Typhonis
Well-known member
Gamebesons are a thing. Padded armor worn under other types of armor. It also helped keep you cool by absorbing sweat.
Bad Worldbuilding of Westeros
- Thread starter Aldarion
- Start date
Carrot of Truth
War is Peace
Just reminded me of a annoying trope that George promotes aka the "Boiled leather armor" thing, Because gambesons don't exist.
Gambersons only help so much, otherwise nobody would ever have died to a warhammer/mace.
The issue is 'soft' or flexible armor like chain, scale, gamberson, etc...Well...Flexes. That means the big smacc can impact force on your meat and that is bad.
A big solid plate like a breastplate can transmit that force over an area many times larger than the hammer itself, making the damage to flesh much less.
Yes, gambesons would typically be worn with all types of metal armor. That said, solid metal plate is inherently much more efficient at absorbing and redistributing kinetic force than any form of flexible segmented armor, so it's going to be more resistant to blunt force impact weapons.
Yes,that is major problems.Medieval rulers,for all their vices,still belived in their religion,whatsever that religion was.
When in GRRM world it simply do not matter.
It is true for modern leaders in western world,but impossible for any medieval world.
Another proof,that GRRM is failure.
P.S about armours - one of polish chronicles from XIth century /Anonim Gall,i think/ wrote that mai was ineffective,and do not helped against somebody with stick.
evilchumlee
Well-known member
Which is absolutely irrelevant to Westeros, which is not our world and has a completely different history.
But not in this world. They don't follow Christianity... The Faith of the Seven is completely different and comparisons are largely irrelevant. Not to mention, the religion is generally unimportant in this world.
I don't follow.
It's quite literally not a society of this Earth. It resembles societies from this Earth but has a completely different history.
No understanding of how it worked under the particular circumstances it existed on Earth, sure.
Planetos is not Earth, never has been, and does not share literally any of our history...
We are talking centuries here... and once again, it's not our history. The religion(s) of Westeros just lost their importance over centuries. Their evolution did not follow that of Earth societies...
Why does a secular order need all of that, but a religious order did not? What difference does it make if Jesus Christ is involved or not?
Aldarion
Neoreactionary Monarchist
It is a society built by humans, in conditions that humans historically lived in, and showing historical feudal relations.
It could be on Mars, Venus, inside a hollow Earth or on a giant's half-bald head... wouldn't change the fact that it has to follow those same laws.
It is, for all intents and purposes, alternate Earth.
And the only thing where it actually is different from Earth isn't addressed at all. Go figure.
That simply doesn't fly.
Humans of Planetos are the same as humans of Earth. Ecology of Planetos is the same as ecology of Earth - even in cases when it shouldn't be. Society of Planetos is nearly the same as what we historically had on Earth.
It makes no sense for Planetos to somehow follow a radically different trajectory from Earth.
Why did religions of Westeros lose their importance over centuries? Why their evolution did not follow that of Earth societies?
If you cannot answer that, then your justifications are merely empty excuses.
Because religious orders were rich as a consequence of their religious function. They were also influential as a consequence of their religious function, plus being largely untouchable. This allowed them to maintain things such libraries, education and so on.
Moreover, even if you assume that a secular order does not need all of that, any state that can maintain a secular order of learners will be able to maintain administration. And state that can maintain administration will not be feudal.
Have you ever asked yourself why it was the Church that kept literacy and literature alive through the Dark Ages in Europe?
evilchumlee
Well-known member
Humans lived in a world with years long winters, objectively real magic, under the oppression of a thousand year dynasty of kings who enforced their rule through dragons?
I think I missed something in history class...
"the only thing" is that they share absolutely nothing with the history or traditions of Earth. Yeah sure it's an alternate Earth, but it's impossible to project real-life Earth onto it because they don't have the same history.
It's not really all that radical. Radical would be Westeros being a Medieval Communist Republic or something.
Planetos by and large is VERY similar to Earth... with a few details that are not exactly the same due to a different cultural history.
Religion has had varying degrees of importance in different societies across Earth at varying points in time.
I don't believe we have all the answers, but it shouldn't be an absolutely outlandish idea that a society that shares literally no history with Earth will have different traditions than Earth.
By and large though, the general answer is centuries of Targaryen rule. They were more interested in ruling themselves than allowing a church to have too much influence. It's not that outlandish... make a small butterfly to real history and imagine a medieval Europe where the Kings don't pay attention to The Pope.
There is just absolutely no reason why a vaguely Medieval fantasy society absolutely HAS to follow a strict religion.
In the real world, building upon all of the historical events that led them to that outcome.
Planetos does not have that same tradition nor does it share any of those historical events. The events there led religious orders to being... a thing that exists, with varying degrees of power over time.
The Order of Maesters was rich as a consequence of it's academic function. They were also influential as a consequence of their academic function, plus being largely untouchable. This allowed them to maintain things such as the Citadel, education and so on...
The Order of Maesters appears to generally function as a medieval religious order would, just without the religion part. I don't know why that is such a difficult concept. They don't need administration. They function in essentially the same fashion as religious orders did, and they even at least pay lip service to the religion of the land. They're just WAY more interested in the learning aspect than the religious aspect.
Why is a world that isn't dominated by religion so unbelievable?
There was a very specific set of circumstances that played out to make that happen...
...a very specific set of circumstances that did not happen in Westeros.
Again I just don't see why the concept of a generally feudal medieval society without a particularly strong religious influence is just so outlandish.
Humans in Westeros/GoT-verse are pretty explicitly not that similar to IRL humans.
For starters GRRM has said their genetics are passed on way differently, traits, especially mental traits, are passed on way more often.
Also inbreeding seems to just...Not be a thing, regardless of generations.
For starters GRRM has said their genetics are passed on way differently, traits, especially mental traits, are passed on way more often.
Also inbreeding seems to just...Not be a thing, regardless of generations.
evilchumlee
Well-known member
The Targaryen's were supposed to have purple eyes...
Obviously, GRRM is a complete and total hack because i'm looking at people right now and I don't see anyone with purple eyes. What an idiot.
And DRAGONS?! Um, hello George, you hack. Show me any historical record of dragons. You can't? What an idiot, trying to tell me DRAGONS are a thing. OBVIOUSLY, he's completely out of touch with the world.
Obviously, GRRM is a complete and total hack because i'm looking at people right now and I don't see anyone with purple eyes. What an idiot.
And DRAGONS?! Um, hello George, you hack. Show me any historical record of dragons. You can't? What an idiot, trying to tell me DRAGONS are a thing. OBVIOUSLY, he's completely out of touch with the world.
Aldarion
Neoreactionary Monarchist
And all of these issues are something we can find a solution to looking at real history. You do know that there is entire discipline of alternative history?
Therefore, none of these things justify doing just whatever.
And if you do not understand or care how fantastical elements would impact the society... simple: do not use said elements.
And it was Martin who claimed that he was going for realism when writing the series. Maybe, just maybe, you should not claim that your aim is realism if you are going to throw any and all realism out of the window soon afterwards?
Yet they share absolutely everything.
Westeros is supposed to be a feudal society, is ruled by a king, it has feudal relations, even feudal titles. And that already places some hard limits on what you can and cannot do with it if you want it to be internally consistent or even just sane.
As I said: it is fine to depart from real-world history. But such departure has to have reasons, and by that I mean, reasons in worldbuilding - not just "I got my ass comatose from alcohol and it seemed such a good idea".
And many more details that make absolutely no sense at all regardless of what "cultural history" you assume.
In some cases, 2 + 2 simply is 4. And then comes Martin and writes down 5, and gets praised for his mathematical skills.
I wasn't talking about strict religion in the sense of Catholic Church-like influence on political actors.
Influence of religion goes way, way deeper than that. Fact is that humans simply cannot escape religion. Even today, you simply do not have irreligious people. You have people who have supplanted Christianity or Islam with Progressivism, Communism or whatever... but religion is there.
And medieval religions were traditional. Things such as nihilism, Marxism and such are a product of societal and moral breakdown that began with the era of absolutism - well after the Middle Ages. Medieval people believed in God - and by that, I mean actually believed.
Yet in Westeros and Planetos by and large, attitudes are distinctly postmodern. They shouldn't be - Westeros has, at no time in history, gone through processes that should have produced such an attitude. Even if old religions lost sway, response should be the spread of new religions. And to be fair, we do see that particular process. But again, at no point do we see religion having anywhere as much influence on culture, thought and behavior of people in Westeros that it historically did.
Targaryens may have broken the Church, but there is a massive difference between breaking the Church and breaking the moral influence of religion. Hell, "breaking the Chuch" would, in a medieval society, merely mean making the Church subservient to the temporal authority of a king. Because that was all you could do to begin with - completely removing influence of the Church was simply impossible.
It was only the Protestant Reformation that actually began the process of breaking the moral influence of the Church.
So yes, even with those factors you have noted, Westeros should have been far more religious than it is presented as.
And how and why would their academic function allow them to be rich and influential?
That sounds like Fallout Online... Duke Plasma Gun was rich as a consequence of shoveling brahmin shit... Duke Plasma Gun was influential as a consequence of shoveling brahmin shit... sure, but how and why?
In reality, it doesn't matter if it is the ancient Egypt, Rome, Greece, medieval Byzantium or Europe, or China... religion always gave power and influence that was unmatched outside perhaps royalty itself. And most of the time, kings were priests, precisely because of the influence of religion.
You won't really find any society where kings were philosophers. Sure, there were "philosopher kings", but even then their authority was largely based on religious justifications, not philosophical ones.
In short: academic institution could only exist as a consequence of its establishment by a) the state or b) the Church. If Citadel and its Maesters were established by Targaryens to help unify Westeros, or else by the Church of the Seven to do the same, then I wouldn't have much issue with it. But in either case, they wouldn't be anywhere as influential as in the story.
Because "world that isn't dominated by religion" makes no sense. World has always been dominated by religion, even today it is dominated by religion - it is just that many religions today are secular.
As I said: Order of Maesters can be either an institution of the Church or of the Crown. And latter would require something akin to the 15th century pseudo-absolutist monarchies or else the Byzantine Empire, both of which were very far removed from the Dung Ages feudalism that Martin seems to be trying to portray.
Except it wasn't all that specific.
In ancient Egypt, many priests were also physicians. And of course, prests were astronomers.
In ancient Rome, again, priests did a lot of science in addition to regular duties.
There were scientists outside priesthood, of course. But here is the thing: they were either sponsored and organized by the state, or they were independent and relied on donations by mecenas, employment as educators by rich people, and so on.
There was, to my knowledge, NEVER in history an international order whose purpose was learning that was independent of a religious organization.
Frankly, I think that is just a consequence of Martin subconsciously hating the Catholic Church and wanting to avoid giving it recognition for the role it historically had in scientific development.
Concept of a premodern society without a particularly strong religious influence is utterly outlandish.
That influence doesn't need to be obvious, but it needs to be there.
Please don't be a dumbass.
That is fantasy. Fantasy elements are fine.
But that doesn't mean that massacring HISTORICAL elements is automatically fine.
Especially when Martin himself has claimed that he has writing realistic fantasy as goal.
Circle of Willis
Well-known member
Running a bit late and it seems most of what I wanted to say has been said already, but I'll add that the ready availability of a fairly reliable and convenient contraceptive should produce a far more sexually liberal culture, from whenever moon tea was invented (which I would assume to be centuries or even millennia before the Targs ever came to Westeros, since it's basically a traditional herbal drink). We know that's what happens when you remove 'unintended consequences', ie. pregnancy, from sleeping around IRL from the Sexual Revolution GRRM grew up with after all. The ingredients we know of, like tansy (a common herb), do not seem to be nearly as rare or to only grow in certain areas like silphium, as well.
Lords should theoretically have far fewer problems with their daughters banging every serving boy in sight when they can easily prevent bastards from ever coming into being to threaten their legitimate sons' inheritance AND religion, the main moral inhibitor on such behavior, is already such a comically feeble force in the setting and has been for centuries - especially among the nobility (Targs aside I think Catelyn, Sansa and Davos are the only major characters shown to take the Faith of the Seven seriously, guys like Lancel or the High Sparrow being secondary charas). But Dorne's the only place shown to have this more modern, libertine attitude to sexuality in the setting, the other six kingdoms all seem to be of a much more traditionalist mindset instead even though they have no reason to be that way.
As far as the discussion on whether Westeros = or =/= RL Earth goes, I think it's worth noting that Martin himself has said Planetos is supposed to be an 'alternate version' of Earth in a similar vein as Middle-earth (which is supposed to be 'our' Earth, but in a mythical past). The seasons (and presumably other fantasy aspects, like R'hllorist fire magic) are obviously fantastical and in the same article Martin is quoted as saying there will be no scientific explanation for that stuff, only a fantastic one when he gets around to publishing the final book (yeah right, lmao).
However other than that, I think we can safely assume that everything else about the world is governed by the same laws of nature as in our world (especially given that 'a more realistic & mature fantasy than Tolkien's books' was one of the series selling points) unless explicitly stated otherwise. Ie. the laws of physics are more or less the same, falling from a high enough place will kill you just as surely as a sword to the face would; thus also the humans of Planetos are more or less physically the same as humans from medieval Earth, and should have the same emotional/spiritual needs and inclinations too. There's been no religious schisms in the FO7's history over doctrine or politics apparently, not even things like the Storm King or the King of the Rock propping up an Anti-High Septon to challenge the one in Oldtown; the Maesters don't have printing presses; there's certainly no Hollywood-esque media industry to glamorize & promote anti-religious attitudes, etc. In other words, until Maegor the Cruel came along, there's been no series of historical events that justify the weakening of religiosity and the holding of postmodern attitudes towards religion by the majority of characters in ASOIAF either.
And not only did Maegor's rampage only last for his one lifetime (with his immediate successor Jaehaerys reconciling with the Faith rather than trying to continue to stamp it out), but the Targaryens were not as a rule shown to be fedora-tippers either (indeed some, like Baelor and Naerys, became Sevener zealots). Plus whatever they did to try to weaken the Faith got overturned in the course of a single conflict, the War of the Five Kings - literally, it took them 200+ years to keep the Faith Militant down and two (the Wot5K lasted 298-300 AL, and the Faith Militant was revived in 300) for it to come roaring back in Sparrow form.
...overall, I think this is a case of GRRM wanting to have things his way, every way. He impressed this postmodern attitude to religion, cynically regarding it as a peasant superstition and a political tool at best, upon most of the cast because that's what he thinks IRL, being a lapsed Catholic and a child of the 60s. He's made birth control readily available in his world because that's the way it's been since the 60s when he was growing up too, and he has no political or philosophical objections to that development. But he also wants organized religion in the form of the FO7 (and R'hllor) to still have considerable influence because hey, wasn't that a thing in the Middle Ages? Ah, but not too strong (until he needs it to be for plot purposes) because religion bad, in fact it's so bad and holds scientific development back that he'd better give the educational/science angle to a separate, secular order for...reasons, even though as has been noted by @Aldarion , it's a needless duplication of effort at best. He'll let them keep the sexual conservatism going too, because 1) Middle Ages and 2) FO7 supposedly = Medieval Catholics and thus = prudes, even though it doesn't make a whole lot of sense when reliable birth control is available and said religious institutions have supposedly been weakened. And so on.
You can see why this mashup might produce results that can most charitably be described as 'inconsistent'. It really looks (and I have no reason to assume this wasn't the case) as though GRRM just threw his own hangups and superficial pop-culture knowledge about 'what the Middle Ages were totally like IRL' together for the religious & sexual-morality aspects of his world and as with the Dothraki and Ironborn cultures, while it might look cool at first glance, it all falls apart if you start thinking about it.
(Incidentally, we do know how the Maesters came to be. The crippled but wise second son of the first Hightower king in ancient times gathered a bunch of knowledgeable people and after he died, his brother let them set up shop in & continue their studies and works in the Citadel. There's no mention of any anti-religious attitude there either, indeed this pool of wise men explicitly included priests and the Hightowers became very closely associated with the Faith after it came to Westeros with the Andals. As far as I can recall, there's never actually been any good reason stated in the main or side texts for why they weren't just folded into the FO7 after the aforementioned coming of the Andals.)
Honestly I'm gonna chalk that up to a combination of 'Valyrians are magical' (well, the Targs have the coin flip thing going to ensure more than a few of their number are insane or otherwise mentally disabled, but otherwise it's the only way to explain why Aegon the Conqueror and his descendants don't make Carlos II of Spain look like Gigachad after generations of brother-sister inbreeding) and 'Martin didn't actually know what he's talking about and never thought it through when building his world'. The latter is my go-to for explaining other flaws like his apparent lack of sense of scale too, he's straight up admitted he didn't know what a structure 700 ft tall would actually look/feel like and thus made the Wall too big in another interview for example, or him saying Westeros is the size of South America and not wanting to elaborate further for fear of getting nitpicked to death by fans. (Here's another nitpick for spite's sake then: just looking from a map, a journey from King's Landing to say, Riverrun seems to be comparable to a journey from Montevideo to Santa Cruz de la Sierra - nearly 2500 km or ~1550 miles, almost as far as it is from Paris to Moscow. I can't even imagine attempting that either as the leader of an army or a traveling royal court, much less a journey from KL to Oldtown or Winterfell, with medieval logistics!)
evilchumlee
Well-known member
[/QUOTE]
Song of Fire and Ice isn't alt-history. It's fantasy.
I mean, that's obvious bullshit given the fact that there is magic and dragons...
Can you please provide the source where GRRM describes the Roman Empire and it's influence on Planetos? I'm not really sure where Italy is. Is it somewhere west of Westeros? When did the Empire expand into Essos?
I missed these parts in the story I guess.
There are plenty of reasons. You just don't want to see them.
Religion exists in Westeros too. It hasn't disappeared. It's just not dominating.
Well it's good that Westeros has nothing to do with our history, then. It's weird how in a world that shares absolutely nothing in common with our world developed differently than ours did. Weird.
That is largely what happens here though. Religion is gone. It exists. There is even still a church and everything that goes along with it.
It's just not all that important to the people. Hell, there's even evidence that in our actual real-world history, the everyday Joe didn't really care all that much either and largely just went through the motions.
We're also talking about a world that has been in a somewhat medieval state for what, a thousand years? Things evolved differently.
They get paid...
Wealthy people in Westeros seek the services of Maesters. In turn, they... pay Maesters.
Although in the grand scheme, the Maesters do differ from religious orders in not actually being all that influential as an organization. They can't really go around demanding anything. They're just... smart guys that are valued for being smart.
Is that fact perhaps somewhat anachronistic? Sure, but it's not absolutely outlandish.
That's where i'm going to chalk the disconnect up to here.
It's fantasy. It's not our world. There ARE no historical elements. The world can be however it is... in the case of Martin's work, he sure as hell comes alot closer than most other popular fantasy writers.
Yeah George sucks at anything relating to numbers or genetics, but because he's consistently retarded with it, it makes the setting unique.
For example there's like a dozen people in Westeros who are in 'gigantism' territory, without the health issues that go with it.
Andre the Giant wasn't even 8 feet tall and he had serious issues, the Mountain is an 8 foot bodybuilder with speed exceeding what he should be capable of.
Humans in the fiction are more akin to anime characters than IRL humans.
Aldarion
Neoreactionary Monarchist
Doesn't matter. It is still a story about humans, and moreover, it is a story which autor itself has purpoted has realism as its goal.
Trust me, I wouldn't be giving it half the attention if it weren't for Martin's claims that he was writing a "realistic" fantasy, which then got adopted by journalists and even public at large.
No, it is not obvious bullshit.
Lord of the Rings has magic and dragons, yet human aspects of the series - politics, sociology, logistics - are consistently realistic, with exception of things that were deliberately chosen not to be (e.g. Eriador being uninhabited, Mordor as a wasteland) and few actual mistakes (Tolkien obviously never considered logistics of living - Moria, Minas Tirith, entire Mordor... would never work in real life or Middle Earth).
Just because series has dragons doesn't mean you can do just whatever.
EDIT: Let me remind you, this is what MARTIN HIMSELF had said:
I believe I am perfectly justified in holding him to his own damn standards.
Stop being disingenuous, you know what I meant.
Martin has built a medieval society with all the trappings of medievalism, but with absolutely none of the underlying mechanics that brought about the appearance of said trappings.
THAT is what my issue with him is. Just as he has utterly failed at creating functional nomads, functional slaver societies, so he has failed at creating a functional feudal society.
All of which comes to show that for all the claims of realism, when it comes to worldbuilding, Martin is a hack.
No, there are no reasons.
All the reasons you have come up with so far make sense perhaps in Teletubbies, not in a fantasy series that promotes itself as realistic fantasy.
No, there is no religion in Westeros.
There are religious institutions in Westeros. But no actual religion. Much like the rest of Westeros, Martinigion has all the trappings of actual religion, but none of its substance.
Yeah, absolutely nothing.... except for humans... and animals... and agriculture... and economy... and social organization... and titles... and warfare...
...but yeah, absolutely nothing.
Stop making the crap up, please.
And why will that have happened?
In real world, people cared enough for religion to go on bloody Crusades. Walking thousands of miles, sacrificing their wealth, their livelihoods, accepting the possibility of never seeing their loved ones again... "just" for the promise of salvation of the soul.
Sorry, but before you try critiquing my critique of Westeros, you should learn some history.
"Getting paid" never allowed somebody to get rich, or to influence politics. So no, that explanation doesn't fly.
And if Maesters are "not that influential as an organization", why does every Lord have a Maester? Why don't we have centres of learning in say King's Landing or Highgarden that will produce educated people who would significantly reduce the need to employ people of unknown allegiance?
Fact that it is fantasy doesn't mean it can be just any nonsense, unless you are directly writing parody.
Sure, Martin is far better than J.K.Rowling. But that is not a high praise.
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Skallagrim
Well-known member
@evilchumlee -- it may be getting a bit lost in the point-by-point, focus-on-individual-details kind of discussion that's going on here, but the big issue that you're not appreciating sufficiently is that something has to make sense... holistically, one might say.
Any one point can be excused individually by coming up with an explanation (although I do note that those explanations are then automatically 'just' your personal fanon, because the canon doesn't offer them). But nothing exists in a vacuüm. That's why your repeated appeal to "this isn't the real world, it's a world with different rules!" rings so hollow to anyone who examines things critically.
No, it's not the real world. But it still has to make sense. If that world has lots of things in common with Mediaeval Europe, but then has certain (and in fact, it has trainloads of) completely incongruent elements, then we must ask: why is that? Just saying "it's a different world, accept it as a given!" is a cop-out. That just excuses illogical world-building, and the point of this thread is to critique bad world-building.
A superficial appeal to the existence of magic and dragons and whatnot doesn't fly, either. Those things would change a world (s compared to real history), yes-- but not in the ways Martin has changed it. To make things truly realistic, Martin would have had to possess a serious understanding of Mediaeval society, so that he could then grasp why things were the way they were. From there, he could then derive which changes would produce which results in his fictional society, and (importantly!) what other effects those changes might produce.
As it is, his world doesn't make internal sense. A society populated by people who act the way his characters act wouldn't have a central ecclesiastical hierarchy with great pull in society at all, for instance. It's not unrealistic to have a world at the roughly Mediaeval level of material development but without such a "Church"... but having a Mediaeval-level society of pseudo-atheists and a clearly powerful religious infrastructure simply doesn't track. Likewise, it's not unrealistic to have a society at that level of material development which possesses contraceptives that have few to no ill effects on a woman's health... but it's preposterous to then still see attitudes towards sex and marriage that are in fact far more mysoginistic than the real Middle Ages ever were.
It's not that this isn't how European society back in the day worked-- it's that this isn't how societies function in general. Martin doesn't understand how certain changes lead to other changes. He doesn't get that everything is connected, and that you can't just swap out some bits you want to be different without considering the implications.
I get the strong impression that you don't really get that point, either. But it's key to this whole discussion.
Any one point can be excused individually by coming up with an explanation (although I do note that those explanations are then automatically 'just' your personal fanon, because the canon doesn't offer them). But nothing exists in a vacuüm. That's why your repeated appeal to "this isn't the real world, it's a world with different rules!" rings so hollow to anyone who examines things critically.
No, it's not the real world. But it still has to make sense. If that world has lots of things in common with Mediaeval Europe, but then has certain (and in fact, it has trainloads of) completely incongruent elements, then we must ask: why is that? Just saying "it's a different world, accept it as a given!" is a cop-out. That just excuses illogical world-building, and the point of this thread is to critique bad world-building.
A superficial appeal to the existence of magic and dragons and whatnot doesn't fly, either. Those things would change a world (s compared to real history), yes-- but not in the ways Martin has changed it. To make things truly realistic, Martin would have had to possess a serious understanding of Mediaeval society, so that he could then grasp why things were the way they were. From there, he could then derive which changes would produce which results in his fictional society, and (importantly!) what other effects those changes might produce.
As it is, his world doesn't make internal sense. A society populated by people who act the way his characters act wouldn't have a central ecclesiastical hierarchy with great pull in society at all, for instance. It's not unrealistic to have a world at the roughly Mediaeval level of material development but without such a "Church"... but having a Mediaeval-level society of pseudo-atheists and a clearly powerful religious infrastructure simply doesn't track. Likewise, it's not unrealistic to have a society at that level of material development which possesses contraceptives that have few to no ill effects on a woman's health... but it's preposterous to then still see attitudes towards sex and marriage that are in fact far more mysoginistic than the real Middle Ages ever were.
It's not that this isn't how European society back in the day worked-- it's that this isn't how societies function in general. Martin doesn't understand how certain changes lead to other changes. He doesn't get that everything is connected, and that you can't just swap out some bits you want to be different without considering the implications.
I get the strong impression that you don't really get that point, either. But it's key to this whole discussion.
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evilchumlee
Well-known member
There is alot of point by point but that's the nature of it. I'm going to stop replying to all of that just because it's largely pointless.
My point is, it DOES make sense in it's own right, but you can't try to dwell on "alternate history" because it's NOT... it's a completely and totally different world with an entirely different historical tradition that in absolutely no way even comes close to resembling our own.
Yes, Westeros is... not a 100% accurate medival European society. Because it's... not a medieval European society. That's just the closest thing to our history that we can compare it to.
I still fail to understand how you can't have a formerly-powerful church whose power had been eroded by a millenia-long dynasty of kings, which still has a modicum of power from simply existing as the generally dominant religion of the land, even if most people aren't particularly devout. There's nothing that can't work about that. It's not how it happened in our history, which makes exact sense since it's not our history.
The "problem" is that Martin has not published volumes of history so that we can trace every single minor event through historical changes to lead to where they end up, like we can with real history. No author is going to say "Hmm, well my fantasy society uses a calendar, so I have to go back and explain how these people discovered and created the concept of a calendar." That's idiotic. It's also idiotic to assume a world not ours developed a calendar in the same exact manner for the same exact reasons as we did.
Now i'm not sitting here saying that every single detail makes 100% sense. It doesn't. It never will in fiction. Such fiction would probably be incredibly boring as a matter of fact. Martin's world is... close enough, and makes just enough sense to function for the story. Sure, should they be wearing plate armor? No probably not. But some of the minutiae here seems like some being a bit overly dense and refusing to accept that things don't have to progress exactly as they did in history in a different world.
Skallagrim
Well-known member
Yeah, that much is clear.
...Okay, that was mean. I admit it. However, you do make it a bit easy, by categorically refusing to engage with my point. Even though my whole post was written to underscore that key point. Which you keep on ignoring. You are happy to reply point-by-point, because then you can argue everything in isolation and kind of ignore the whole picture. That's exactly your problem. It's why your position doesn't stand up to scrutiny. No more than Martin's world-building. You and he make the exact same mistake!
You severely under-state the problem by acting as if there are just a few details that don't add up. That's a ridiculous misrepresentation. And again you excuse major gaps in logic by saying that "things don't have to progress exactly as they did in history"-- but I already said that, myself! The point is that if you change them, you have to tell us why they are different. And you have to recognise other changes that would result from the alterations. Martin does neither.
He, like you, only relies on "just accept it, bro!"
That's lazy. It's also disingenuous.
P.S. -- You saying that "Martin has not published volumes of history" doesn't excuse him. It's not a validation, but a cop-out. No long volumes are needed; only logical consistency. The setting must make sense on its own terms. But it doesn't. And that is the issue.
evilchumlee
Well-known member
It's the point by point that makes it make sense though, ignoring that and just declaring "Doesn't make sense" is nonsensical. The arguments being made focus around "well the events didn't happen to create the outcome Martin created", but then going point by point and showing how they could have is met with "Yeah but you can't go point by point"...
The entire "Martin is stupid" argument seems to be "but, that's not what happened" going by the big picture and directly engaging your point. My response is "You are correct. The specific events that created those conditions in the real world did not happen, but other events occurred in their world which led to those outcomes, which by no means have to be the same."
The only specific point i'll address is " The point is that if you change them, you have to tell us why they are different." You don't REALLY have to do that, and to attempt to could get incredibly asinine and in the weeds, completely irrelevant to the story. Martin's books are already bloated... we don't need five chapters describing the 1,000 years of history and events that lead to the creation of the Maesters...
But that might be the differences in thought here. My point is that, there is no POSSIBLE way Martin could write the volumes of history necessary to describe every single facet of the world in the way that we can look into our history. We CAN go back and read through 5,000 years of recorded history to connect the dots. We just don't, and couldn't possibly, have that information here.
Skallagrim
Well-known member
1. You're not doing that. You're repeating "it's different because it's different", without illustrating why it would supposedly be plausible. In fact, people in the point-by-point discussion have explained why quite a lot of your assumptions are faulty. But you repeat the same line of "it's different because it's different" again, phrased slightly differently, each time.
2. Even if you were showing how the differences could have realistically come about... that's your fanon, and no defence of the work itself. If I have to make shit up for things to make sense, then the author left gaps that are very large indeed. And that's bad world-building.
1. That's not a response to my point, because I never claimed things had to be the the same.
2. If things happened otherwise, the different outcomes do have to follow from the altered premises. They don't, in Martin's books.
He's under no obligation to do it, but then he can be charged with poor world-building. It's really unclear why you are so set on defrending him against this charge. It's not like he's going to jail, or has to return his income from the books, if we admit that his world-building is shit.