Where does the yunkish slave army outside Meereen come from? I tought Dany freed all the slaves in the Yunkai and confiscated a good chunk of the Wise Masters wealth? Did she just take them by their word and didn’t check up on the slavers upholding their end of the bargain?

So this is a question I thought I had answered, but may have gotten eaten by a browser refresh or OS crash, because I can’t find it anywhere in my archives.

So where did the Yunkish army – which keep in mind, is only one part of a larger coalition which includes the forces of New Ghis, Qarth, Elyria, Tolos, and eventually Volantis – come from?

Well, a lot of them are mercenaries who the Wise Masters hired – the Company of the Cat, the Long Lances, the Second Sons, and originally the Windblown – because while Dany redistributed a part of their wealth, her terms that the slaves should be given “as much food, clothing, coin, and goods as he or she can carry” would leave the bulk untouched.

But I imagine your main question is about these soldiers:

“There were more, near as mad or worse: Lord Wobblecheeks, the Drunken Conqueror, the Beastmaster, Pudding Face, the Rabbit, the Charioteer, the Perfumed Hero. Some had twenty soldiers, some two hundred or two thousand, all slaves they had trained and equipped themselves.”

I think there are two explanations for where these slave-soldiers came from. The first is that the Yunkish simply bought them on the open market when they re-established slavery and began re-arming for war against Cleon. Certainly this explains sub-groups like the Clanker Lords.

However, this explanation doesn’t work for Yunkish commanders like the Little Pigeon and the Girl General, both of whom are described as having bred their soldiers, which requires multiple generations’ worth of time, and thus can’t have happened in the few months between Dany’s liberation of Yunkai and the second siege of Meereen.

My explanation for this latter group is that they were probably not in Yunkai when it was attacked. See, it’s rather unusual for Wise Masters to produce and train soldiers, since Astapor specializes in the Unsullied and Yunkai specializes in sex slaves. Given that they lead their soldiers in person rather than selling them to others, and that they’re ambitious for overall military command, my guess is that the Little Pigeon and the Girl General and their ilk were working as mercenaries elsewhere in Essos when Yunkai was attacked, and then came back home to take revenge on Dany.

Is it realistic that Dany and Viserys were left to wander Essos in penury? As the last Targaryens surely they would have at least made attractive ornaments to any court, if not prestigious marriages for those who want to marry into such a bloodline?

Well, keep in mind the specific circumstances in which that happened:

“The garrison had been prepared to sell them to the Usurper, but one night Ser Willem Darry and four loyal men had broken into the nursery and stolen them both, along with her wet nurse, and set sail under cover of darkness for the safety of the Braavosian coast.

She remembered Ser Willem dimly, a great grey bear of a man, half-blind, roaring and bellowing orders from his sickbed. The servants had lived in terror of him, but he had always been kind to Dany. He called her “Little Princess” and sometimes “My Lady,” and his hands were soft as old leather. He never left his bed, though, and the smell of sickness clung to him day and night, a hot, moist, sickly sweet odor. That was when they lived in Braavos, in the big house with the red door. Dany had her own room there, with a lemon tree outside her window. After Ser Willem had died, the servants had stolen what little money they had left, and soon after they had been put out of the big house. Dany had cried when the red door closed behind them forever.”

…At first the magisters and archons and merchant princes were pleased to welcome the last Targaryens to their homes and tables, but as the years passed and the Usurper continued to sit upon the Iron Throne, doors closed and their lives grew meaner. Years past they had been forced to sell their last few treasures, and now even the coin they had gotten from Mother’s crown had gone. In the alleys and wine sinks of Pentos, they called her brother “the beggar king.” Dany did not want to know what they called her.

Darry didn’t have time to organize an entourage of Targaryen loyalists, move the treasury, and instead booked it. And while Darry was alive, Dany and Viserys lived the life of a royal in exile, living in a manse with many servants, intriguing with the Sealord and the Martells, etc.

The downfall started when Darry died and left them without adult supervision and the servants stole their money, leaving them penniless and homeless – note those things are very much linked; with a more substantial entourage of loyal retainers, the looting would have been forestalled and they probably would have stayed in Braavos.

Even when they left, they were taken in by the elite of Essos. However, as with many exiles, once it becomes clear that the new regime isn’t going anywhere, they lost their political cachet and began

to fall into genteel poverty, cushioned by the fact that they still had treasure to spend.

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.

Hello! You’ve mentioned in a few places that Essos is more advanced and more urbanized than Westeros. But – though I understand it’s about relevance – 1) there are only so many cities mentioned, practically all of them save Norvos, Qohor & Vaes Dothrak are coastal. Doesn’t that leave most of the HUGE territory of Essos as just rural hinterland or waste (or ruin)? Do we know anything of it other than the disputed lands ? 2) What do we know of its scientific advancement compared w/the Citadel?

Hello!

There’s also the unmentioned cities: “We speak of Nine Free Cities, though across the width of Essos one may find many other Valyrian
towns, settlements, and outposts, some larger and more populous than Gulltown, White Harbor, or even Lannisport. The distinction that sets the Nine apart is not their size but their origins.” Essos is so urbanized that cities the size of Lannisport go unnmentioned as unimportant. (Must remember to double-check my Essos population estimates against this.)
Well, Tyrion’s journey down the Rhoyne gave us a sense of the Volantene hinterland, and I’d imagine you’d see similar wrt to the other city-states where room applies.
Here’s what we know: Myr has advanced optics, advanced crossbows (which means a good handle on levers, gears, pullys), “fine woolens, lace, glassworks and tapestries….But Qohor has metalworking on lockdown, Tyrosh has dyemaking and distillation (which suggests chemistry) and competes with Myr on armaments, Lys is a competitor in the tapestries business and has a better chemicals industry than Tyrosh, Norvos is a competitor in the tapestries business, Braavos dominates in finance and is the only place that’s figured out the assembly line and interchangeable parts.” Pretty much all high-valued added manufacturing happens in Essos, as well as a huge amount of commerce in luxury goods (spices, silks, gemstones, exotic animals/skins). Whereas Westeros exports mostly natural resources (food, timber, wool, wine, furs, stone and metal), with a smattering of finished goods (Dornish silks and satins, linen from the Reach, gold and silverware from the Westerlands). So while we don’t know about Essosi higher education (and there’s signs that it must exist), their economies and level of technology are more advanced. So maybe the Essosi go in for applied vs. academic sciences?

I’m trying to wrap my head around how many slaves are in Volantis, the Three Daughters, and Slaver’s Bay. Given the volatility of that kind of societal makeup and how long Volantis has been around, I just can’t believe those societies have been that dysfunctional for thousands of years. My theory is that the conquest of Sarnor/Century of Blood created a massive glut in the global slave trade that really warped the political economy of southern Essos. Do you have any thoughts on the matter?

Well, we know that the societies of Slaver’s Bay were reconstructed after the Doom:

“What now remains of the once-proud empire of Old Ghis is a paltry thing—a few cities clinging like sores to Slaver’s Bay and another that pretends to be Old Ghis come again. For after the Doom came to Valyria, the cities of Slaver’s Bay were able to throw off the last of the Valyrian shackles, ruling themselves in truth rather than playing at it. And what remained of the Ghiscari swiftly reestablished their trade in slaves—though where once they won them by conquest, now they purchased and bred them.”

And certainly the rise of the Dothraki, and the way their khalasars’ raiding and migratory patterns “industrialized” the acquisition of captives which the cities of Slaver’s Bay would then “process” into skilled slaves for the Free Cities’ markets, would have probably contributed to an increase in supply of slaves.

However, we also know that the Valyrian Empire was a slave society stretching back thousands of years, so it’s not like Volantis et al. just started buying slaves for the first time. So the political-economy mystery here is what would have caused such a sharp increase in demand to meet the increase in supply.

Do you think any ghiscari masters ever try to treat their slaves well ? Or does social pressure make impossible it ?

Believe it or not, this was a topic covered very well by 12 Years A Slave. Yes, of course there were some masters who treated their slaves well – but the problem is that A. there are some rather strict limits to how “well” the slaves can be treated (freeing them is out of the question, as is treating them like a free person), and B. treating your slaves too “well” makes other masters view the non-conformist as a threat to the smooth functioning of the system.

As with other systems of human oppression, slavery didn’t require participants to be actively malicious to function; it worked just as well if they were financially dependent, morally ambivalent, and socially surveiled.

Anon Asks:

Would it be possible for say a powerful merchant prince or pirate king to sweep away most of the pirates in the stepstones and establish a lsting kingdom there? The closest we see is Daemon Targaryen but he just got bored and gave it up, he had his dragon and the velaryon fleet but he also had to deal with the triarchy.
Also why are the free cities static, like no new city rises up and replaces an existing one, its just the nine and no new ones appear? Its mentioned that the flatlands are bare of villages because of the dothraki, but there are other non-free cities like the ghiscari or Elyria and such, why don’t we see any of them rising into greater prominence?

1. Probably not. If it took the Triarchy to sweep the Stepstones clean of pirates in the first place, you’re unlikely to see a single merchant prince or pirate king manage on their own. There is one caveat: Racallio Ryndoon did build a pirate kingdom in the Stepstones, but we don’t know whether he held the whole of them, and in any case the Oakenfist put paid to him rather quickly.

2. I mean, there are other significant cities in Essos:

“We speak of Nine Free Cities, though across the width of Essos one may find many other Valyrian towns, settlements, and outposts, some larger and more populous than Gulltown, White Harbor, or even Lannisport. The distinction that sets the Nine apart is not their size but their origins. At their height before the Doom, other cities, such as Mantarys, Volon Therys, Oros, Tyria, Draconys, Elyria, Mhysa Faer, Rhyos, and Aquos Dhaen were grand and glorious and rich, yet for all their pride and power, none ever ruled itself.”

And you can add on the Ghiscari cities and Qarth and so on and so forth. The Nine Free Cities are a historically and culturally derived term that specifically counts the self-governing cities that existed before the Doom.

To use a real world analogy: the Ivy League in the U.S consists of a particular subset of particularly old elite colleges and universities that have been sportsballing one another for a long time now. Stanford or MIT are still elite universities even though they’re not Ivies.

Maester Steven, do you think there’s a reason that Essos lacks a comparable institution of higher education to the citadel given how they are comparatively far more developed than the seven kingdoms? And if so how do you think it would develop? I’d imagine that it would be much more a centralized place of learning for the children of magisters and other free city notables than the lifelong monastic commitment of the citadel. Probably with atlesst one existing in every major free city.

I’ve discussed this before here, but given their level of technology and literacy, Essos must have more of an education system than is shown in the text.

There’s a couple possibilities:

Greco/Roman slave-tutoring: this fits the Free City’s social structure, even if that social structure isn’t super well-suited to their level of technology but w/e. Well-educated slaves tutoring the elite philosophy, rhetoric, and the rest of the trivium and quadrivium is certainly a long-lasting “successful” model of education, so there you have it.
Local Academies: This is more likely in Braavos and Braavos-centric cities that don’t have slavery. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Essosi academies are A. more focused on Valyrian “humanism” as opposed to the Citadel’s relentless focus on empiricism, and B. more focused on applied sciences needed for finance, commerce, and high-end manufacturing than the Citadel’s trade-school-approach to feudal administration.

Maester Steven, I can’t find anything on the borders of the Valyrian Freehold. They don’t seem to have ever spread east of the Bone Mountains, but there’s also nothing stating the Sarnorians or Qartheen were under their control. So, what are your thoughts on the extent of their territory?

Good question!

The Valyrian empire did not extend into the lands of the Sarnori: “the confederation of cities later called the Kingdom of Sarnor survived the Valyrian expansion thanks to the great plain that separated one from the other.” Indeed, the Valyrians tended to look west rather than east (”once the Ghiscari wars had ended, the dragonlords of Valyria turned their gaze to the west…With the destruction of the Rhoynar, Valyria soon achieved complete domination of the western half of Essos, from the narrow sea to Slaver’s Bay, and from the Summer Sea to the Shivering Sea.”) for conquest.

The Lands of Ice and Fire are also helpful here:

Essaria (now known as Vaes Khadokh) was a Valyrian colony due east of Qohor, connected to the Free Cities by the Valyrian roads that connected the Freehold to its trading partners – to the port city of Saath in the north and Sarnath of the Tall Towers in the east. So we can conclude with a high degree of confidence that Valyria’s eastern border was somewhere around Essaria (perhaps at the banks of that enormous river?) and that at some point Valyria managed to work out a treaty allowing them to extend their roads into the Kingdom of Sarnor for the purposes of trade.

Further to the south, we can look to the extent of Ghiscari territory to guess at how far east Valyria extended once old Ghis was conquered. Krazaaj Has, Vaes Mejhah, Vaes Efe, were all Ghiscari colonies, but Yinishar and Adakhakileki were not. So I’d say the furthest east Valyria got through its conquest of Old Ghis is Vaes Efe.

Your analysis of the feudal structure in the 7K is fascinating, but I am curious as to the agricultural economy of Terros, particularly in Essos. To feed a city the size of Volantis (well, 3-5 cities including colonies) you would need either a very productive agricultural structure or vast wealth to buy that food from elsewhere. The same is true of Braavos, and you can’t just rely on fishing to provide that! So: either these cities also have far more advanced agricultural systems than (1/2)

(2/2) Westeros seems to, or someone somewhere is producing an outrageous quantity of food. Given the geography of the Free Cities, I can’t help but think that a) the Disputed Lands were unquestionably very fertile and productive; b) Pentos’ lands were extremely valuable; c) Braavos’ coastline was more important than previously implied; and d) the banks of the Rhoyne were highly lucrative. What at your opinions? Thanks!

Excellent question! Yeah, the agricultural economy is absolutely fundamental to the broader political economy of Terros.

Volantis’ vast Rhoynish hinterland – Volon Therys, Valysar, and Selhorys, etc. -seems eminently capable of feeding the metropole through organization into latifundia. It seems that cold beet soup, i.e borscht, is a staple of the Volantene diet, and as any number of central and eastern european peasantries can tell you, you can feed a lot of serfs on borscht.

I’m somewhat skeptical as to how much food the Braavosi coastline can produce, but I imagine they produce some because you can’t rely entirely on imports from Westeros given the vagarities of sea transportation.

I am also of the belief that the Disputed Lands are fertile.