Is Jon's election as LC a foreshadowing for Democracy in Westeros?

[Ser Pigeon Pie]

Apologies if this has been posted before. The thought just struck me that maybe this could happen in the future and it has been forshadowed by Jon becoming LC at the end of aSoS. If the realm doesn't already know it by series end they should have definitely found about Joffery & Co's illegitimacy, which may raise into question the effectiveness of heir's carrying on the line. Thus democracy is born into Westeros!

This idea also came from a recent thread by Apple Martini in which a few post that Jon's rise to the IT will be because he is the only or the safest option, though it will be by right of birth. But what if he chooses the Stark path and is the only option left. Then it may be the case that he is chosen or "elected" as the King, creating a new system in Westeros in which the ruler may be elected by the people

I know it seems unlikely, but it could happen. Does anyone else have an opinion or anything to add?? It's pretty on-the-spot but I'm tired and my brain is all muddled. :)

[jeyneofthed'Ubervilles]

We see Westeros largely from the perspective of it's aristocracy. What we sometimes if rarely glimpse is the smallfolk working from sun-up to sundown for the benefit of lords. And that's the lucky ones who have employment. Whether the end is bitter or sweet, I don't see the basic class structure changing in the next two books.

[TheNinjaDC]

Democracy in the true sense? :lmao:

A "Parliament" of high lords that restricts the king's authority, a la magna carta, very posable. :thumbsup:

[Bryden Tully]

Hasn't the LC always been elected? Along with the Old Iron Kings? It's hardly anything new

[I'm the Party Pooper]

Your argument is invalid. Basically, because of this:

Hasn't the LC always been elected? Along with the Old Iron Kings? It's hardly anything new

[Ser Pigeon Pie]

Hasn't the LC always been elected? Along with the Old Iron Kings? It's hardly anything new

I'm talking about the IT. Since Aegon the Conqueror the Lord of the 7k, King of the andals, first men, etc has been passed through the bloodline to the next heir, then through conquest and distant blood relation.

I'm aware there has always been an election for a LC, I'm asking if this might be a pretense for a democratic rulong in Westeros.

[Mithras]

Democrasy does not belong to the setting of ASOIAF. Both the kingsmoot and the election of the LC's are unique in their own ways and we cannot call them democratic. Compromises and understanding happen in feudalism as well. There is a certain division of powers even in the reign of Targaryens. In fact, the Targaryen kings who thought that they could do whatever they wanted faced uprisings and rebellions because they broke an unspoken contract by assuming to be omnipotent.

[I'm the Party Pooper]

I'm aware there has always been an election for a LC, I'm asking if this might be a pretense for a democratic rulong in Westeros.

I'm sorry, but can you explain why a tradition that lasts more than a thousand years becomes a "foreshadowing" or a "pretense" for something else, all of a sudden?

How are people supposed to argue against (or for) your argument, if you don't make a point.

What do you mean?

- GRRM put it there to hint something will happen in the next books << where is the logic? what makes it clearly special in respect to any other event in the book?

- the people of the Night Watch having witnessed this extraordinary democratic experience, will spread around westeros announcing that a new way for choosing a King exists << but it ain't anything new, why should they?

- someday in the future probably not in any books to come - like in real world - democracy idea will spread << where is the logic, how can we tell that and who cares?

[Nyrhex]

Apologies if this has been posted before. The thought just struck me that maybe this could happen in the future and it has been forshadowed by Jon becoming LC at the end of aSoS. If the realm doesn't already know it by series end they should have definitely found about Joffery & Co's illegitimacy, which may raise into question the effectiveness of heir's carrying on the line. Thus democracy is born into Westeros!

This idea also came from a recent thread by Apple Martini in which a few post that Jon's rise to the IT will be because he is the only or the safest option, though it will be by right of birth. But what if he chooses the Stark path and is the only option left. Then it may be the case that he is chosen or "elected" as the King, creating a new system in Westeros in which the ruler may be elected by the people

I know it seems unlikely, but it could happen. Does anyone else have an opinion or anything to add?? It's pretty on-the-spot but I'm tired and my brain is all muddled. :)

First of all, electing someone because he is the only choice is not a democracy. When the reasons why this person is even in the running are that he is the son of a prince and a daughter of a dynasty that had ruled as kings for thousands of years, and/or is the pre-destined hero that saves mankind, it's those things that one elects, not the moody teen who can't handle something along the lines of a battalion in order, and gets shanked after a couple months in office. Jon was not picked because he was the only choice, or the better one, he was chosen because of messed up internal NW politics, and it shows.

Second of all, the "democracy" of highborn lords eleceting one of thier own, or Vale clansmen voicing thier collective thoughts on which village they should plunder and who gets to rape and keep as a slave the latest highborn girl they kidnapped, or Ironborn captains electing a new pirate king, are not exactly good examples of democracy, but are the closest thing one can reaistically get in Westreros.

[Loge]

Westeros isn't ready for democracy. It could never work. Dany's war on slavery is silly enough. The last thing the story needs is an attempt at democracy.

[Bloodmane]

NW elections are nothing to do with Democracy, the decisive hundreds of votes for Jon were provided by two (!!!) men: Pyke and Mallister.

[King Tyrion I]

Ad OP: no, it's not.

Westeros isn't a democratic land. It's feudalism, pure and simple. And it would take ages to have anything alike democracy, because there are so many houses - great and small - so many people who hold titles and lands and the people ("small folk") who serve them.

Democracy just wouldn't work in Westeros.

[Genghis Khal]

Westeros is stuck in feudalism since the Andal invasion (~6000 years), if we say that the Age of Heroes and the first men are similar to our antiquity (just how I imagine it, no proof or anything) then there is a looooong way to go to even reach the late feudal stage where craftsmen guilds and other city dwellers began having incomes as some small lords. That would catalyst change, as this new class would press for status. But I see none of the prerequisites and it seems to me that Westeros advances at a far slower pace than our would has.

So yeah I would imagine a few thousand years of small change to even come close to "democracy". I think the situation in Westeros with the long winters is that it's like a small black plague everytime, so people are far more concerned about their daily survival than in our history, leaving little space for technological advancements. But as it happens Europe began its Renaissance in a time period called "The little Ice Age", where conditions were far worse. True it happened first in Italy (it's city-states structure helped) so maybe the Free Cities would have a shot, though they are stuck in the slave culture of Essos,

So really we can't say, but IMO its far in the future.

[Ser Brandimore]

Democracy with universal suffrage? Not going to happen. But maybe at the end of this giant struggle the great houses will sit down around a table and decide to institute an elective monarchy, with the lords paramounts becoming lords electors, with maybe a parliament that can limit the power to the king (but this is a stretch).

And we have had a kind of forshadowing of democracy coming to westeros: when Tyrion is in Volantys he gets to think about democracy and concludes that maybe they (the westerosi) have been fools to let whoever is born in the right family lead the country, as so well proven by Aerys and Joffrey. He doesn't go any further than this, but if he gets a hold on power he may remember this thought and make good use of it.

[new djinn]

Or the IB conquest o Westeros is the foreshadowing of democracy, with their Kingsmoots. Jon won the election like George W. Bush did, with alot of shenanigans in between, and suffered a assassination attemp a few months later.

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

I'm talking about the IT. Since Aegon the Conqueror the Lord of the 7k, King of the andals, first men, etc has been passed through the bloodline to the next heir, then through conquest and distant blood relation.

I'm aware there has always been an election for a LC, I'm asking if this might be a pretense for a democratic rulong in Westeros.

The heir to the Iron Throne has been picked by a Great Council twice (which is at least five-and-twenty times more frequent than a kingsmoot in the Iron Islands, by the way). And no, the realm isn't democratic by any measure imaginable.

[ThePrunesThatWasPromised]

They have something better than democracy north of the wall, already.

Something the vile Targs and Lannisters and Starks ought to fear more than the Others.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Elective monarchies are perfectly medieval, with the proviso that those doing the electing were lords.

(As for the Nights Watch, the best analogy is the papacy, which had elections throughout the medieval period, but which no one could accuse of being democratic).

[Ser Brandimore]

Elective monarchies are perfectly medieval, with the proviso that those doing the electing were lords.

(As for the Nights Watch, the best analogy is the papacy, which had elections throughout the medieval period, but which no one could accuse of being democratic).

well the papacy is an elective monarchy, even if it's a peculiar one.

[Wmarshal]

No, his lord commandership was barely democracy, he was chosen for being a bastard of the North. He could have been a ten year old and got the job.