ASOIAF/GOT The 'Realism' of the World of ASOIAF/GOT

CarlManvers2019 said:

Honestly, by the end of the day, I don’t think the Targaryens did much

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Well, that's an interesting question. Let's take your example of gold and Westerlands.

What we know from pre-Targaryen era we know through a Maester's book. He can (in typical medieval fashion a la Privilegium Maius) allow his "modern views" to color his perception of the past. Hence reader's impression that nothing in Westeros has ever changed.

For example, the Maester lives in an epoch when the gold and Weterlands are synonyms. So when he reads pieces of old chronicles, he assumes it was ever thus. It's not like he has yearly statistics of mining from four centuries before. So the chronicles tells him of Lannister kings and he subconsciously equates them with "modern" Lannisters flush with gold.
But how much sense would it really make for Westerlands to have mined vast quantities of gold since the dawn of time?

First, as you say, they would have to have ridiculous amount of gold and tunnels to the planet's core. Second, and perhaps much more importantly, if you take a look at whatever glimpses of pre-Targaryen history are known to us... Westerlands do not behave like a kingdom flush with gold. For the most of history they are poor cousins to the Gardeners, mostly on the defense, mostly unable to expand much beyond their hills. They are basically struggling as much as forever exposed Durrandons. Only Durrandons have no men and no gold. If Westerlands had these vast gold mines since forever, why would the only pre-Conquest golden coin mentioned in the books be the Gardener coin? Why didn't Western kings hire hosts of mercs or buy up neighboring lords? Why are Westerlands left sitting in their little corner for the most of it?

So in this particular example I posit to you that large-scale mining of gold in Westerlands is a relatively recent development. Probably from before the Conquest, but not by much. Because that's when Lannisters begin to behave like guys with big stacks of cash - towards the end of pre-Targaryen period. They get big fleets of their own and they suddenly have a proper road to Highgarden and they inexplicably have this equal partnership with Gardeners.

@Firebat
I forget, large eras of peace allow for say, an increase in being able to do non-militaristic ventures

Though odds are no new technologies popped up during those years before and after the conquest

Without war, you have to compete with infrastructure

That said, I think some other guys had a theory that before the conquest, the North might have been better off somehow or more able to rely on their own land for food and now have to deal with importing more expensive food from the South

CarlManvers2019 said:

Though odds are no new technologies popped up during those years before and after the conquest

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Not really, no.
The Conquest was rather counter-productive, perpetuating the worst qualities of Andal state building (state is basically non-existent, central authority is most fleeting) and bringing it to the whole new scale it was completely unsuited for (every major player tries to have a hand in ruling the entire continent, which is doomed to fail).

Since Aegon had no state bureaucracy, he had no means to oversee the lands outside the capital on regular basis. So he essentially left the nobility to their own devices - even more so than previous kings since the ultimate authority was even more distant. As a result, nobility openly flaunts royal laws and decrees. With breaking of spiritual authority, they are essentially kings unto themselves.

So noblemen fight - fight the neighbor for land rights, fight overlords for power, fight for the power over the Iron Throne. Resources are wasted on doomed efforts, like Tywin grabbing the Iron Throne. It is rather obvious that even if Tywin subdues the rest of the continent by force or diplomacy, this new status quo won't last. It's just too brittle.
None of this is productive and none of it encourages development.

CarlManvers2019 said:

Supposedly they’ve been mining Casterly Rock for multiple millenia and House Casterly might have already been pretty old by the time it became House Lannister

So odds are the idea of it “running out” is pretty unlikely

Though, I question just how far deep within it they’ve already ventured

I’d think they’d have gone and accidentally discover some Balrogs or Eldritch Horrors or remnants of an Elder Race by now

Or have even made ancient caches or tombs within

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That would be more interesting.

Firebat said:

None of this is productive and none of it encourages development.

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When I think about it, the only real difference is who owns which lands.

The majority of the Westeros Nobility, even when educated, in my opinion are a bunch of dumb brutes who almost all dislike "counting coppers" and maybe rather severely disinterested in artistic and intellectual pursuits

i suggest that anyone looking in the "realism" of asoiaf/got check out A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry a blog run by Dr. Bret Devereaux,
while it's not 100% focused on asoiaf/got, the series is a favorite punching bag for him

right now he's on part 3 of a 4 part essay on the Dothraki
[1, 2, 3,]
a quick quote on the matter

The notion that the Dothraki are an amalgam of any historical cultures is NINETY-THREE PERCENT rubbish (to be clear, this is a rhetorical statement, not a sincere expression of a statistical reality). I should dearly hope – indeed, I know (for I have graded the papers) – that my average undergraduate student could do better than this after just a few hours of reading about any of these cultures. Not even a full day. A single encyclopedia article could have equipped Martin better than this. The bar here is not high!

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CarlManvers2019 said:

When I think about it, the only real difference is who owns which lands.

The majority of the Westeros Nobility, even when educated, in my opinion are a bunch of dumb brutes who almost all dislike "counting coppers" and maybe rather severely disinterested in artistic and intellectual pursuits

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And thuse nothing to do with real medieval nobility,which liked making money ,and usually supported artists.Which meaned usually new church, but look at medieval churches,compare to those made now,and told - which look better ?

ATP said:

And thuse nothing to do with real medieval nobility,which liked making money ,and usually supported artists.Which meaned usually new church, but look at medieval churches,compare to those made now,and told - which look better ?

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Yeah, ASoIaF is less "how Middle Ages really were" and more "how Left thinks Middle Ages were". FFS, Martin took Maesters out of the Faith of the Seven, which means that Church in Westeros contributes nothing to advancement of the society - despite historical Church actually being rather active in both preservation of past knowledge and also supporting scientists who were creating new knowledge.

Aldarion said:

Yeah, ASoIaF is less "how Middle Ages really were" and more "how Left thinks Middle Ages were". FFS, Martin took Maesters out of the Faith of the Seven, which means that Church in Westeros contributes nothing to advancement of the society - despite historical Church actually being rather active in both preservation of past knowledge and also supporting scientists who were creating new knowledge.

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How much of actual history did GRRM read? Supposedly this was all based on the War of The Roses

CarlManvers2019 said:

How much of actual history did GRRM read? Supposedly this was all based on the War of The Roses

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Well as the Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry brings out, Martin's description of Dothraki, who he claimed were based on Mongols and Plains Indians, look absolutely nothing like those people actually did but happen to map amazingly well to what Halloween costumes of those groups* or random "barbarians" did. You can draw some pretty good conclusions about his reading of actual history from that.

* In the 90s when the books were written, and when it was still socially acceptable to dress up as an Indian.

CarlManvers2019 said:

How much of actual history did GRRM read? Supposedly this was all based on the War of The Roses

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He based his stuff on the popular history. Which basically means:
1) Peasants with pitchforks in the army (IRL: never happened except as a last-ditch effort)
2) Crazy, psychotically evil feudal lords (IRL: yes, there were such, but peasants had rights and vassals could simply up and leave for a more sane lord - so it was extremely rare, and never as bad as some of Martin's portrayals. Even Vlad Drakul was not that bad, on average, and he was deposed two or three times).
3) Evil, insane kings (IRL: happened, but was overblown and often outright made up by their opponents)
4) Badass Raider Vikings (IRL: happened, but Norsemen were traders first and foremost).
5) Barbarian Hordes from the Steppes (IRL: happened, but these barbarians were, technologically and often organizationally, actually extremely similar if not outright superior to the settled peoples they attacked. Examples: Huns, Mongols.).
6) Illiterate Peasants (IRL: possible, but questionable - there is evidence that most peasants could read, but were still considered illiterate because of the stuff they didn't read. Fact is, 90% of people in modern-day developed world are likely illiterate by medieval standards. Peasants were also able to invoke laws, such as the Domesday Book, when necessary).

So has he read history? Yes, definitely. Has he read serious history? None at all. Has he understood history? Not at all. It is all just a Potemkin's village, but it flies because most people don't know much or anything about history, and so can't catch him in his BS.

Aldarion said:

So has he read history? Yes, definitely. Has he read serious history? None at all. Has he understood history? Not at all. It is all just a Potemkin's village, but it flies because most people don't know much or anything about history, and so can't catch him in his BS.

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Say, know any serious history books or youtube channels I can read that are NOT abridged versions of history?

CarlManvers2019 said:

Say, know any serious history books or youtube channels I can read that are NOT abridged versions of history?

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Youtube channels are, by definition, abridged versions. As for the history books, what exactly are you looking for?

Aldarion said:

Yeah, ASoIaF is less "how Middle Ages really were" and more "how Left thinks Middle Ages were". FFS, Martin took Maesters out of the Faith of the Seven, which means that Church in Westeros contributes nothing to advancement of the society - despite historical Church actually being rather active in both preservation of past knowledge and also supporting scientists who were creating new knowledge.

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Cisterian even conducted first scientific experiments and made first manufacturies.

Aldarion said:

Youtube channels are, by definition, abridged versions. As for the history books, what exactly are you looking for?

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From beginning to end. I want history books on the oldest civilisations, like Mesopotamia and Egypt

My favorite book set for history in general is H.G. Wells Outline of History, which is necessarily abridged but has very fair coverage of every age. Some people might think Wells is outdated, but as the inventor of the time machine he clearly knew his history better than anybody else.

Anything you want relatively unabridged you need to go to an author specializing in that culture and writing about that culture specifically.

Bear Ribs said:

Anything you want relatively unabridged you need to go to an author specializing in that culture and writing about that culture specifically.

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Even if that author is decades or even a century or more dead?

Because I got stuff from a guy called Rollins on Amazon for basically free

CarlManvers2019 said:

Even if that author is decades or even a century or more dead?

Because I got stuff from a guy called Rollins on Amazon for basically free

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History has the odd quality that it does not change with time.

In many instances you can get a far more conclusive idea from an ancient history, f'rex Josephus writing on Roman-Era Judea, than you possibly can from a modern scholar writing on the same thing because Josephus was actually there, watching things unfold and able to interview direct witnesses of historic events he detailed.

Bear Ribs said:

History has the odd quality that it does not change with time.

In many instances you can get a far more conclusive idea from an ancient history, f'rex Josephus writing on Roman-Era Judea, than you possibly can from a modern scholar writing on the same thing because Josephus was actually there, watching things unfold and able to interview direct witnesses of historic events he detailed.

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Fair, though I tend to think newer discoveries regarding history are found

CarlManvers2019 said:

Fair, though I tend to think newer discoveries regarding history are found

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Newer discoveries can happen but they're often heavily distorted through the lens of current popular thinking. It's always worth looking at the older histories where they were closer to the subject and don't have the same biases we do today, not that they don't have their own.