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

[Urabrask Revealed]

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.

Man, I really want to read a story, where any given nation in its medival state is placed between Westeros and Essos as an island.
See how the british islands, france, or Prussian Germany would deal with the clusterfuck that are Westeros and Essos.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Man, I really want to read a story, where any given nation in its medival state is placed between Westeros and Essos as an island.
See how the british islands, france, or Prussian Germany would deal with the clusterfuck that are Westeros and Essos.

World of ASOIAF Meets Danerige

So, this all started when, earlier today I posted an omake to my react series, over on the ‘Robert Reacts’ thread (Robert Reacts to: An Age of Prosperity, The Kingdom of Denmark, written by Bastiram on Alternatehistory). While my omake has already gained an (to me) unprecedented amount of...

forums.spacebattles.com

There's this fic, though the comment section last I checked was full of guys bashing christianity

Even while there were scenes like a priest actually being more accepting of bastards whom a hypocritical whoremongering Septon kept going on and on about being "born from lust"

Kinda funny, but even the Danes are alarmed by how crappy Westeros is and even note the abnormal number of bastards and children born from rape even without a war going on, to the point that many migrate to live amongst the Danes or are left near their docks

 

[Airedale260]

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.

It's even more hilariously inaccurate when you consider that not only was the Church responsible for preserving knowledge, but also the organization that oversaw the establishment of the universities. Rulers copied Bologna and Paris but those were founded by the Church and adhered to Church rules.

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

He based his stuff on the popular history. Which basically means:

[H]as 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.

Yeah I wrote a rather scathing post on this a while back either here or another ASOIAF thread basically ripping him for it. He thinks he understands it (like with the "corrupt church" stuff about the Faith of the Seven and the closet atheism), but is too dumb to realize that it's actually a mix of 19th-21st century bias that he uses to base his ideas rather than reality.

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

Short answer: No.

Long answer: There's a reason that people who study history from introductory undergraduate courses to doctoral dissertations focus on specific periods or subjects in history rather than overall. We have ten thousand years of the stuff, and there is no single historian who is an expert in the whole gamut.

If you want to know more, find a bit of history (say, oh, the Normandy landings) and search for books just on that. Maybe something else catches your interest and you jump to another part. Lather, rinse, repeat.

It's weird... stereotypically people hate history, but if you look at it as one fascinating tale (albeit one where you have to remember that things like "the arc of history" do not actually exist) it's actually quite fascinating.

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.

That's not entirely true. We're always looking to see if we mistranslated stuff or we find out that an author (such as Josephus) was heavily biased and actually a propagandist for the Romans. That's *another* thing to remember: You have to consider the author's bias. "History is written by the winners" is a maxim for very good reason.

Man, I really want to read a story, where any given nation in its medival state is placed between Westeros and Essos as an island.
See how the british islands, france, or Prussian Germany would deal with the clusterfuck that are Westeros and Essos.

I don't know about those three but I saw one where 11th century Byzantium wound up near them. Only a couple of chapters though.

Many years back there was an April Fool's Day edition of the ASOIAF mod for CK2 where they added "the eastern continent" (this was before Essos much less Sothoryos and Ulthos were part of the game) and it turned out to be medieval Europe to the east. The latest starting point was when Ned and his siblings were kids, and it wound up where Ned converted to the Wildling faith and led a war against his brother, Lyanna married Edward the Black Prince and converted to Catholicism, and fuck if I remember anything else besides Westeros basically collapsing into anarchy.

I don't know if the *exact* same thing would happen here, but it would throw so many things out of whack. Westeros is too big to actually be conquered but I can see mass conversions to actual Catholicism and general uprisings (the Faith of the Seven is screwed because while they're a total scam the Catholic Church certainly *is not*, they're in a technological stasis, have hilariously inefficient taxation and crippling corruption, and the Church might use it as an excuse to launch crusades against the "heathens" of Westeros (and Essos if it were to also come back).

The Free Cities except maybe Braavos are hosed because they're all heathens as well and have absurd slave-to-freeborn ratios (realistically slaves made 35% tops of a population; the only times it reached 90% were periods in the Caribbean but even that was largely due to slaves constantly dying due to the heat).

Short form they're fucked, long term you'll have additional shockwaves like the concept of universities and maesters losing their grips as people realize just how little knowledge those goofballs actually have, etc.

 

[ATP]

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

If you like classic - then "Golden Bought" by James George Frazer.

 

[Urabrask Revealed]

There's this fic, though the comment section last I checked was full of guys bashing christianity

It's even more hilariously inaccurate when you consider that not only was the Church responsible for preserving knowledge, but also the organization that oversaw the establishment of the universities. Rulers copied Bologna and Paris but those were founded by the Church and adhered to Church rules.

Yeah I wrote a rather scathing post on this a while back either here or another ASOIAF thread basically ripping him for it. He thinks he understands it (like with the "corrupt church" stuff about the Faith of the Seven and the closet atheism), but is too dumb to realize that it's actually a mix of 19th-21st century bias that he uses to base his ideas rather than reality.

Hating Christianity is disgustingly common, and the people most to blame to it were hysterical lefttard women who believed that nerdy activities were satanic in their nature, something the MSM gleefully stroked the flames of.

 

[Aldarion]

Yeah I wrote a rather scathing post on this a while back either here or another ASOIAF thread basically ripping him for it. He thinks he understands it (like with the "corrupt church" stuff about the Faith of the Seven and the closet atheism), but is too dumb to realize that it's actually a mix of 19th-21st century bias that he uses to base his ideas rather than reality.

Could you find it? Sounds interesting.

 

[Firebat]

FFS, Martin took Maesters out of the Faith of the Seven

Maesters and the Citadel predate Faith of the Seven by significant margin. In general, since Andals are anti-Franks (they fled from their Rome instead of being integrated into it), it would be strange to expect Andal church to have the same interests as Catholic one.

 

[Aldarion]

Maesters and the Citadel predate Faith of the Seven by significant margin. In general, since Andals are anti-Franks (they fled from their Rome instead of being integrated into it), it would be strange to expect Andal church to have the same interests as Catholic one.

Problem is that knowledge of things (such as weather cycles - floods and so on) was integral to both authority and function of religious organizations since time immemorial. Egyptian priests, Roman priests, Christian priests... they all had extremely important scientific and organizational purpose. It was not exclusive to the Catholic Church, it was something priests did.

So separation of the faith and science makes no sense in general, even if separation of Citadel from Faith of the Seven in particular may be logical.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Egyptian priests, Roman priests

Wait, really? I could understand the first because they were likely involved in studying human bodies due to doing embalming

But the latter?

 

[Aldarion]

Wait, really? I could understand the first because they were likely involved in studying human bodies due to doing embalming

But the latter?

Roman priests helped develop and keep the calendar, IIRC. And Egyptian priests were actually very important in farming as well, as they kept the records of floods of the Nile.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Roman priests helped develop and keep the calendar, IIRC. And Egyptian priests were actually very important in farming as well, as they kept the records of floods of the Nile.

How does it involve their religion though, exactly?

I mean which Deities were involved to somehow make them think their intellectual pursuits were holy? Apollo who was credited with a bunch of stuff like music?

In-Hindsight, I think even ancient Witch-Doctors may have known far more about biology than once thought

 

[Bear Ribs]

How does it involve their religion though, exactly?

I mean which Deities were involved to somehow make them think their intellectual pursuits were holy? Apollo who was credited with a bunch of stuff like music?

In-Hindsight, I think even ancient Witch-Doctors may have known far more about biology than once thought

Priests weren't just preachers, they were wise men. They were the advisors, the councilors, the people you went to for healing, for blessings, and for advice. No farmer is going to respect the priest of a god of agriculture who doesn't know barley from millet, and clay from loam soil, and who doesn't have good advice on where and when to plant.

Modern media tends to massively downplay how much various religious figures played in establishing science. You've heard of Copernicus, the guy who first posited that the Earth Orbited the sun, yes? Brilliant scientist, historical figure, ordained priest. But watching a TV show on astronomy that Catholic priest part is going to get left off and you'll have the impression he was a secular scientist.

If you look at the history of medicine you will learn of Ignac Semmelweis, who does not have nearly the recognition he deserves for having saved billions of lives by this point in time. He was able to determine by that washing your hands increased the percentage of your medical patients surviving via detailed observations and studies. He was also a priest which will go unmentioned in most secular histories.

Imhotep was the inventor of architecture as far as we can tell, he pretty much invented the pyramid, the obelisk, and the standing column among many other things and advanced mathematics to a frankly absurd degree for his time, and was also an Egyptian Priest.

 

[Aldarion]

How does it involve their religion though, exactly?

I mean which Deities were involved to somehow make them think their intellectual pursuits were holy? Apollo who was credited with a bunch of stuff like music?

In-Hindsight, I think even ancient Witch-Doctors may have known far more about biology than once thought

What @Bear Ribs said. Rituals developed in part precisely in order to ensure preservation of knowledge, and priests' duty as interpreters of wills of gods meant that they had to, well, understand will of the gods. And that meant understanding the natural processes which were manifestation of said will.

People in stone age were capable of performing successful brain surgery (or, at least, successful skull surgery - drilling holes in the skull to reduce pressure). So yeah.

 

[Firebat]

Problem is that knowledge of things (such as weather cycles - floods and so on) was integral to both authority and function of religious organizations since time immemorial

No farmer is going to respect the priest of a god of agriculture who doesn't know barley from millet, and clay from loam soil, and who doesn't have good advice on where and when to plant.

Vestal Virgins were afforded plenty respect by Romans for their service to Vesta, goddess of hearth - despite their obvious and self-evident lack of expertise in the matter by the virtue of being, well, Vestal Virgins. Ditto for Roman calendar before Caesar - I pity the fool who would use that for agricultural purposes. By the time Julius got to it, the thing was three months out of whack. Yet the priests responsible for the matter remained, despite their obvious decades-long inability to give good advice on when to plant anything.

So no, knowledge of practical things was not integral to either authority or function of religious organizations since time immemorial. It was something some parts of particular priesthood might have (or might have not) picked up along the way with varying degree of success.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Vestal Virgins were afforded plenty respect by Romans for their service to Vesta, goddess of hearth - despite their obvious and self-evident lack of expertise in the matter by the virtue of being, well, Vestal Virgins. Ditto for Roman calendar before Caesar - I pity the fool who would use that for agricultural purposes. By the time Julius got to it, the thing was three months out of whack. Yet the priests responsible for the matter remained, despite their obvious decades-long inability to give good advice on when to plant anything.

So no, knowledge of practical things was not integral to either authority or function of religious organizations since time immemorial. It was something some parts of particular priesthood might have (or might have not) picked up along the way with varying degree of success.

Two things:

1: You have no idea what the Vestal Virgins had as duties and what their function was, obviously. It did, coincidentally, not involve sex nor advising anyone on how to have sex, the temple to Venus was available if you needed such advice.

2: Your notion of the Roman Calendar is wrong and has been thoroughly disproven, it being an "erase the past to make the present seem better" bit of falsehood.

The actual Roman calendar pre-Julius (I'm presuming that's which Caesar you mean given there were many but he worked specifically on the calendar) was 355 days long with a leap month of variable length added every 2-3 years to bring it back into alignment with the sun, which was handled by the Pontifex Maximus, or High Priest. It never got "3 months out of whack" though since it was sometimes used to manipulate year length in order to change election years, it did get a part of a month out of whack when politics intervened.

You could be thinking of the Romulan calendar of 10 months with a non-month 61 day "winter" period that could vary to keep up with the sun, but it also never got months out of whack and was adjusted long before Julius Caesar showed up so I don't think that's it.

 

[Firebat]

1: You have no idea what the Vestal Virgins had as duties and what their function was, obviously. It did, coincidentally, not involve sex nor advising anyone on how to have sex, the temple to Venus was available if you needed such advice.

Did I say anything about Vestal Virgins offering sex advice? No, so don't throw your fantasies at me.
What should be obvious however, is that Vesta was a goddess of hearth and family - and a Vestal Virgin would have very difficult time counseling other people on the matter due to the fact that they were not married and had no families of their own.
So yes, one could be a priest to the god of X and have no expertise in the field of X.

It never got "3 months out of whack" though

Yes, it did. Hence why Julius Caesar had to make a year before the reform 445 days long, then starting year 45 BC with a fresh new calendar of his very own.
They called it "a year of confusion".

 

[Bear Ribs]

Did I say anything about Vestal Virgins offering sex advice? No, so don't throw your fantasies at me.

But you did say that their being virgins is specifically what you felt disqualified them, and there's not a whole massive wide range of jobs that "doesn't have sex" disqualifies you from understanding.

What should be obvious however, is that Vesta was a goddess of hearth and family - and a Vestal Virgin would have very difficult time counseling other people on the matter due to the fact that they were not married.
So yes, one could be a priest to the god of X and have no expertise on X.

Again, you clearly have no idea what a Vestal Virgin was. For starters, counseling wives was Juno's domain, not Vesta's. For second, you do realize there were only two Vestal Virgins on the planet at a time for most of Rome's history according to Plutarch? Later this was increased... to 4 and at the end of the Empire, 6. Do you seriously think that two to six women were considered sufficient to handle all the duties for the single most senior god in the entire Roman pantheon across the entirety of the Roman Empire? You think these 2-6 women were giving families advice to the millions of Roman women? Heh.

Here's the thing about Vesta, she was a dual-goddess who was both a virgin... and also got so much action she was a goddess of dickgirls so as to handle her extra boning duties. Her priestess setup reflected this, the Vestal Virgins were a very narrow, specific subset of the Vestals who handled a very narrow specific set of duties which did not involve trying to give bedroom advice to random Roman housewives.

Yes, it did. Hence why Julius Caesar had to make a year before the reform 445 days long, then staring year 45 BC with a fresh new calendar of his very own.
They called it "a year of confusion".

Which was... closer to a month and a half-two months off, not three, and caused entirely by politics (As I said upthread, the manipulation of which year got a leap month was used to screw with when elections happened), not by the priests not being able to figure out how the calendar worked. Which means that... yes indeed, your entire reason for bringing it up, to claim that priests weren't the educated advisors, is irrelevant.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

You know, just thinking about how far the Dothraki are from the Mongols, maybe that was actually intentional by Martin. Maybe he really did read up on his history and realised the Mongols would conquer Planetos within a few fucking lifetimes and summarily had to dumb down the Dothraki to prevent that.

Because seriously, no Westerosi army could stand up to the Golden Horde. I think even the White Walkers would be in for a hell of a time.

 

[Bear Ribs]

You know, just thinking about how far the Dothraki are from the Mongols, maybe that was actually intentional by Martin. Maybe he really did read up on his history and realised the Mongols would conquer Planetos within a few fucking lifetimes and summarily had to dumb down the Dothraki to prevent that.

Because seriously, no Westerosi army could stand up to the Golden Horde. I think even the White Walkers would be in for a hell of a time.

Always possible. I'm not entirely sure the Golden Horde could win though. I mean given the tactics and such it's obvious they would win every fight (The Dothraki are some of the worse horse-warriors I've ever seen and horribly equipped for their jobs) but armies in GoT get to do things like march a thousand miles in a few days with no food or remounts and such that real armies can't match even with Mongol Logistics.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

You know, just thinking about how far the Dothraki are from the Mongols, maybe that was actually intentional by Martin. Maybe he really did read up on his history and realised the Mongols would conquer Planetos within a few fucking lifetimes and summarily had to dumb down the Dothraki to prevent that.

Because seriously, no Westerosi army could stand up to the Golden Horde. I think even the White Walkers would be in for a hell of a time.

I remember seeing a fic once on AltHisto

Genghis Khan's army was ISOT'd to the Planetos and he spent a good portion of the time angrily lecturing the Dothraki about "rebows" like some Drill Sergeant