I don’t want to fight about adaptation choices and enjoy the show doing its thing, but do you get the logic behind Littlefinger not even trying to conceal Sansa’s identity? Is she not a wanted criminal in the show universe? (Honestly, I can’t remember).

boiledleather:

He’s a brasher dude on the show, they’re surrounded by knights, they’re on their way “far away” from where Cersei’s power base is, etc. It’s a looser narrative economy in that way.

He’s absolutely trying to conceal Sansa’s identity. He just sent a dozen men to kill someone who recognized her.

Political Analysis of HBO Game of Thrones, Season 5, Episode 1

So…this was supposed to be published elsewhere, and wasn’t, so here you go!

Game of Thrones Recap, Season 5 Episode 1: Regime Change

The first episode of any season of Game of Thrones can be a difficult endeavor, with so much to set out so that the audience understands where everyone is, what they’re up to, and what issues they’ll be dealing with this season. Without a through-line, the result…

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How crucial was the role played by heavy cavalry in medieval European militaries ? Were there any battles that were won primarily by heavy horse action?

Uh, well, for most of the Medieval period, kind of all of them…up until Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt, the knight ruled the battlefield and it took a while for people to adapt. Even then, it took until the early modern military revolution for giant blocks of shot-and-pike and artillery for heavy cavalry to be pushed to a secondary role.

Progress Update

Hey folks, since it’s been a few days since the last update, I thought I’d put this up to let people know what I’ve been up to.

How does Cersei becoming Queen Regent after Kevan dies work? Does the regency automatically revert to her? Since she’s got so few allies and is under Faith custody I can’t figure out how she would be able to resume her position. Since Tommen just signs everything it seems like it’d be the easiest thing in the world for Mace to get a signed paper making him regent.

If Mace gets there first, sure. If Cersei gets there first…

And it’s not like Faith custody is going to last now that she’s got Ser Robert Strong.

How much actual power would Cersei have as Regent with Kevan & Pycelle both dead, Swyft overseas, and the Lannister armies in the Riverlands? Both the faith and Tyrells should have more sway. She seems to only have Qyburn & Kingsguarders backing.

Plenty. She’s the Queen Regent, she gets to pick the Small Council and through them the City Watch commanders, etc.

Is this just on the basis of ‘“How long do you think we’ll be here?”“Longer than you’d like,” the old man replied. “If he goes back without the gold the queen will have his head.’ in the Mercy chapter? The Queen could be Margaery, I suppose. It’s not possible they were sent before Cersei’s arrest, right?

Yeah, that’s it. It’s not Margaery, she’s not the kind of person who executes subordinates like that. Also, as Queen Consort she would be acting through the King not in her own name.

If it’s “the queen,” it’s Cersei.

So, Eddard and Robb Stark inspire alot of loyalty that lasts well after their deaths. Jon Arryn seemed to inspire the same. My question is, was loyalty of this level a common thing in the Middle Age?

It could be. I wrote a piece a while back about how common betrayal was during the Wars of the Roses (by way of explaining why Robb keeping faith with the Freys is a dumb idea), but it’s also true that there were people who fought for either the Lancastrians or the Yorkists for decades, and stayed loyal throughout incredible turns of fortune that saw monarchs go from being all-powerful to exiles in a few months.

After Ashford, why did Mace spend all that time besieging Storm’s End? Surely a decisive victory over Robert in the field was more important than SE? Besides Storm’s End can be besieged by a mere fraction of the Reach’s full strength. So why didn’t Mace lead the bulk of his forces north to link up with Rhaegar? Was it intentional, with Mace being unwilling to commit himself in an uncertain civil war? Or was it Mace being a dunderhead as usual? Also why didn’t Rhaegar explicitly summon him north?

It was very much intentional. Besieging Storm’s End was a low-risk way for Mace to publicly display loyalty to the Targaryen regime without getting too involved in the fighting. This way, if the Targaryens lost, the Tyrells could bend the knee without having pissed off Robert that much.

Based on Kevan’s Epilogue inDance, how do you think Mace Tyrell is shaping up as Hand?

Hard to say whether he is Hand now. If the info we got from “Mercy” is any judge, Cersei might be Queen Regent again and that might mean Mace is out of a job again.