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

[Husky_Khan]

Baby eating nobles?

 

[Shipmaster Sane]

Baby eating nobles?

Easy way to refer to the Nobility of westeros, where doing things like torturing hookers to death is common enough practice that Littlefinger can reliably find a market for it. The Nobles from Westeros might as well be the Thing-esque monsters from the movie Society for how little they react to the hysterically insane abuses committed by their peers and lessors.

Theres actually a scene that, strangely enough, perfectly sums up the difference between the reality of a medieval nobleman and the kind of thing we see more commonly in GOT.




See, this scene is trying to portray Ned as fantabulously honorable, a real one in a million Noble among Nobles, but... This is the baseline in Earth history. Everything he says and does is exactly what you'd expect, not some exception like it's treated as in the show. That scene is basically just "Average Earth Noble vs Westeros" in a nutshell.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Easy way to refer to the Nobility of westeros, where doing things like torturing hookers to death is common enough practice that Littlefinger can reliably find a market for it. The Nobles from Westeros might as well be the Thing-esque monsters from the movie Society for how little they react to the hysterically insane abuses committed by their peers and lessors.

Theres actually a scene that, strangely enough, perfectly sums up the difference between the reality of a medieval nobleman and the kind of thing we see more commonly in GOT.




See, this scene is trying to portray Ned as fantabulously honorable, a real one in a million Noble among Nobles, but... This is the baseline in Earth history. Everything he says and does is exactly what you'd expect, not some exception like it's treated as in the show. That scene is basically just "Average Earth Noble vs Westeros" in a nutshell.

I’m pretty surprised in-hindsight that they ever banned the “Right of The First Night” and that the Starks banned flaying

Queen Alysanne was amongst the only ones really pointing out how odds are the average smallfolk would REALLY see the deed, everybody else thought it would be an honor

 

[Deleted member 88]

Martin's understanding of "realistic" history is extremely sparse. He fundamentally treats his universe as if it's modern day except that people use swords and bows instead of guns. But in structure? Planetos is basically post-modernist with a thin coat of medieval paint on it.

For starters their armies aren't medieval. It looks like it at a glance but doesn't act like it. Feudalism is fundamentally a system based on not having much in the way of infrastructure or bureaucracy. It's the king basically with his drinking buddies splitting up the map, and his buddies each have a dozen or so drinking buddies under them splitting up their share of the map, and so forth until you get to landless knights who probably have a few men-at-arms as their drinking buddies. Typically each person owes the guy above him in the chain a certain amount of service each year (the most common was 40 days per year) but needed the rest of their year to handle running their slice of the map. Armies were typically tiny and wars were actually surprisingly short lived because you only had 40 days before you had to start dishing out fat stacks of cash to your armies, and nobody really had that kind of money because there wasn't a bureaucracy to collect taxes and farmers didn't produce a lot of surplus to support armies anyway. In GoT we have something more akin to modern standing armies, in size and logistics since they're somehow able to field vast armies despite the fact that such numbers should choke them for food and they shouldn't be able to make armies march so long anyway since all those people are supposed to have duties at home to take care of.

The Westerosi have religion but they don't actually believe in it, much like post-modern people tend to. Actual Medieval kings were highly faithful and served a role in worship. They built edifices to the church and things like a King being infidel to his wife were really serious problems that could toppling a kingdom. If you were excommunicated, the people believed that working with you meant they would be going to hell with you later, and they believed it. People had Faith.

When Emperor Henry the IVth was accused of simony and got excommunicated, he came within a hair's breadth of losing his position because none of his people would obey him and he wound up kneeling in the snow for three days for a chance to beg Pope Gregory VII to lift his excommunication. That's what having an actual religion does. But in GoT, even though we're told that the church has power and people believe, nobody acts like it and the church never makes a move against anybody for violating their edicts. It's quite post-modern, the leaders act like modern rulers who might pay lip service to religion or ignore it entirely but the church certainly doesn't have a role in their decision making or duties.

Finally the Westerosi don't act like Feudalism is their government. They act very much like the modern US. A feudalistic system is, at it's core, a king as his drinking buddies the dukes who meet regularly and party. The duke has his earls as drinking buddies, the earl his barons, and so forth. Feudalism is a government that runs on direct trust between subordinates and also needs minimal bureaucracy and infrastructure, the reason for it's odd structure of basically a chain of drinking buddies is because the system can't actualyl administer itself due to lack of bureaucrats, and is outsourcing it to the drinking buddies who get to rule a piece of land in exchange for service and control of that land.

Typically feudal kingdoms are poor because nobody is there to collect taxes, it's just the landlord taking a cut of the produce and maybe passing a few bushels of grain up the chain to pay his taxes. Westeros runs on gold instead which was exceeding rare IRL. Similarly due to trust issues, even if the church had nothing to say about it, somebody like Cersei or Joffery would have zero chance of ruling any length of time because nobody would trust them and they'd get yeeted off a wall for losing the trust of their vassals in short order. Remember, there is no infrastructure to rule with except said vassals who are essentially drinking buddies who follow the guy above because they like him. We saw this deposing of bad rulers for this reason no few times IRL though usually the really crazy rulers were instead reduced to figureheads and a power behind the throne ruled competently. Cersei's army, however, acts like a distinctly American post-modern army where allegiance is to a constitution (that westeros doesn't have) and the military will generally follow any legal order, except Westerosi also follow illegal ones.

Fundamentally it's extremely clear that Westeros runs according to modern rules (most US based) with a light medieval aesthetic. Religion has similar power to churches in the modern US. Armies have numbers, obedience, and logistics similar to the modern US. Rulers are corrupt and pay only lip service to their own religion and morals like the modern US. And rulership stems from being seen as "legitimate" rather than having the trust of your vassals, just like the modern US.

Okay usually I don't do GOT/ASOIAF apologia but this isn't entirely fair.

Let's address your main points.

Religion: The Faith of the Seven was a conquering proselytizing religion and it conquered most of Southern Westeros, infusing it with Andal language and customs. The reason why in canon, its weaker than not is because the Targaryens thoroughly declawed it. Its basically a state church, in that its entirely subordinate to the secular authorities. Maegor crushed a rebellion led by the Faith against his incest. In the books, it does rise again-with the Faith militant reborn. Against the abuses of the war and depravity of the Lannister regime. Lancel has a religious vision and shows genuine piety. For centuries, its role was reduced but it was not always so. Not to mention-Sansa, Davos, and Cat all pray to the Seven, LF and the Lannisters are more...cynical about religion. Robb Stark and his father both take the old gods very seriously.

Armies: This is how the Wot5K works. Robb calls his banners, Tywin has already mobilized his, and Renly steals Stannis's assumed bannermen. These vassals are generally loyal(the Starks have insanely devoted vassals except for the Boltons and Ryswells) where Tywin's vassals stay with him despite almost certain Lannister defeat at one point in the war. They do however flip sides, the Frey turn against Robb because he breaks a marriage promise to them. Renly's bannermen go over to Stannis or the Tyrells(most of them's liege lords), and then after the Blackwater they go over to Joffrey.

Government: Feudal governance is how Westeros operates except in what appears to be King's Landing. In which there is a privy council and some measure of bureaucracy. There definitely is not any sort of modern apparatus. Witness the Antler men Tyrion has thrown off the trebuchets. Or that numerous city officials are in Varys and LF's pockets. Its byzantine politics-there is a bureaucracy but its loyalties vary with oaths, pay, and personal affiliation.

As for taxation-the royal authorities collect it? And local lords and lord paramounts collect it?

Now in the later seasons of the show-where the Lannister army remains insanely loyal you have a much greater point.

But have you read the books? It doesn't appear you have.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Okay usually I don't do GOT/ASOIAF apologia but this isn't entirely fair.

Let's address your main points.

Religion: The Faith of the Seven was a conquering proselytizing religion and it conquered most of Southern Westeros, infusing it with Andal language and customs. The reason why in canon, its weaker than not is because the Targaryens thoroughly declawed it. Its basically a state church, in that its entirely subordinate to the secular authorities. Maegor crushed a rebellion led by the Faith against his incest. In the books, it does rise again-with the Faith militant reborn. Against the abuses of the war and depravity of the Lannister regime. Lancel has a religious vision and shows genuine piety. For centuries, its role was reduced but it was not always so. Not to mention-Sansa, Davos, and Cat all pray to the Seven, LF and the Lannisters are more...cynical about religion. Robb Stark and his father both take the old gods very seriously.

Armies: This is how the Wot5K works. Robb calls his banners, Tywin has already mobilized his, and Renly steals Stannis's assumed bannermen. These vassals are generally loyal(the Starks have insanely devoted vassals except for the Boltons and Ryswells) where Tywin's vassals stay with him despite almost certain Lannister defeat at one point in the war. They do however flip sides, the Frey turn against Robb because he breaks a marriage promise to them. Renly's bannermen go over to Stannis or the Tyrells(most of them's liege lords), and then after the Blackwater they go over to Joffrey.

Government: Feudal governance is how Westeros operates except in what appears to be King's Landing. In which there is a privy council and some measure of bureaucracy. There definitely is not any sort of modern apparatus. Witness the Antler men Tyrion has thrown off the trebuchets. Or that numerous city officials are in Varys and LF's pockets. Its byzantine politics-there is a bureaucracy but its loyalties vary with oaths, pay, and personal affiliation.

As for taxation-the royal authorities collect it? And local lords and lord paramounts collect it?

Now in the later seasons of the show-where the Lannister army remains insanely loyal you have a much greater point.

But have you read the books? It doesn't appear you have.

Yes, I read the books though I didn't watch the show past the first episode, it's gore and nudity not being to my taste.

But you're missing the entire point of my post. You're looking at the medieval paint job and saying "yeah, looks medieval" in place of the deeper facts I was pointing to. Westeros doesn't have the modern apparatus but acts like said apparatus exists anyway because it works too much like a modern country. That's my whole point, it's like the narrator is saying that a nation is in a severe famine while we see massive grain barges docking and unloading on-screen.

Armies: The size of their armies and their mail-order logistics are simply insane for a medieval nation. Take a look at the Battle of Agincourt. Significant data on numbers starts around page 58. France managed to put together somewhere between 15 and 35,000 total combatants (there's significant disagreement between historians as to whether the valets were armed and how servants counted) and losing part of them nearly crippled the nation from loss of manpower. This was a serious battle, King Henry V was personally on the scene, and this was all two of the most powerful nations could scrape together. Even with Roman Logistics, emperor Julian's army at Strasbourg was 10,000 foot and 3,000 cavalry (with some estimates going as high as 15,000 total).

What happens in ASoIaF? Renly's got 100,000 dudes all by himself just hanging around in case he needs them, with apparently no farms or shops they need to get back to. Now I can anticipate your next objection, you're about to say that Westeros is larger and can thus support bigger armies, but they also have "order from Amazon" logistics, and the bigger land mass means far more distance to haul stuff which makes the situation worse. Let's look closer.

Mace Tyrell later marches to King’s Landing with 70,000 Tyrell soldiers. Going off the map he takes the Rosewood road and marches them about 850 miles (let's keep the math simple) to King's Landing. 'Kay then. For starters at most an army's going to march at absolute max about 15 miles per day, with 10 being more likely (the roads in GoT do not impress). You can force-march faster but that kills your horses, ruins morale, tires your troops to the bone, and generally is the kind of desperation move an army doesn't pull unless it's absolutely required and certainly won't happen multiple days in a row.

So ol' Mace's army probably marched for... a minimum of 56 days. Remember that a typical knight under a feudal system only owed 40 days of service a year so this should be financially crippling for the Tyrells before they even reach the starting line. Perhaps they negotiated for more time but that should still be raping their economy via not having 70,000 critical people tilling the fields, chasing bandits, building houses, etc.

But there's more. How are the Tyrell's feeding these guys? The soldiers aren't carrying their own food, medieval armies have "baggage trains" of cooks, mules, handlers, blacksmiths, etc. to care for the army and haul their stuff, which was nearly as large as the army. Afore I mentioned Emperor Julian at Strasbourg with his 13,000 soldiers. I don't have a citation but I recall reading that Julian’s army of 13,000 at Strasbourg in A.D. 357 (10,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry) would have required at a minimum 30 tons of grain, 13 tons of fodder, and 30,000 gallons of water each day, just for the soldiers, not for the baggage train hauling all that. The Tyrells are bringing five times that over roads far worse than Emperor Julian had available.

If we do the math ourselves, an average human needs about 4 pounds of food a day. A horse needs 12. We'll assume that somehow Tyrell forgot to bring any horses. His 70,000 troops thus need 140 tons of food every day which is in the right ballpark for the Roman figure. His baggage train, let's call it 20,000 people who are somehow able to support 70,000. They also need 20,000 mules to haul the wagons. This is incredibly lean for a medieval baggage train and should be more like three times that. This nets an additional 140 tons of food per day.

This leaves an approx. result of Tyrell needing 280 tons a day (this assumes he brought no horses so it's quite possibly double that) for a minimum of 56 days. So... at least 15,680 tons of food even if we ignore horse and water requirements. Where's he getting that? His baggage train can't actually haul such a ludicrous amount (you quickly run into the NASA rocket problem of need exponentially more fuel to haul your fuel, food in this case) so he must have a well-developed chain of supply depots... which shouldn't be possible in a feudal system as it requires vastly more bureaucratic government and organization than we see existing, especially since Tyrell is apparently taking advantage of supply depots that aren't in his territory. And this isn't the army of Westeros, this is the retinue of one lord, again Renly keeps an even larger personal army on standby just in case.

And the same with government, yes it appears to run on personal oaths except that the lords can break their oaths at will, blow up churches, and betray customs of hospitality without anybody blinking. That's not feudalism, your vassals will not honor their oaths if you don't honor yours because that's how it works. King John the Mean tried to "alter the deal" and we got the Magna Carta out of it crippling the King's power forever. His nobles rebelled against him even though John would be considered honorable on par with Stark in Westeros.

Look at how things actually work in the setting, not at the thin coat of paint of armored knights and noble ladies.

Getting back to the Vs. itself, this is also what will hose Europeans. They are constrained by real-life logistics and their armies are puny by Westeros' "Modern army except with swords" standards. At the Night Attack at Târgoviște Vlad put together 30,000 troops of which 22,000 were volunteer and light infantry. Matthius Corvinus had around 50,000 at the Battle of Vaslui. Historically those were massive, major battles but for Renly's 100,000 standing army it's a minor threat. Gunpowder is a force-multiplier (assuming they can make it which Word of God they can't) but the numbers against them, especially against multiple Westeros Lords, are simply ridiculous.

 

[Deleted member 88]

On the Tyrell’s, they didn’t march? They rode down the river in Barges.

Combined Renly has an army of 100K. Only around a fourth to a third of that is actually Storm men. The rest are Reachmen. Mace Tyrell through marriage alliances does have that kind of authority. And armies of that size did exist. Just not in Europe. The reach however is unified mostly under Tyrell leadership.

Westeros is a unified continent and has been for 300 years. This means larger population growth and more resources for the support of larger armies.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Maybe this should all go to the ASOIAF discussion thread?

 

[Deleted member 88]

Sure fine. I’ll continue it if anyone is interested.

 

[Deleted member 88]

ASOIAF is generally just bigger, more massive, fantastical than the RL medieval ages.

The Rock is Gibraltar but much more impressive. Winterfell is basically a self contained city.

Robert is basically Conan the Barbarian, albeit more jovial.

It’s medieval but intended to be larger than life. But still have a gritty tactile sense of the “Real” by the human heart in conflict with itself.

Theon, Jaimie, Tyrion, these aren’t stock fantasy cliches, but immensely human characters.

 

[Emperor Tippy]

IIRC Martin specified it as "15th century minus gunpowder". Because according to him the elements that make up gunpowder don't exist on Planetos ...

Yup, no wood, horse shit & piss, or hot springs. Despite the fact that all of them are shown

The knowledge not existing to make gunpowder is entirely justifiable, it isn't intuitive. The raw materials not existing just shows a deep ignorance of what the needed materials actually are.

----
The biggest "unrealistic" part of ASOIAF/GoT is the teleporting. Armies and individuals travel entirely at speed of plot without any concern for logistics or anything approaching travel times. A big part of the issue is that Westeros is around the size of the United States and yet still reliant on sea and horse for transport; without even a well developed river network to speed things up. A Raven from Kings Landing to the Rock is like ten days one way. Marching an army from any of the Kingdoms to King's Landing? You are looking at (absurdly best case) three months of marching. But all travel times and communications lags are basically just handwaved entirely.

 

[Aldarion]

ASOIAF is generally just bigger, more massive, fantastical than the RL medieval ages.

The Rock is Gibraltar but much more impressive. Winterfell is basically a self contained city.

Robert is basically Conan the Barbarian, albeit more jovial.

It’s medieval but intended to be larger than life. But still have a gritty tactile sense of the “Real” by the human heart in conflict with itself.

Theon, Jaimie, Tyrion, these aren’t stock fantasy cliches, but immensely human characters.

...and instead of being larger than life, it just ends up being massive, clumsy and overdone. But yeah, if you want realistic logistics (and strategy, though not so much tactics), look at Tolkien's work.

 

[Deleted member 88]

Thing is, people read ASOIAF not for the worldbuilding but the characters.

They read it for Tyrion's ACOK strategizing, Sansa's growth, Davos relationship with Stannis, and Cersei's self destruction.

Martin gets criticism for the logistics, the battles, and the scale. Few criticize his characters.

 

[Aldarion]

Yeah, I am aware. Problem I have is when people start defending ASoIaF with an argument "it is realistic", when it really is not - not in the worldbuilding sense, not in the psychological or behavioral sense... it is a postmodernist world with medievalist veneer.

 

[Deleted member 88]

Martin grew up in the postmodernist age.

He married feminist women, and the series(book and show) from 1996-2019 have been produced in an age of cynicism, "grittiness", and "moral greyness" in popular culture, which is reflective of the zeitgeist.

 

[Aldarion]

Thing is, people read ASOIAF not for the worldbuilding but the characters.

They read it for Tyrion's ACOK strategizing, Sansa's growth, Davos relationship with Stannis, and Cersei's self destruction.

Martin gets criticism for the logistics, the battles, and the scale. Few criticize his characters.

And regarding this, there is a lot to criticize about his characters as well. But it all boils down to "he is writing modern characters, in modern culture, with modern psychological issues, set in a medieval roleplay world".

 

[Deleted member 88]

Eh? Could Sansa and Tyrion exist in a medieval world? Could Cersei? Stannis?

None of them are modern per se in their worldviews or behavior.

 

[Aldarion]

Eh? Could Sansa and Tyrion exist in a medieval world? Could Cersei? Stannis?

None of them are modern per se in their worldviews or behavior.

Look at their behaviour in greater context: Tywin's realpolitik especially is a modernist/postmodernist element. Also, none of his characters pay nearly enough attention to religion as they should: there are no religious wars between North and South, North and Riverlands form a very strong alliance just due to marriage ties, Ned makes no effort to convert Catelyn, nor does Catelyn to convert Ned - and latter especially is extremely problematic, since Faith of the Seven is a pseudo-Christianity, meaning that she is willing to doom her husband's soul to eternal damnation simply for the sake of their worldly happiness.

I'm sure I'd be able to find more stuff, but I don't have time right now.

 

[Deleted member 88]

Look at their behaviour in greater context: Tywin's realpolitik especially is a modernist/postmodernist element

Tywin is based off Edward I. He’s the archetypical hard man. He wants to advance his family’s position through advantageous alliances and marriages. That doesn’t seem too modernist?

Also, none of his characters pay nearly enough attention to religion as they should: there are no religious wars between North and South, North and Riverlands form a very strong alliance just due to marriage ties, Ned makes no effort to convert Catelyn, nor does Catelyn to convert Ned - and latter especially is extremely problematic, since Faith of the Seven is a pseudo-Christianity, meaning that she is willing to doom her husband's soul to eternal damnation simply for the sake of their worldly happiness.

This is a criticism where the response I find somewhat trite. But I’ll bring it up anyway. The religions aren’t the same as earth. The faith doesn’t not recognize other gods existing. It’s more tolerant than medieval Catholicism.

Though if that is what Martin was going for he shouldn’t have made it such a laughable pastiche parody of the medieval church.

 

[Aldarion]

Tywin is based off Edward I. He’s the archetypical hard man. He wants to advance his family’s position through advantageous alliances and marriages. That doesn’t seem too modernist?

It is not a question of what, but rather how. Walder Frey's Red Wedding is seen as a big thing in the North but hardly anyone elsewhere cares. But in real Middle Ages it would have been a political suicide not just for Freys, but also for anyone supporting them (meaning Lannisters). And yes, I know that Red Wedding too is based on real-life events, but look at details:
1) Red Wedding involved betraying the king for favour of another king half-a-continent away, instead of murdering a lord in name of a king who was present at the place where the event took place. And yes, king was not in favour of the event (the Black Wedding) but was also a child, and his top ministers pretty much were.
2) They were counting on Tywin's protection, but why would Tywin spend time and effort protecting known oathbreakers?

Walder Frey was fully justified in telling Robb to go have fun with mountain goats. He was fully justified in withdrawing from war effort. He was even justified in ambushing Robb's army while it marched. But in a situation he was in, in society he was purportedly living in, there is no way a betrayal of guest right and a massacre of erstwhile allies could have been justified.

Basically, Martin is picking and choosing things from history without understanding how and why they functioned. Moving to my favourite topic (the military), we have:
1) Westerosi armies acting as if they were professional pike-and-shot era armies despite explicitly containing large number of untrained peasants and no gunpowder weapons
2) The entire military picture being a hodgepdge of various, mutually incompatible eras (Vikings and 15th century banderial armies coexisting? Really?)

 

[Deleted member 88]

But in real Middle Ages it would have been a political suicide not just for Freys, but also for anyone supporting them (meaning Lannisters).

Given Tywin’s plans for Tyrion and Sansa, and the fact the Lannister’s were getting Riverrun(through Genna) it seems to me Tywin planned on disavowing his allies at some point in the future.

The Lannistark would take the north, and the Frey’s would be stripped of Riverrun, perhaps a few perfunctory executions would be made, and the Lannister’s could blame the whole affair on the treacherous Frey’s and Bolton’s. “Robb Stark was a Rebel, but he died horribly due to disloyal vassals, vassals we’re dealing with now”.

Obviously everyone saw through that. But Tywin planned to be writing the history books. Or his descendants to be doing so.