Probably not, but even if it had it would have been much smaller and more regionally contained. More of a Peake Uprising than a Blackfyre Rebellion.
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Could you give a guesstimate of the incomes of the 7 Great Houses in a single year? Which do you think is the poorest of the Great Houses?
Well, I did some guesstimates of the nobility here. I did some guesstimates on House Lannister’s income here and here.
The Great Houses probably all have incomes in the hundreds of thousands, given how much land they’re drawing taxes from, peaking at House Lannister’s million a year in gold.
In terms of a relative ranking of incomes, I’d say
Tier 1: Lannisters ≥ Tyrells. Obviously, this depends on agricultural prices at the time, and arguably demand for gold as well.
Tier 2: Arryns. The Vale is noted to be as equally fertile as the Reach, if not as big, and they’ve got a significant presence in Narrow Sea trade.
Tier 3: Starks, Baratheons, and Martells? Here’s where things get really hard to figure out. The North is immense, but not the most populated and the soil isn’t the best. However, it’s still arable land, and more importantly the Starks have access to valuable commodities – timber, wool, and silver. Likewise, much of Dorne isn’t arable and therefore the population isn’t very high, but the Dornish do export wines, niche agricultural commodities (peppers, citrus fruits, olive oil), and silks and satins. So I’d probably put the Martells ahead of the Starks, but I’m not sure whether it’s a tier’s worth of difference. The Baratheons probably fall somewhere in the middle – their land is a lot more productive, but they have a relatively small amount of it after the loss of the Crownlands, although they do have amber to sell (not sure how big of a market that is, tho).
Tier 3.5: Tullys. This is almost entirely a product of political disorganization. The Riverlands are large, incredibly fertile, and draw a lot of trade due to their central location. However, the Riverlands are not well-developed: they don’t have any cities, their road network could be much more developed, they need more bridges, and it’s absolutely criminal that no one’s built a canal linking the Blue Fork to Ironman’s Bay to boost trade. Likewise, I don’t think the Tullys are as good at getting taxes out of their nobles as the other Great Houses, so there’s a lot of wealth in the Riverlands that doesn’t make it to Riverrun. If the Riverlands were better organized, I’d put them easily in Tier 2.
Tier 4: The Greyjoys. The Ironborn have the smallest population and the poorest productivity of soil. Trade is diminished by the Ironborn’s hatred of “the gold price,” and the fact that iron isn’t that great a commodity to trade. Contrary to what you might think, piracy isn’t that great an income-generator: at best, you’re grabbing a percentage of the trade everyone else is making, it’s high-risk and income is intermittent, etc.
If Viserys was actually crowned king-in-exile by Rhaella, does Aegon (or any other hypothetical child of Rhaegar) even actually have a lawful claim through Rhaegar, as opposed to via his collateral relation to Viserys?
Keep in mind being crowned and being acclaimed are not the same thing. Viserys’ crowning is in essence a claim that Viserys is the rightful king, not the final adjudication of that claim (which could take the form of a Great Council, or a sufficient number of lords pledging fealty, or the High Septon anointing him, or a combination of all three).
So in a scenario where Viserys is relevant in Westeros and Aegon or Jon showed up, they would have a strong legal claim that the son of the eldest son inherits before the next brother. And if they had enough political support behind them, they might actually prevail.
And that’s the key thing – ultimately, this comes down to the decisions of the political elite, as opposed to the judges. When Richard Duke of York put forward his claim that he was the rightful king of England, he was probably right according to the heralds. But the House of Lords weren’t keen on him, and raised the issue of whether they could swear allegiance to him if they’d already sworn allegiance to Henry, and so on.
I’m trying to get my head around a Hardhome relief mission/evacuation. How many people do you think are actually there?
Multiple thousands, according to Jon VIII.
Re: your assessment of Edmure Tully poor-to-middling general, doesn’t have a very good hold on his bannermen, easily manipulated) – would you agree he sounds pretty much like a younger version of Tytos Lannister? If that’s true, it could be interesting how his child will turn out; especially should it really be raised in Casterly Rock…
I don’t think he’s that bad. Tytos was actively self-defeating because of his pathological desire to be loved and get along. Edmure has a better understanding of what he’s supposed to do as Lord of Riverrun and tries to do it, with middling results.
Question inspired by your last Bran post: Why were the Starks the only Great House to face a rebellion from within? The Lannisters and Baratheons were away from their lands for years at a time.
During the War of Five Kings? Two Baratheons fought each other over the Stormlands, so I’m not sure what you’re getting at.
How is Ramsay going to die?
On foot, hunted down by cavalry.
Do we know roughly how old Mance Rayder was when he was orphaned and adopted by the Night’s Watch?
I would say younger than 5.
Wondering if you read the casting calls for the sixth season yet and any thoughts in general and how into fancasting are you? Some folks love it and some folks hate it (my only one so far is actor David O’Hara as Randyll Tarly)
I’m not much for fancasting.
I am hopeful that the Euron casting call finally shuts up the Euron=Daario loons.
Prince Daemon
Blood and Cheese were awful, but Aemond’s murder of Lucerys came first.
The alternative to Daemon was kinslayer Aegon II. If the Greens had abided by Viserys’ decrees, Blood and Cheese never happen, so I’d argue causality lies with them.
No, sorry, that doesn’t work. To quote Abraham Lincoln:
“That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, “Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!”
Aemond didn’t force Daemon to murder children, Daemon decided to sink to that level.