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Given that the Ironborn attack on the North had clearly been in the works for several months by the time Theon returned home, do you think Balon probably started plotting it when Ned rode south?

In a passive sense, I think he’d been planning it from the moment he bent the knee to Robert Baratheon.

In an active sense, I think he’d been organizing his attack the moment that fighting broke out between Lannisters and Starks. 

Which of the following acts by Viserys would have prevented the Dance, or if some conflict was inevitable, would have tilted too heavily to one side for the fighting to get very far: 1. Sending Daemon to the Wall after the virginity thing, or the stepstones or Laena, anytime before wed Rhaenyra 2 marrying Laena 3 not marrying & just having a mistress 4 Making Daemon hand after Strong died 5 making Corlys Hand after Strong 6 keeping Rhaenyra at court and Aegon & Helaena on Dragonstone

  1. I think there would still be a civil war, but Rhaenrya wouldn’t have Daemon as her champion, although possibly the civil war is between Viserys and Daemon, because I don’t think Daemon goes willingly. 
  2. Unless his marriage with Laena did not produce a male heir, I think you’d still get a civil war but with House Velaryon on both sides. 
  3. Yes. 
  4. I think there would still be a civil war, but Rhaenrya would have more of an edge.
  5. I think there would still be a civil war, but Rhaenrya would have more of an edge.

Do you think that the Sparrows’ rise in the Feastdance is the Westerosi Reformation, or is Martin doing something else with them?

GRRM has referenced the Reformation, but there are other examples of class-infused religious movements: John Ball during the Great Peasant Revolt of 1381, the Lollards and the Oldcastle Revolt, the Hussite Wars of the 15th century, the Cathars of the Albigensian Crusade, and the German Peasants’ War (which was actually condemned by Martin Luther, and then supported by the Anabaptists), etc. 

Was the expectation of a Hand of the King’s family to move entirely to King’s Landing? If Rickon had been older when Ned got his job offer, would all the Starks move to KL with Ned (sans Robb who is to remain a heir of Winterfell?) Would Rickob or Bran be required to stay back with Robb? How does the whole “always a Stark in Winterfell” plays out then when Robb has to leave to war if he is the only Stark left behind?

To answer this, let’s look at what the original plan was vis-a-vis the Stark’s move:

Ned stood, and took her in his arms, and held her face close to his. “Rickon is very young,” he said gently. “He should stay here with you and Robb. The others I would take with me.”

“I could not bear it,” Catelyn said, trembling.

“You must,” he said. “Sansa must wed Joffrey, that is clear now, we must give them no grounds to suspect our devotion. And it is past time that Arya learned the ways of a southron court. In a few years she will be of an age to marry too.“

Sansa would shine in the south, Catelyn thought to herself, and the gods knew that Arya needed refinement. Reluctantly, she let go of them in her heart. But not Bran. Never Bran. "Yes,” she said, “but please, Ned, for the love you bear me, let Bran remain here at Winterfell. He is only seven.”

“I was eight when my father sent me to foster at the Eyrie,” Ned said. “Ser Rodrik tells me there is bad feeling between Robb and Prince Joffrey. That is not healthy. Bran can bridge that distance. He is a sweet boy, quick to laugh, easy to love. Let him grow up with the young princes, let him become their friend as Robert became mine. Our House will be the safer for it.”

So the original plan was that Robb would be the Stark in Winterfell, Rickon was too young to travel, and Catelyn should stay to advise Robb and mother Rickon, but that Sansa and Arya would go south to be wed and Bran would be at court as a companion to princes.

With the 100 year anniversary of the Great Wars end I’ve been reading up on that cataclysm and couldn’t help but wonder why westeros didn’t have a system like Austria-Hungary’s dual monarchy but with six, then seven kingdoms (Sept-monarchy?), where various regions had more autonomy. Or is that what they actually have with the lords paramount? Just curious if you see any parallels, thanks!

Westeros has some similarities, what with the seven Lords Paramount and the tradition, for at least a time, of the Targaryens accepting existing laws of each of the kingdoms. 

Hello, People who don’t have maesters are seen as if they were not important. (Barbey Dustin) Aside from smallfolk who else would likely not be able to get or have a maester? The Dornish? They are the rivals of the Reach. The Iron Islands? Quellon just imported them. The North? Thanks.

The Dornish have certainly had maesters for some time, at least as long as the Targaryen conquest, so I doubt they’d have none.

The Iron Islands is tricky. WOIAF doesn’t say that Quellon was the first Ironborn to bring in maesters necessarily, just that he brought in dozens of them. My guess is that Harmund the Host probably was the first Ironborn to bring in maesters, but that they didn’t stick around due to the Shrike’s rebellion and the war of the Famine Winter. (Similar to how Balon banished maesters from his court.)

The North has had maesters for at least 500 years, based on the maesters’ records at White Harbor. It’s probably been longer than that, because there were maesters at the Wall since the Feast of Skane. If I had to guess, I’d say that maesters have been in the North at least since the Manderlys came from the Reach, so at least the last 1000 years.

Beyond regions, I think it comes down to the bottom reaches of the nobility, the least lords, poor landed knights, and the like, who couldn’t afford the fees. 

So Maesters get paid for their services? I always thought of them as being a bit like largely secular priests, like those who served as advisers, educators, and administrators for minor and major lords in Medieval and Renaissance Europe. If they do get paid, I expect some of what they’re paid goes straight to the citadel rather than to the maester himself?

In a recent post you mentioned lords paying for the services of a maester. Did they actually pay a stated fee, make a “not so voluntary” contribution to the citadel, or just pay for the maester’s upkeep? Did the citadel “sell” maesters with a higher ‘gpa’ for more? That quote really turned the gears in my head and got me wondering and I would love to hear a follow-up, thanks!

According to a So Spake Martin:

4. How does the Citadel get financed? 

Lords pay for the service of the Maesters and the Citadel collects some of the revenue of Oldtown via taxes.

So the lords have to pay the Citadel to receive the service of a maester, and they also have to provide for the maester’s upkeep (I doubt that maesters have personal incomes, given their vows, but they undoubtedly have budgets to pay for necessary supplies like medicines, paper and ink, and the like). We don’t know exactly what the terms of these agreements are; however, it stands to reason that that lesser lords don’t have the same ability to pay as the Great Houses, so the fees probably aren’t uniform. 

We also can tell how many areas of expertise various maesters have (and how deep their expertise goes by the number of links of each kind of metal): Luwin has a relatively short chain, but he knows history, healing, herblore, ravenry, architecture, astronomy, and the higher mysteries (which is pretty rare); Pycelle has multiple links in ten different subjects (including warcraft, mathematics, ravenry, medicine, astronomy, history, but noticeably not the higher mysteries) indicating extensive expertise in a number of areas; Aemon has multiple links in medicine and either math and economics or whatever red gold indicates, as well as warcraft, ravenry, and a number of other subjects. 

Beyond that is supposition: I would assume that these additional services are more in demand by the Great Houses, since they have need of more complicated services (if you only have the one castle, you probably don’t need a maester who knows how to design castles; if you’re the lord paramount of a kingdom, you might well need a maester to design new castles for you), and they have a higher expectation for the education of their children. Moreover, since maesters with more subjects on their chain means acolytes spending more years being trained at the expense of the Citadel, I would imagine the Citadel would charge more for their services.