Well, they probably sailed east around Dorne and then up the Narrow Sea.
As to why not the Riverlands or the Vale…the Riverlands is famously fractious and prone to private wars over land, why would any houses stand by and let some king take their land and give it away to a Reacherman when the Reach had been invading the Riverlands since the fall of House Justman? And what Riverlander king would have the authority to make that stick?
Likewise, the Vale is pretty small and the lands had been divided up early on, which is one of the major reasons why the Andals had invaded the Riverlands with the encouragement of the Arryns – not enough space, need to get people to emigrate.
Whereas the Starks had vacant land, because the Wolf’s Den was not being properly held and had been repeatedly attacked by the Arryns and the Sistermen and slavers from the Stepstones. The Manderlys offered an opportunity to solve a major security problem without the Starks themselves having to pay for it.
Well, that’s the 15th century, and the military revolution is kicking off, which means that it’s no longer a pre-modern army, and let’s not forget, there was a lull after Towton. There were minor engagements at Hexham and Hedgley Moor, but the War of the Roses is an episodic war, breaking out then going quiet. After Towton in 1461, you didn’t see anything major until 1469, and that was supported by Warwick’s defection. There’s time for younger kids to grow to adulthood in that time. @racefortheironthrone could probably tell you more about this too.
Thanks for the question, Anon.
SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King
The only thing I’d add is that you see the size of armies in the Wars of the Roses decline substantially after Towton. At Townton, you’ve got around 60-65,000 engaged; at Hedgley Moor 11,000; at Hexam less than 10,000; at Barnet anywhere from 17,000 to 45,000 and that was a really really important battle; at Tewksbury anywhere from 10,000-11,000; and at Bosworth, 21,000.
So there really was an impact after Towton. Didn’t stop the fighting, but it definitely reduced the size of the engagements.
Colonialism is and was horrible, full stop, and any time or place someone tries to spin it as a positive, you can always find huge unmarked graves of human misery an inch below the dirt that’s been shovelled over them to hide them from view. Niall Ferguson is only the most recent of a bad bunch of apologists. He’s racist, homophobic, incoherent on economics, and of course, he’s a complete hack.
The only left-wing case for empire I’ve ever heard of was Marx’s whole thing in the 1850s about Western imperalism forcing India and China to modernize (while still decrying the violence involved in that process), but that was based on some pretty Orientalist ideas about “Asiatic” backwardness and has been thoroughly abandoned.
Good question. I think it will be substantially different: for one thing, Jon’s not going to be the one who takes down the Boltons. That’s why GRRM did the head-fake at the end of ADWD. My guess is that Benioff and Weiss simply copy-pasted Jon over Stannis in that particular plotline, while moving up Stannis’ end to get him out of the way.
I do think that the general arc will be similar – Jon wrestling with the meaning of his resurrection and his feelings of betrayal by the Night’s Watch, Jon leaving the Night’s Watch, Jon reuniting with his family but having complicated political tensions (although I think it’ll be both Sansa and Rickon and the people around him). Will he end up being crowned King in the North? Maybe, but I could see Benioff and Weiss deciding to write Rickon out in favor of a more straightforward hero narrative.
Credit to J.E Fullerton/Ser Other-in-Law Introduction In Part IV of the Politics of the Seven Kingdoms, we come to the best example of a failed state in Westeros – indeed, the only region of Westeros to ever lose the status of a Kingdom. The Riverlands are a perpetual runner-up in the game of thrones, more often a pawn or even the game board than a real player, despite its relatively large size,…
Credit to J.E Fullerton/Ser Other-in-Law Introduction In Part IV of the Politics of the Seven Kingdoms, we come to the best example of a failed state in Westeros – indeed, the only region of Westeros to ever lose the status of a Kingdom. The Riverlands are a perpetual runner-up in the game of thrones, more often a pawn or even the game board than a real player, despite its relatively large size,…
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