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:

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.

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.

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.

Do you think Rickon will ever get his own POV? Apart from Robb, he’s the only Stark without one, and by now he’s nearly as old as Bran was at the beginning of ASOIAF.

Probably not. He’s five, 28% younger than Bran was at the beginning of ASOIAF. With Bran, you at least had the mystical plot to give him something to do, but I don’t think Rickon’s going to be anythiing but a figurehead by the end of the series.

Do you think the Isle of Faces will be relevant later on? Are there any theories about it? It seems a very mysterious and historically significant place.

Might be. It’s certainly important to Rhaegar and Lyanna on the one hand and Howland Reed on the other. As a massive stand of weirwood trees and a place where the Old Faith survives in the South, it might have some untapped magical power, certainly.

The question is – which POV? I don’t think it’s going to be Brienne or Jaime or Cersei or Arianne or Jon Connington, that’s not what their plot arcs are about. It’s too much of a detour to be Sansa or Arya or Jon. Bran could visit via tree but I don’t really see why. Maybe Sam, but he’s not particularly close either.

Let’s say at the beginning of the series you could take anyone’s position on the Small Coincil, even Hand, which would you choose, why, and what would you try and accomplish given the state of the monarchy at the time? (And please don’t say master of ships so you can pull an Aurane Waters and get the heck outta westeros and head to the summer isles).

Master of Coins. Build a canal linking the Mander to the Blackwater and the Trident to Ironman’s Bay. Charge 10 gold a ship, that’ll put a significant dent in the debt.

I’ve always believed that Margaery and Dany are red herrings. Cersei thinks Marg is the more beautiful queen and we the readers think it’s Dany but it would end up being Arianne. Duck,duck, GOOSE.

That could also be the case. We’ll have to wait and see.

Don’t understand how a Knight in the Seven Kingdoms, which is just a collection of already written and published books, will take ten months to get to stores. Man, how far away are we from the Winds of Winter, eh?

Because Garry Gianni is doing art for the book, a piece every other page. That’s 89 pieces of art – a huge effort, and we should applaud Mr. Gianni for his dedication.

TWOW – dunno. It’s not listed for 2015. But then again, ADWD wasn’t until it was.

Do you know if anyone has done some kind of National Flag of Westeros? And if not do you have any idea what something like that would look like?

I don’t think there is one. There isn’t really a conception of the nation apart from the monarch themself – so for three hundred years, it was the Targaryen dragon. For 15-odd years, it was the Baratheon stag, but now that symbol’s been fractured between no less than three different groups.

Belated Cross-Promoting

So…something I just wrote made me realize that I’m pretty awful at cross-promoting myself.

So, if you like Race for the Iron Throne and you’d like to get frequent updates and help spread the word, here are a number of ways you can do so:

subscribe to the blog itself. I have a pretty amazing comment section, so if you haven’t joined the discussion there, you might well want to.
Follow me on Twitter. There’s actually quite a bit of ASOIAF/Game of Thrones discussion I do on there that doesn’t get seen here on Tumblr (and vice-versa) so there’s extra content there. Also if you can help spread the word to your Twitter followers, that helps.
Like Race for the Iron Throne on Facebook. In addition to getting the same updates that you get on the blog or on Twitter, I usually link things like links to my book(s) there that isn’t possible/easy to do on Twitter or Tumblr.

Anyway, feel free to do any of these, or not. Just thought I’d try to be less bad at promoting myself.

But why do you think Aegon will marry Arianne? She is quite older (24, even if this isn’t a big deal), Martells are sticking to any Targaryen anyway, marriage or not. So in the eventuality of them believing Aegon is real, they will support him without marriage. And Aegon does plan to marry Dany. Also, if no one will steal a dragon, why did GRRM say there will be a second Dance? 1st Dance was very violent. If nobody will steal dragons, than the “2nd Dance” won’t be a war. Everyone will bow to D

Here’s why:

1. Aegon and Co. are already looking for an alliance with Dorne; hence Jon Connington’s letter to Doran Martell.

2. It’s not clear that the Martells will ally without a marriage. As Doran says “he comes with sellswords, but no dragons…where are the dragons?” Aegon’s going to need to offer something to get Arianne to commit.

3. Arianne’s two chapters in TWOW so far released are all about Arianne going to visit Aegon in the name of Dorne, with the power to release Dorne’s armies if she sends the right word. Why spend the time if you don’t pull the trigger?

4. I think Aegon is going to offer Dany a marriage in addition, trying to replicate the whole Aegon-Visenya-Rhaenys thing. Dany’s not going to go for that.

5. I don’t think no one will steal a dragon, I just don’t think they will succeed long-term. I don’t think the 2nd Dance will be a long war, I think it will be a very short and very very violent conflict. But remember, this is only one intermediate step in Dany’s story – the real climax awaits Dany up North.