Noting your comments that subspear is too far for an annual progress, would Robert have even survived a trip to Dornr with less than a full court?

Sunspear is too far for a normal progress of 2-3 months, but it’s not too far for an annual progress. Aerys II visited Dorne in 270 AC, after all. However, I would guess that it’s more likely that the trip was done by ship (10 days on average) rather than on horse (almost seven months).

Shouldn’t Baelor had of effectively abdicated himself in having the High Septon dissolve his marriage to Daena AND become a septon himself? Let’s say Viserys is a different man – how il/legal would it be for him to depose his nephew in a bloodless coup (just let Baelor do his thing without kingly power), especially considering Baelor’s antics in Dorne and his extremism (like imprisoning his sisters on top of aforementioned) upon returning to KL?

That’s a good question. You’d think if Baelor was such a holy man who wanted nothing to do with the secular world, he would have abdicated in favor of one of his relatives. Indeed, the fact that he refused to conssumate his marriage a year before he was crowned would suggest that he was already going in that direction.

However, when Baelor takes the throne in 161, his immediate goal is peace with Dorne and in order to accomplish that, he has to be king. So at least during his treck through Dorne, he accepted that his royal status was a necessary evil. Then he goes into the snake pit and things go a little out of control.

After he wakes up from his coma, Baelor is pretty firmly of the belief that the monarchy now exists to push his spiritual agenda – starting with the dissolution of his marriage and taking septon’s vows, then imprisoning his sisters, then banishing sex workers from King’s Landing, then building the Sept which he saw in a vision. As WOIAF says, “the king’s edicts were becoming more concerned with spiritual matters at the expense of the material.”

If Robert should’ve traveled more across the Seven Kingdoms, settling disputes and dispensing justice, how would he go about it (logistically speaking)? What places does he travel to? In what order? How frequently does he do these progresses?

warsofasoiaf:

Well, it’s tough to determine the exact frequency, because there was never a kingdom as large as the Seven Kingdoms are in the medieval era, but he should follow the mode of Aegon I, visiting the major cities to include the North, guesting in the castles of Lords Paramount, both receiving gifts from and bestowing lavish gifts upon his host, stirring up patronage of craftsmen. An active king stresses the royal presence.

Ideally, you’d also get rid of Littlefinger and have a Master of Coin who actually has the realm’s finances at heart too, but ideally, he should make a circuit of the kingdom (as long as it’s summer, of course) in his first ten years or so. @racefortheironthrone, would you have a better idea of how often he should do it? I’m at a loss when Westeros is as large as it is.

EIDT: To clarify, he wouldn’t make one circuit, it would more like, visit this place, then return, visit another place, then return. Key places to visit would be the Eyrie, Storm’s End, and Casterly Rock, with Riverrun being a nice and convenient stop.

Thanks for the question, Too High.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

Well, let’s take Henry VIII as our jumping off point. Henry VIII went on royal progress every summer, from around August through October. The royal party would travel around 10 miles a day, and would stay in various residences in between for anywhere from a night to a fortnight. So let’s do some basic math: 92 days at around 10 miles a day makes for a maximum of 920 miles travelled, although obviously longer stays are going to knock off some good bit of those miles.

Now, how far does that get you in Westeros?

Storm’s End: 385 miles from King’s Landing.
Casterly Rock: 830 miles from King’s Landing.
Riverrun: 655 miles from King’s Landing.
Highgarden: 760 miles from King’s Landing.

So you could reasonably do a progress to most of the south on an annual basis, weather permitting. Trips to Winterfell (2,010 miles from King’s Landing) or Oldtown (1,305 miles) or Sunspear (2,055 miles from King’s Landing) are not within the normal scape, but as we see from AGOT are possible.

If(?) the Order of the Green Hand predates the arrival of the Andals and their knighthood, do you think that Barrow knights could have similarly evolved from a group sworn to the First Kings of Barrowton, only later becoming “knights”? – RSAFan

There’s a couple of possibilities. The first, and most likely, is that the Order of the Green Hand post-dated the Andal invasion, since the Gardeners from whose sigil it drew its name managed to thrive during that invasion. The second is that the Order was previously a group of “sworn swords” similar to Northern cavalry, and adopted the trappings of chivalry after the Andals.

As for the barrow knights, there are also a couple possibilities. The first is as you suggest. The second is that the term barrow knight is used similar to “hedge knight,” indicating an independent mounted warrior of the barrowlands who made their holdfasts in the artificial hills. Indeed, given the real-world use of the term to describe prospectors and archaelogists who dig in prehistorical barrows, it might be a derogatory term similar to “hedge knight,” indicating a warrior whose wealth and position comes from robbing the tombs of the dead. The third is that GRRM likes to play as the Vampire Counts from Warhammer Fantasy.

what fraction of a medieval army can be described as well trained ? the bolton have 4k men and they seems very good at all….

Wildly varies by time and place.

If we’re talking the Saxon army at Hastings, there was a huge difference between the men of the fyrd, who were farmers called up in times of emergency, and the huscarls, who were professional soldiers.

On the other hand, if we’re talking about the mercenary companies of the 14th century, those were entirely professional forces.

What changes in tactics caused medieval armies to deploy in three “battles” during a field engagement? What made this tactically effective? Also, where was the vanguard, and why was it located where it was?

Having discussed this with @warsofasoiaf and doing a bunch of research, my conclusion is that the three battles formation isn’t an issue of tactical effectiveness as much as an organizational issue, whereas something like the flying wedge (which maximized the effectiveness of a knightly charge in forcing a breakthrough in the enemy line) or a shield-wall (which was both an excellent defensive tactic especially for armies relying on less experienced and less well-equipped forces) were tactical in nature.

The advantage of the three “battles” is that it’s a very simple organizational structure, which makes it well-suited to armies made up of feudal levies with relatively little experience of fighting together compared to standing armies. More sophisticated organizational forms require a good deal of coordination, which means you need an officer corps to make sure that all the different parts function. The Roman legion’s famed flexibility on the field, for example, would never have been possible without an elaborate officer corps of optios, centurions, military tribunes, etc. who were given wide discretion in the field to ensure that these kind of complex formations worked:

By contrast, a three-battle system didn’t need that level of complex organization – you had your overall general, your two or three commanders, and the men under them. The three battles had set locations (the vanguard at the front of the column or at the right of the line, the middle in the middle, and the rear-guard at the end of the column and on the far left) and set responsibilities that everyone knew ahead of time (the vanguard was responsible for scouting and foraging, the rearguard covered retreats, etc.) which meant that you didn’t need very good communication and coordination, and they were also political prizes that generals could dole out to reward their vassals (the vanguard being the place of honor).

Could Harrenhal become a city, ruled by a Council of Merchants, in order to avoid the curse and make it financially viable?

warsofasoiaf:

Doubtful. What made Harrenhal a “thin place” was the collective weight of the atrocities committed by Black Harren, and the mass death of Aegon burning the hold down. A lot of this is guesswork since we don’t have a full breakdown of magic and metaphysics for the world, but in fiction, these sorts of places are created when the evils committed there bleed out and blight the very landscape, crackling the fundamental nature of reality as it exists in the world. It doesn’t matter whether it’s linking the world to another one where the rules don’t apply, or angry ghosts haunt the area never resting. As we see it in Planetos, this happens in areas of mass death and suffering. Old Valyria with its Doom, the empire propped up through slavery and blood magic being obliterated in a massive cataclysm, or Harrenhal through atrocity and bondage perishing in flames, and what we might be in for with Euron’s holy blood magic ritual and the vision of the burning ships on a bloody sea that we see in “The Forsaken.”

And if literature is any judge, anyone who tries to outsmart the curse tends to fall to it all the same. Regardless, I don’t think a change in governmental style will matter much to the hungry Harrenhal.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

Also, if you’re going to build a city in the area, expanding Lord Harroway’s Town makes *much* more sense.