Whom do you think would have bought the High Septon’s vestments when the High Sparrow sold them? I mean, what does one DO with such things, since I don’t think there’s much call yet for a museum exhibit of late third century Westerosi clerical finery? The only thing I can think of is that the HS got ripped off, since the only motive to buy those things would be to get the materials (gold, silk, crystals) at a steep discount.

“My lord father gave your predecessor a crown of rare beauty, wrought in crystal and spun gold.”
“And for that gift we honor him in our prayers,” the High Septon said, “but the poor need food in their bellies more than we need gold and crystal on our head. That crown has been sold. So have the others in our vaults, and all our rings, and our robes of cloth-of-gold and cloth-of-silver. Wool will keep a man as warm. That is why the Seven gave us sheep.” (Cersei VI, AFFC)

The cloth-of-gold and cloth-of-silver would sell like any other fabric; prior to the advent of mass-produced cloth, it was quite common to break down old clothing for “parts” and for those parts to be sold without much of a markdown. Silk is silk, after all…

Ditto, the rings would seem to be pretty fungible in the jewelry market. I think you’re correct that the crowns would be a little bit more of a niche product, but there have to be enough wealthy devout people around looking for a relic. And at the end of the day, just having them around was a decent way of storing wealth.

What do you think it means that a background guy like Gyles Rosby, who has had no direct involvement in government to date, is all over Littlefinger’s shenanigans, to the point that the very first policy he comes up with upon being asked to be MoC, he wants LF’s men gone, full stop, not even checking if they’re willing to play on Team Rosby? Is he a lot sharper than anyone thought, but tragically unnoticed, or is Littlefinger’s malfeasance actually common knowledge to court observers?

I think you’re over-thinking things a little. Gyles Rosby wants to replace Littlefinger’s men because he wants to be able to make new patronage appointments.

Do you think other petty kingdoms had their own bastard names, which got replaced as they were annexed? Like, did they really call all ironborn bastards “Pyke” even when the Hoares were ruling? Why would the ancient kingdoms of Oldtown or the Arbor use Flowers, which was a little too much like their neighboring realms’ imagery(actually, it seems more Tyrell than Gardner; wouldn’t Hand or something similar make more sense for a Kingdom of the Reach)? Or coastal valemen & stony Dornish?

It’s possible, custom does change over time, but I don’t think so.

Flowers makes sense to me – flowers grow a lot all over the Reach, so why would the Hightowers or Redwynes have an issue with it, especially since as you say it’s not associated with the Gardeners. Also, why would the Gardeners want it associated with them – none of the bastard names are similar to the names of Great Houses past or present, after all.

Pyke is a bit odd, but my No Prize explanation is that it was chosen for the fish and not for the island, since being named after the island A. would insult the residents of said island, and B. wouldn’t particularly appeal to residents of the other Iron Islands. Whereas there’s lots of fish in the sea, as it were.

As for coastal Valemen, I’m fairly sure they’ve got lots of stones there too. Ditto, there’s probably sand up in the Red Mountains.

You seem to be very into the idea of rights and freedom, but your economic development essays, while very interesting, seem a bit (not go around applying ideological labels) redolent of central planning and a certain how shall I say Make-the-trains-run-on-time vibe? Would you really do stuff like that if you were a Lord Paramount, or is it just a thought exercise on what might be the best thing to do if the people were 100% on board?

Well, this is a first; haven’t been called a fascist in an ask before. (And no, the cutesy, “I won’t put a label on it” attitude doesn’t make it any less offensive.) I’m going to be charitable and assume that you’re coming from a rather blinkered perspective where all forms of economic planning are considered signs of totalitarianism. I’m also going to assume that you’re fairly new to my work, and haven’t picked up on the fact that I’m a Jewish social democrat; I don’t particularly hide either fact.

So allow me to clarify:

There are many frameworks of thinking about rights and freedoms, especially in an economic context. Libertarianism is not the only one, nor (IMO) is it the best one, especially for this particular topic. A lot of big name libertarians – Robert Nozick, Walter Block, Murray Rothbard, etc. – got themselves tied up in knots specifically on the point of feudalism and similar systems of private coercion, due to how they’d previously defined freedom and oppression, public and private, etc.
Economic planning is not inherently totalitarian and there are many forms of economic planning which have been pursued in liberal democracies – democratic economic planning (where geographic or economic groups of people vote on economic objectives; a good example of this is the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, where farmers were supposed to vote on production levels in order to achieve necessary swings in prices); tripartite planning (where economic stakeholders – usually labor groups and business groups, but often including government as well, and sometimes including consumer groups – are invited to negotiate on wages, working conditions, prices, and other economic objectives), indicative planning (where the state uses soft targets for economic objectives and then uses incentives like finance, subsidies, taxation, and “jawboning” to influence private sector behavior), Keynesian demand management (which usually refers to counter-cyclical fiscal and monetary policymaking; although notably Keynes himself argued that investment would have to be socialized…), to name a few.
Political ideas especially have to be discussed in historical context, because they usually don’t make sense or couldn’t function outside of that context. As I’ve complained in the past, it doesn’t make much sense to ask what political party any ASOIAF character would belong to, because they’re all (with the exception of Davos) medieval aristocrats who don’t have any concept of a modern mass democracy. Ditto, it doesn’t make sense to try to slap a fascist label on an imaginary Lord Paramount because the key elements of historical context – an industrialized economy, mass media, the rise of the nation-state and nationalism, cultural reactions to new forms of “modernity,” etc. – aren’t present.

I’m struggling with the concept that Cersei’s children would be killed if the truth of their parentage was known, particularly in the context of a society accustomed to Royal incest. Ned wanted them to live – is his objection to killing children that rare? Do the faith practise forgiveness – the children did not sin themselves-if so would they offer to take them in? On a related note, if Cersei hit her head and changed personality, would the children be equally threatened in the free cities?

The text is pretty clear on this point:

“She had seen enough of Robert Baratheon at Winterfell to know that the king did not regard Joffrey with any great warmth. If the boy was truly Jaime’s seed, Robert would have put him to death along with his mother, and few would have condemned him. Bastards were common enough, but incest was a monstrous sin to both old gods and new, and the children of such wickedness were named abominations in sept and godswood alike. The dragon kings had wed brother to sister, but they were the blood of old Valyria where such practices had been common, and like their dragons the Targaryens answered to neither gods nor men.” (emphasis mine)

Catelyn IV, ACOK

So I’d question whether Westeros is “a society accustomed to royal incest.” What they were accustomed to was treating the Targaryens as an exception to the role – although not without some sotto voce disgust (see Dunk’s reaction to Egg talking about his sisters in Sworn Sword) – and even that came after A. the Revolt of the Faithful, and B. the Targaryens marrying into other major families after the loss of the dragons, so as to reduce the frequency of incest.

Ned is positioned in AGOT as an exception to the rule – due to the traumatic loss of his family in Robert’s Rebellion and his unusual commitment to his code of honor – which we can see in the Small Council “debate” over assassinating a pregnant teenager where only he and noted idealist Barristan Selmy express a moral objection.

What if Robb did the show’s thing and sends only 2000 men against Tywin to the Green Fork and keeps Roose Bolton close to him? There is no second Stark army on the field, but everyone’s with Robb after the Whispering Woods in RIverrun.

cle-guy:

racefortheironthrone:

Interesting question!

I mean, there would still be a second Stark army in the field – namely, the ever-changing, ever-confusing Riverlands army.

The main difference is that rather than having one army of Northern and Riverlander horse, one army of Northern foot, and one army seemingly made up of Schrödinger’s cats, you’d have a Northern army of horse and foot and a Riverlands army of horse and foot.

My question is: can Roose Bolton still scheme with Tywin, and does the loss of a harrying force east of the Trident change Edmure’s calculus prior to the Battle of the Fords?

It’s a lot harder for Roose Bolton to do so under Robb’s eye as opposed to the commander of an independent force.

Edmure’s calculus would be changed significantly well beyond the Battle of the Fords’ immediate situation, as would Tywin’s.

Favorite sample chapter from TWOW?

That’s a genuinely hard choice. Either “Mercy” or the “Forsaken,” but they’re really primus inter pares.

How do you handle the more negative side of the fanbase, especially with regard with GRRM’s writing pace/quality and some more “morbid” thoughts?

Liberal use of the block function.

Was the historic contempyt for democracy based on the idea that it didint work or beacuse of the monarchs and elites hating the idea of losing power

Athens’ defeat in the Peloponnesian War obviously played a significant role.

But equally I think was the fact that a lot of the people who wrote about democracy afterwards came from aristocratic families and had personal reasons to badmouth the new poliitcal order.

A dance question : why did the Hightower vassals fight against their overlord ?

The feudal politics of the Dance gets very confusing in the Reach, where it does seem quite a bit like GRRM kind of picks houses at random, out of a need to ensure that the Hightower army doesn’t bulldoze its way to King’s Landing.

My No Prize theory is that the Hightower’s focus on royal politics in the reigns of Jaehaerys I, Viserys II, and Aegon II led them to neglect their home turf, leading to their vassals feeling disgruntled.