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I was rereading your article on the Prologue of ACOK and I was wondering if you could elaborate more on why do you think everyone in Kings Landing is so scared of Stannis vs Ned Stark?

I think people are scared of Stannis because he’s a pragmatist when it comes to means, while being very fanatical about ends, and Stannis understands the institutional nature of power (hence stealing most of the royal fleet on his way out). 

There are thousands of knights when the Ironmen are put down under Robert. If there are about 400,000 troops in westeros what’s a good knight to common soldier ratio? One percent knights seems too low but 25% seems really high, if commoners outnumber nobles 100-to1.

A couple things:

  1. 100 to 1 is off. In Medieval Europe, the nobility was almost never only 1% of the population. 5% was more common, although in some places it got as high as 10%. 
  2. 400k is the fighting men of Westeros, where the nobility are disproportionate. Pretty much all able-bodied noblemen in Westeros learn to fight, whereas only some smallfolk ever do. 
  3. 25% is around what we see in the armies – Robb’s heavy horse is around 27% of his army, the Lannister horse is around 30% of their total number, Renly’s 20,000 cavalry is around 20% of his massive army (although I have issues with the numbers there.) 
  4. However, if we take 25%, that’s 100,000 knights in the whole of Westeros, which has a population of around 40 million. In other words, they make up 25% of one percent of the population of Westeros, or roughly 10% of the male nobility of Westeros (assuming 5% of the population as highborn, and thus 2.5% being highborn men).   

So, no, I wouldn’t call it too high. If I recall correctly from the last time I looked it up, around 18% of the male population is in the military age demographic, so it’s a bit below what it might be, but you have to account for lords keeping some of their strength at home and trying to preserve heirs so that the House doesn’t take too much damage in the war, and that some percent of male nobles wind up in the Faith or the Citadel. 

Do you think Arya’s narrative arc is moving her in a trajectory where she will likely murder important characters? And if so which characters do you think it would make most sense for her to kill?

boiledleather:

racefortheironthrone:

It might, but if so it’s of her own accord. I don’t get the sense that Arya will actually end up as an assassin of the Faceless Men. Batman doesn’t join the League of Shadows.

<Christian Bale voice> I’M NO EXECUTIONER <burns down League of Shadows headquarters, killing dozens>

At least he wasn’t getting paid for it.

Was re-listening to the Reek chapters from ADWD, and wanted your opinion on the case of Barbary Dustin. Why is she still the Widow of Barrowton? The impression WOIAF gives is childless widows are disposed of immediately when the overlord is competent, so is her being in a position of power a failing of Eddard as an overlord? Or does it imply that there are no other claimants for House Dustin’s seat? Or does she actually have a kid that I missed?

Yeah, she’s an interesting case. I’m guessing it has to do with a few things. 

  • First, there probably aren’t any Dustins. She and Willam never had any children, and there’s no mention of brothers or cousins or nephews or the like. So I’m guessing there’s no close claim to Barrowton. 
  • Second, Lady Dustin’s kin are powerful. The Ryswells have a lot of horses, which means they have a lot of heavy cavalry compared to other houses. And the Rills are a pretty large territory. There are also a lot of Ryswells, relatively speaking, as Lord Ryswell has three sons and a number of nephews besides. Chances are, one of those Ryswell sons is Lady Dustin’s heir, so challenging Lady Dustin means you challenge Lord Ryswell too.
  • Third, never discount personality. Lady Dustin is hard as nails, she’s been ruling Barrowton for a long time, and she’s got the support of her own people and the vassal houses of House Dustin. So dislodging her is going to mean a fight.

My guess is, Lord Eddard preferred to keep the status quo. If Lady Dustin is a good ruler, and a Ryswell is going to inherit, why alienate two powerful families on behalf of some claimant who doesn’t have what it takes to take Barrowton from her? 

About the canals. Given the limits of Westerosi technology it would be impossible to build the canals you proposed. Most canals of any great size weren’t built until the Industrial revolution, and even then they were incredibly expensive. The required money to build them would probably increase the debt to the point that even charging for them wouldn’t gain any money for the Iron Throne.

marxism-leninism-memeism:

racefortheironthrone:

marxism-leninism-memeism:

racefortheironthrone:

I don’t think they are impossible. Mander to Blackwater is 50 miles, Blue Fork to Ironman’s Bay is half that. Compare that to the Naviglio Grande, built between the 12th and 13th centuries, which is more than 30 miles long, or the Canal de Briere, built in the 17th century, which is 35 miles long, let alone the Canal de Midi, also built in the 17th century, which is 150 miles long. And those are just the European canals – the Grand Canal of China is over a thousand miles long, and that was built in the 7th century. 

here’s the problem, as far as i’m aware, there’s no tradition of corvee labour in westeros like there was in europe and china during the respective periods, and coming up with enough coin to pay wage laborers on top of that required for materials and so forth would be difficult, to say the least

Given how much of the legal status of the peasantry is in question, I wouldn’t rule it out. Given that the Westerosi are capable of building Storm’s End and the Eyrie and Winterfell and Casterly Rock, I think labor is not in short supply for construction. 

omg! i love ur blog! seriously ur analysis is incredible. at any rate, though, the naviglia grande took fifty years to build, with the aid of a substantial penal workforce, which doesn’t really exist in westeros, moreover, northern italy had a much higher population density than northwest europe, iirc. sadly, we don’t know what the overall population density of westeros is like, and you can straight-up forget data on land tenure, levels of rents, seed ratios, systems of crop rotation, prevalence of ox/horse plowing, and other data which might give us an idea of whether the kind of necessary labour sources exist.

Thanks! Glad you liked it. 

All I can say regarding Westerosi labor supply is that somehow the royal roads got built within fifty years, and those are massive construction projects in their own right, thousands of miles long. I think they can handle a 25-50 mile canal.

You mentioned building canals as a way to get Westeros out of debt. What about just building some real roads and some bridges and charging tolls (having the toll takers be royal appointments) to use them? We see how rich the Freys got by having a bridge, and if you look at a map of Westeros, the Twins is way out of the way.

Well, Westeros does have some decent roads, although as I pointed out they’re somewhat biased in favor of the capitol. 

In terms of roads, the main thing I can see is that:

  • The North: Barrowton/White Harbor need road connections to Winterfell/the Kingsroad.
  • The Vale: more of an Eyrie to Gulltown road? 
  • The Riverlands: needs a LHT to Maidenpool Road, Riverrun to Goldroad via Stony Sept,  maybe Saltpans to Crossroads. 
  • The Westerlands – Lannisport to Kayce, Lannisport to Banefort mebbe?
  • The Reach: mostly needs a few spurs to connect Goldengrove and the like to the Roseroad.
  • Stormlands: definitely needs a Storm’s End to Rainytown road.
  • Dorne: Wyl to Yronwood, Yronwood to Godsgrace, and then Skyreach to Sandstone to Hellholt to Red Dunes.

In terms of bridges:

  • Bridge over the Trident at the Ruby Ford.
  • Bridge over the Mander at Cider Hall and/or Longtable? Might exist.