Excellent question! No, it hasn’t, for the most part, because of the extreme financial conservativism of House Lannisters, which I’ve covered here. This is the key quote:
“…some borrowed heavily from Casterly Rock, then failed to repay the loans. When it was seen that Lord Tytos was willing to extend such debts, even forgive them, common merchants from Lannisport and Kayce began to beg for loans as well.
“
Given their enormous liquid reserves, it came as something of a shock to find out that it was seen as a major (and negative) departure from policy for the Lannisters to loan money to their commercial sector. While dumping all of their reserve onto the market at once would be a bad idea, not providing any liquidity to the merchant class has beyond a shadow of a doubt held back the economic development of the Westerlands economy.
So how do the Lannisters use their wealth? Well, certainly they are less dependent on their bannermen, although as Tytos showed, it’s not a good idea for them to let their bannermen get away with not paying their taxes. But mostly, the Lannisters use their wealth for political advantage, lending out money to houses within and without the Westerlands in exchange for political favors.
Well, Pentos has a large agricultural hinterland, with the Velvet Hills and the Flatlands, Braavos has the Braavosian Coastland, Norvos has its hill country, Qohor its forests, Volantis its riverrine empire.
But speaking specifically of the Three Daughters, it’s my belief that the Disputed Lands aren’t blasted wasteland as we are told. They don’t look barren on the maps, and realistically, the populations of Lys, Myr, and Tyrosh couldn’t feed themselves with imports alone. So I think that basically each grab a chunk of the Disputed Lands and get the bulk of their foodstuffs from there, and that the fighting is over an attempt to corner the market and dictate terms to their rivals.
As for how those hinterlands are administered, beyond the idea that the Archon of Tyrosh and the Council of Magisters for Lys and Myr assert overall political authority, I’m not sure. Given the commercial nature of the Free Cities, my guess is that the magisters divvied up the land amongst themselves and then farm it in vast latifundias.
Credit to J.E Fullerton/Ser Other-in-Law Introduction: If there’s one thing that I hope I have done in this series, it’s to push back against the idea of essentialism – whether it’s the idea that Northmen are inherently honorable, Valemen inherently isolationist, or the Riverlanders inherently divided. Cultures, societies, polities are all too complicated for such simplistic narratives. This is…
There’s at least some legends that suggest that Brandon the Builder was a grandson of Garth Greenhand, which if true would make him highborn indeed.
Bran would have had to have been highborn in order to give the Gift to the Night’s Watch.
Given the high degree of likelihood that Brandon the Builder was the Last Hero, the fact that he started out with “a sword, a horse, a dog, and a dozen companions,” suggests noble status.
“the Barrow Kings to their south, who styled themselves the Kings of the First Men and claimed supremacy over all First Men everywhere, even the Starks themselves.”
The use of the terms “styled” and “claimed” suggests their reach was larger than their grasp, that they held authority over the south-west of the North but not the whole.
Appointment from above – the most powerful king or warlord chooses his favorite holyperson to be in charge, and they choose the people below them and so forth, similar to the Faith of the Seven post-Jaehaerys and Baelor, or in our world how the Byzantine Emperors appointed the Patriarchs of Constantinople.
Election from below – the congregation elects one of their own who’s their favorite holyperson to be their local priest, the priests from a given area elect their superior, and their superiors either belong to a general council and/or elect a single person to lead the whole community. Similar to in our world the conciliarist views of Marsilius of Padua, at least some interpretations of the early Christian church, and the emergence of Presbyterian and similar forms of Protestantism.
Excellent question! My answer will come in two parts, relating to different ways to think about money.
The first has to do with the relationship of money to land in a feudal society. As I explained with regards to Littlefinger:
If you’re asking why he doesn’t have more land (other than the lands of Harrenhal, which are quite extensive if slightly cursed), it’s that Westeros doesn’t have a free market in land, wherein land becomes a fungible commodity that can be bought and sold at will and abstracted into derivatives and futures, etc.
Land in Westeros is distributed through feudal relationships that are traditional and customary in nature – fiefdoms are hereditary, taxation and rent levels are fixed, and tenancies are more likely to involve feudal obligations than pure cash rents.
Karl Polayni, in his masterwork Great Transformation, identified the transition from feudalism to capitalism as the creation of a free market in land, labor, and money where none had existed before: the feudal contracts that stretched from the king on high all the way down to the peasant on the manor had to be destroyed so that land could be bought and sold as a commodity; serfdom had to be abolished and the commons enclosed to first free the peasants from the land they were bound to and then drive them into the factories; and usury laws that had hampered lending money for profit needed to be abolished to allow the banking industry to flourish.
This hasn’t yet happened in Westeros, for the most part. The only mention that land can be bought comes from the extended Westerlands chapter, where at Ellyn Reyne’s “urging, Lord Tarbeck expanded his domain by buying the lands of the lesser lords and landed knights about him… and taking by force the holdings of those who refused to sell.” The canonicity of this event being in question, nevertheless the context suggests extra-legality, with cash payment being used to mask violent seizure.
So even if they wanted to, no I don’t think the Lannisters could buy Westeros. I’d also point out that it would never occur to them to do so; as I’ve said before, the Lannisters are aristocrats and have an aristocrat’s conception of money rather than a merchant’s conception of money. Gold becomes land by buying swords to take it, not by going to a market like some Pentoshi cheesemonger.
The second has to do with inflation, as @joannalannister suggested. As I wrote here, the size of the Westerosi economy itself acts as a limiter on House Lannister’s ability to spend its gold:
The danger of dumping 18 billion gold into the Westerosi economy is that you’d generate a wave of hyper-inflation so bad that you’d make the SpanishPrice Revolution look like a mere stock market hiccup. While in the long run providing the liquidity necessary for Westeros-and indeed even Planetos-wide economic development, the short-term implications would be the destruction of the Westerlands economy, as skyrocketing inflation would destroy the value of our reserves, cause our goods to be non-competitive, and cause the price of food to soar faster than wages, leading to massive socio-economic conflict.
When the Kingdom of Spain conquered Mexico and Peru in the late 15th-early 16th centuries, they got their hands on the great silver mines of Zacatecas and Potosí, which produced $2.7 trillion in 2015 dollars. This vast tidal wave of precious metals, torn out of the ground by slaves, had the paradoxical effect of destroying Spain’s economy with inflation. Inflation meant that it was far cheaper to import raw materials and manufactured goods into Spain, rather than produce them at home, so manufacturing and even farming went into decline. Rather than invest in agriculture or commerce, the wealthy put their money into government debt instead so as to be repaid in silver.
And of course, the irony of all of this is that the Crown’s vast treasure hoard by its very vastness destroyed its value. Drunk on their own precious metals, the Kings of Spain tried to conquer all of Europe for Catholicism and the House of Hapsburg, and went bankrupt in the process. As I discuss here:
@racefortheironthrone estimated that Westeros has an annual GDI of 525 million gold, while I think the Lannisters have an annual income of approximately 6 million gold. The Lannisters’ annual income is a little more than 1% of Westerosi GDI per year. (For comparison, Rockefeller’s entire net worth – not his annual income, but his entire fortune – was 1.5%-2% of GDP.)
Phillip II of Spain, despite all the gold and
silver of Mexico and Peru, went bankrupt four times (1557, 1560, 1575, and 1596),
and historians suggest that his *personal* debts were equal to 60% of Spain’s
GDP at the time..
It got so bad that during the Dutch Revolt, which lasted from 1568-1648 (if you want to know where all the money was going…), that Phillip II had to get his financing and supplies from the Dutch because no one else would lend him money to pay for his war against the Dutch. The Dutch bankers agreed to finance him at exorbitant rates of interest, and then turned around and used his own money to support the rebellion against the Spanish.
So the Lannisters have to tread lightly when it comes to their gold…
So I was talking with @goodqueenaly about the whole Season 6 revelation that the Children of the Forest created the White Walkers, and our conversation crystallized some problems I have with this twist.
If the White Walkers were a weapon, why weren’t they used during the war between the First Men and the Children during the Dawn Age, given that that war was an existential crisis for the Children where they brought down the Hammer of Waters on the Arm of Dorne and the Neck?
Why the two thousand year gap between the Pact that ended that war and the Long Night, which is the first recorded encounter between humans and White Walkers?
If the Long Night was so centered on Westeros, why are there records of the conflict across Essos, from the Rhoynar in the west (who tell of the hero of the Rhoyne who sang the secret song to bring back the day), to Asshai (where the legend of Azor Ahai was born), to the Bone Mountains (where the patrimony of Hyrkoon the Hero was founded), to Yi Ti (where the woman with the monkey’s tail saved the world from the Lion of Night, and the Pearl Emperor built the Five Forts to guard his lands from the Lion’s demons)?
IMAGE
“They never listened to what he wanted, even though Bran was a Stark and a prince besides, and the Reeds of the Neck were Stark bannermen.”
Synopsis:
Warning
(more…)
RFTIT Tumblr Backup 