Category: Uncategorized

Sorry, another question. Where/why/how did medieval cities tend to develop?

There’s a huge literature on this, and there’s no one right answer, but…

Where – Medieval Cities developed around pre-existing (usually Roman) cities or settlements, cathedrals and other centers of worship, major castles/the courts of kings and major nobles, significant points on rivers, roads, and passes, and ports. 

Why – usually to offer specialized goods and services to a place where permanent or steady demand existed. So at cathedrals you get stonemasons, makers of stained-glass-windows, candlemakers, etc. And those people in turn need brewers and bakers and butchers, etc. Nobles need smiths, tailors, clothmakers, clerks, lawyers, moneylenders, etc. And so and so forth.

How – usually a combination of the gradual accretion of population and the acquisition of a charter. 

With a decade long summer ended <2 years previous & even with effects of the Wot5K (which they were neutral during though), is it fair to say that the debt of some Vale Houses (Grafton, Waynwood) in AFfC is excessive? Why & how is this is the case – surely LF's shady economics had some influence on the debts & if so, do you think he actively sought such?

Debt depends on the relationship of spending to income, with assets taken into consideration. In the case of House Waynwood, it seems to be the case that they have been living above their means in order to maintain the “manner to which [they] have become accustomed.” As Catelyn notes, the Waynwoods are known for ceremony – which requires a show of splendor to reflect the status of the house, regardless of whether you can afford it.

In the case of House Grafton, they backed the wrong side in Robert’s Rebellion and got their city sacked. And while Robert was known for being forgiving, as Lord of the Vale and Hand of the King, Jon Arryn would have extracted a hefty penalty for their disloyalty to him. 

(a) What event do you think influenced the gradual decline in Volantis’ fortune the most? Destruction of the Rhoynar city-states, Doom of Valyria, Wars and subsequent expulsion from the Disputed Lands, Dothraki Raids in the Century of Blood, (any other you may think of?)… (b) Dany’s squashing of the Volantene slave trade will trigger a resettlement of the northern Rhoyne?

A. Their defeat in the Century of Blood. Volantis invested everything it had in trying to recreate the Valyrian empire and it lost everything. 

B. Maybe? It depends on how the freedmen and their neighbors respond to emancipation. 

I’m not sure if it’s canon, but in Game of Thrones: A Telltale Game Series the master of arms of House Forrester gained his position by developing and enacting a plan to drive the Ironborn out of Sea Dragon Point during the Greyjoy rebellion. For what exact strategic purposes would the Ironborn seize this peninsula?

It’s by the sea, which means it’s accessible to their longships. And a peninsula, unlike regular coastline, offers a natural bottleneck which can mitigate the Ironborn’s natural weakness in numbers. 

How do you envision a time skip in the series would have played out if GRRM had somehow managed it?

That’s a good question. From what we can tell from his comments, the main drive of the five-year gap was to skip the bildungsroman section of Arya’s, Bran’s, and Sansa’s stories specifically. 

In this fashion, GRRM could use flashbacks to do a training montage that explains how Arya became a badass assassin, Bran became a greenseer/shaman/wizard ‘arry, and Sansa became a Machiavellian politician, without having to spend a lot of time describing the incremental process of maturation in detail.

It would also have changed their ages. Arya would re-enter the narrative as a 16-year old, Bran as a 15-year old, and Sansa as a 19-year old. This obviously would change what kind of stories he could tell about them: 15-16 is still a pretty young adolescent, but within the world of ASOIAF Robb Stark was King in the North at their age, so the reader would be more accepting of them changing the course of world events. Likewise, as adolescents, anything having to do with sexuality would feel very very different than it would without the gap. 

The problem, as GRRM found out, is that the gap doesn’t work as well for everyone else who isn’t those three characters, sending them on Odysseus-like extended sojourns where they would inescapably experience extended character stagnation. Tyrion’s drunken depression works in ADWD because (for him) it’s right after he’s killed his father and his lover – it would wear much much more thin if it had been five years. Jon and Daenerys’ ultimate failure as leaders make sense if they’re adolescents who have no experience in government and came to power way too early, it doesn’t work for people in their 20s who’ve been ruling their respective kingdoms for five years. 

So overall, I think he made the right call. If I were to have advised GRRM, I would have said it’s a lot easier to go back to your earlier books and do a find and replace on the ages of your younger characters, adjust your timeline a bit, so do that instead.

On your Dornish economic plan, how long would it take to pull the Torrentine into that valley and make it fertile? One generation, two? Your plans are great but can be undercut by having stupid kids (Quellon, Viserys II, etc) seeing the desert bloom and a forest of acacia rising up agaist the red sands has a dramatic effect.

At least a generation, and likely more than one, although it’s likely an iterative process where you’re gradually diverting more and more water and pushing it out further and further, so it’s not like you only receive the benefits at the end of the process. 

But yes, that’s always a danger with elite-directed reform, especially in systems where political power is inherited. Unlike more broad-based systems, where you have institutions that can provide continuity of policy far longer than the span of a human life, you get these sudden and often wrenching changes when there’s a change in personnel (as it were).