See here. 

GRRM was trying to imitate historical tradition without taking on the burden of annoying numerics and the like. Honestly, six Aegons is a bit much. 

serfriendzonetoth:

racefortheironthrone:

Probably Tywin joins the rebellion at the gates of King’s Landing. They assault the walls of the city, with 75,000+ men they easily take it. A sack probably ensues without Tywin’s orders, given what usually happens to cities that fight rather than surrender. 

However, with Eddard Stark in overall command, it’s quite possible that the murder of Elia and the children doesn’t happen. 

What about the wildfire plot? Unless Jaime still kills Aerys & the pyromancers, King’s Landing is going “KABOOM!” before the rebels can get through the walls.

That part would likely happen as in OTL.

Maybe? I dunno, so much is confusing in Essosi demography. For one thing, I really don’t get how the Disputed Lands can be a ruin and the cities exist. Even the pre-modern city-states that imported a lot of grain still needed local supplies. 

Eh, if you’ve already got the dragon, you might as well burn the castle, and that’s kind of how the Targaryens rolled. 

The main issue to me is that I’m not sure the dragons would accept that many people on their backs at any given time. 

Probably Tywin joins the rebellion at the gates of King’s Landing. They assault the walls of the city, with 75,000+ men they easily take it. A sack probably ensues without Tywin’s orders, given what usually happens to cities that fight rather than surrender. 

However, with Eddard Stark in overall command, it’s quite possible that the murder of Elia and the children doesn’t happen. 

I think Dany will arrive after Melisandre has already done the unfortunate thing, and will probably be in a state of profound spiritual and metaphysical shock. 

I have a hunch that Randyll Tarly is a secret Blackfyre supporter and will switch sides to give Aegon VI the win vs. the Tyrells in his drive on the capitol. 

…Or, conversely, a more egalitarian,sharing system: to each according to his needs,or our much needed farmers will starve. But no,it’s all standard feudalism. Except: 1) Wintertown [but with no grain redistribution,I think] 2) Luwin advising lesser lords to set aside more of their harvest for the winter 3) Littlefinger acting like nobody has ever heard of supply and demand in all of Westeros. And nothing more.. So is my imagination wrong? Or didn’t GRRM think too much about the implications?

Yes, you’re quite right. In addition to the basic problem of how exactly you don’t suffer massive collapses in needed flora and fauna during the long winters, there’s a limit to how much you can store and for how long and for how long you can keep the livestock alive (which wasn’t that great in premodern society even with normal winters). So you’d be looking at not only starvation but diseases of malnutrition. 

There do seem to be fluctuating surpluses – certainly, the summers seem like a period of prodigal abundance and the winters as times of starvation. 

I think stores and silos are probably built standard in every castle and holdfast – indeed, a lot of fortifications were probably initially built to protect food storage. 

Regarding Littlefinger, I think the main difference is that the lords of Westeros wouldn’t normally countenance hoarding – yes, they expect prices to rise during the winter, but the idea that you’d artificially restrict supply in peacetime is out of the question. The nobility are inherently conservative, and one of the things they want to conserve is the labor force they need to work their land and the social order they need to keep that labor force under control. Littlefinger doesn’t care about the long-term consequences, but this is exactly the kind of things that set off peasant rebellions. 

Well, Domeric’s survival might change a lot of things. To begin with, we don’t know if Domeric would have gone south or stayed at the Dreadfort – if he’s there at the Dreadfort, the Hornwood Affair doesn’t happen, and the North rallies against the Ironborn invasion, eliminating the conditions for Roose’s switching sides. 

Even if he’s gone south, it’s quite possible that Domeric might have been with Robb’s army rather than Roose’s – lots of other Northern sons were in Robb’s group of companions, there’s the infantry/cavalry split among the Bolton forces that requires two commanders, etc. Roose would be much more hesitant to betray Robb if he risked losing his heir in the process.