|
Also everyone in the books are much younger there's this one scene in the books where Caitlyn was with an army marching to war and she notes how everyone around her were just kids, i.e maybe 15-16. In the books Robb became king at 15. The closest comparison I can think of is Edward IV of England but even he was 18 when he claimed the throne. From a pseudo-historical perspective the Targaryen period of Westeros history was suprisingly stable and calm. There were maybe 3-4 big civil wars in the span of ~300 years of Targaryen rule and you had 2-3 rounds of civil wars in the -15- years or so since Aerys died. Hence why you had so many kids fighting. IIRC even in actual historical midieval wars the average age of knights etc wasn't as young as 15-16. Typo fucked around with this message at 02:09 on Aug 15, 2022 |
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 02:02
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 09:38 |
|
|
DaysBefore posted:Always seemed insane that Roose never had any suspicions. Like sure everyone thinks Arya is locked up but a Northern girl with a noble accent and gray eyes? You'd think he'd ask at least one question I don't think Roose ever realized Arya was a northern girl, he just thought she was some riverlander
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 02:03
|
|
|
Pennsylvanian posted:...he was sure he could write two 2k-page epics on emulated Wordstar with one finger in his 60s-70s which is psychotic. lol i had to look this up to see if you were bullshitting, but sure enough, he one finger types i two finger type so i can kind of respect that, but drat, that's a crazy way to write
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 02:12
|
|
|
Despite the show and the books ostensibly being medieval fantasy they're really more on the cusp of the early modern age where there was a transition towards professional armies with industry produced munitions armour like the richest Italian City States could afford. Calling the banners to what is essentially the last war with a mass levy, helped along by the large population growth from several decades without major conflict on Westeros. Essos already makes extensive use of mercenary armies while the Seven Kingdoms are slowly transitioning out of feudal systems and into modern ones.
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 02:27
|
|
|
Even then it's a little off. As early as the first stage of the Hundred Years War (1330ish) English longbowmen were semi-professional soldiers working on contract for the earls I believe. It only got more and more formal as you get to the Wars of the Roses that inspired Ice and Fire. The whole idea of calling up every farmer and fisherman and barrel maker and throwing them into battle with sharpened sticks was barely a thing in the Middle Ages. The Anglo-Saxon armies were made up of professional household warriors and militias formed from land-owning peasants (at least after Alfred of Wessex's reforms anyway). Armies during a Crusade could get pretty ragtag I guess but even then most of the actual fighting soldiers were organised and paid (in one way or another) by the kings and dukes and counts that went off to Jerusalem i.e. Richard the Lionheart's extremely extensive preparations for his campaign
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 02:37
|
|
|
GRRM isn't a historian of any sort and knows as much about how actual medieval societies worked as he does about how tall 700 feet is.
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 02:47
|
|
|
Yeah, there's plenty of remarks you can make, with whoever mentioned the economy not making sense making a really good point. And at the end, I view Westeros as a Patriarchal feudal society taken to an unrealistic extreme for the sake of commentary, sort of like wild sci-fi universes that do the same.
Pennsylvanian fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Aug 15, 2022 |
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 02:52
|
|
|
I have no problem with exaggerating historical practices or even making up pure fiction for the purpose of making commentary or imparting a message or simply telling a good story. I do it myself in my own amateur writing. But the problem is that Martin denies that he is doing it. He and his defenders retreat behind claims of historicity in order to defend his writing from criticism and to make the argument he isn't making commentary and poo poo. Like he's doing the exact opposite of what he should be doing. "It wasn't like this, but I'm making it like this because I'm trying to say something." is fine. "It was like this and I'm not actually saying anything because this is simply how history was." is insane and also factually wrong. Also you know, the Dothraki being - as ACOUP masterfully points out - outrageously racist. Like Martin and his defenders want it both ways. It's historically accurate when it would be helpful for it to be so, and it's fictional fantastic storytelling when it would be beneficial for it to be so.
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 03:07
|
|
|
Typo posted:I would like it if that's how the Faegon blackfyre storyline resolves Tale as old as time, prophecy should always be self-fulfilling and a curse no matter if you try to avoid or fulfill it. Especially if you go truly classic and lean on the myth of Cassandra, prophetess who was always correct, but never believed.
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 05:29
|
|
|
Typo posted:no the books instead of Bronn it was ser Ilyn Payne, the Dornish storyline played out completely differently and Jaime never goes to Dorne I mean, Wilko Johnson, Ilyn Payne's actor, was battling and then recovering from pancreatic cancer at the time, so they were basically forced by circumstance to just disappear Payne from the show. I get why they chose Bronn though. He was the only character that wasn't attached to any other storyline at that moment that could realistically still be working for the Lannisters AND be able to teach Jaime how to fight left handed. That and the producers and audiences loved the poo poo out of Jerome Flynn, and by that point David and Dan were so high on the nepotism juice they were just bending the show to get more mileage out of actors they'd become enamored with like Indira Varma and such. Jaime and Bronn's Excellent Adventure was still dumb and pointless as poo poo though. AND lovely to the actors involved and not involved in it too, such as Aimee Richardson, who'd apparently taken a lot of acting classes and had been preparing like mad for the Dorne arc because she knew Myrcella was a big part of it, and then they just recast the roll and told her to pound sand. nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 06:22 on Aug 15, 2022 |
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 06:18
|
|
|
DaysBefore posted:Even then it's a little off. As early as the first stage of the Hundred Years War (1330ish) English longbowmen were semi-professional soldiers working on contract for the earls I believe. It only got more and more formal as you get to the Wars of the Roses that inspired Ice and Fire. calling up every farmer/barrel maker or whatever and throwing them into battles was always dumb af if you think about it the avg adult peasants were not good at fighting but did provide a source of income for the nobility whose land they farmed, the income they generate could then be used to train/equip professional/semi-professional soldiers who were actually effective. If you threw your peasants into wars they were just all gonna get killed and then you would have no income to hire real soldiers. That's why in actual history it was basically never done. Typo fucked around with this message at 15:13 on Aug 15, 2022 |
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 06:41
|
|
|
Kylaer posted:GRRM isn't a historian of any sort and knows as much about how actual medieval societies worked as he does about how tall 700 feet is. He's read pretty extensively on the Hundreds year war and the Albegensian crusades as background reading for the series so I think he -has- to have read the basic stuff about how medieval armies were recruited at some point I think yeah, he's just taking artistic license and playing into popular tropes because well, they are popular
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 06:44
|
|
|
Typo posted:If you threw your peasants into wars they were just all gonna get killed and then you would have no income to hire real soldiers. That's why in actual history it was basically never done. Yep, and if there wasn't already a famine going on that sparked the war, you're about to have one because you've just sent all the people who are responsible for harvesting the crops off to get boiling pitch poured on them in front of a wall somewhere.
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 07:51
|
|
|
Begging people not to speak authoritatively on a subject if their source base maxes out at "community college TA's Lord Of The Rings blog".
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 08:06
|
|
|
'Cording to his bio GRRM minored in history in college which might not be much but is still more than most posting on this thread (Especially since he's always shown ardent interest in minors).
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 11:19
|
|
|
I did liked Bronn sparring with Jaime. Of course the Dorne trip was awful, but before that it was kinda good And was not a bad change either, imo. Ilyn Payne is a boring character even in the books and they needed something to keep Bronn on the screen, and they actually had good scenes together And it was kinda dumb to begin with that Jaime thought people would not know we couldnt fight considering everyone knew he lost his loving right hand Elias_Maluco fucked around with this message at 13:02 on Aug 15, 2022 |
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 11:28
|
|
|
I know nothing about history or in fact about anything at all but isn't part of the deal with westeros that the population is actually pretty massive compared to real European medieval societies? Which I guess kinda makes sense given that it's a society that has been in a technological stasis for 8,000 years (give or take a few millennia). Like I know that certain civilizations here in our real world did produce massive armies at times but didn't the Roman empire at its peak only have something like 200,000 soldiers? In the books you have noble houses capable of fielding armies of tens of thousands in a single battle. Ultimately I don't think historical accuracy is really that important or for that purpose that bad, it's an epic tale the hosed up scales are part of what makes it epic, and to give GRRM the further benefit of the doubt it's not like the numbers that show up are presented as objective scientific numbers, the books themselves present things with a modicum of uncertainty, like these are medieval era people who also make some baseless speculation and treat hearsay as historical facts. It's fine.
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 11:32
|
|
|
The author doesn’t have to calculate the agricultural surplus of their fantasy land to project the ability to maintain professional armies or maintain a list of precise travel itineraries across their fabled unvented empire. Nobody in their right mind cares about those things, unless they want to argue on the internet. The author should merely write words that are good to read and bring joy to my heart. Alas…
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 11:43
|
|
|
emanresu tnuocca posted:Podrick is like 11 in the books, that garbage scene is pure show nonsense. Absolutely everyone in the books is creepy young and I’m convinced that it’s not only that GRRM is a creep (that’s part of it) but that he’s dumb and thought that the average lifespan of humans living in Medieval times meant you died of Old in your 40s because he didn’t know that the super high child mortality rate skews the average.
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 12:29
|
|
|
Liquid Communism posted:Yep, and if there wasn't already a famine going on that sparked the war, you're about to have one because you've just sent all the people who are responsible for harvesting the crops off to get boiling pitch poured on them in front of a wall somewhere. If I recall correctly someone does mention this in a chapter in AFFC or ADWD, because for once it crosses someone's mind that the
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 12:44
|
|
|
Shimrra Jamaane posted:Absolutely everyone in the books is creepy young and I’m convinced that it’s not only that GRRM is a creep (that’s part of it) but that he’s dumb and thought that the average lifespan of humans living in Medieval times meant you died of Old in your 40s because he didn’t know that the super high child mortality rate skews the average. Maybe but this is not the case here necessarily, Podrick is a squire and a scion of an impoverished branch of a noble house, he was basically pawned to the Lannisters due to his distant relationship with Ilyn, Tywin assigns him to Tyrion as an insult to both of them, he is young for a squire but not excessively.
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 12:56
|
|
|
Take the plunge! Okay! posted:The author doesn’t have to calculate the agricultural surplus of their fantasy land to project the ability to maintain professional armies or maintain a list of precise travel itineraries across their fabled unvented empire. Nobody in their right mind cares about those things, unless they want to argue on the internet. The author should merely write words that are good to read and bring joy to my heart. Alas… But that's exactly the criticism GRRM has made about other fantasy works, that their worldbuilding is unrealistic and a good king would have to show what policies make him good, rather than just showing up with the right lineage. So in that light it's a valid criticism to say that GRRMs world also doesn't really make sense as medieval politics, economics or warfare. I mean, that's something nerds like to argue about in any case, but GRRM painted that target on himself. But yeah, his biggest sin is not finishing the story, if he did it might well be good despite the unrealistic elements.
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 13:06
|
|
|
Typo posted:Jaime never goes to Dorne That's when the tires fell off for me
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 13:08
|
|
|
emanresu tnuocca posted:I know nothing about history or in fact about anything at all but isn't part of the deal with westeros that the population is actually pretty massive compared to real European medieval societies? Which I guess kinda makes sense given that it's a society that has been in a technological stasis for 8,000 years (give or take a few millennia). I wish I knew more about Chinese ancient history. Afaik their armies dwarfed European medieval ones.
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 13:13
|
|
|
At it's absolute peak the Roman Empire had about 200,000 men in the legions and the same number of auxiliaries (i.e. Romanised Celts and Gauls etc. who fought alongside the legion but weren't organised like it). But that was spread over much of Europe and North Africa
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 13:19
|
|
|
The one big stink I see a bunch of historians make about GoT is how often defensive armies are placed in front of the walls they are supposed to protect, where they all inevitably die because whoops they aren’t protected by a wall.
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 13:21
|
|
|
Max posted:The one big stink I see a bunch of historians make about GoT is how often defensive armies are placed in front of the walls they are supposed to protect, where they all inevitably die because whoops they aren’t protected by a wall. That's really a show thing, the books have Theon and about twenty iron islanders hold off hundreds of northmen simply by staying inside the walls of winterfell.
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 13:25
|
|
|
Was there a single big battle GoT that wanst stupid and completely unrealistic?
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 13:26
|
|
|
pidan posted:But that's exactly the criticism GRRM has made about other fantasy works, that their worldbuilding is unrealistic and a good king would have to show what policies make him good, rather than just showing up with the right lineage. Right, I won't complain about unrealism in the works of someone who makes no claim to being realistic, but GRRM in particular claimed that his are, and they aren't.
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 13:47
|
|
|
emanresu tnuocca posted:Like I know that certain civilizations here in our real world did produce massive armies at times but didn't the Roman empire at its peak only have something like 200,000 soldiers? In the books you have noble houses capable of fielding armies of tens of thousands in a single battle. the army sizes in asoiaf might actually be smaller than expected for a late medieval society for a continent the size of westeros England by the War of the Roses for example was fielding massive armies, at battle of Towten the Lancaster/Yorkist factions combined to field armies combined numbering ~50k men for a single battle. So each faction's army was on par with what the Starks/Tullies/Lannisters fielded in the books, which were around ~20k each. Granted England had being in a state of near total war for decades up to that point in fighting Hundreds Year war so the troops numbers were astonishingly high (it's estimated 1-2% of ENTIRE population of England fought at that single battle) In the books someone estimated that Westeros isn't the size of England it's more like the size of South America, and we know the southern half of the kingdom are densely populated. So the total population controlled by some of the individual houses is probably way higher than the 2~2.5 million people England had in the 1450s. So you might expect their armies to be correspondingly higher. Typo fucked around with this message at 15:28 on Aug 15, 2022 |
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 15:11
|
|
|
Elias_Maluco posted:I did liked Bronn sparring with Jaime. Of course the Dorne trip was awful, but before that it was kinda good The best thing about Ser Ilyn in the books was when Jaime was just rambling bullshit at him at one point and Ser Ilyn just gave him a look that said "you are loving dumbass" and Jaime just went "you talk too much"
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 15:25
|
|
|
The Ilyn and Jaime scenes are real good. The books are actually pretty good imo, even the bad ones are good, it's the unwritten books that suck. Jaime's riverlands adventure is good and fun and Jaime is so fun to follow around. gently caress I hate being a GRRM fanboy, what a lovely author to like.
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 15:36
|
|
|
Shimrra Jamaane posted:Absolutely everyone in the books is creepy young and I’m convinced that it’s not only that GRRM is a creep (that’s part of it) but that he’s dumb and thought that the average lifespan of humans living in Medieval times meant you died of Old in your 40s because he didn’t know that the super high child mortality rate skews the average. It's been years, but I remember people mostly being age-appropriate dumb asses in the first book. GRRRRRM used to talk about the time skip or whatever and supposedly that broke the age continuum.
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 15:41
|
|
|
Elias_Maluco posted:Was there a single big battle GoT that wanst stupid and completely unrealistic? Battle of the Bastards was stupid but it wasn't unrealistic. It showed exactly what happens when a disorganized mob runs headfirst at a shield wall and gets encircled.
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 15:52
|
|
|
But then a million Vale knights fast-traveled unnoticed and turned the tide...
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 15:56
|
|
|
battle of the bastards was a pretty key moment in D&D trying to Marvelize the series big spectacles, not character development and drama became what drives the show in its later seasons, the success of BoB in impressing the audience of later seasons was key in convincing them it could work S8 was just the logical conclusion of that, lots of special effects, barely any dialogue between characters Typo fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Aug 15, 2022 |
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 16:05
|
|
|
Arc Hammer posted:Battle of the Bastards was stupid but it wasn't unrealistic. It showed exactly what happens when a disorganized mob runs headfirst at a shield wall and gets encircled. What about the part where you shoot your own knights in the back when you have supposedly the advantage there?
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 16:06
|
|
|
I appreciate the part where Stannis starts to lay siege but is beaten by the opponent abandoning their wall and meeting him in the field.
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 16:30
|
|
|
Arc Hammer posted:Battle of the Bastards was stupid but it wasn't unrealistic. It showed exactly what happens when a disorganized mob runs headfirst at a shield wall and gets encircled. Was that the one with the wall of corpses?
|
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 16:47
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 09:38 |
|
|
Again I’d like to point out that only nerds like us weren’t lavishing the show with praise in Season 6 and 7. The Door, Battle of the Bastards and the finale when Cersei blows up the Sept were mainstream cultural phenomenons. And they were all stupid as poo poo.    Of course D&D got increasingly smug and enraptured by their own genius. Because literally everyone loved it especially the professional critics. Shimrra Jamaane fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Aug 15, 2022 |
|
#
?
Aug 15, 2022 17:16
|
|