The boom/bust cycle seems to be concentrated largely in the North, where the winters are more severe, and which is the only place we hear of having large-scale die offs. I wouldn’t expect the same pattern to happen in the Reach or Dorne, or at least not to any severity.

Moreover, in premodern economies where the overwhelming majority of the workforce is in food production, the tricky thing is that consumers are also producers. So yes, immigrants increase the demand on the food supply, but they also increase production. 

As I’ve said before, Braavos is not a monolithic entity. So it may well be that the major institutions of Braavos have different reactions. Even there, there’s things that cut both ways.

The Faceless Men are probably the most militantly anti-slavery, but they were also the fiercest enemies of the dragonlords of Valyria, so that’s something of a tossup. 

While the Iron Bank doesn’t deal in slaves, I’m guessing they probably lend to banks in the Free Cities who do (or whose customers do), so they probably would be the most bearish on helping Dany. 

Likewise, the Sealord of Braavos might see anything that decreases the power of Volantis as a good thing, or he might blame Dany for tipping power over to the tigers after centuries of elephant rule. 

It’s an interesting question, but one on which we have frustratingly little information on. All we know from ASOIAF is that Rhaegar told Jaime that:

“When this battle’s done I mean to call a council. Changes will be made. I meant to do it long ago, but … well, it does no good to speak of roads not taken. We shall talk when I return.“

WOIAF tells us that:

 “The prince, it is said, had no interest in the tourney as a tourney; his intent was to gather the great lords of the realm together in what amounted to an informal Great Council, in order to discuss ways and means of dealing with the madness of his father, King Aerys II, possibly by means of a regency or a forced abdication.”

This suggests that the former is more likely. Then again, Parliament itself in the U.K emerged and developed often in unexpected bursts during moments of political upset. Especially given the way that Aerys’ actions raised major questions about the powers of the Kings vis-a-vis the rights of the nobility, I could see the Great Council using the crisis to require Rhaegar to agree to certain concessions in return for deposing the king. 

Would a permanent Great Council be on that list? Maybe. I’m a little skeptical – it’s extremely expensive and time-consuming for all of the lords of Westeros to gather in one place and debate policy, especially in a system where each lord is normally a pretty hands-on governor of their own fief. More likely, I think they’d push for a system by which the Lords Paramount and their principal bannermen to have representatives on the Small Council, and for some sort of system whereby the king’s actions in a number of areas would have to have the consent of those representatives. 

Most likely, given the executions of Brandon and Rickard Stark and their companions, would be some sort of Magna Carta/Bill of Rights of 1689 that restricts the King’s judicial power vis-a-vis the nobility. 

Well, as to Nettles, we do have some idea:

“Amongst the Burned Men, a youth must give some part of his body to the fire to prove his courage before he can be deemed a man. This practice might have originated in the years after the Dance of the Dragons, some maesters believe, when an offshoot clan of the Painted Dogs were said to have worshipped a fire-witch in the mountains, sending their boys to bring her gifts and risk the flames of the dragon she commanded to prove their manhood.”

So Nettles became a goddess, and Timmett son of Timmett might be her descendant.

As for Cannibal, there’s no mentions of its potential location after the Dance. 

elanabrooklyn:

flippyspoon:

sityourfivedollarassdown:

“Does the rotting house have anything to do with the way that people of that period, that whole aristocracy fell apart?

DEL TORO: Yes. This is not Downton Abbey. This is … I don’t like what I call “class porn,” where everybody’s all gooey over, “If only the aristocracy was still in charge, life would be so civilized.” Fuck that. It’s not true. It was never true.” x

I love Guillermo del Toro

👹

Yes! I’ve been calling it that too

An excellent point – it’s not an accident that Julian Fellowes, the creator of Downtown Abbey, is a Tory member of the House of Lords. 

I doubt it was in the early years, because the Daynes were fighting with them against the Yronwoods, which took a long time. 

If anything, I think it probably went the other way around – temporarily allying with the enemy of your enemy, and then turning on them once you no longer need them. 

Possibly, although Dayne/Martell relations in this period are rather confusing. On the one hand, the Daynes backed the Martells during Nymeria’s Conquest, and Davos Dayne was Nymeria’s third husband. 

However, the fact that Nymeria had Vorian Dayne, the Sword of the Morning himself, sent to the Wall in chains speaks to some serious breakdown in relations during this period. Probably didn’t help that Nymeria had her Martell daughter not her Dayne son named as the next Princess of Dorne. 

I agree. I sometimes feel people are really stretching with the whole Three Mounts Must You Ride thing, when it’s not at all clear that those mounts all describe husbands. 

I really don’t see Dany marrying a Greyjoy after they try to take her dragons – I’m pretty confident that she’s going to react to that by turning Victarion into a crisp, and I don’t think she’s going to feel any less vehemently toward Euron either. 

Now, I do think that Aegon is going to offer to marry Dany, but after everything she’s been through, I don’t think Dany’s going to be in a compromising mood, especially if (as I suspect) he’s already married to Arianne and is proposing a three-way marriage. Rather, all of the textual hints toward a second dance of the dragons suggests to me that she’s going to react by claiming the Iron Throne in her own right and going straight for Aegon’s throat. 

I could see a doomed romance between her and Jon, possibly, but I don’t see them marrying and sitting the Iron Throne together. 

 Well, when I’m talking about immigration, I don’t necessarily mean just the freedmen of Slaver’s Bay. Westeros’ interests would probably be more in the direction of skilled artisans from the Free Cities instead, anyway.

But in terms of what they’d get out of the deal – well, to begin with, they’d be moving to a continent that abhors slavery, which is kind of a big deal. Moreover, Westeros is generally more fertile than Slaver’s Bay.

And peasants aren’t chattel in Westeros. 

Something similar to how Stannis deals with the Karstarks – arrest the lords and use them as hostages to keep the common men in check. 

But that’s just a start. Remember, the Frey armies aren’t in the Twins, but Robb has 400 men garrisoning the Twins to keep Walder in check. I’d wait for him to cause a fuss, and then have him arrested for treason against his liege lord, Edmure Tully, for attempting to desert during the middle of a war. (Remember, regardless of how Walder feels about Robb, he owes military service to House Tully and has conspicuously and repeatedly failed to make good on his obligation) 

Then, I’d dangle the offer of which Frey gets to replace Walder in front of the lords in custody to divide them and rule.