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With regards to the negotiations Tywin had entered into to marry Jaime to Lysa Tully: “Lord Tywin … had gone so far as to invite Lord Hoster to the city to discuss dower.” – In these negotiations, which party would be negotiating from the strongest position (to what degree)? Would you agree with @JoannaLannister who thinks that Hoster had Tywin over a barrel? Thank You – RSAFan

Well, the fact that they’re talking about dower for Jaime vs. dowry for Lysa suggests that Hoster had the upper hand. I think @joannalannister makes some good points about Tywin not having much room to run in the non-Southron Ambitions camp because of his poor relationship with Aerys. Now, if Aerys died and Rhaegar became king, I think he could make a play to lead the new regime and a marriage alliance could help with that. 

The only thing that I would suggest differenty is that there must have been some eligible Tyrells, surely. 15+ years ago, was Janna married to Jon Fossoway or Mina to Paxter Redwyne, and there must have been an unmarried cousin. 

Re. the Bearded Priests: Are you certain that the Norvosi magisters elected by the BP are from a commercial caste of nobility (Doesn’t the Upper and Lower cities of Norvos suggest a divide along different lines then just financial wealth?) and do you think this had any effect on Mellario’s reception in Sunspear’s court as the future princess of Dorne (ala Larra Rogare post-Dance)? TY.

Magisters are the wealthy and powerful of the Free Cities, which given the nature of the Free Cities’ economies overwhelmingly means merchants:

The true authority [of Lorath] resides with a council of magisters made up of nobles, priests, and merchants. Its isolation meant that the Lorathi were little involved in the events of the Century of Blood, save for those few who sold their swords to Braavos or Norvos.

[The Three Daughters] are mercantile cities, protected by high walls and hired sellswords, dominated by wealth rather than birth, cities where trade is considered a more honorable profession than arms. Lys and Myr are ruled by conclaves of magisters, chosen from amongst the wealthiest and noblest men of the city; Tyrosh is governed by an archon, selected from amongst the members of a similar conclave…

Her father, Lysandro Rogare, was the head of a wealthy banking family whose power waxed even greater following the alliance to the Targaryens. Lysandro assumed the style of First Magister for Life, and men spoke of him as Lysandro the Magnificent….Lysandro’s heir, Lysaro, spent vast sums in pursuit of power and fell afoul of the other magisters….

How do the Bearded Priests project power/influence to the outer limits of Norvos’ demesne (referring to the Upper Royne to the west and the Axe/Darkwash to the east of the Noyne valley): Through centrally elected magisters dispatched from Norvos (ala Valyrian Freehold) or through satellite sects located in these far flung regions electing their own magisters/rulers? TY

In Norvos, the magisters are carefully selected by the priesthood, maintaining the priesthood’s authority but creating the facade of a balance of power between themselves and the commercial nobility.

I would imagine that their peripheral holdings are probably run the same way – an archon selected by the priesthood from among the council of magisters, but ultimately answerable to the local parish priest who reports back to the temple at Norvos. 

Follow-up to my ‘potential biography on any Asoiaf character’ question. Why would you choose Septon Barth as your subject ? Is it because he himself is a compelling figure or because of the dragon knowledge he has or because of the interesting people he worked with? Or a combination of all of the above? Thanks, greatly enjoy all the insight!

 All three. He was probably the best Hand of the King ever, so there’s a lot to talk about how Westeros works as a political institution. He was also a scholar with unparalleled knowledge of the secrets of the Children of the Forest, the Others, and the Dragons, so he’s probably the best person to talk to about the metaphysical metaplot. And he was also the lifelong confidant of Jaehaerys and would have known him and his family very well indeed. 

So with apologies to @poorquentyn, I’m going to go with Westeros’ Most Interesting Man over the later wannabe. 

Is the three hides of land offered to each of Gregor’s men by Ser Bonifer a fair reward for their military service?

Three hides of land is a good bit – it’s a bit below a “knight’s fee” which was usually five or more hides, but a single hide enought to support one family, or 30 modern acres. So each of Gregor’s men gets 90 acres of land, which would put them solidly in the ranks of the yeoman – below the knight but above the knave, as it were. 

Ok, then what is your estimate on the numbers each side brought into play on Stepstones? Also regarding your point about the Disputed Lands being a potential recruiting pool for the Nine, doesn’t AWoIaF state its pretty desolate nowadays( btw I agree with you that this fact doesn’t make much sense) ?

Well, I don’t agree with the Disputed Lands being desolate – classical or Renaissance city-states cannot survive without a rural hinterland to feed them, because you can’t feed a population of that size solely through imports with the limited transportation technologies available at the time. I’m sure the Disputed Lands get ravaged by armies all the time, but so was rural Italy during the wars of the Renaissance and they were still producing crops (indeed, a big part of the reason they were being ravaged is that they had crops to feed armies with).

I would guess ~40,000-50,000 on each side, making it a significant war by the standards of the First Blackfyre Rebellion or Robert’s Rebellion. 

Any estimate on the numbers involved in the War of the NinePenny Kings? Also since the West alone supplied 11k men, and the Ironborn contributed 100 longships which should account for 4-5k men, how do you think the Band of 9 was able to fight on even grounds with the Westerosi for so long? Afterall other than the 10K strong Golden Company, other mercenary formations are usually 1-2k strong at most, and Tyrosh doesn’t have any significant land army we know of.

I wouldn’t agree with “Tyrosh doesn’t have any significant land army we know of.” The Free Cities largely rely on mercenaries, but they have armies of their own, and they aren’t limited to hiring one mercenary company at a time. 

Keep in mind that at the time of the War of Ninepenny Kings, the Band of Nine had conquered the whole of the Disputed Lands in addition to Tyrosh, so their power was not limited to the one city-state. 

About the taxation calculations, you’d said average yearly incomes to be about 3-5 dragons for the average person. Could you tell me how you arrived at that figure? Given that a proper warhorse in times of war costs approximately 1 dragon (Jaime’s estimate in ASOS), annual income of 3-5 dragons seems rather overly generous.

I took it from here:

The stableman gave him three gold pieces and the rest in silver. Dunk bit one of the gold coins and smiled. He had never tasted gold before, nor handled it…the heft of all that coin in his pouch made him feel queer; almost giddy on one hand, and anxious on the other. The old man had never trusted him with more than a coin or two at a time. He could live a year on this much money. (Hedge Knight)

So according to Dunk, 750 silver or three and a half gold (which he got for selling one horse, btw) is a good year’s income for a smallfolk like himself. 

And since we see that a heavy meal of “lamb…as good as any he had ever eaten, and the duck was even better, cooked with cherries and lemons and not near as greasy as most. The innkeep brought buttered pease as well, and oaten bread still hot from her oven,” plus four tankards of ale works out to a handful of copper (when a loaf of bread costs three coppers normally) less than a silver, we can begin to get a sense of what kind of standard of living one could have one two silvers a day. 

The reason why I took five gold as the high end is that the Hedge Knight happened a hundred years prior to the present of ASOIAF, and you would have gotten some inflation over that period.

But let’s take Jaime’s example: a fine warhorse works out to anywhere between a third and a fifth of a yearly income for a smallfolk – taking the average income in the U.S today, that horse is worth about $9,000-15,000 – which is pretty high, considering that the “American Association of Equine Practitioners estimates the minimum annual cost of owning a healthy horse — not including stabling costs — to be at least $2,500.”