So as I discuss here, it’s not entirely clear quite how the sequence goes.
What we know is that the Red Kings of the Boltons were the last rivals of the Starks to bend the knee, we know that Rogar the Huntsman “swore fealty to the King of Winter and sent his sons to Winterfell as hostages, even as the first Andals were crossing the narrow sea in their longships,” we know that “King Theon Stark, known to history as the Hungry Wolf, turned back the greatest of these threats, making common cause with the Boltons to smash the Andal warlord Argos Sevenstar at the Battle of the Weeping Water,” and we know that “after the defeat of the Boltons, the last of their Northern rivals, the greatest threats to the dominion of House Stark came by sea.”
Two of the three pieces of evidence suggests that the Boltons surrendered before or just as the Andals attacked the North, but the third suggests the opposite, as the use of the phrase “common cause” suggests that the Boltons were still independent during that initial battle with Andal invaders.
There’s a couple different possibilities: one is that Rogar bent the knee to get military support from Theon to defeat Argos Sevenstar. Another, as you suggest, is that Theon turned on Rogar after the battle, taking advantage of their exhaustion. A third is that Theon’s support might have prompted Rogar to bend the knee freely after the battle, seeing the existential threat that the Andals posed.
I think there were several factors. The first is that communication between armies isn’t good at the best of times – look at what happened when Jaime and Tywin (or Jaime’s cavalry and Jaime’s infantry) got separated, for example. Unless both parties have a rookery that both know to write to (and even then, ravens can go awry), you’re down to riders trying to get across hundreds of miles of very dangerous territory. This only gets more complicated when Robb takes the goat path into the Westerlands and is essentially behind enemy lines, or when Roose is on the march from the Twins to Harrenhal and isn’t near a rookery.
The second is that communications can be controlled. Roose is in a very good opportunity to dictate the narrative of how the Green Fork went down, and when he’s both at the Twins and Harrenhal, he can control what goes out by raven. You would need a subordinate to have recognized that Roose intentionally threw the battle rather than making a forgiveable mistake, be willing to be wholly insubordinate by informing on his commanding officer to the king in violation of chain of command, and then get a rider all the way to Robb Stark without being noticed, and be believed when that rider gets there.
The third has to do with expectations and perceptions. Roose Bolton stayed within the general framework of his orders at the Green Fork – he made a bunch of bad tactical choices, from failing to carry through with his night march to leaving the high ground to firing on his own men, but he didn’t violate Robb’s orders, and most importantly, Roose’s actions achieved the intended strategic effect by engaging with Tywin and allowing Robb to relieve Riverrun before Tywin could move to block him. So Robb doesn’t have any reason to perceive what happened at the Green Fork than the necessary sacrifice he thought it was.
Likewise, when Roose takes Harrenhal, he could plausibly say that A. it was the major enemy asset in the theater of war so it was good sense to take it, B. an allied commander had asked him to do it, and C. he wasn’t given orders to the contrary. Robb doesn’t have any reason to see this action as treasonous, and indeed the victory helps to obscure the pattern of Roose’s actions. It also helps that Robb is a bit distracted by Edmure’s actions at the time.
It’s not until Duskendale that Robb has something that really rings false, and Robb immediately picks up on it, recognizing that Duskendale is a target of no strategic value:
When they brought him word of the battle at Duskendale, where Lord Randyll Tarly had shattered Robett Glover and Ser Helman Tallhart, he might have been expected to rage. Instead he’d stared in dumb disbelief and said, “Duskendale, on the narrow sea? Why would they go to Duskendale?” He’d shook his head, bewildered. “A third of my foot, lost for Duskendale?”
But here’s where Roose’s control of communications kicks in. Sitting at Harrenhal, Roose is the one sending Robb information about what happened. So Roose constructs an alternative narrative in which he had nothing to do with Duskendale:
“Your Grace is too kind. I suffered grievous losses on the Green Fork, and Glover and Tallhart worse at Duskendale.”
“Duskendale.” Robb made the word a curse. “Robett Glover will answer for that when I see him, I promise you.”
“A folly,” Lord Bolton agreed, “but Glover was heedless after he learned that Deepwood Motte had fallen. Grief and fear will do that to a man.”
Robb has no way of knowing this isn’t true, because Roose made sure that the men who could have contradicted him were either killed or captured. The only people present when Roose gave the orders to take Duskendale – through a raven, so it’s not like any of the men at Harrenhal could have talked to Glover’s army and heard about new orders, and even then those men were almost all Freys and Bolton men by that point – wereArya and Qyburn.
The only, only way Robb could have heard differently is if Robett Glover had turned the ship around at Duskendale and headed for the Twins instead of White Harbor and gotten there ahead of the Red Wedding. Even then, odds are that Robett would have been seen as a rash incompetent looking to excuse his folly by making a scandalous accusation at his forgiving commanding officer.
But even if Robb had believed Robett, the 5,000 Stark loyalists in Roose’s army were dead or captured, and Roose and Walder had Robb outnumbered two to one. The damage was already done.
(They’re all nerdy questions, anon. That’s why they’re good.)
So I did a bit of thinking about it here, but why not go into more detail about how we might go about differentiating the armies of the different kingdoms?
So here’s what I’d do:
the North:
Bonus to charge attacks – whether we’re talking about the Dance of the Dragons or the War of Five Kings, the North is most successful when it uses devastating shock tactics, and least successful when its on the defensive (with the exception of Moat Cailin).
New Unit: Northern heavy cavalry. My thinking is that Northern heavy cavalry have an increased chance to cause routs or eliminate enemy commanders, but must pursue fleeing enemies.
the Vale:
Bonus to fortifications – as we see with the Bloody Gate, the Vale fares best by building strong walls and making the enemy attack them, inflicting heavy casualties. Thus, Vale units gain two times the normal advantage from fortifying.
the Riverlands:
Bonus to scorched earth tactics – as we see with the various wars of the Riverlands, the Riverlanders are very good at severing supply lines, destroying everything in the line of march, and then whittling down the enemy. So I would give the Riverlands an automatic Pillage ability, allowing them to strip resources and move at the same time.
the Iron Islands:
Bonus to marine operations: all Ironborn naval units are both warships and transport ships, reflecting the longships’ capacity to quickly land reavers, attack, and then flee.
New Unit: Longship. Can ignore minimum water levels, sail on both ocean and rivers.
the Westerlands:
Bonus to infantry: the Westerlands have the best-trained pike levies in Westeros, so they get a bonus to unit discipline and attack power of their hand-to-hand infantry units.
the Stormlands:
bonus to artillery: the Stormlands canonically have a combat doctrine of being the best archers plus lots of castle-building, so I’d give their archers increased range and accuracy, doubled when they’re fortified.
the Reach:
best heavy cavalry: Reach knight units are stronger than the norm, and have a bonus to unit discipline, representing their devotion to the codes and disciplines of chivalry.
bonus to recruitment/unit size/number of units: to represent the Reach’s larger population.
Dorne:
best light cavalry: Dornish cavalry has the highest movement speed of any unit, and gets additional bonus when flanking or counter-attacking.
New Unit: Dornish cavalry. Only cavalry unit that can attack with both ranged weapons (throwing spears) and hand-to-hand (lances).
Well, as I’ve talked about with the Starks and personal justice, I think it’s more a statement of judicial philosophy than moderation per se.
The Starks essentially invert the normal order of medieval justice as Foucault saw it: rather than making the royal body symbolic and larger than life, it’s made literal as the king becomes the executioner; rather than dwelling on the obliteration and humiliation of the body, the emphasis is on one precise strike with a Valyrian steel sword, almost an artisan guillotine.
In some ways, it’s actually most reminiscent of the classical Greek model that Hesiod wrote about, where lords and kings are local warlords who people come to lay their cases in front of, because they’re the only people around who can enforce judgement. In that situation, carrying out the execution yourself is a dramatic political display, showing off the personal strength and martial prowess of the king which is the proof of their right to rule.
But I think there’s another purpose to Ned’s thing about “the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man’s life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.” One of Hesiod’s major, major complaints is that the lordly system of justice is corrupt – given that the judges are literal strongmen, they don’t really give a damn about fairness, so the parties come to them with bribes disguised as tribute, and the king sides with the rich man over the poor man. By having the king be personally implicated in the execution, he’s making a public statement that the king is sure that the condemned deserves to die (because if the king kills someone who’s innocent, that’s when supernatural retribution kicks in…) and that therefore the justice system is honest.
So I think that it’s something that historically worked in favor of the Starks. As with the Justmans, personally identifying the Starks with justice created a strong bond of loyalty between subject and sovereign. And the Starks lived up to their own mythologizing: hence Ned going in person to Bear Island to chop off the head of Jorah Mormont, showing to everyone who sees or hears about his progress from Winterfell that the Stark will uphold the law against anyone, even the lords.
It’s that time of the week again, folks! Work begins on ASOS again (I’ve got outlines for the next five chapters and quotes plugged in to Dany I and Bran I, so I can start writing those up this weekend), but in the mean-time, what do we have on the Tumblrs? What is a Tyroshi trading cartel? Dany and Xaro’s arguments on slavery: Part I Part II Ironborn vs. Vikings as rulers? Why did Harren build a…
Ultimately, what these royal judicial reforms are all about is trying to create direct connections between the individual subject and the monarch, cutting through the various layers of subinfeudation.
So going to the Great Houses to ask for their help is kind of counter-productive, because it at least implicitly establishes the precedent that the Great Houses have a say in what royal policies will be in their realm. Instead, you want to assert that the Great Houses have an obligation as Lords Paramount holding their titles from the King, to uphold the King’s Justice.
As for the younger sons, you’d probably want to encourage some formal training, whether that’s by being sent to the Citadel or having them be tutored by a maester. Depends on what’s more practical.
The Faith Militant is a pretty close Expy for the monastic orders, with some differences. For one thing, the Poor Fellows are more reminiscent of the Peasant’s Crusade, with a strong dash of the peasant revolts of the 14th century.
The Warrior’s Sons are a lot closer to the literary imagination’s version of the monastic knightly orders – they’re knights, they protect pilgrims and holy sites, etc. The main difference, I would argue, is that (compared to the Warrior’s Sons who seem to answer directly to the High Sparrow) the historical orders were a bit more loosely affiliated with the church and more responsive to their own elected leadership, although there are some substantial exceptions where popes got more directly involved in their activity.
A veritable historical badass. For the uninitiated, Gotz was a mercenary who had fought for Frederick of Brandenburg, the Emperor Maximilian I, Albert IV of Bavaria, and a bunch of other Early Modern notables. Famously, Gotz lost his right arm during a siege when, in an incredibly unlikely turn of events, an enemy cannon ball hit the edge of his sword, forcing it down onto his hand and cutting it off.
So, there I think we see an element of Jaime’s mutilation. Unlike the Lannisters, however, Berlichingen was a practical man, if somewhat hot-tempered (Gotz was known for a number of feuds and duels, occasionally capturing various counts or raiding Nuremberg merchants), and he built himself a prosthetic that wasn’t made of a single piece of gold and thus completely useless. Gotz’ prosthetic used a system of hinges and straps to allow the hand to grasp objects. And so Gotz kept on keeping on.
Gotz was also a significant player in the German Peasants’ War of 1524-5, and although he ended up fighting on both sides, was one of the few professional soldiers who fought for the rebels. As a result, Goethe wrote a play about his life, in which Gotz is portrayed as a heroic individualist and national hero. Famously, during the third act, Gotz is put under siege by the imperial army, and when asked to surrender, says:
Mich ergeben! Auf Gnad und Ungnad! Mit wem redet Ihr! Bin ich ein Räuber! Sag deinem Hauptmann: Vor Ihro Kaiserliche Majestät hab ich, wie immer, schuldigen Respekt. Er aber, sag’s ihm, er kann mich im Arsche lecken!
(Me, surrender! At mercy! Whom do you speak with? Am I a robber! Tell your captain that for His Imperial Majesty, I have, as always, due respect. But he, tell him that, he can lick me in the arse!)
In your Summerhall theory that Egg intended to sacrifice his great-grandson, Rhaegar to give life to his dragon eggs.
Knowing Dunk, he would never have gone along with this. Do you think he could have been the one who ignited the wildfire to allow Rhaella and an infant Rhaegar to escape, dooming both him and Egg?
No, that’s not how I see it doing down, for one thing I don’t think Dunk would risk burning down an entire castle filled with people. I think the wildfire was always supposed to be part of the ritual, and Dunk’s role was in rescuing Rhaella and Rhaegar, and then going back in to rescue Egg.
“We curse the rain when it falls upon our heads, yet without it we should starve. The world needs rain … and slaves. You make a face, but it is true. Consider Qarth. In art, music, magic, trade, all that makes us more than beasts, Qarth sits above the rest of mankind as you sit at the summit of this pyramid … but below, in place of bricks, the magnificence that is the Queen of Cities rests upon the backs of slaves. Ask yourself, if all men must grub in the dirt for food, how shall any man lift his eyes to contemplate the stars? If each of us must break his back to build a hovel, who shall raise the temples to glorify the gods? For some men to be great, others must be enslaved.”
This was an argument that was used historically to justify slavery as a “positive good,” in the leadup to the American Civil War. People like George Fitzhugh would argue that, without slavery, you wouldn’t have Plato or Aristotle or all the other wonders of Ancient Greece or Rome, or indeed civilization itself.
Anti-slavery writers responded to this particular line of attack by arguing that free labor was inherently more productive than slave labor, following Adam Smith:
“The wear and tear of a slave, it has been said, is at the expense of his master; but that of a free servant is at his own expense. The wear and tear of the latter, however, is, in reality, as much at the expense of his master as that of the former. The wages paid to journeymen and servants of every kind must be such as may enable them, one with another, to continue the race of journeymen and servants, according as the increasing, diminishing, or stationary demand of the society may happen to require. But though the wear and tear of a free servant be equally at the expense of his master, it generally costs him much less than that of a slave…It appears, accordingly, from the experience of all ages and nations, I believe, that the work done by freemen comes cheaper in the end than that performed by slaves.”
“The liberal reward of labour, as it encourages the propagation, so it increases the industry of the common people. The wages of labour are the encouragement of industry, which, like every other human quality, improves in proportion to the encouragement it receives. A plentiful subsistence increases the bodily strength of the labourer, and the comfortable hope of bettering his condition, and of ending his days perhaps in ease and plenty, animates him to exert that strength to the utmost.” (Work of Nations, Book 1, Chapter 8)
Free laborers work hard because their labor can directly improve their material standard of living and, ultimately, the opportunity for upward mobility. Because a slave is fixed in position and cannot hope to be anything but a slave, they work only hard enough to avoid a whipping. Thus, anti-slavery writers argued, free societies are more productive than slave societies, and would produce a greater surplus to invest in the refinement of civilization than slave societies could.
A second line of argument follows more Rawlsian lines. Since, in a slave society, freedom and slavery are ultimately an accident of birth, many people with the talents to make great advancements in the arts and sciences, trade and industry, politics and warfare, all the occupations and professions denied to the slave, would be born into slavery and thus be unable to share their gifts with the world. Whereas in a free society, all are free to pursue their dreams and ambitions, and civilization benefits from the additional contributions of those who would have otherwise been slaves.
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