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First – I wanted to congratulate you on such a well written essay about Dany’s time in Slaver’s Bay. I agree with your analysis and more importantly conclusion. Second, are you planning on writing any follow up essays analyzing Dany’s internal struggle? If you weren’t planning maybe you should think about it, I’d really like to hear your thoughts on that.

Thanks, glad you liked it. 

I wasn’t planning on it, mostly because my specialty is politics and history more than psychology. I might do something down the road, but right now I’m a little busy with my series on the Blackfyre Rebellions.

Correct me if I’m wrong here – Oldtown supposedly has ~500k people, KL is the same order of magnitude but slightly bigger (maybe 550k). AWOIAF says that Valasyr, Mantarys, and Volon Therys are bigger population wise than any of the cities in Westeros, meaning that Volantis must be huge. What’s your best guess for the population of each of the 9 free cities (or at least just the ones we’re semi-familiar with – Braavos, Pentos, and Voltanis)?

You’re quite right. And this is a very interesting question.

The historical Constantinople at its height was around 1 million, so Volantis is probably at least that big. We learn from Victarion that their war fleet is somewhere between 300-500 war galleys, which means at least 30,000 and as high as 150,000 men manning the oars (depending on whether these are 100 oarsmen or 300 oarsmen ships), not including the marines and the regular troops. Using our normal 1% rule, that gives us a population under Volantis’ control (since they have colonies, not just the metropolitan area itself) of anywhere from 3 million to 15 million. It’s definitely the largest, which makes sense as it’s the oldest and thus has had time to build its population over time.

On the other hand, only 500k to 2.5 million of their people are Volantene citizens. The rest are slaves. 

Braavos is a bit harder to estimate. Historical Venice and Amsterdam in their Golden Ages had around 200,000 residents. On the other hand, historical Venice only had 6 islands and the Mestre, whereas the metropolitan area of Braavos has 100 islands to build on. It’s highly crude, but if we simply multiply Venice’s population by 16.6, we get a population of 3.3 million. Taking another method, Braavos has the largest war fleet in the world, so it has to have substantially more than Volantis’ fleet. If it’s 600, that suggests a population of anywhere from 6 million to 18 million. 

18 million seems high, there’s no way Braavos is half the size of Westeros in terms of population even with its colonies

. Ditto Volantis, even with its colonies. So I’m more inclined to say that Volantis probably has around 300 ships, and a max population of 9 million people. Braavos probably has at least 400 ships, and a max population of 12 million people. 

The Three Daughters (Lys, Myr, and Tyrosh) have at least 90 warships, which means a combined population of between 900,000 and 2.7 million. 

if courteasans of braavos are attending feast,shows etc with princes does that suppose to mean noble ladies are absent from social life?Does rich just wear dark colours or really roughspun clothes?

If it’s anything like the historical traditions of Renaissance Italy that gave birth to the courtesan – it’s not that noble ladies are absent from social life, but rather than they’re absent from public venues. They of course did a huge amount of socializing in their own homes and the homes of other people of their class and other respectable venues. 

In Mercy, we’re talking about a theater, and a lowly theater at that. The theater was generally associated with vice – prostitutes did a lot of business at the theater in this period, so for a high class women to be seen at the theater was to lose one’s reputation and good name. Indeed, one of the reasons the Elizabethan theater banned women from acting on stage was that it was believed that actors turned tricks on the side to supplement their wages, on the grounds that if you’re making your money from displaying your body in one way, you must be up for doing it in another. 

Vis-a-vis your essays on Dany in Slaver’s Bay: What do you make of Tyrion’s observation later in the books that some slaves depending on the masters are treated no worse(and in some instances better than) peasants in Westeros, or that there’s no real difference between the two? A separate question, do you feel that the books could have used a non-Westerosi non-7 kingdom POV, i. e an Essosi viewpoint. With the exception of Varamyr Sixskins and Melisandre we don’t really have that, why is that so?

Some slaves, sure. It’s the whole house slave/field slave thing. But Tyrion doesn’t really know what he’s talking about, having almost no experience with either peasants or slaves. 

Not really. The story is about Westeros. 

Re: previous question: didn’t think the prophecy so literally, just that a mummera dragon is not a real dragon (just a stick-puppet). But another question: does Varys care if the perfect prince is A Targ or a Blackfyre? One would think from his words that it’s the educated wise monarch that he craves, and the bloodline is just for acceptance.

Well, it’s both – he’s not actually Aegon the son of Rhaegar the crown prince, but he’s also Varys’ pawn. 

I don’t think Varys would care about the lineage, per se. But I think he would care that his attempt to rescue a child from slaughter had been betrayed by the man he loved.

Have you discussed the political philosophies of some of the major players in the War of the Five kings? Tywin, Robert, Baelish, Varys, Dany, and the majority of the political characters seem to fit loosely into the liberal, realist, or constructivist theories of international relations. Some of the best political debate comes from Baelish and Varys; what to these conflicting viewpoints say about the meaning of sovereignty and diplomacy in Westeros and Essos?

Well, IR is my brother’s area of expertise, not mine. 

But yes, I cover the political philosophies of the major players on my blog. Tywin, Eddard, Jon Arryn, and Tyrion I covered in an essay series on the Handship.

Overall, Tywin is pretty Machiavellian and quite conservative, politically. 

Robert is somewhat of an absentee king, although he’s pretty good at warfare.

Baelish is, I suppose you could describe him as an anti-Hobbesian. Total individualism, the social contract doesn’t exist, chaos is good. It’s almost anarchism, but without the idea that people are by nature good. 

Varys is, as I’ve said in a number of Eddard chapter recaps, an extreme utilitarian and a believer in enlightened despotism. 

Besides being an abolitionist, I don’t know how well-developed Dany’s political philosophy is. She’s certainly a monarchist, she believes in noblesse oblige, but I don’t know if goes beyond that. 

Wait, how does anyone reach out privately about Aegon? Varys (per his conversation with Kevan Lannister) thinks Aegon is real, as does Jon Connington, Homeless Harry, The Martells and everyone else key who supports him. I’m not sure how Illyrio (who would be the only person who knows) tells anyone Aegon isn’t really a Targaryen without at least Varys and Jon Connington finding out and the whole scheme falling apart.

Varys thinks Aegon is real, JC does, but they’ve been away from the Golden Company for some time. From JC’s POV chapter, I think Homeless Harry, Marq Mandrake, and Jon Lothston know he’s a Blackfyre. The three Peakes are also likely candidates,

I think they reach out privately by sending either coded ravens or by sending trusted riders.