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Are Westerosi territories a bit too clean? I mean you have things like the Blackwoods and Brackens fighting over borders, but in medieval Europe weren’t inheritances and wars constantly wrecking organized borders? I’m thinking kind of how the Hapsburgs and Capets were constantly spreading or how the Angevin Kings ended up controlling Aquitane. You don’t really see things like the Royces inheriting White Harbor or the Reynes pursuing a claim on Harrenhal. I’d think some ambitious lord would try?

Well, given the scope of Westeros, it’s harder to say – we don’t know how compact or contiguous the lesser Houses’ lands are. 

But yes, it’s not very historically accurate for borders to be that cleanly defined, but on the other hand, if GRRM had gone the full Holy Roman Empire for his books, I don’t think people would like that. Way too complicated for new readers to pick up, and probably would distract from plot, theme, and character. 

Do the members of the small council (Master of Ships, Laws, Coin, Hand of the King, etc) draw a salary? Or maybe get some kind of break on taxes owed? Or does having such political influence make payment unnecessary?

I could have sworn I wrote about this before, but can’t find where I wrote it, so at the risk of repeating myself, I’ll do it again.

Yes, they probably get a salary, but probably not a large one in part because the Small Councilors are supposed to be noblemen who live off the incomes of their lands.  

If Westeros is like Medieval and Early-Modern England to any extent (and since GRRM is largely drawing from English history here it probably is), then there are salaries that come from working for the monarch, either in the private household or the government itself.

For example, Queen Elizabeth I’s laundress got paid 

£4 annually, plus another 

£6 to pay for livery (i.e, clothing with the queen’s sigil, her required uniform). Her Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, a high-ranking Privy Councilor charged with keeping the seal of England, got paid 

£919 pounds annually, and that was pretty good for the time.  

At the time, however, there was also a form of socially accepted bribery and kickbacks. As Lacey Baldwin Smith points out in The Elizabethan World:

“…no Elizabethan official ever received a salary that was commensurate with his position: the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal earned a stipend of 919 pounds a year; the Lord Admiral 200 pounds, and the principal secretary 100 pounds, but in 1601 all three posts were actually valued at approximately 3,000 pounds a year. Gratuities and fees for promoting a friend, urging a favor, giving information, and above all, for tapping and directing the bounty of the queen made up the difference…they were considered the legitimate perquisites of office in an age that regarded governmental posts as both public trusts and private sinecures.”

So chances are that the Master of Laws gets gratuities from people seeking to have their cases heard by the King, the Master of Ships from merchants or shipbuilders looking for business, etc. However, as we see with the case of Littlefinger and Janos Slynt, there are informal norms about what’s ok to do and what isn’t – Stannis recognizes that bribes happen, but treats selling officer positions in the Gold Cloaks as unacceptable; Littlefinger putting his own men in office is normal, but using public funds as his own investment bank is not. 

Might you make a section in the archive on your WordPress for odds and ends that don’t fit under any other sections? That way it’d be easier to track down the Tumblr questions you answer and articles like your “In Defense of Robb Stark” one.

That’s something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. Bit busy right now, but when I have a bit more free time, I might throw up a page for Tumblr Roundups and one-off essays. 

Why do you think Harrenhal was left without a lord between the end of the Dance and the Lothstons getting it in 251? From the royal family’s perspective, what could have been done with it?

Between 131 when Larys Strong was executed, and 151 when Lucas “the Pander” Lothston was made Lord of Harrenhal in exchange for marrying Falaena Stokeworth and probably claiming Jeyne as his own daughter, Harrenhal was royal property, just like Summerhall or Dragonstone or King’s Landing. 

Aegon III and his brother Viserys the Hand were probably focused on using Harrenhal’s revenues to help rebuild the royal finances – after all, while Tyland Lannister did send portions of the treasury to Casterly Rock, Oldtown, and the Iron Bank, we never find out what happened to that money and whether the crown got any of that back, and a lot got spent by both the greens and blacks during the war.

The year 131 and after was a bad time – the aftermath of the Dance, an especially hard and long winter, a Winter Fever epidemic, the political dysfunction of the regency, the Red Kraken raiding in the west, etc. When Aegon III took over in 136, his policy of “full bellies and dancing bears” would have required revenue to work, and someone as tight-fisted as Viserys would have looked to the incomes of Harrenhal as a way to make the books balance. 

By 151, there had been 20 years of recovery, and Viserys could afford to give away this royal favor to hush up his son’s indiscretions. 

Hi Steven! I wanted to ask something about Edric Storm what do you think Stannis had planned for him if he had won the Battle of Blackwater? Would he have legitimized Edric to shore up support or make him his heir since Renly died?

I think not. I think Catelyn was right, that Stannis wanted to parade Edric in front of the lords of the realm to show that Robert’s children looked like Robert and Cersei’s children don’t. 

As King, I don’t know what Stannis would do about the landholding question. Robert choosing to divide up King’s Landing, Dragonstone, and Storm’s End among the brothers was a particular idiosyncratic decision, and Stannis might well be more the type to hang onto them himself, or parcel them out to his children. 

I’m convinced by your argument that Dany’s arc (at least initially) is a messianic one, particularly paralleling the biblical story of Jesus. It struck me recently that the conception of each is very different: Jesus with the sinless virgin birth, while Dany was probably conceived when Aerys raped Rhaella after burning Qarlton Chelsted alive for opposing the wildfire plot. Do you think George had deconstruction in mind with this? Simple plot necessity?

Well, Dany’s arc is a prophetic one, and Jesus isn’t necessarily the only model. (Wandering through the desert could be seen as more Moses-like, for example, as would be her drive to end slavery) 

Many people have noted that Jon, Dany, and Tyrion’s mothers all died after giving birth to them, but I really hope that’s not a requirement of whatever destiny they have. 

If Stannis had taken the city before Tywin and the Tyrells arrived, would he have been able to hold it?

He’d have good odds. 10-20k men behind the walls, and the strength of his navy to open up supply line to the Stormlands and Essos and keep himself from being blockades, it would be difficult to dislodge him.

But the major thing would be the politics. Seated on the Iron Throne and with the Lannisters’ claim to the Throne dead, the other half of the Stormlands comes over to him replenishing his ranks. Suddenly Stannis is up to 30-40k men, and there’s not a lot holding the Lannister/Tyrell alliance together. 

Chapter-by-Chapter Analysis: Sansa VII, ACOK

Chapter-by-Chapter Analysis: Sansa VII, ACOK

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“It was not the song of Florian and Jonquil, but it was a song.”
Synopsis: Sansa has to clean up Cersei’s mess, deal with Sandor Clegane, and gets some surprising news from Ser Dontos.
SPOILER WARNING: This chapter analysis, and all following, will contain spoilers for all Song of Ice and Fire novels and Game of Thrones episodes. Caveat lector.
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