How do Lords Paramount of their Region and the King collect taxes? In Dragons, Stags, and Copper Stars? In items like food or cloth or etc.? Do the Stormlands receive less taxes because they have the Marcher Lords and those guys historically didn’t have to give taxes to their liege I think?

Probably a mix of in cash and in kind, although you can always sell the in-kind stuff if you need the readies and if you don’t need the goods.

That’s a very astute observation! My answer is, yes and no. Keep in mind, the feudal contracts of the marcher lords would have been written when the Storm Kings were their monarchs, so they wouldn’t have intermediate liege lords, but would owe their fealty to Storm’s End. That wouldn’t change when Aegon came around, so the Baratheons aren’t getting cut out completely. What is the case is that the Marcher Lords (and keep in mind, there are Marcher Lords in the Reach as well) wouldn’t pay as much as other lords, since they get to keep “feudal due, aid, grant, and relief" from their own vassals to pay for their castles out of their own pockets.

Different anon jumping off of the last Dornish ask: Would a less ambitious ‘conquer Dorne’ plan that just seeks to annex the Red Mountains (since that seems to be where most of the raiding comes from) have a good chance of success? If so, why do you think no Storm King or Reach King (especially pre-united Dorne) ever tried it, or if the tried it it didn’t work?

I think a less ambitious strategy would definitely increase the odds of success – it prevents over-extension, allows you to concentrate your forces in a more defensible location and keeps your supply lines much shorter and less vulnerable to attack, and means you can avoid the hazards of the open deserts.

I do think it has been tried in the past, but the reason why it hasn’t worked very well is that they weren’t able to divide the enemy against itself. The Yronwoods aren’t about to ally with the Dondarrions, because after thousands of years of war between the two Houses, they’re not going to trust one another. Likewise, I would imagine there’s a lot of bad blood between the Gardeners and the Daynes and Fowlers.

Are the Tyrell/Dornish Marches in a constant state of semi-conflict, and if so who is the fighting between? Unaffiliated border reivers, like bandits or other criminal smallfolk? Or noble-funded/noble-led forces supplementing their income or waging vendettas?

Good question!

Given that GRRM based the Dornish Marches on the Scottish (and to a lesser extent, Welsh) Marches and their long and bloody history of reiving, I would say yes, although to a lesser extent than was the case before Dorne was incorporated into the realm.

In terms of who the fighting is being done by…reivers did not tend to be unaffiliated. Rather, you had a hierarchy of reiving “families” (who combined both actual family members and non-related members) from the very small who paid tribute in return for the protection of the larger families. So among the Daynes, the Blackmonts, the Mullendores, the Peakes, the Tarlys, Carons, Fowlers, Manwoodys, Yronwoods, Wyls, Dondarrions, Swanns, etc. I would imagine quite a few of their bannermen, and their bannermen’s bannermen and so on are reivers.

In terms of the forms of conflict, you’d see a wide range from livestock raiding to reprisal raiding to protection rackets to blood vendettas to low-level warfare to full-scale warfare, carried out at various levels as bannermen call on their liege lords for protection and liege lords call their bannermen for military support.

Why does Varys dress differently than other Westeros men of his class? He’s been in Westeros for decades, shouldn’t he have assimilated yet?

Because he isn’t a “Westeros men of his class.” Varys is known to be a foreigner, and to be a eunuch, and not highborn either (only a lord by courtesy), so trying to assimilate would only bring about the sneering disdain of nobility for parvenus.

Moreover, as we see from his disguises, Varys’ very unassimilated appearance is actually quite useful to him. People are so used to seeing the elaborately dressed and perfumed court eunuch, simpering in falsetto, that when he puts on boiled leather and speaks in a rough voice, no one would think it’s him.

Politics of the Seven Kingdoms: Dorne (Part II)

credit to Sir Other-in-Law If in Part I, there was a crippling lack of information about the history of Dorne, with the arrival of Nymeria and the Rhoynar we go from drought to flood. While I would argue that the full story of Nymeria’s odyssey to Dorne is one of the best additions to WOIAF, providing a great and sweeping drama of storms, pirates, haunted lost cities, plagues, and finally a safe…

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Any idea where the Valyrian Dragonlords odd powers come from, as well as their unique physical ethnic features? I’ve read some thing implying or speculating that they might actually be partially Dragons in a physical literal sense either through what I imagine would be challenging inter-species copulations or some bizarre black magic? Thoughts on this?

I’ve talked about this here, but I might as well lay out the evidence:

Sheltered there, amidst the great volcanic mountains known as the Fourteen Flames, were the Valyrians, who learned to tame dragons and make them the most fearsome weapon of war that the world ever saw. The tales the Valyrians told of themselves claimed they were descended from dragons and were kin to the ones they now controlled…

The great beauty of the Valyrians—with their hair of palest silver or gold and eyes in shades of purple not found amongst any other peoples of the world—is well-known, and often held up as proof that the Valyrians are not entirely of the same blood as other men. Yet there are maesters who point out that, by careful breeding of animals, one can achieve a desirable result, and that populations in isolation can often show quite remarkable variations from what might be regarded as common. This may be a likelier answer to the mystery of the Valyrian origins although it does not explain the affinity with dragons that those with the blood of Valyria clearly had. (WOIAF)

“T///in the deep mines beneath the Fourteen Flames that lit the Freehold’s nights of old. Most mines are dank and chilly places, cut from cold dead stone, but the Fourteen Flames were living mountains with veins of molten rock and hearts of fire. So the mines of old Valyria were always hot, and they grew hotter as the shafts were driven deeper, ever deeper. The slaves toiled in an oven. The rocks around them were too hot to touch. The air stank of brimstone and would sear their lungs as they breathed it. The soles of their feet would burn and blister, even through the thickest sandals. Sometimes, when they broke through a wall in search of gold, they would find steam instead, or boiling water, or molten rock. Certain shafts were cut so low that the slaves could not stand upright, but had to crawl or bend. And there were wyrms in that red darkness too…Firewyrms. Some say they are akin to dragons, for wyrms breathe fire too. Instead of soaring through the sky, they bore through stone and soil. If the old tales can be believed, there were wyrms amongst the Fourteen Flames even before the dragons came. The young ones are no larger than that skinny arm of yours, but they can grow to monstrous size and have no love for men.” (AFFC)

“In Septon Barth’s Dragons, Wyrms, and Wyverns , he speculated that the bloodmages of Valyria used wyvern stock to create dragons. Though the bloodmages were alleged to have experimented mightily with their unnatural arts, this claim is considered far-fetched by most maesters, among them Maester Vanyon’s Against the Unnatural contains certain proofs of dragons having existed in Westeros even in the earliest of days, before Valyria rose to be a power.” (WOIAF)

So the theory is that Valyrian sorcerors knew fire magic and blood magic, and created dragons by unnaturally crossbreeding firewyrms and wyverns together, and then learned to form bonds with dragons by unnaturally crossbreeding dragons and Valyrians together.

In TPatQ, we know that the Triarchy led a fleet of 90 ships to the Gullet. Isn’t that a bit small considering it’s the forces of three merchant republics? And shouldn’t the Blacks have had an easier time against them? They only managed to take out 2/3rds of the fleet with 5 fully grown dragons.

How much of your navy would you send to fight someone else’s battles?

Even with the alliance, none of the Three Daughters had been attacked directly by Rhaenyra (although they had beef with Daemon Targaryen, certainly), nor had direct interests at stake. It was really more of an alliance of convenience, a hope that victory would bring with it rewards, advantages, a renegotiation of the Stepstones perhaps.

The Battle of the Gullet is rather weird on the dragon angle. Given what happened in the Battle off Gulltown, you’d think the battle would be one-sided in the extreme. My guess is that GRRM wanted the battle to go one way but had already decided the numbers and dispositions of dragons.

Whta was the Lyseni Spring?

It’s not entirely clear, but from context, the Lyseni Spring seems to have involved a popular uprising against the Rogare family in Lys and an elite coup against the Rogare family in Westeros, partially because of the overweening power of the Rogare family which threatened the oligarchical republic and partially because the Iron Bank does not like competition:

“In the end, it was Larra Rogare and her wealthy, ambitious family who helped break the power of the regents and, almost certainly, that of Lord Peake. It was an inadvertent role they played, however, caught up as they were in the Lyseni Spring. This was a time when the Rogare Bank waxed greater than the Iron Bank, and so fell prey to the plots to control the king; they were blamed for many more acts than they were actually guilty of. Lord Rowan, then the Hand and one of the last regents, was accused of being complicit in their crimes and was tortured for information. Ser Marston Waters, now somehow Hand of the King in his place (Munkun, the only regent at this time besides Rowan, is reticent to discuss this in the True Telling), dispatched men to seize Lady Larra after having arrested her brothers. But the king and his brother refused to give her up, and were besieged in Maegor’s Holdfast by Waters and his supporters for eighteen days. The conspiracy eventually unraveled as Ser Marston—perhaps recalling his duty—attempted to fulfill his king’s command to arrest those who had falsely implicated the Rogares and Lord Rowan. Waters himself was killed by his own sworn brother, Ser Mervyn Flowers, when he attempted to arrest him.

… the Lady Larra Rogare of Lys. She was a great beauty of Valyrian descent, and seven years the prince’s elder when she wed him at nine-and-ten. Her father, Lysandro Rogare, was the head of a wealthy banking family whose power waxed even greater following the alliance to the Targaryens. Lysandro assumed the style of First Magister for Life, and men spoke of him as Lysandro the Magnificent. But he and his brother Drazenko, the Prince Consort of Dorne, died within a day of one another, beginning the precipitous fall of the Rogares both in Lys and the Seven Kingdoms.

Lysandro’s heir, Lysaro, spent vast sums in pursuit of power and fell afoul of the other magisters, even as his siblings became embroiled in plots to control the Iron Throne. After his fall, Lysaro Rogare was scourged to death at the Temple of Trade by those he had wronged. His siblings received less fatal punishments, and one among them—Moredo Rogare, the soldier who carried the Valyrian sword Truth—eventually led an army against Lys.” (WOIAF)

So this reads a lot like the rebellion against Piero II Medici after the death of Lorenzo Il Magnifico, which led to the expulsion of the Medici from Florence, combined with a bit of the Pazzi Conspiracy, combined by some of the intrigues during the regency of Henry VI. However, there’s a lot of detail we’re missing here about how the Rogare tried to control the Iron Throne, what role the Peakes played in all this, what Marston Waters was about, and so on.

Hopefully when Fire and Blood Volume I comes out, we’ll get a fuller explanation of this incredibly complicated binational political event.

Are all the men on ironborn longships freeborn fighters, or do you think some are thralls who solely row? We see Vic using such to Meereen with captured slaves he “freed”. And do you think all the regions were involved in Greyjoy’s Rebellion? If not, which ones weren’t? Did Jon presumably staying in KL mean the Vale wasn’t rallied? Did Doran not seek to build (fake) trust with the Iron Throne by sending levies? Did Mace only “provide” the Redwyne fleet? Did Hoster leave it to the Mallisters?

opinions-about-tiaras:

The ironborn definitely use thralls as rowers. They may or may not solely row, but they are certainly thralls.

From the Victarion preview chapter of TWOW:

The oarsmen were all big. One was a boy, one a brute, one a bastard’s
bastard. The Boy had been rowing for less than a year, the Brute for
twenty. They had names, but Victarion did not know them. One had come
from Lamentation, one from Sparrow Hawk, one from Spider Kiss. He could not be expected to know the names of every thrall who had ever pulled an oar in the Iron Fleet.

Victarion did not oft forgive a thrall for talking out of turn, but the
Boy was young, no more than twenty, and soon to die besides.

If it made the three feel braver to believe they had a choice, let them
cling to that. Victarion cared little what they believed, they were only
thralls.

That strikes me as a case of the Ironborn social contract beginning to break down once you shift from the smaller-scale longships to actual warships, because otherwise the Ironborn very much separate out thrall’s work from freeborn work:

racefortheironthrone:

I think that usually there’s a pretty strict code that there’s thrall’s work and Ironborn’s work and the two should not be mixed. Hence why Euron’s crew is an aberration.

The Reach, the North, the Westerlands, the Riverlands, the Stormlands, and the Crownlands were definitely involved. We don’t hear anything about the Vale or Dorne tho.

“Amongst the ironborn, only reaving and fishing were considered worthy work for free men. The endless stoop labor of farm and field was suitable only for thralls.”

Incidentally, this also suggests that argument about the Ironborn having larger army #s are wrong, because if they have to resort to thralls to fill out the oars of a ship a third the size of mainlander warships, no way in hell they have 30,000 men under arms.

“The Boltons are planning to betray the Lannisters when they get a chance” Wait, what?

See here and here. Tywin’s original plan always had tension between the interests of the Lannisters and the Boltons:

“Why, do you plan to mistreat her?” His father sounded more curious than concerned. “The girl’s happiness is not my purpose, nor should it be yours. Our alliances in the south may be as solid as Casterly Rock, but there remains the north to win, and the key to the north is Sansa Stark…Come spring, the northmen will have had a bellyful of krakens. When you bring Eddard Stark’s grandson home to claim his birthright, lords and little folk alike will rise as one to place him on the high seat of his ancestors.” (Tyrion III)

Lord Bolton will wed the girl to his bastard son. We shall allow the Dreadfort to fight the ironborn for a few years, and see if he can bring Stark’s other bannermen to heel. Come spring, all of them should be at the end of their strength and ready to bend the knee. The north will go to your son by Sansa Stark … if you ever find enough manhood in you to breed one. Lest you forget, it is not only Joffrey who must needs take a maidenhead.” (Tyrion VI)

“The price was cheap by any measure. The crown shall grant Riverrun to Ser Emmon Frey once the Blackfish yields. Lancel and Daven must marry Frey girls, Joy is to wed one of Lord Walder’s natural sons when she’s old enough, and Roose Bolton becomes Warden of the North and takes home Arya Stark.” (Tyrion VI)

So the Boltons would have the Wardenship and Arya, Tyrion would have Sansa and Winterfell, but that’s not a tenable situation over the long-term because only one of these houses can rule the North. So Tywin wants to wear down Roose Bolton’s power by having him fight the Ironborn and the Stark loyalists, and then turn on him to consolidate power in the person of Tyrion’s Lannister-Stark son.

Roose Bolton realizes this, but he also realizes that once he’s up in the North with his carefully-hoarded Bolton-Frey army, there’s really nothing the Lannisters can do to him all the way down in King’s Landing:

“Lord Bolton aspires to more than mere lordship. Why not King of the North? Tywin Lannister is dead, the Kingslayer is maimed, the Imp is fled. The Lannisters are a spent force, and you were kind enough to rid him of the Starks. Old Walder Frey will not object to his fat little Walda becoming a queen. White Harbor might prove troublesome should Lord Wyman survive this coming battle … but I am quite sure that he will not. No more than Stannis. Roose will remove both of them, as he removed the Young Wolf. Who else is there?” (ADWD, Prince of Winterfell)