No. There’s plenty of cases we’ve been given that show that the sliding pay scale is all about the religious nature of the institution – you have to show how willing you are to sacrifice. The Waif’s father, the Second Gift of the Many-Faced God, etc. 

A couple things:

1. I think the Sparrow Movement will be critical for the royals’ fate. That’s not to say the Sparrows win, but as we’ve seen, Cersei and Margaery’s fates are closely linked to trials by the Faith, Frankengregor’s plot intersects with the Faith, etc. So I think Tommen, Margaery, Cersei, the Small Council, and the Kingsguard will be tied up with the Movement in the final moments.

2. I think it’s more than joining Team Aegon. If Aegon is going to take King’s Landing easily – to better set up his sudden reversal at Dany’s hands – then the Movement is what opens up the gates for him and allows him to win because they can deliver public legitimacy (especially if the Lannisters are publicly discredited at the same time).

3. I then think everything comes crashing down on them in the person of the dragons. The Faith has never really had an answer to them short of the storming of the Dragonpit, but Dany’s dragons aren’t going to let themselves be chained again. 

No, I don’t, and I think people make a huge mistake when they assume this is the case. The Iron Bank of Braavos is an explicitly capitalist enterprise, the Faceless Men aren’t that keen on wealthy people abusing the poor – the Iron Bank would need to be facing an existential threat to be willing to pay what the Faceless Men would consider a suitably sincere sacrifice to the Many-Faced God. A similar thing would apply to the Sealord.

Likewise, the Sealord and the Iron Bank have similar but not identical interests – the Sealord will support the Iron Bank to the extent that the Iron Bank is good for Braavos’ economy, and to the extent that the Iron Bank’s keyholders supported him in the last election, but there’s a reason the Iron Bank prefers to hire mercenaries rather than use the Braavosi military, because you don’t shit where you eat. Likewise, the Iron Bank will extend credit to the Sealord where it’ll make a profit and/or protect their significant interests in Braavos itself, but not on a risky foreign adventure.

Rather, I think we should see these institutions as independent, while recognizing that they will always band together in a crisis. 

It’s a fair point. These are extremely rough estimates, and all we have is a rough sense of the population of the cities themselves. We don’t know how densely populated the countryside is vis-a-vis the cities, especially after the Century of Blood and the presence of the Dothraki. 

To take a similar example in terms of technological levels and length of canal, the 17th century Canal du Midi in France, which is 150 miles long, took 12,000 men 15 years to build. 

That seems like a lot of workers, but that’s about 1.3% of the Reach’s workforce. And given that 90% of the Reach’s population is essentially unemployed during the winters, you could probably cut down on construction time considerably by increasing your workforce above the historical parallel. 

warsofasoiaf:

Part of this is historical cribbing. GRRM is borrowing from the military tradition of Carthage, who relied extensively on mercenary armies. Carthage was an oligarchic plutocracy, with wealth being the prime dictator of who had power in that ancient city. A lot of wealth could translate into a lot of mercenaries for the family. The Free Cities don’t put especial importance on martial prowess the way Westeros does. While it might be remarked on that a particular noble son is a skilled warrior, city-fathers of the Free Cities are typically wealthy aristocrats relying on slave soldiers and mercenaries to advance their agenda. Even the tigers of Volantis aren’t the ‘lead-from-the-front’ nobles the way many Westerosi young men are. These wealthy aristocrats use their wealth to prosecute their wars, so mercenaries would be in high demand over in Essos.

Second, magic on the whole isn’t very prevalent or reliable in the time periods before the modern one, and there’s arguments to be made that it still isn’t the most reliable thing now, even after magic returns to the world in a big way. Melisandre’s visions are home to misinterpretations, and she even admits that she makes herself look more powerful than it actually is. Relying on magic when it could fail you when you need it most is dangerous. Prophets seem to think that the future is unavoidable. Renly is destined to die, but the vision of him leading an army against Stannis comes true even post-mortem, so it’s not something that I, as a general, would bank on.

Magic is too dangerous and unreliable to base a military doctrine around it in the Planetosi world. The Free Cities are fantastically wealthy, and so they pursue a military doctrine that makes use of their advantages. Coupled with an active slave trade through most of Essos, and there’s no surprise that the mercenary tradition would flourish on the eastern continent.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

In addition to Carthage, the hiring of mercenary companies was endemic to the city-states of the Italian Renaissance. The condottieri of Italy were known for changing sides at a moment’s notice and for a price, running away rather than engaging in a fight where they’d take heavy casualties, and being keen to take over cities where they could – hence Machiavelli’s famous denunciations of hiring mercenaries in The Prince. 

Probably not. At the time, Robert’s army is incredibly high in morale and battle-tested, Tywin’s army is completely green. I don’t think Mace is stirring North and even if Tywin can delay things, if King’s Landing suddenly goes up in fire, it’s going to be very hard to get anyone to support the Targaryens. 

Probably not. 

Clever political move. The wildlings are south of the Wall, they need to be integrated into the North, and marriage is a good way to do that. 

So I’ve estimated that the Free Cities are probably somewhere around 15-20 million altogether. I would guess that the population of Slaver’s Bay is around 3-5 million. The Dothraki are probably 10 million altogether, given that Vaes Dothrak is supposed to be 10x the size of Pentos. Qarth is pretty big, probably 500k-1 million people. 

So Essos up to where we’ve seen it (and remember we’ve only seen about ½ of the landmass) is around 28-36 million people?