Just a backup in advance of the detumblring
So far?
Right now I’m watching the “Northern Allegiances” one and in addition to introducing the idea that the Starks were vassals of the Barrow Kings and only became Kings of Winter afterwards, which goes against WOIAF, they said that the Andal invasion of the North was stopped by the Manderlys, which is impossible since the Manderlys didn’t leave the Reach until long after the Andals arrived there.
So yeah, there’s some sloppy work here.
Good question!
The last known ruler of Fairmarket was Halleck Hoare, so it may be that it became a royal possession similar to Harrenhal.
In ASOS, we learn that Stoney Sept was ruled by a landed knight, Ser Wilbert, who was killed by the lions (probably when Tywin was storming across the southern Riverlands en route to Harrenhal), and that his sons went off to fight for Robb Stark and saw service in the Westerlands, which probably means they died at the Red Wedding.
Yeah, it’s my understanding that people really did stuff things up their sleeves in antiquity, so we see this often in ASOIAF, like Tyrion stuffing one of Pycelle’s vials up his sleeve, or Melisandre producing a handful of powder from her sleeve, or some of these examples:
Arya figured the gods would never miss two [candles]. She stuffed them up her sleeves, and left by a back window.
Maester Luwin tucked the tube up his sleeve. “Bran, your lord brother will not have time to see you now.”
Grand Maester Pycelle rolled up the list, tucked it up his left sleeve, and pulled another parchment from his right. He cleared his throat and resumed.
When it comes to medieval fashion, I will defer to @joannalannister.
The deal with sleeves, as I understand it, is the same deal with the medieval love of belt-pouches: namely, that they hadn’t really figured out pockets in the medieval era, so you need something to carry stuff in.
The alchemist was walking away. Pate had to follow or lose Rosey and the dragon both, forever. He followed. As they walked, he slipped his hand up into his sleeve. He could feel the key, safe inside the hidden pocket he had sewn there. Maester’s robes were full of pockets. He had known that since he was a boy.
That was a real thing that people did. That’s where the phrase “have up your sleeve” came from. Some people like Pate might have had special pockets sewn into the insides of their sleeves, but I think for someone like Tyrion or AGOT Arya, it’s more makeshift, functioning as a place to store things just because that’s the way the sleeve is made.
Excellent work!
Anathema isn’t quite the same thing. In the Torah, anathema initially meant something set aside for religious use as opposed to secular uses. Later on, it also took on the idea of something that was set aside to be cursed by God, and had a dual meaning. With wasn’t until the 4th century that we see anethema used as a formal excommunication.
The problem with using excommunication in the context of the Seven is that the Faith of the Seven doesn’t have communion as a concept, given that communion is really closely linked to the idea of the Eucharist. Now, that’s not to say that there aren’t other examples of such a ceremony in other religions – various Hellenic mystery cults included the idea of a death-and-rebirth diety whose body is ritually consumed to associate the worshipper with both sacrifice and divinity, most notably the worship of Dionysus who supposedly was dismembered by the Titans and then brought back to life.
The problem is that the Faith of the Seven doesn’t have a dying-and-rebirth figure either, and there really doesn’t seem to be any basis for a communion ritual in their liturgy.
My guess would be that “anathema” in the context of the Faith of the Seven has more to do with a religious denunciation for some great sin, similar to how the High Septon decreed that King Aenys was an abomination for marrying his son to his daughter.
To the contrary, Littlefinger’s embezzlement weakens the Baratheon dynasty. By allowing it to continue, Varys allows Littlefinger to do his dirty work for him, and can reveal the truth whenever he wants.
Once Varys takes over, it would be pretty easy for him to reveal the truth about Littlefinger’s treason, declare his assets forfeit, and renegotiate the debt on good terms.
There’s basically two ways to do it:
Not really, because neither the Old Gods or the New have the necessary belief structures: namely the idea of a messiah figure that can forgive you for sins, and the idea that that messiah figure delegated that power to a human institution.
When it comes to medieval fashion, I will defer to @joannalannister.
The deal with sleeves, as I understand it, is the same deal with the medieval love of belt-pouches: namely, that they hadn’t really figured out pockets in the medieval era, so you need something to carry stuff in.
X-Posted from Tumblr: Why Can’t the Lannisters Buy Westeros?
punkrocknerdfighterasked: lauren, i was just thinking about how much gold casterly rock actually has, and how they use that gold, and now im asking you this: how much power do they actually have? like if a lord or king of casterly rock decided to like. buy all of westeros and become the emperor of the continent, could he do that? they already own debts from the iron throne. could they like? buy…
Excellent question! My answer will come in two parts, relating to different ways to think about money.
The first has to do with the relationship of money to land in a feudal society. As I explained with regards to Littlefinger:
If you’re asking why he doesn’t have more land (other than the lands of Harrenhal, which are quite extensive if slightly cursed), it’s that Westeros doesn’t have a free market in land, wherein land becomes a fungible commodity that can be bought and sold at will and abstracted into derivatives and futures, etc.
Land in Westeros is distributed through feudal relationships that are traditional and customary in nature – fiefdoms are hereditary, taxation and rent levels are fixed, and tenancies are more likely to involve feudal obligations than pure cash rents.
Karl Polayni, in his masterwork Great Transformation, identified the transition from feudalism to capitalism as the creation of a free market in land, labor, and money where none had existed before: the feudal contracts that stretched from the king on high all the way down to the peasant on the manor had to be destroyed so that land could be bought and sold as a commodity; serfdom had to be abolished and the commons enclosed to first free the peasants from the land they were bound to and then drive them into the factories; and usury laws that had hampered lending money for profit needed to be abolished to allow the banking industry to flourish.
This hasn’t yet happened in Westeros, for the most part. The only mention that land can be bought comes from the extended Westerlands chapter, where at Ellyn Reyne’s “urging, Lord Tarbeck expanded his domain by buying the lands of the lesser lords and landed knights about him… and taking by force the holdings of those who refused to sell.” The canonicity of this event being in question, nevertheless the context suggests extra-legality, with cash payment being used to mask violent seizure.
So even if they wanted to, no I don’t think the Lannisters could buy Westeros. I’d also point out that it would never occur to them to do so; as I’ve said before, the Lannisters are aristocrats and have an aristocrat’s conception of money rather than a merchant’s conception of money. Gold becomes land by buying swords to take it, not by going to a market like some Pentoshi cheesemonger.
The second has to do with inflation, as @joannalannister suggested. As I wrote here, the size of the Westerosi economy itself acts as a limiter on House Lannister’s ability to spend its gold:
The danger of dumping 18 billion gold into the Westerosi economy is that you’d generate a wave of hyper-inflation so bad that you’d make the Spanish Price Revolution look like a mere stock market hiccup. While in the long run providing the liquidity necessary for Westeros-and indeed even Planetos-wide economic development, the short-term implications would be the destruction of the Westerlands economy, as skyrocketing inflation would destroy the value of our reserves, cause our goods to be non-competitive, and cause the price of food to soar faster than wages, leading to massive socio-economic conflict.
When the Kingdom of Spain conquered Mexico and Peru in the late 15th-early 16th centuries, they got their hands on the great silver mines of Zacatecas and Potosí, which produced $2.7 trillion in 2015 dollars. This vast tidal wave of precious metals, torn out of the ground by slaves, had the paradoxical effect of destroying Spain’s economy with inflation. Inflation meant that it was far cheaper to import raw materials and manufactured goods into Spain, rather than produce them at home, so manufacturing and even farming went into decline. Rather than invest in agriculture or commerce, the wealthy put their money into government debt instead so as to be repaid in silver.
And of course, the irony of all of this is that the Crown’s vast treasure hoard by its very vastness destroyed its value. Drunk on their own precious metals, the Kings of Spain tried to conquer all of Europe for Catholicism and the House of Hapsburg, and went bankrupt in the process. As I discuss here:
@racefortheironthrone estimated that Westeros has an annual GDI of 525 million gold, while I think the Lannisters have an annual income of approximately 6 million gold. The Lannisters’ annual income is a little more than 1% of Westerosi GDI per year. (For comparison, Rockefeller’s entire net worth – not his annual income, but his entire fortune – was 1.5%-2% of GDP.)
Phillip II of Spain, despite all the gold and
silver of Mexico and Peru, went bankrupt four times (1557, 1560, 1575, and 1596),
and historians suggest that his *personal* debts were equal to 60% of Spain’s
GDP at the time..
It got so bad that during the Dutch Revolt, which lasted from 1568-1648 (if you want to know where all the money was going…), that Phillip II had to get his financing and supplies from the Dutch because no one else would lend him money to pay for his war against the Dutch. The Dutch bankers agreed to finance him at exorbitant rates of interest, and then turned around and used his own money to support the rebellion against the Spanish.
So the Lannisters have to tread lightly when it comes to their gold…
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