Just a backup in advance of the detumblring
Race for the Iron Throne: Westerosi Economic Development Series
For ease of use and for our friends in r/asoiaf, I’ve decided to put my economic development series in one place, with just links above the cut, and the full text below:
The Riverlands
The Stormlands
The Reach
Dorne
The Westerlands
The North
Iron Islands
The Vale(more…)
Work is still progressing on Davos II, but I decided to give you a little snack to tide you over until it’s done because this is going to be a long one indeed:
(For previous parts in the series, see here)
And so the Seven Kingdoms Economic Development series comes to a close – I’ve been asked repeatedly to extend this by taking a look at Slaver’s Bay or the whole of Westeros or other things, and I might do so if I’m feeling it, but I’ve got some great projects coming up soon that will require my attention so that might be down the road a bit.
The Vale’s an interesting case to end on – it’s got some good stuff to work with, but it seems like the Vale never quite lived up to its potential in part because of an excess of highborn conservatism has held it back. So let’s see what we can do to fix things…
“It stretched before them to the misty east, a tranquil land of rich black soil, wide slow-moving rivers, and hundreds of small lakes that shone like mirrors in the sun, protected on all sides by its sheltering peaks. Wheat and corn and barley grew high in its fields, and even in Highgarden the pumpkins were no larger nor the fruit any sweeter than here.”
One of the first strengths of the Vale that we need to tap into is agricultural productivity. While geography means that the Vale doesn’t produce as much in absolute terms as the Reach, the Vale significantly punches above its weight in terms of per-acre production.
My recommendations here should now be quite familiar: a Northern-style agricultural revolution to increase the yield from existing farms, linked to a Reach-style sub-treasury, land bank, and marketing and purchasing cooperative. Together, these measures should mean that overall levels of production are up and generating the most possible wealth for the kingdom, while ensuring that our system of storehouses (going to make damned sure that a LOT of our storehouses are going to be located inside the Giant’s Lance – more on which in a bit) help the Vale survives the winters.
One new element (which I had intended to introduce during the Westerlands section but ran out of space, so assume that the Westerlands is also doing this) is terraced farming. This is especially crucial for the more mountainous northern half of the Vale – Strongsong, Heart’s Home, Snakewood, and Coldwater – which don’t have the broad plains of the Vale of Arryn proper, and which we can now add to the net-surplus part of our Kingdom. There’s going to be some social and military implications
“On the far side of the stoneworks, the mountains opened up suddenly upon a vista of green fields, blue sky, and snowcapped mountains that took her breath away. The Vale of Arryn bathed in the morning light.”
The second target for development is mining and manufacturing. Now, given that the Andals’ conquest depended in no small part on iron, I highly doubt that the only thing that can be harvested from the Mountains of the Moon is marble, and I’m not about to take the WOAIF’s map at its face value – especially when the map puts said Mountains in the middle of the Vale as opposed to its western border. So I would guess that there is a good bit of iron in them hills – and given the iconography of the Royces, I’m guessing there’s a good bit of tin and copper for bronze.
Likewise, the Snakewood Forest, the many mountain streams, and the suitability of the terrain for sheep-herding, means that there’s opportunities for timber/lumber/woodworking, and wool cloth production as well. Now, the Vale is not going to out-compete the Stormlands, North, Reach, Westerlands, or the Iron Islands in any of these fields, but the idea is to diversify the Vale’s economy away from just exporting staple crops towards more value-added products, while boosting its exports to imports ratio. Also, while the Vale can’t match any of these other regions for volume of exports (and thus prices), its proximity to the Braavosi market (and thus lower transportation costs) will give it enough of an edge that it won’t get boxed out.
“Nor did the Kings of the Mountain and Vale neglect their fleets. In Gulltown they possessed a fine and formidable natural harbor, and under the Arryns it grew into one of the foremost cities of the Seven Kingdoms. Though the Vale itself is famously fertile, it is small compared to the domains of other kings (and even some great lords), and the Mountains of the Moon are bleak, stony, and inhospitable. Trade is therefore of paramount importance to the rulers of the Vale, and the wiser of the Arryn kings always took care to protect it by building warships of their own.”
One of the great underutilized resources of the Vale is Gulltown, which given that it’s one of the oldest cities in Westeros, it’s incredibly close to Braavos and the other Free Cities, should not be as small as White Harbor. The fact that it isn’t suggests the prevailing noble prejudice against merchants and commerce in the Vale has held back the development of its only city.
Hopefully, by locating the headquarters of the Vale Sub-Treasury (as opposed to its actual storehouses), the Land Bank, and the marketing and purchasing cooperatives for agricultural, iron, timber, and wool-production in Gulltown, we can begin growing the city – building a larger merchant class, deepening capital markets, and expanding warehousing and long-shoring employment.
Moreover, with the capital from the Land Bank and the cooperatives, we can begin to develop the Vale’s commerce by copying Braavos’ Arsenal and build a fleet of vessels that can do double service as a merchant marine and a larger Gulltown navy. The objective here should be to expand the rather modest Gulltown fleet to around 100 full-size ships, giving us some naval punch.
Moreover, given House Arryn’s position as Warden of the East, we have more of a legal pretext to engage in pirate-hunting and seizing the Stepstones than the Greyjoys or Martells or Baratheons. Incidentally, we’re also going to want a naval outpost on the Sisters to keep that unruly place under our thumb, and promote trade with White Harbor while giving us more of a presence in the Bite should it ever come to war.
Four-and-sixty knights had been invited to vie for places amongst Lord Robert Arryn’s new Brotherhood of Winged Knights, and four and-sixty knights had come to tilt for the right to wear falcon’s wings upon their warhelms and guard their lord…
the eight victors would be expected to spend the next three years at Lord Robert’s side, as his own personal guard.
With the wealth of the land and the sea flooding into our coffers, it’s time to begin institution-building. The first thing we need to do is better knit together a Kingdom very much divided by mountain passes through a program of road-building – the High Road needs to be extended from the Eyrie in two directions, the first heading northeast to Ironoaks-Old Anchor-Longbow Hall, and the second southeast to Redfort-Gullotwn-Runestone. Next, we need to build another mountain road to connect Heart’ s Home, Strongsong, Snakewood, and Coldwater to the Vale proper, which would probably want to cross over the mountains at around Ironoaks or Longbow Hall, depending on which area has the easier pass.
These roads will greatly improve transportation, and thus commerce and communications between the southern and northern halves of the Kingdom. However, as with the terraced farming and the expansion of industry, this is going to bring us into conflict with the mountain clans, who are a major barrier to the development of the Vale. Which unfortunately gets us into the area of economic development that hearkens back to ideas of primitive accumulation through expropriation.
Thus – expanding on the idea of the Winged Knights from Alayne in TWOW, we would want to create an order of Knighthood much larger than just 8 men. Rather, I would look to a force of at least 700 knights (the top 7 of whom would be the bodyguard of the Lord of the Eyrie) whose task would be to hunt down the mountain clans and drive them out of the Vale, and thereafter to patrol the roads and maintain the peace in the Vale. Moreover, because I’ve been reading a lot about Byzantine cataphracts and how they combined the skills of the armored lancer and the compound recurve horse archer, I like the idea of using the Winged Knights as a military academy to train the knights of the Vale into an all-mounted army to be feared.
Finally, the Eyrie – depending on whether the Eyrie actually does have secret paths down the mountain that would require a besieging army to spread itself across the base of the mountain, I’d put some money into building them so that it is much more difficult to stave out the Eyrie (then again, with much of the Vale’s agricultural produce being stored in the sub-treasury storehouses dug into the interior of the God’s Lance, it’s going to be very difficult to do so). Regardless, you’d definitely want to start building into the mountain, such that you can house and supply more men in Stone, Snow, and Sky (the latter two of which could use some improvements), move men between castles unseen, and if besieged, move men behind the besieging force to cut it off from its own supplies.
It is a bit odd, yes. But if you think that’s odd, what about the Faith of the Seven?
You’d think that the religious leader of the Vale, as the oldest Andalized region in Westeros (where we don’t even know about a single named sept!), would have demanded pre-eminence vs. that upstart at the Starry Sept when the position of High Septon was created. For that matter, why wasn’t there a schism or some kind of controversy when Oldtown suddenly lost its place to King’s Landing?
The Lannisters would certainly have built a Golden Sept in Lannisport just to make it more magnificent than everyone else’s and be constantly bribing the Most Devout to get a Westerman elected as High Septon. And there’s no way that the Septons of Dorne aren’t going to have adapted their practices to suit Dornish customs, or haven’t picked up Dornish attitudes to the Reachermen, even if just for evangelical purposes?
For that matter, given the Iron Islands’ contentious relationship with the Faith, why don’t the mainlanders consider the Ironborn heathens? And given the wars between the Vale and the North, you’d think Valemen of the Faith would be more anti-Old Gods than the rest of the South. Likewise, given its history, how does the Riverlands not have syncretic elements from the Old Gods and the Drowned God?
The Riverlands certainly has its own customs though. The Tully funeral rights of sending the deceased back to the river sounds like something more likely to be done by followers of either the Old Gods or the Drowned God rather than the Faith of the Seven. So does the Quiet Isles’ significance as a a place where the dead wash up and are “reborn” though admittedly this might be reaching. As to the center of the Faith being in Oldtown/King’s Landing, the Vale seems like it would be a poor seat for the High Septon. Despite its history, the region is pretty isolated from the rest of the Seven Kingdoms, thus the bureaucracy of an organized religion would be rather difficult to manage with the Mountains of the Moon in the way. Sure the Vale has Gulltown, but the lack of easy access over land makes Oldtown or King’s Landing seem more ideal as Rome/Constantinople type locations.
Agree in parts, dissent in parts.
1. The Tully funeral custom probably is an Old God or pre-Pact First Man tradition.
2. The Quiet Isle I think goes too far.
3. History is important for questions of institutional development. For decades while the Riverlands was being conquered, the Vale was the only Andal Kingdom, and thus the only center of their faith. Indeed, the Andals didn’t get to the Reach until after they’d invaded the Vale, the Riverlands, and the Stormlands.
3A. The Starry Sept was built ~1000 years before the Conquest, and even in the most optimistic scenario, 1000 years passed between the Andal invasion and its construction. A millennium does not pass without seeing the Faith set up a religious bureaucracy, especially as centralized a religion as the Faith of the Seven. There would have been Septs across eastern Westeros that were ancient beyond living memory when Septon Robeson proclaimed himself the first High Septon, and if the history of Christianity is anything to go by, the Septons of the great septs of the Vale, the Riverlands, and the Stormlands would not have accepted Robeson’s authority meekly or quickly. And given the power relationships involved, why would the Kings of the Vale or the Riverlands have accepted that House Hightower should hold the preeminence?
In other words, where’s the equivalent of the Sees of Antioch or Alexandria? Why don’t we have regional heresies, like the Arians or the Monophysites?
I think he was shaking them down because that’s how you generate income you need to reward your men, and how you intimidate people into not saying anything when the muggers and pickpockets who deter foot traffic on your block aren’t getting arrested because they’re paying their protection money to the man in charge.
That’s a big leap to make. Why assume crime went down because Daemon recruited all the criminals into a syndicate? It’s pretty risky for the king’s brother to try a scheme like that.
Why not apply Occham’s Razor & assume crime went down because the criminals were tired of getting whooped on and decided to vamoose for Gulltown, Lannisport, or Oldtown, any place with less “energetic” policing?
Because Occam’s Razor doesn’t explain how Daemon knew Mysaria and Blood & Cheese. Or why he was called Lord Flea Bottom and Prince of the City.
As for “risky” – have you met Daemon Targaryen? This is the guy who spent the day after Viserys’ son died partying and singing songs about “heir for a day,” who gave his mistress a dragon’s egg, who launched a war of aggression and declared himself a king, who hated his wife and when said wife died in a “hawking accident” tried to take her family’s lands, who as a man of 30 seduced his 15 year old niece, who married Laena Velaryon without his brother’s consent, and then when she died, suddenly got hitched to said niece when he had her husband (his brother-in-law) whacked.
Daemon Targaryen is the acme of a Byronic figure: mad, bad, and dangerous to know. Honestly, Occam’s Razor cuts my way, not yours.
I think Stannis changes dramatically, especially after Blackwater.
I think he was shaking them down because that’s how you generate income you need to reward your men, and how you intimidate people into not saying anything when the muggers and pickpockets who deter foot traffic on your block aren’t getting arrested because they’re paying their protection money to the man in charge.
It is a bit odd, yes. But if you think that’s odd, what about the Faith of the Seven?
You’d think that the religious leader of the Vale, as the oldest Andalized region in Westeros (where we don’t even know about a single named sept!), would have demanded pre-eminence vs. that upstart at the Starry Sept when the position of High Septon was created. For that matter, why wasn’t there a schism or some kind of controversy when Oldtown suddenly lost its place to King’s Landing?
The Lannisters would certainly have built a Golden Sept in Lannisport just to make it more magnificent than everyone else’s and be constantly bribing the Most Devout to get a Westerman elected as High Septon. And there’s no way that the Septons of Dorne aren’t going to have adapted their practices to suit Dornish customs, or haven’t picked up Dornish attitudes to the Reachermen, even if just for evangelical purposes?
For that matter, given the Iron Islands’ contentious relationship with the Faith, why don’t the mainlanders consider the Ironborn heathens? And given the wars between the Vale and the North, you’d think Valemen of the Faith would be more anti-Old Gods than the rest of the South. Likewise, given its history, how does the Riverlands not have syncretic elements from the Old Gods and the Drowned God?
One thing that keeps popping up in WOIAF is the mysterious substance known simply as black stone.
The throne of the Greyjoys, carved into the shape of a kraken from an oily black stone, was said to be found by the First Men when they first came to Old Wyk.
Even more enigmatic to some scholars is the great square fortress of black stone that dominates the isle … The fused black stone of which it is made suggests Valyria, but the plain, unadorned style of architecture does not, for the dragonlords love little more than twisting stone into strange, fanciful and ornate shapes.Within, the narrow twisting, windowless passages strike many as being tunnels rather than halls; it is very easy to get lost amongst their turnings. Mayhaps this is no more than a defensive measure designed to confound attackers, but it too is singularly un-Valyrian. The labyrinthine nature of its interior architecture has led Archmaester Quillion to suggest that the fortress might have been the work of the mazemakers
On the Isle of Toads can be found an ancient idol, a greasy black stone crudely carved into the semblance of a gigantic toad of malignant aspect, some forty feet high.
Maesters and other scholars alike have puzzled over the greatest of the enigmas of Sothoryos, the ancient city of Yeen. A ruin older than time, built of oily black stone, in massive blocks so heavy that it would require a dozen elephants to move them. Yeen has remained a desolation for many thousands of years, yet the jungle that surrounds it o every side has scarce touched it. (“A city so evil that even the jungle will not enter,” Nymeria is supposed to have said when she laid eyes on it, if the tales are true). Every attempt to rebuild or resettle Yeen has ended in horror.
The Five Forts are very old, older than the Golden Empire itself; some claim they were raised by the Pearl Emperor during the morning of the Great Empire to keep the Lion of Night and his demons from the realms of men … and indeed, there is something godlike, or demonic, about the monstrous size of these forts, for each of the five is large enough to house ten thousand men, and their massive walls stand almost a thousand feet high … Certain scholars from the west have suggested Valyrian involvement in the construction of the Five Forts, for the great walls are single slabs of fused black stone that resemble certain Valyrian citadels in the west … but this seems unlikely, for the Five Forts predate the Freehold’s rise, and there is no record of any dragonlords ever coming so far east.
Its’ [Asshai] origins are lost in the mists of time. Even the Asshai’i do not claim to know who built their city; they will say only that a city has stood here since the world began and will stand here until it ends … Travelers tell us that the city is built entirely of black stone: halls, hovels, temples, palaces, streets, walls, bazaars, all. Some say as well that the stone of Asshai has a greasy, unpleasant feel to it
What we likely have here is an ancient but now extinct race whose civilization predates human civilization in ASOIAF; one of the elder races akin to the CotF, giants and Others. Their domains once extended from the Iron Isles and Oldtown in the west, to Yeen in Sothoryos in the south, and to the Five Forts of Yi Ti and Asshai in the east.
In Asshai, the tales are many and confused, but certain texts
all impossibly ancientclaim that dragons first came from the Shadow, a place where all our learning fails us. These Asshai’i histories say that a people so ancient they had no name first tamed dragons in the Shadow and brought them to Valyria, teaching the Valyrians their arts before departing from the annals.We know Asshai was built and once inhabited by this race, and it was likely these same people the texts were referring to. Could this same race that built the black stone edifices be the cause of the origins of Valyria in that they taught the Valyrians their magical arts before going extinct? Could it have been like the Andals learning iron working for the Rhoynar or the Valyrians had to pay a steep price, ie numerous human sacrifices, for this knowledge?
seantcomics – I think I got your ask by mistake…
Like fun there’s no evidence. WOIAF, p. 67:
“Prince Daemon improved the armaments and training of the watch and gave them the golden cloaks that led them to be known as the “gold cloaks” to this day. He often joined his men in patrolling the city, swiftly becoming known to both the meanest urchin and the wealthiest tradesman, and earned a certain dark reputation in the stews and brothels where he was wont to make free of the wares on offer. Crime fell sharply, though some said it was because Daemon delighted in meting out harsh punishments. Yet those who benefited from his rule loved him well, and Daemon soon became known as “Lord Flea Bottom.” Later still, after Viserys refused him the title of Prince of Dragonstone, he came to be called “the Prince of the City.” It was in the brothels of the city that he found a favorite, a paramour—a very pale Lysene dancer named Mysaria, whose looks and reputation led the prostitutes who knew her to call her Misery, the White Worm. Later, she became Daemon’s mistress of whisperers.”
WOIAF, p. 74:
The words Prince Daemon sent to Dragonstone after having learned the news of Lucerys’s death were, “An eye for an eye, a son for a son. Lucerys shall be avenged.” He was the Prince of the City, and he still had many friends in the stews and brothels of King’s Landing. Chief of them was his once-paramour, Mysaria, the White Worm. She arranged his vengeance, hiring a brute and a rat-catcher known to history as Blood and Cheese. Thanks to his profession, the rat-catcher knew all the secrets of Maegor’s tunnels. Slipping into the Red Keep, Blood and Cheese seized hold of Queen Helaena and her children…and then offered Aegon II’s wife a brutal choice: which of her sons would die? She wept and pled and offered her own life to no avail. In the end, she named Maelor—the youngest, and deemed too young to understand. Blood and Cheese killed Prince Jaehaerys instead, as his mother screamed her horror. Then Blood and Cheese fled with the prince’s head; true to their word that they were only after one of Aegon’s sons.
They don’t call you Lord of Flea Bottom and Prince of the City for no reason. Daemon turned the goldcloaks into his personal protection racket, organizing the crime in the city (which is why crime went down), and it was that network that allowed him to murder children and orchestrate the betrayal of the Gold Cloaks. And that’s when he wasn’t getting bored and starting wars to make himself king or having people assassinated to free up marriages he wanted.
Daemon was effective, but not for good ends.
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