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I saw the anon question about raiding over the Dornish/Reacher/Stormland marchers and it made me wonder, in times of violent feuding/raiding between two families that are vassals of the same person, at what point does their overlord step in? How about the king?

Good question!

It depends on the overlord in question, how strong or weak they are – hence Tytos’ weakness preventing him from squashing feuds among his subjects – but also their governing philosophy. For example, Harwyn Hardhand actively encouraged feuding to keep his subjects too busy fighting eachother to fight him, whereas Harren the Black came down on them with fire and sword. 

As for cases of royal intervention, I think it comes down to when the violence is seen as counterproductive enough to warrant the cost of intervention. So for example, the reforming King Aegon V saw the violence in the west as compromising his larger mission of improving the lot of the smallfolk so went into the Westerlands repeatedly, whereas Aerys I didn’t seem to care at all that Dagon Greyjoy was raiding the North, the Westerlands, and the Reach. 

On a global scale, is Westeros any more than just a remote backwater of no real consequence? It seems like all the Essosi think of Westerosi as savages, the Free Cities are more advanced, and every time a foreign power like the Andals, Rhoynar, or Targaryens, they always seem to win.

I think that’s stating it a bit too strongly – what with Argilac and Aegon intervening successfully during the wars against Valyria, and the conflicts between Prince Daemon and the Triarchy, there certainly are other cases where Westeros has been influential in Essosi politics.

So I would use an analogy as similar to Russia compared to Western Europe throughout much of the early modern period: somewhat on the edge of “civilization,” technologically somewhat behind the times, but with immense population and natural resources still important both in terms of economics and geopolitics. 

Different anon jumping off of the last Dornish ask: Would a less ambitious ‘conquer Dorne’ plan that just seeks to annex the Red Mountains (since that seems to be where most of the raiding comes from) have a good chance of success? If so, why do you think no Storm King or Reach King (especially pre-united Dorne) ever tried it, or if the tried it it didn’t work?

I think a less ambitious strategy would definitely increase the odds of success – it prevents over-extension, allows you to concentrate your forces in a more defensible location and keeps your supply lines much shorter and less vulnerable to attack, and means you can avoid the hazards of the open deserts.

I do think it has been tried in the past, but the reason why it hasn’t worked very well is that they weren’t able to divide the enemy against itself. The Yronwoods aren’t about to ally with the Dondarrions, because after thousands of years of war between the two Houses, they’re not going to trust one another. Likewise, I would imagine there’s a lot of bad blood between the Gardeners and the Daynes and Fowlers. 

I’ve always wondered this. From previous statements in your Volantis essays, you make it seem that the Dothraki will unite behind Daenerys and she will overthrow Volantis. The question I have is would this not go against economic sense. The Dothraki are integral to the slave trade in Essos, being one of the larger suppliers of fresh slaves. By removing the demand for slaves would this not negatively affect them? Also, love the blog.

Glad you like the blog!

And yes, it’s going against economic sense. But when the manifestation of your nation’s prophecy of manifest destiny shows up, economic motives go out the window. 

Are the Tyrell/Dornish Marches in a constant state of semi-conflict, and if so who is the fighting between? Unaffiliated border reivers, like bandits or other criminal smallfolk? Or noble-funded/noble-led forces supplementing their income or waging vendettas?

Good question!

Given that GRRM based the Dornish Marches on the Scottish (and to a lesser extent, Welsh) Marches and their long and bloody history of reiving, I would say yes, although to a lesser extent than was the case before Dorne was incorporated into the realm.

In terms of who the fighting is being done by…reivers did not tend to be unaffiliated. Rather, you had a hierarchy of reiving “families” (who combined both actual family members and non-related members) from the very small who paid tribute in return for the protection of the larger families. So among the Daynes, the Blackmonts, the Mullendores, the Peakes, the Tarlys, Carons, Fowlers, Manwoodys, Yronwoods, Wyls, Dondarrions, Swanns, etc. I would imagine quite a few of their bannermen, and their bannermen’s bannermen and so on are reivers. 

In terms of the forms of conflict, you’d see a wide range from livestock raiding to reprisal raiding to protection rackets to blood vendettas to low-level warfare to full-scale warfare, carried out at various levels as bannermen call on their liege lords for protection and liege lords call their bannermen for military support.