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whats your thoughts on house osgrey?

An interesting portrait of a noble family sliding into genteel poverty, trapped by their fixation on the past and a quixotic cause.

Their fall from grace, from being Marshalls of the Northmarch, where their status clearly was founded on the need for a military presence on the Reach’s border with the Westerlands during the era of seven kingdoms, with four castles, twenty vassal houses, and 100 landed knights, to a mere landed knight with nothing more than a tower to die in, is very reminiscent of how downward mobility worked for the nobility in the Medieval and Early Modern periods.

If they were a different kind of house, more practical and political, they might have righted themselves by marrying into a rich merchant house, using the capital to invest in Dosk, Little Dosk, and Brandybottom, try to make themselves a going concern in the winemaking, brewing, and distilling industries, like House Redwyne on a smaller scale.

But no, they had to be all about Coldmoat. 

Why do you think bloodraven stayed loyal to daeron? Loyalty? Or he just couldn’t be on the same side as bittersteel?

Well, we still need more data, but my guess is that A. he felt loyal to Daeron for saving him and his mom back in the day, B. he distrusted Bittersteel and his followers who were surrounding Daemon, and C. he may have thought that, whatever his own personal feelings about Daemon and Daeron, that Daeron was better suited to be king. 

What do you think about the “Northern cavalry” compared to traditional Knights? Luwin mentions them specifically as being distinct to the north’s small number of knights. Particularly how they manage to equal southern knights as heavy cavalry despite that they don’t come from a knightly class the would allow them to afford armor and horses and servants and the north does not hold tournaments for them to train. do they have a historical equivalent?

They come from a very similar class: “those lords and their sons and sworn swords.” So they afford armor and horses and servants because they are noblemen or they are in service to noblemen. And while they don’t do jousting tourneys, the North has a strong tradition of melees. 

As for historical equivalents – think of the Anglo-Saxon Housecarls up against Norman knights in the Battle of Hastings (although they were footsoldiers), or the Varangian Guard.   

I agree with your thesis on the non-stasis of Westeros’ political/technological evolution, yet to me it seems that the naval warfare, especially Narrow Sea galley combat is lacking far behind the curve. From what I’ve read, galley warfare, after the Classical Period, switched from ramming tactics to using the ships as mobile fighting platforms (missiles, then boarding sorties). Is this accurate and, IF SO, why didn’t GRRM incorporate this into his story? Thank You – RSAFan

warsofasoiaf:

Well, I think part of the reason is that we never see fleets actually used in that fashion because we never see any naval-to-naval combat in the series at large. Major fleet action is at the Battle of the Blackwater, but that’s not vessel-to-vessel combat, and the only real exclusively naval battle is Fair Isle, which we never get a full description of, though I believe it to be remarkably similar to the Battle of Salamis. The upcoming battle off the Isle of Pigs looks to have some supernatural mojo taking place which is going to be a far different beast entirely.

Commonly, the ships that the royal fleet would be facing would either be Ironborn or Essosi pirate vessels. Against the smaller ships of the ironborn, missiles would be great, but burning pots of pitch and thatch would be even better, as would using the larger size and bulk to their advantage. After all, longboats really aren’t useful prizes to the royal fleet, save perhaps as wood for repairs, so just punching a hole in the boat and leaving the ironborn to drown would be good enough. As for pirates, well, a large pirate warship like the Valyrian would probably face more conventional galley tactics.

Thanks for the question, RSA-Fan.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

I find this confusing – we’ve seen ships crowded with archers and siege engines, we’ve seen boarding parties, what are you missing?

Also, with longboats, you don’t even need to ram them to sink them. They’re so low in the water compared to a galley that a galley can simply swamp them by sailing right over them. 

Maester Steven, I was curious as to your opinion on whether or not squires, with their own mounts, are counted among the armies in Westeros along with the knights, making up the heavy cavalry of an army. So when we say, “Lord Tywin had 2000 heavy horse at battle X” does this include those squires or simply knights? If not, what do squires do once battle commences? Love the blog!

Squires definitely fight, and they are generally counted: 

“Ser Wylis and his brother Ser Wendel followed, leading their levies, near fifteen hundred men: some twenty-odd knights and as many squires.”