Re: Your theory of the final battle being in the North. To me that idea robs ASOIAF of any pan-Westeros sentiment if the big battle is mainly and entirely set in the North and doesn’t extend outwards. Mostly because the books largely feature Northern characters and settings, (compared to LOTR where you have Non-Gondorians coming to the rescue of Gondor which makes it truly pan-Middle-Earth). How do you think this circle will be squared? Would Euron open a second-front for the Apocalypse?

I mean, the series is called “A Song of Ice and Fire,” not “A Song of Westeros.” The Wall is in the North, Winterfell is in the North, so you have to take that into account when thinking about the end-game.

But seriously….I think King’s Landing is obviously an important point, where Cersei and Jaime’s fates will be sealed, where Dany will confront the lies, etc. And Oldtown is shaping up to be an important inflection point, although I think that’ll be less a second front and more blowing a horn.

Chapter-by-Chapter Analysis: Daenerys III, ASOS

“She felt desperately afraid. Was this what my brother would have done?”

Synopsis: Dany (Ocean) robs Astapor.

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.

(more…)

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Regarding Riverrun-2, would a Lord Paramount actually have the power to just take a chunk of land like that from an existing lord? And would he need permission (from the King?) to build a castle and start charging a toll?

Well, it’s not entirely clear who the land at the confluence of the RedFork and the Blue Fork belongs to. There aren’t a lot of noble houses listed in that area – there’s the Mallisters up on the coast, but Oldstones does not have a ruling house (hence the whole business with Jenny), there’s no known ruling house of Fairmarket, and the only other named house from that region are the Blackwoods, and they seem to be center more to the west (directly north of Riverrun). If the land is not currently occupied by a ruling house, than the law of escheat says it reverts back to the liege lord.

As to whether you need permission to build a castle and start charging a toll, there isn’t explicit text either way. However, if King Daeron II had the authority to give Daemon Blackfyre the right to build a castle in the Crownlands, my guess would be that the Lord Paramount of the Riverlands has the authority to grant a license to build a castle on its own lands. And the same logic would likely hold for tolls, given that it wouldn’t be interfering with a royal highway and if a lesser Houses like the Freys can charge tolls for bridges I would imagine the same would apply for their liege lords.

How long would it take to build a castle like Riverrun 2 and what would you call it?

Years if not decades, based on historical examples. As for a name, @goodqueenaly suggests “The Tines,” since the tine is the sharp point of the Trident and this castle would be a strongpoint on the Trident. Also, it’s a nice echoing of “The Twins,” another bridge-castle of the Riverlands.

Youve said that you’d like to build riverrun2 at the mouth of the trident before but isnt lht right /there/ already?

Not exactly. I want to build Riverrun 2 here:

That’s a good bit west and north of Lord Harroway’s Town. This location would allow a castle to have rivers on three flanks and a moat on its western flank would give it the same capability to withstand sieges as Riverrun.

Moreover, two drawbridges anchored on that center spit of land could allow land traffic to cross from the south bank of the Red Fork to the north bank, and then from the north bank of the Red Fork to the northern bank of the Green Fork, at the castle’s discretion. At the same time, lowering the drawbridges would allow the castle to intercept river traffic on all three forks of the Trident.

Canal Talk

should a trident-gods eye canal start from the trident or the god’s eye?

The Godseye.

When you’re building a canal, one of the trickier bits of engineering is that, until you’ve dug out the channel connecting the two ends and gotten the slopes, depth, and lining right, you need to keep out the water on either end, which usually involves building a temporary dam/levee on either end. This is especially the case if you’re building locks and gates which need to be put in place beforehand.

It’s a lot easier to do that with a relatively still body of water like the Godseye lake than it is with a river which has a current behind it.

about the economic development plans, was diverting half of rippledown rill to trident and deepening it enough to form a canal from trident to god’s eye included? if not, that might be a nice feat to be able to navigate all the way from neck to KL inlands.

I don’t think the geography of that quite works out.

From my reading of the text, the Rippledown Rill would have to be to the west of Harrenhal (on a rough northwest to southeast loop), which would substantially extend the length of a Trident-Godseye canal compared to just building north from Harrenhal (where the Godseye is about 50 miles closer to to the Trident compared to the eastern or western sides) to the nearest point on the Trident.

I saw your answer about how long it would take for cows to go from scrawny to beefy under your economic development plans, and that raised a question I hadn’t previously thought of: how much of your economic development plans are based on hindsight/presentism? If some lord or lady were to take over any of these regions with an eye towards economic development, how well would you be able to make an argument for any of your plans based solely on what you/they know right there in Westeros?

To quote myself:

Anonymous asked: In your economic development posts how much of the analysis is based on what is known now vs what was known “back then”? How much of what was known to some could reasonably be expected to be known by your average ruler?

I try to stay within the boundaries of what could be known to an early-modern ruler. I.E, no inventing the steam engine out of nowhere.

Obviously, I can’t eliminate presentism entirely, but I try to play fair.

So in general, when I wrote the various economic development plans, I tried to avoid blatant presentism – i.e, no inventing the steam engine and turning the North into an industrial powerhouse complete with trouble t’mill, just because the North has a lot of sheep and that’s how the North of England economically developed in the 18th and 19th centuries.

So in general, I rely on economic development methods that were used in the early-modern period – canal-building, changing agricultural methods, the formation of state-backed joint-stock companies as a means of encouraging international commerce, innovations in banking and finance, investing in manufacturing (especially textiles), and so forth. To my mind, this creates a certain plausibility whereby you could imagine a particularly curious, ambitious, well-traveled, -educated, and -advised ruler of one of the Seven Kingdoms paying attention to what’s going on in the Free Cities and among the merchant and artisan classes of Westeros and pursuing these kind of policies.

There is a certain inescapable element of presentism in that I’m selecting methods of the early-modern period that were successful in their time, which somewhat assumes that economic development will follow a similar path on Planetos. (Although the Free Cities suggests that it’s not far off).

And who would the Avengers root for? And if there are differences who would MCU Avengers root for? And I find Jean Grey’s rooting amusing considering the actresses.

What if the Avengers came across ASOIAF? Who would like whom?

Hah! Sure, why not. Might as well finish out the set.

Iron Man – Tyrion, kind of over-determined.

War Machine – Bronn, because he too has to put up with Tyrion.

Spider-Man – Bran Stark, because the kid who develops powers and great responsibility because of an accident hits home.

Vision – Bloodraven, because mysticism and being part human part something else.

Scarlet Witch – Daenerys, because struggling to control firepower(s) hits home.

Black Widow – Arya, also over-determined.

Captain America – a Davos fan at the beginning of Winter Soldier, but more of a Beric Dondarrion fan by the end of Civil War.

Falcon – Thoros of Myr, because he too has to put up with Beric Dondarrion.

Bucky – Sandor, because all angry boys are secretly sad boys underneath.

Thor – Gendry, because he too appreciates hammers.

Hulk – Sandor, because all angry boys are secretly sad boys underneath.

Hawkeye – Anguy, because no one else appreciates longbows.

Vox Populi, Vox Deii: Elections in ASOIAF, Part II

Introduction

For his second foray into electioneering in AFFC, George R.R Martin clearly decided to go with a simpler model that would (among other things) require less math than the repeated ballots of the Night’s Watch, one that harkens back to the elections and democratic processes of the (early) Middle Ages.

As I talked about in Part I, the Althing of Iceland dates back to the 10th century…

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Shouldn’t Halfmaesters like Haldon be a lot more common than the series suggests? People who study at the Citadel but don’t make it to Maester for whatever reason (sick family member, insufficient funds, etc). People who are not bound by a maester’s chains but are still literate and learned in some fields would be hugely sought after as scribes, officials or what have, right?

Well, it definitely does happen, as we see from the Prologue of AFFC:

“Perhaps he would do better to remain on this side of the narrow sea. He could buy a donkey with the coin he’d saved, and he and Rosey could take turns riding it as they wandered Westeros. Ebrose might not think him worthy of the silver, but Pate knew how to set a bone and leech a fever. The smallfolk would be grateful for his help. If he could learn to cut hair and shave beards, he might even be a barber. That would be enough, he told himself, so long as I had Rosey. Rosey was all that he wanted in the world.”

However, I don’t think it’s that common, in part because the Citadel has a strong institutional incentive to maintain its monopolies. The Citadel does seem to have certain exceptions: acolytes who’ve gotten their link (and thus maintain the monopoly) are allowed to work as scribes for the general public:

“Just beyond stood Scribe’s Hearth, where Oldtowners came in search of acolytes to write their wills and read their letters. Half a dozen bored scribes sat in open stalls, waiting for some custom…” (AFFC)

But I think the Citadel would probably come down hard on anyone practicing more refined specialties than mere writing and reading; I would imagine medicine and ravenry would be particularly jealously guarded because they are some of the more important services that the nobility need. So Pate might be able to ply his trade as a barber-surgeon among the rural smallfolk, but he might well be hauled up before the lord of a significant holdfast or town for practicing without a license (if only because the lords don’t want to be blacklisted by the Citadel).