How do you centralize the 7 kingdoms

[Tarellen]

How do you make westeros centralized as posible for a medival kingdom? Personally I would build up my land holdings till I'm the richest man in the kingdom.

[RobOsevens]

With fire and blood

obviously

[sarah.jenice]

With fire and blood

obviously

Haha! Nailed it.

[TheSovereignGrave]

You don't. Not with a medieval level of technology.

Unless you had some magical way to get every to listen to you. Some kind of incredibly powerful weapon that would deter anyone from standing against you. One that was able to fly and destroy everything in its path.

[Veloknight]

That raven communication system they have is actually a pretty good piece of infrastructure. Without it, a landmass as large as Westeros is basically impossible to unify.

Westeros, in spite of having a relatively simple set of feudal titles, has a well-federated (for lack of a better term) administrative structure that also eases the centralization process - the King only needs to deal directly with a small portion of the nobility who are proximate either in rank, wealth, manpower or geography.

As for what I'd do: invest in a formal Royal Navy, create a formal shipyard and naval school, and aggressively fund the development of new types of ships, focusing primarily on riverine and littoral vessels. The new ships and ship designs could lead to commercial benefits, provide another alternative to the Wall and Kingsguard for minor second sons, and would allow me to extend the sphere of my personal military influence far beyond King's Landing. It'd also be helpful to defend against any threats from Essos and provide attack options in the case of internal conflicts.

[kimim]

You don't. Not with a medieval level of technology.

Unless you had some magical way to get every to listen to you. Some kind of incredibly powerful weapon that would deter anyone from standing against you. One that was able to fly and destroy everything in its path.

Great empires managed to unite huge landmasses before modern technology or Mary Sues on dragons came along. idk. What did the Romans, the Chinese, the Ottomans do?

[Veloknight]

Great empires managed to unite huge landmasses before modern technology or Mary Sues on dragons came along. idk. What did the Romans, the Chinese, the Ottomans do?

Mongols may be a better analogy - Westeros is about the size of South America.

[TheSovereignGrave]

Great empires managed to unite huge landmasses before modern technology or Mary Sues on dragons came along. idk. What did the Romans, the Chinese, the Ottomans do?

I don't think they ruled a landmass the size of South America as a highly centralized state. The Mongol Empire ruled a massive swathe of land as the user above said, but they were even more decentralized than Westeros.

[Scorpion92]

You need a new capital and a new royal castle on Harrenhal grounds by Isle of Faces by the blessings of Old Gods to establish a new royal dynasty (House Stark probably) and start a new chapter in Westeros' life. King's Landing will burn in wildfire.

Also all regional seats - Winterfell, Riverrun, Storm's End, Casterly Rock, Highgarden, Sunspear, Pyke, Eyrie - symbols of autonomy and individualism of each kingdom need to go as well.

Once there is no more fragmentation of Westeros into 7 separate kingdoms and there is only one royal army and royal fleet created (one of Joffrey's few good ideas), term "Westerosi" will mean more to the realm. There needs to be no more "Dornish", "Northman","Westerman",etc. as a term.

And I truly believe that is what will happen at the end of the series. Once winter comes and cold creeps into all corners of the realm, only one house will be able to rule Westeros in such conditions - House Stark, Kings of Winter. And Jon, Arya and Sansa all have story connections to Harrenhal, while Bran is a greenseer and probably will migrate to Isle of Faces full of weirwood grove and order of greenmen. That is why I believe the seat of House Stark will move from Winterfell to Harrenhal grounds by the end of the series and symbol a new beginning for Westeros.

[Good Guy Garlan]

You get one single family to rule all the kingdoms. The Lannisters were relatively close to achieving this, a Lannister (or Lannister pretending to be Baratheon) in every great stronghold, if their plans had worked:

Crownlands: Joffrey and Margaery

North: Tyrion and Sansa

Riverlands: Genna and Emmon/ Lancel and Ami

Westerlands: Tywin, Kevan, etc

Dorne: Myrcella and Trystane

Stormlands: Tommen and Shireen (if Alester Florent's plan had succeeded)

Reach: Cersei and Willas (if Tywin had his way)

Iron Islands: a newly released from the KG Jaime after marrying Asha and deposing Euron (a guy can dream, okay?)

The Vale: marry Sweetrobin or Harry the Heir to Janei Lannister or something

 

[The Wolves]

You get one single family to rule all the kingdoms. The Lannisters were relatively close to achieving this, a Lannister (or Lannister pretending to be Baratheon) in every great stronghold, if their plans had worked:

Crownlands: Joffrey and Margaery

North: Tyrion and Sansa

Riverlands: Genna and Emmon/ Lancel and Ami

Westerlands: Tywin, Kevan, etc

Dorne: Myrcella and Trystane

Stormlands: Tommen and Shireen (if Alester Florent's plan had succeeded)

Reach: Cersei and Willas (if Tywin had his way)

Iron Islands: a newly released from the KG Jaime after marrying Asha and deposing Euron (a guy can dream, okay?)

The Vale: marry Sweetrobin or Harry the Heir to Janei Lannister or something

 

Thank the gods that this evil bullshit didn't happen ewwww

[Stag_legion]

You force all great houses to hand over Hostages, preferably Heirs to the respective houses! You raise the hostages in the capital and make them friendly towards the crown.

This is how it was done in real history. In fact I think Robert was real stupid for not taking hostages from the Tyrells and dorne at least. Overtime he should have had hostages from friendly great lords to but frame it in a friendlier manner. So yeah that means Robert should have had Ned send Robb to the capital until its time to succeed Ned.

 

Hopefully the winner of the war will do this.

[Skahaz mo Kandaq]

I think the answer is, you don't want to centralize the Seven Kingdoms.  Communication, travel time, information dissemination, and technology make it impractical to go central.  The monarch makes the laws, keeps a leash on the wardens of the east, north, south, and west to ensure that they enforce the laws and collects revenue for the crown.  You simply cannot micro-manage given their state of technology and the distances involved.  Have the High Lords periodically report to the Hand.  For this to work, you need Fire & Blood as already mentioned. 

I think this question is central to the nuances of the story developing in Slaver's Bay.  Our young hero and her small group of trusted advisers find themselves spread thinly in trying to manage a city with a population over half-a-million.  Daenerys is very smart and she will eventually place a buffer between the monarch and the day-to-day administration of Meereen.   Let guys like Skahaz mo Kandaq manage the running of the city, but keep a leash on them.  It's easier to monitor your managers than it is to monitor a million people.   Hizdahr, the Green Grace, and that bunch has to go.  But there are loyal people with administrative skills that could be appointed to management positions.  Dany will finally take back her kingdom from the Lannisters and the Baratheons.  She will accept feudalism and the compromises that it brings.  Yes, the High Lords may not always enforce all of the laws in exactly the same way you would like, but in general, as long as the irregularities are compartmentalized, it can be accepted.  This is similar to the northmen still practicing the right of the first night, though it had been outlawed for over a century.  Blood sacrifice might even have been going on right under the noses of the Small Council, the Monarch, and the Warden of the North. 

[Jaak]

I don't think they ruled a landmass the size of South America as a highly centralized state. The Mongol Empire ruled a massive swathe of land as the user above said, but they were even more decentralized than Westeros.

Whereas Spaniards DID run South America, and much more, as a fairly centralized state.

[idio]

I believe there has to be some solution to grow the goldcloaks into a national army. The Crown has to find some type of asset or political device to offer the individual kingdoms in exchange for a % of their garrisons. Maybe some type of kingdom-wide social services or public works project. Collecting grains/food resources during the summer months in a national pool and helping redistribute during the harsh winter months? An aquaduct? Health services? They need hard and soft power centralized in some fashion so they can leverage it in relation to the Lords.

It may just be that this wouldn't happen without a commoners-level revolution, an enlightenment period, where the low-born rise and assert their rights over the feudal powers.

 

Just spitballing here.

[kimim]

I don't think they ruled a landmass the size of South America as a highly centralized state. The Mongol Empire ruled a massive swathe of land as the user above said, but they were even more decentralized than Westeros.

ita that centralizing a place that size would be difficult, but what does it mean to "centralize"? I mean...you can still have provinces, with a capital in KL. The powers that be need to make their presence felt in the provinces, through infrastructure, state representatives, maybe a centralized law code, etc. What makes Westeros weird is that there is no royal representative in any of the seven kingdoms, no mention of roads, bridges, aqueducts, dams, canals, etc. So strange, especially considering the climate. You'd think getting food to various regions would be absolutely crucial, along with storing the food, guarding it, but no one seems to give a damn about that. People pay taxes, but why???

[thi4f]

I think Westeros has much better exchange of information and shorter travel times (remember Tywin teleport from Riverrun -> KL?) than Roman Empire or Frankish Kingdom in Charlemagne age.

Royal Navy ideas and pursuing development in that area is great. They should also use inland waterways more extensively (or maybe they use but I didn't notice that).

[Jaak]

I believe there has to be some solution to grow the goldcloaks into a national army.

Or Golden Company.

[The Mountain That Flies]

The ideas for more powerful and advanced Royal Navy/Army are the best places to start. Expanding the Small Council to permanently include a representative from each Lord Paramount's house would be good too, as it would strengthen communication between the Iron Throne and its immediate subordinates. Finally, either the King or the Hand needs to travel more across the kingdom as part of their duties. There's plenty else that would need to be done, but those would be good areas to start in.

[idio]

Just kind of fleshing out what I was thinking above: The kingdom's have not been this fractured in recent memory. There is destruction everywhere, and there will be more destruction after Long Night Part Deux.

Individual kingdoms will need help picking up the pieces and rebuilding their towns and reestablishing order. That would be a great pretext for the Crown to swoop in and offer assistance in exchange for certain concessions. Getting the Citadel to Dispatch Maesters and acolytes all across the land to suffering people, helping heal. A Civil Engineering service a la Army Corps of Engineers to restore roads and inns and castles.

The Crown, although in trouble with the Iron Bank, as a large sovereign nation on it's own continent, is still a powerful force that may be able to restore a working relationship with creditors (under new Non-Lannister Leadership) and open new credit lines that the individual Kingdoms would not. They could use those funds to assist the Lords in exchange for their pledges of the future.