aemond retakes the castle later. To me, that suggests that Simon et al. died in that period, so that probably puts Aemon and Cole out of the picture. 

As to how, I’m going to guess disease as opposed to execution, since I think the latter would be more likely to come up in the text. 

Piggybacking off of the other Northern fleet question: Where do you think a west coast fleet/shipyard for the North would be based?

This is something I discuss in my economic development series; I would actually split the fleet and the shipyard between the new city of Salt Harbor and Barrowton. This way, you: 

  • Spread out the benefits of economic development to reach more of the North.
  • Spread out the largesse of House Stark so as to keep as many houses as possible happy, and to keep any one house from becoming too powerful. 
  • In war, make it a bit more difficult to pull off the Moat Cailin strategy by using the fleet and boom chain at Salt Harbor to guard Barrowton’s shipyards while said yards keep the fleet at Salt Harbor repaired and reinforced. 

If there was Northern fleet for Robb would it be a game changer?

brenobac:

racefortheironthrone:

Depends on which coast the fleet was on. 

Maybe on both because he could bother the Lannisters at Lannisport and directly hit KL 

Well, the more consequential shift would be on the west coast, but more having to do with the Ironborn than Lannisport – if Robb could have forestalled the invasion of the North, he changes the outcome of the war significantly, whereas Robb was able to threaten the Westerlands sufficiently to make Tywin march west without a fleet. 

Over on the east coast, Wyman Manderly was building Robb a fleet in OTL, so probably less of a change. 

All the peerage ranks were originally due to some certain service or position they did that became hereditary titles, but were each of those ranks responsibilities and privledges? I know only that marquess was in charge of marches, aka border lords

Good question! 

Since different courts and different languages developed their own system of titles – you don’t get earls outside of Britain or Scandivia, landgrave and freiherr have a very specific Germanic context –  it sort of depends on which one you’re looking at.

But there are some etymological roots that can tell us what the original responsibilities of these different titles were (said roles shifted hugely over time):

  • Duke originates from the Latin dux, and was originally a Roman title indicating the highest-ranking military commander in a given province.
  • Count comes from the Latin comitem, meaning companion or delegate of the emperor, and was originally a Roman title indicating a high-ranking courtier, and the title continued to have this association with courtly service, see also count palatine, which referred to someone who served in the royal palace. Viscount comes from the Latin vice-comitem, meaning the deputy of a count. 
  • Earl, which is pretty much only used in Britain and Scandinavia, comes from the Anglo-Saxon and means chieftain. 
  • Marquess/Marquis does indeed refer to a lord who holds land on the borders, and thereby has additional responsibilities of defense and fortifications and additional privileges to go along with that. 
  • The etymology of Baron is a bit contested, but is generally held to originally be a military title similar to dux, although indicating a lower rank.

Is it not possible that the “less than 40,000” you mentioned as an oddly low figure for the eponymous “Robert’s Rebellion” not represent the Rebel Army in the field as opposed to total Manpower? (we may infer that Lord Robert’s army was scattered after Ashford, that Lord Jon was obliged to leave a strong Garrison in the Vale to keep both Clans & Graftons quiet – it also seems likely that not a few lords would elect to sit on the fence when Rebel recruiters popped by).

opinions-about-tiaras:

racefortheironthrone:

One can come up with reasons as to why the numbers at the Battle of the Trident were what they were, but in comparison to their total manpower, the ratio is still astonishingly low. 

After all, if they don’t win the war, they’re all going to die, so that’s a pretty strong argument for putting as many men into the field as possible. 

This is one of those things I think people would feel a lot better about if they just accepted the Doylist reasoning; AGOT was written in like 1993 when much of the Seven Kingdoms and the facts about them hadn’t really been conceived of an implemented yet. The numbers we’re given there are simply wrong when considered in light of later resources and should be ignored, in the same way we shouldn’t try and figure out how a lemon tree was growing in Braavos.

I don’t think you can even characterize it as a fuckup on Martin’s part, unless someone wants to make the argument that Martin should have used the Battle of the Trident to determine all subsequent demographic information about the polities and armies involved. I don’t think anyone wants to do that.

If Martin lives long enough, he may release a slightly corrected edition that fixes some of these little errors. Robert Jordan did that, in fact! In one of the early Wheel of Time novels, he gets a line about harp-tuning wrong. Fans continually beat on that point, and in later editions the line was changed.

I would love a corrected edition…especially of the WOIAF.