ASOIAF crueller than real Middle Ages?

[Ocelot]

Just about everyone who's read ASOIAF remarks on how cruel the fictional world is. Many people claim that the cruelty of GRRth accurately reflects the Middle Ages. I'm not an expert on the Middle Ages, but I don't think this is entirely true. Levels of cruelty Westeros seem roughly the same as in medieval England or France. The reason why Westeros isn't quite as cruel as most of Essos is because the Faith of the Seven at least has compassion and kindness as ideals, where as none of the Essosi religions apparently do. And that's where I think ASOIAF is worse than the real Middle Ages: by the Middle Ages, not just Western Europe but the rest of Eurasia & North Africa were dominated by Christianity, Islam, Hinduism or Buddhism, all of which at least have compassion as an ideal. Whereas the religions and cultures of Essos seem like the worst of ancient, pre-monotheist cultures of Eurasia rather than medieval Eurasia. Take the fighting pits of Slaver's Bay. They're based on the gladiators of ancient Rome. But gladiator shows had long been abolished by the Middle Ages.

Do you agree w/ me that Essos (minus Braavos) is ethically worse (at least when it comes to ideals) than medieval Eurasia?

[Queen‍‍‍‍‍‍ Alysanne‍‍™]

GRRM said the Middle ages were crueler, I am no expert in history but I remember him saying this.

[Pod The Impaler]

The reason why Westeros isn't quite as cruel as most of Essos is because the Faith of the Seven at least has compassion and kindness as ideals, where as none of the Essosi religions apparently do.

The Faith of the Seven is itself an Essosi religion - it comes from Andalos and was imported across the Narrow Sea with the Andal invasion.

As well, the Lhazareen's religion, with the Great Shepherd, seems to be a fairly gentle set of beliefs.

[KING-OF-WINTERFELL]

I don't know, certain aspects of the middle ages remain hidden, because of lack of documentation, it easier to spread info now than it was then. The official first serial killer was in France 1400's who fought with Joan of Arc. But I cant help but think there were more earlier ones. Secondly I have never heard of anyone coming close to ramsey Bolton level save vlad the impaler. Also never heard of incest in the nobility.

[Ingelheim]

Not even close.

[Roose Trollton.]

I think your thread is somewhat vague. What is the cruelty you're talking about? How are you measuring/comparing cruelty in the societies? Is it in the way how wars were conducted? In the punishment criminals were given? Because if so, RL was pretty much the same as Westeros, and Europe was pretty much the same as Asia. You said Asian religions held compassion as ideals, but that's what they were, ideals. Take the stoning to death of adulterous women by Muslims, or the fucked up massacres/murders that happen nowdays in India related to religion.

So,no, I don't really agree with

Do you agree w/ me that Essos (minus Braavos) is ethically worse (at least when it comes to ideals) than medieval Eurasia?

When it comes to IDEALS, maaaaybe, but it's not like they're worth much.

I don't know, certain aspects of the middle ages remain hidden, because of lack of documentation, it easier to spread info now than it was then. The official first serial killer was in France 1400's who fought with Joan of Arc. But I cant help but think there were more earlier ones. Secondly I have never heard of anyone coming close to ramsey Bolton level save vlad the impaler. Also never heard of incense in the nobility.

Do you mean incest by incense? Well, you haven't heard of it because it certainly would be a very well guarded secret.

[Rhaegar Estellion]

I don't know, certain aspects of the middle ages remain hidden, because of lack of documentation, it easier to spread info now than it was then. The official first serial killer was in France 1400's who fought with Joan of Arc. But I cant help but think there were more earlier ones. Secondly I have never heard of anyone coming close to ramsey Bolton level save vlad the impaler. Also never heard of incense in the nobility.

That's because incense was used by the Church. :rofl:

However there must have been cases of incest even among nobles. They just did not do it openly because laws and stuff.

[Wolf in Hallowed Places]

Also never heard of incense in the nobility.

Yeah incense was always more of a church thing...;)

As to the OP, I think it's almost impossible to say, because the 'Middle Ages' spans centuries and many different countries, whereas ASOIAF focuses on a specific period, and a a period of war and upheaval at that (the geographic range is possibly equivalent, but not the social/political/cultural range, as Westeros is one relatively centralised realm, unlike Medieval Europe). There will be periods of the Middle Ages that would appear relatively benign compared to the Wot5K, but Westeros has probably had its own calm periods. We don't really about them because naturally the story focuses on the more turbulent times (no point writing epic fantasy where everything runs smoothly and not much happens), and when characters recall and relate history, they are subject to the same subjectivity.

If our knowledge of the Middle Ages came only from chronicles and the like, it would be subject to the same problem, however we have other ways of knowing about the day-to-day life of society in less 'interesting' periods, and more mundane things that chroniclers would have glossed over.

Man has always been a wolf to man, but has never been all-wolf all of the time.

[Veltigar]

Obviously, as far as we can compare ASOIAF to our own history, the real Middle Ages were a lot crueler.

[exception in universe is Slaversbay]

[Wmarshal]

Middle Age Europe was horrid, the French burned the Templars alive, the Jews were abused and killed, whole Muslim communities butchered. Westeros is far more tolerate.

[Roose Trollton.]

True. In some aspects Westeros is even more forgiving than Medieval Europe . I don't recall religious persecution ever being an issue in Westeros.

[Phebos]

I would say that Westeros is not as cruel as the Middle Ages. For example the faith seven is allot nicer and more tolerant than the Catholicism in the Middle Ages. The faith seems to tolerate worship of the old gods and even foreign missionaries. While the Catholicism of time was incredibly intolerant of even other sects of christianty. Rember hearing about witch trials?(which we've never seen in Planetos even though they have witchs) The number of heretics killed was at least an order of magnitude greater There doesn't seem to be an equivalent persecuted group to the Jews. With yet to see an equivalent of the Crusades in Planetos, those guys were mental fanatics, there were convinced that they could kill their way into heaven and descriptions of the atrocities committed from Crusader historians are brutal.

Sure the followers of the red god burn people alive, but this was not uncommon Middle Ages. In fact we have things like the Spanish Inquisition. Where it was considered a good thing to torture people for as long as it took to get them to recant their religious beliefs and heresies. Then kill them.

People more misogynistic than they appear to be in Westeros. I'm not sure about homophobia, but I'm correctly the Catholic Church started promoting homophobia as a response to the Black death(it was a convenient scapegoat), whereas people in Westeros don't seem too bothered about it.

As for Essos, I get the impression the free cities and Qarth are less brutal and more developed than Westeros. They consider that more warlike savage.

The Dothraki are about a brutal and civilisation can reasonably get, but they they are pretty much the equivalent to the Mongols.

The only exception seems to be the Ghiscari, who seem to be a mix of horrible cultural practices taken from all over. I mean the creation of the unsullied is more brutal than anything I've heard of ever actually happening.

[Amber W]

It depends. While no specialist, I know quite a bit about the early Middle Ages, and while it's difficult to put a number on cruelty I would say they were probably less harsh than some of the things we see in ASoIaF. I think the entire Middle Ages suffer from a bad reputation though; yes, some bad and cruel things happened, but we're taking about a thousand year span, and people like to focus on the worst rather than the fact that the MA were a very rich period in which the arts flourished, countless things were invented etc. Unfortunately wars seem to be the only thing we learn about in school.

[Roose Trollton.]

The Dothraki are about a brutal and civilisation can reasonably get, but they they are pretty much the equivalent to the Mongols.

Well, to be honest, the Mongols in their conquests really fit that phrase Dany said ( "Aegon brought the 7k blood and fire, but then peace and prosperity ) while the Dothraki really don't do anything productive and are just a despicable savage culture ( like the Ironborn). A complete genocide of the Dothraki would only do Essos good.

I would say they were probably less harsh than some of the things we see in ASoIaF.

Which things on ASOIAF?

[acosta]

I don't think we know much about what Westeros is like except in time of war. You can pick out certain times in history and say, wow, this was terrible, but it doesn't reflect what was normal over a longer span. Really, 1914 - 1944 was probably the apex of bad times for Europe, not the middle ages.

[Lord Reaver]

General rule of thumb: Reality is stranger than fiction. In this case, replace "strange" with "cruel"

[Bright Blue Eyes]

You poor child of summer, you have no idea how cruel the Middle Ages really were.

[Wolf in Hallowed Places]

I don't think we know much about what Westeros is like except in time of war. You can pick out certain times in history and say, wow, this was terrible, but it doesn't reflect what was normal over a longer span. Really, 1914 - 1944 was probably the apex of bad times for Europe, not the middle ages.

Agreed. I read recently (can't remember where) that based on estimates for casualties relative to overall population, the 20th and the 17th centuries were the bloodiest in European history. The 20th also had much higher civilian casualties. Naturally it's very dificult to establish numbers, so those are rather broad generalisations.

ETA: I just remembered and found the link for Kelly DeVries article on this subject. He comes down on the side of ASOIAF being 'crueller', although his focus is not on cruelty but on 'realism'.

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137363/kelly-devries/game-of-thrones-as-history

I think something that is ignored in this article, in which IRL Middle Ages far outsrips ASOIAF in the cruelty stakes, is in the field of judicial punishment. Westeros basically has dungeon, hanging, beheading, and none of the more exotic treatments our ancestors enjoyed.

(NB. - I'm not including the Tickler et al's endeavours here, as they aren't punishments for crimes, but extrajudiciary torture.)

Dan Jones argues the opposite here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/game-of-thrones/10693448/Game-of-Thrones-the-bloody-historical-truth-behind-the-show.html

[the conquoring bastard25]

The middle ages were some of the bloodiest times in human history.

The killing/torture.... I think that only the invention of the A-bomb and the bombing of Japan placed America's death toll, higher than some of the rulers of the Middle Ages.

Some of the most cruel forms of torture were created then, ever heard of a little thing called the Spanish inquisition?

Iron Maiden, this Pear (placed in any orifice and watch it expand. very useful to use on sod mites)

One king of Naples kept what he liked to call his zoo, where he placed his enemies after he was done torturing them, he'd have them stuffed and preserved, if that's not sick

[Ramsay Gimp]

The general methods of war/torture/intrigue aren't much worse than the actual Middle Ages. Essos isn't really based on the Middle Ages, and I would argue that the slavers there come off as cartoonishly evil (throwing child slaves into bear pits, for example, would not make sense if slaves were valuable commodities)

I also think ASOIAF has more genuine psychopathic monsters concentrated in one time and one place than would be statistically likely (Ramsay Snow, Gregor Clegane, Vargo Hoat, and all their men as well as Qyburn. People like Roose, Tywin, or Cersei would probably be more common)