What do people in the North do when Winter cones around besides try and survive?

Great question! I can hazard a few guesses as to some areas of activity, based on cultures that have short(er) growing seasons and long winters.

One would be handcrafts – Scandinavian farmers, for example, historically would often spend the winters building boats for sale to fishing villages (a practice known as beredskaparbete, which later gave its name to Sweden’s system of jobs for the unemployed) – so I wouldn’t be surprised if smallfolk in the North spent the long winter making new (or repairing old) farm equipment, housewares, clothing, and so on and so forth.

Another would be animal husbandry – European farmers in winter were advised to lop trees for fodder to help keep animals alive through the winter, for example, and in regions with lots of marginal land, animals would be herded from their normal fields to “preserved grass” land.

One that shows up a bunch in ASOIAF is story-telling: Old Nan’s “hearth tales” seem to be part of a practice of oral culture in the North that has preserved memories of the Old Night and similar ancient truths that the Maesters scoff at. While the North isn’t the only part of Westeros with a folk culture, I would imagine the tradition of story-telling is much deeper in the North than in other places, simply because they have so much time in the winters to gather together for warmth and while the time away.

i have a feudalism question. Youve said before that some lands belong to kings directly whereas others are owned by other nobles who pay tribute in taxes/military service to the king. But doesnt technically the whole realm belong to the king? Isn’t that the whole “sovereign ruler” schtick ?

It’s kind of complicated. The thing is that, in feudalism, almost no one actually owns anything outright in the sense that we think about it; rather property is distributed in various leases and use-rights and tenancies, all the way up and all the way down

And while in our 21st century capitalist mindset leases, use-rights, and tenancies sound like precarious second-class statuses that fall fall short of true ownership, that wasn’t the case in medieval societies. These statuses were backed up by tradition, law, and the willingness of very touchy mounted soldiers to go to war to uphold them against infringement from on high. Thus, even if something was de jure “owned” by the king, once noblemen felt that they had a right to inherit the fiefdom, de facto it became owned by those noblemen (save in the case of felony).

Re: Bloodraven’s dead Greenseers: If it is supposed to be literal, and Bloodraven’s partial fault, then shouldn’t we see some evidence, demographically? Every Greenseer we know of is of high birth (BR himself, Brandon, Jojen, possibly Euron), and they’re generally from specific bloodlines (at least, not pure Andal). Shouldn’t we see a higher rate of unexplained deaths of young people in these groups? A few more lines ending than normally happens? Or perhaps we are seeing that?

There’s plenty of greenseers and wargs outside of high birth – you have the Green Men on the Isle of Faces, you have all of the wildling skinchangers (Orell, Varamyr, Haggon, Borroq, Briar, Grisella, etc.), there’s the Children of the Forest greenseers, there’s the Ghost of High Heart, and so on.

But in general, I think the reason that you don’t see evidence of the dead dreamers is that in a society with a high rate of child mortality, children who just die in their sleep aren’t unexpected, and if it’s a thousand across ~fifty years spread across an entire continent, it would be very hard to see the pattern.

So I had a thought on the Disputed Lands and slave labor. It seems weird to me that there are so many slaves proportionally in the Free Cities, so there has to be some kind of demand for them somewhere like a need for manual labor to farm large amounts, like the reason African slaves were brought to the Americas. This might be the real reason why the disputed lands are so fertile/how the Free Cities support such large populations. I just wanted to know if you thought that a plausible head cannon

You raise a good point. Slavery of the intense proportions seen in the Free Cities was only seen historically in single-export plantation economies. And yet, the Free Cities’ economies are overhwelmingly focused on commerce, finance, and the production of high value-added manufactured goods.

So vast latifundia in the Disputed Lands would provide at least a partial explanation for why you see such unusually high levels of slavery in the Free Cities. Not a complete explanation, but better than what we have now.

Is there a difference between freeriders and sellswords, or it more a case of all freeriders are sellswords, but not all sellswords are freeriders?

I thought I had answered this earlier, but searching through my archives and through google (because Tumblr’s search function is terrible) failed me, so I might as well do it now.

They are actually two distinct occupations, as explained by GRRM in one of his “So Spake Martin” Q+As:

“Sellswords are mercenaries. They may or may not be mounted, but whether ahorse or afoot they fight for wages. Most tend to be experienced professional soldiers. You don’t have a lot of green young sellswords – some, sure, but not many. It’s a profession a man tends to cho[o]se after he’s tasted a few battles and learned that he’s good at fighting….

Freeriders… well, that term is both broader and narrower. Narrower in that it excludes foot soldiers. You need a horse to be a freerider. Otherwise broader.

Freeriders are mounted fighters who are not part of a lord’s retinue or feudal levy. Some are veterans, sure, but also green and untrained recruits, farm boys on ploughhorses, men dispossessed by the fighting, a very mixed bag. They don’t as a rule collect wages. Some fight for plunder, of course. Other to perhaps to impress a lord or a knight, in hopes of being taken permanently into his service. For many it is simply a means to survive. If the war sweeps over your village, your house is burned, and your crops stolen or destroyed, you can hide in the ruins and starve, flee to the nearest city for refuge, take to the woods as an outlaw (the ones who do that are oft called “broken men”)… or you can saddle your horse, if you’re lucky enough to have one, and join one army or the other. If you do, you’re a freerider. Being part of an army at least gives you a better chance of being fed.

There are all sorts of freeriders, ranging from wandering adventurers who are virtually hedge knights (lacking only the knighthood) to the aforementioned farm boys on drays. Most are used as scouts, outriders, foragers, and light cavalry.

Obviously, there is some overlap between the two terms. A mounted man who fights for pay could be called either a freerider or a sellsword.

Both terms carry a certain stigma in Westeros. Sellswords are said to have no loyalty, and freeriders no discipline.”

So the distinction is that a mercenary is a professional soldier who fights for wages, whereas a freerider is an amateur volunteer who fights primarily for room and board with maybe a chance of plunder or getting a permanent job.

The social status of the freerider is interesting, because horses are quite expensive, and even a plowhorse is an indicator that a peasant family is doing well for itself and is probably among the upper ranks of the peasantry. Moreover, learning to ride and fight from horseback is not a simple endeavor and requires substantial training and spare time to do the training in.

Given this, it’s kind of interesting that someone would choose the economically precarious lot of the freerider. My guess is that you get freeriders through a couple different social processes:

Additional recruitment beyond the feudal levy. While most medieval wars were fought by professional soldiers, with traditional feudal levies being gradually phased-out, the longer and more intense a conflict became, the more you turn to additional sources of manpower and better-off peasants who have their own horses are an easy way to find additional cavalry.
“War is a young man’s game.” Another part of what might be going on is the trickle-down effect of a society and culture dominated by a warrior caste who conflate the virtues of masculinity and soldiering. Thus, we see situations like that of Rolly Duckfield or Dunk, young peasant men who dream of becoming knights even if their birth should rule it out might well be swept up in the romance of war and ride off to chase their dreams in the service of their lord, who’s unlikely to turn down “free” military labor.
Social mobility through any means necessary. Both historically, and in Westeros, working for the nobility was a good path to social mobility. Not only was pay, benefits, and job security pretty good, but because physical proximity is the coin of medieval politics, even low-level flunkies have a chance to raise in status. They’re probably nto going to become knights or lords, but they might well become sheriffs, which in turn might allow them to become an esquire and get their family officially into the lowest ranks of the nobility. So it may well be that, despite the lack of pay and the risk of death, peasant boys might think that the chance of getting into a lord’s service is worth it.

At what age would people in ASOIAF not try and marry widows like Donella Hornwood? She wasn’t able to have more children because of her age, but it seemed like everyone and their cousin was trying to marry her.

It’s not about child-bearing, since her children by someone else wouldn’t have a right of inheritance to her former husband’s lands. Rather, it’s about access to a widow’s “use-rights.” In many cultures, prior to the invention of life insurance or survivor’s insurance, widows had a customary right to use at least part of their former spouse’s estate for the rest of their lifetime, to ensure that they wouldn’t be left destitute.

Thus, marrying Lady Hornwood would give her suitor a claim to the Hornwood lands, at least for the duration of her lifespan. (Another sign of the Boltons’ abuse of the social contract is that Ramsay claims a permanent right to the Hornwood lands due to his forced marriage to/abduction of the widow Hornwood).

Chapter-by-Chapter Analysis: Tyrion III, ASOS

“Too many strange faces, Tyrion thought, too many new players. The game changed while I lay rotting in my bed, and no one will tell me the rules.” Synopsis: Tyrion attends a Small Council meeting and finds out he’s engaged. Mazeltov? SPOILER WARNING: This chapter analysis, and all following, will contain spoilers for all Song of Ice and Fire novels and Game of Thrones episodes. Caveat lector.…

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Why was it that Bloodraven was loyal to Daeron? Was Daeron the brother he loved?

Re your first question: I think I’ve discussed this before (check the archives, or the guest appearances I did on History of Westeros), but I think it was a combination of any number of the following factors:

Bloodraven agreed with Daeron’s politics/thought that Daeron was the better administrator.
Bloodraven thought that disinheriting Daeron and ending the legitimate male line of House Targaryen was dangerous and destabilizing.
Bloodraven did not want Bittersteel anywhere near government.
Boodraven owed Daeron for protecting him and his mother at court when he was a child, so was returning the favor.
Boodraven saw a chance for advancement under Daeron, parlaying his support into becoming Master of Whispers and other offices.

Re your second question: no, I think it works better if he loved Daemon but fought against him.

Is there any significance to the BwB using hanging as their preferred method of execution as opposed to beheading?

I think there’s a couple different reasons:

Hanging is a more plebian way to be executed (historically, beheading was something of a perogative of the nobility) so it fits the BwB’s politics.
Hanging is much easier to carry out, whereas beheading requires both strength and precision;
Unless you have a long enough drop, hanging is a slow, drawn-out way of executing someone, so it’s way more painful than cutting someone’s head off.

I was going through one of your old Reddit AMAs, and in it you talked about how you think that George probably intended for Dany’s storyline to take her to Asshai. Do you mind elaborating on that?

So there’s a couple different places where I think you can see the original “Plan A”:

“Dragon’s eggs, from the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai,” said Magister Illyrio. “The eons have turned them to stone, yet still they burn bright with beauty.” (AGOT, Dany II)

He lifted his eyes and saw clear across the narrow sea, to the Free Cities and the green Dothraki sea and beyond, to Vaes Dothrak under its mountain, to the fabled lands of the Jade Sea, to Asshai by the Shadow, where dragons stirred beneath the sunrise. (AGOT, Bran III)

“To go north, you must journey south. To reach the west, you must go east. To go forward you must go back, and to touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow.”

Asshai, Dany thought. She would have me go to Asshai. “Will the Asshai’i give me an army?” she demanded. “Will there be gold for me in Asshai? Will there be ships? What is there in Asshai that I will not find in Qarth?”

“Truth,” said the woman in the mask. And bowing, she faded back into the crowd. (ACOK, Dany III)

So GRRM is creating a very strong link between Asshai and dragons from early on – Dany’s eggs come from Asshai, Asshai are where dragons are still alive tho slumbering, and Dany gets a prophecy telling her to go to Asshai.

At some point, however, I think GRRM realized that he didn’t have enough time get Dany to Asshai and back, not so much due to physical limitations (although Asshai is 2700 miles east of Qarth, so it’s not a nothing voyage) but more due to how that would screw up everyone else’s timelines.

My guess is that point was either when he decided against the five-year gap (which would have given people plenty of time to get to where Dany is and vice versa), or when he was struggling through the Meereenese Knot and realizing that the timing and sequence of who meets Dany was more important than whatever he had planned in Asshai.