History of the East

[Ran]

One note:

Astapor is "largely deserted". The same, one supposes, for Yunkai. These are large cities that have greatly dwindled in population:

An old city, this, she reflected, but not so populous as it was in its glory, nor near so crowded as Qarth or Pentos or Lys.

Yunkai is described in similar terms. Dany's host after the freedmen of Astapor and Yunkai join them is about 70,000 (including women and children, but not counting Unsullied). Given the Volantene statistic of 5 slaves to every 1 citizen, I think we might suppose that the combined total populace of both of these cities (including slaves!) might have been no more than 120,000. These are, indeed, "minor cities".

And then Meereen, said to be twice as large as the other two combined, and richer, better maintained, and so on... but first, one has to wonder if the "twice as large" is a literal reference to the area of the city as opposed to a measure of its populace (Dany is looking at its walls and such when she makes this reference). There's actually no clear reference to its populace that I can find, but even if the population were 200,000, it'd be smaller than King's Landing, and certainly rather smaller than the great cities.

But the other thing to note is that the Meereen does have trade goods beyond slaves: their olives and olive oil are the first thing Xaro Xhoan Daxos asks about, but the Meereenese burned the fields. We also have other references to trade goods sought after from the Slaver Cities -- the one fellow who had the weaver whose products were widely sought after, for example, and Meereen has copper mines -- and so there's no great reason to think that slaves and slaves alone are the majority of Meereen's wealth. In fact, given that Martin makes a point of noting other sources of wealth, plus the fact that Meereen is indeed wealthier than the other cities, I'd argue that the idea is that it does have a more diverse economy than the two lesser cities, but it has been hugely crippled by the destruction of farms and olive groves, the flight of most of Meereen's ships, and the general sense that the place is now embargoed by its former trade partners.

So, so far as that goes, I think Martin's done well enough.

It's absolutely true GRRM wanted to play around with the more typical fantasy landscape of empty ruins and so on. Can't say too much about it, though one does note that the vast number of ruins are due to the Dothraki, and they're still clearly powerful... but uninterested in settling. As we see when the Lhazreen tried to establish themselves in "free territory", it turned out to not be free from Dothraki attack. I recall accounts of Northern China becoming vastly depopulated after a couple of decades of Mongolian terror, so imagine the semi-perpetual roaming hordes constantly sweeping through, slaughtering and thieving. The result would be that populations would cluster around (and in) established cities, and a lot of the land would either be fallow or be exploited in ways that could be done relatively easily/quickly and which could be re-established again if a khalasar came rolling through.

Finally, the fact is that up until ADwD, we though Volantis was basically just Volantis. But no, in fact we learn it controls a number of smaller cities and towns. So I would not be so quick to assume that Meereen or Tyrosh or Qohor or Norvos (actually, I'm quite sure Norvos is mentioned as having vassal towns) is just the city and nothing else. Pentos, yes, they seem to have taken a long-term negative approach to the fact the Dothraki exist: they have stopped trying to rebuild destroyed towns and defend their territory, instead paying off the Dothraki, which is an interesting contrast to Volantis where we see active efforts to defend their territory. This may show that Pentos itself is in a long-term decline, rather than necessarily all the Free Cities are in this position.

[Francis Buck]

I have to agree with sentiments of general disinterest in Essosi stuff. While I don't know enough real-world historical geography/population distribution (nor much about the slave-trade) to really comment on it, there's definitely a trend of (likely unintentional) Orientalism going on with Essos. The cultures and peoples there simply don't feel real, in the way that Westeros does -- with the exception of Braavos and to some extent the Dothraki. The characters and their ethnic traits, even down to the names, just feel very shallow and often contrived for the purpose of the story. None of them feel like genuine people, even the ones that have had a considerable amount of "screentime", like the Dothraki haindmaidens and bloodriders for example.

[BreastplateWithNipples]

One note:

Astapor is "largely deserted". The same, one supposes, for Yunkai. These are large cities that have greatly dwindled in population:

Yunkai is described in similar terms. Dany's host after the freedmen of Astapor and Yunkai join them is about 70,000 (including women and children, but not counting Unsullied). Given the Volantene statistic of 5 slaves to every 1 citizen, I think we might suppose that the combined total populace of both of these cities (including slaves!) might have been no more than 120,000. These are, indeed, "minor cities".

And then Meereen, said to be twice as large as the other two combined, and richer, better maintained, and so on... but first, one has to wonder if the "twice as large" is a literal reference to the area of the city as opposed to a measure of its populace (Dany is looking at its walls and such when she makes this reference). There's actually no clear reference to its populace that I can find, but even if the population were 200,000, it'd be smaller than King's Landing, and certainly rather smaller than the great cities.

But the other thing to note is that the Meereen does have trade goods beyond slaves: their olives and olive oil are the first thing Xaro Xhoan Daxos asks about, but the Meereenese burned the fields. We also have other references to trade goods sought after from the Slaver Cities -- the one fellow who had the weaver whose products were widely sought after, for example, and Meereen has copper mines -- and so there's no great reason to think that slaves and slaves alone are the majority of Meereen's wealth. In fact, given that Martin makes a point of noting other sources of wealth, plus the fact that Meereen is indeed wealthier than the other cities, I'd argue that the idea is that it does have a more diverse economy than the two lesser cities, but it has been hugely crippled by the destruction of farms and olive groves, the flight of most of Meereen's ships, and the general sense that the place is now embargoed by its former trade partners.

So, so far as that goes, I think Martin's done well enough.

It's absolutely true GRRM wanted to play around with the more typical fantasy landscape of empty ruins and so on. Can't say too much about it, though one does note that the vast number of ruins are due to the Dothraki, and they're still clearly powerful... but uninterested in settling. As we see when the Lhazreen tried to establish themselves in "free territory", it turned out to not be free from Dothraki attack. I recall accounts of Northern China becoming vastly depopulated after a couple of decades of Mongolian terror, so imagine the semi-perpetual roaming hordes constantly sweeping through, slaughtering and thieving. The result would be that populations would cluster around (and in) established cities, and a lot of the land would either be fallow or be exploited in ways that could be done relatively easily/quickly and which could be re-established again if a khalasar came rolling through.

Finally, the fact is that up until ADwD, we though Volantis was basically just Volantis. But no, in fact we learn it controls a number of smaller cities and towns. So I would not be so quick to assume that Meereen or Tyrosh or Qohor or Norvos (actually, I'm quite sure Norvos is mentioned as having vassal towns) is just the city and nothing else. Pentos, yes, they seem to have taken a long-term negative approach to the fact the Dothraki exist: they have stopped trying to rebuild destroyed towns and defend their territory, instead paying off the Dothraki, which is an interesting contrast to Volantis where we see active efforts to defend their territory. This may show that Pentos itself is in a long-term decline, rather than necessarily all the Free Cities are in this position.

Well, yes, some parts can be explained. Given some time, you could easily come up with a sort of history that "explains" it in terms of a logic that taps into real history in some (limited) ways. But one of the reasons why I am having a hard time seeing the places in Essos as real human societies, or accepting any history of Essos as plausible, is that I just don't see what part of real human history Essos is patterned after. Where the "socio-historical logic" is supposed to come from that one should apply to an understanding of Essos.

For Westeros it's easy - its society and politics are clearly patterned after high and late medieval Europe. And in a very well done way. One can follow the politicking between the houses very well because they mostly make sense by the socio-political logic of that time period.

But with Essos? It's just very, very hard. The entire continent is made up on one hand of city-states, which presumably have some form of oligarchic government akin to examples mostly from the antiquity (Rome, Greece, the Phoenicians) but also from the middle ages and early modern age (Venice, Genoa), and on the other hand the savage hordes of the Dothraki which are inspired by such people as the Huns or the Berber of North Africa. (I don't see the Dothraki-Mongol analogy - the Mongols were very sophisticated people with a deep culture, a very refined diplomacy and (after Genghis Khan) a model for governance over settled people, while the Dothraki are really just plundering savages with no sophistication and no ambition to rule.)

This in itself is a bit jarring - where are the small and middle sized kingdoms? Where are the confederations? Why don't the many people living in the vast lands between the city-states form their own states and deal with the Dothraki on their own terms? A feudal monarchy is a very simple and effective form of governance for an agricultural society that finds itself periodically threatened by outsiders. I.e., for all those parts of Essos that don't have huge city walls to hide behind. Most of the ancient middle east in biblical times was organized in small military-monarchies, even the little cities. They formed confederations when there were large external threats and when there were no threats they feuded against each other. Every now and then they got conquered by some big badass overlord (Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, ...) but that lasted only a few generations and then fell apart again. I'm not seeing any of that in Essos even though it would really be a natural way for the people there to organize themselves after the fall of Valyria.

Also, why are all the city states apparently so dominated by the merchants? This is another of those tropey things that you just don't find in real history. I know GRRM is an American and to him (as to many others) it just may seem natural that those who own the most money should also "own" their nation's politics. But that's really not how city-states really work, except for a few VERY VERY niche exceptions, namely the medieval / late medieval republics of Venice, Genoa and perhaps Amalfi. Most republics used to be led not by traders but by the landed gentry who not very different from the feudal elites of medieval kingdoms. Rome was such a republic led not by traders but by senatorial elites who were land-owners. Not every city can be a trade republic, there just isn't enough trade going around to finance so many ambitions and so many political games. In Rome, traders and money-lenders were influential people, but by far not the leading class. The senators led politics, crafted the laws and led the armies. People who had grown rich on trade all eventually sought to own land and set aside trading, because (among other reasons) land gives you a much more reliable income than trade. Land doesn't sink in storms after all. The same was true in the Greek republics... land, not trade or industries, were the primary source of wealth.

And then there's the thing with the collapse of Valyria and how it serves as the back story for how Essos came to be the way it is. The story goes that Valyria used to be an oligarchic republic-empire that dominated all of western Essos, and the free cities (except Braavos) were founded as its colonies. But then Valyria collapsed overnight, and the colonies were left to fend for themselves (which they did). The Dothraki appeared shortly after the collapse of Valyrian authority and contributed to the devastation of vast parts of Essos. My problem with this story is that it doesn't really make sense as an explanation of the origins of the Free Cities, and the state of Essos now. If Valyria was such a powerful and long lasting empire, why did they found so few colony cities? Why the few big ones, and not many smaller ones? Given the enormous geographical space, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to concentrate settlement on a few big cities and neglect the space in between. Also, if there was a general social and economic decline in Essos after the Doom and after the appearance of nomadic people such as the Dothraki, how comes the Free Cities did not decline as well? Normally, city growth is an indicator of economic sophistication because cities live off the surpluses of agriculture. Decline means loss of sophistication so as a society declines, the decline hits the cities in a disproportionally harsh way. This is what happened in Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire, and in Southeast Asia when e.g. the Khmer empire collapsed - the cities disappeared as people there starved or left the city to make a living in the countryside. Many other societies also followed that pattern... Byzantine empire in late antiquity / early middle ages, China whenever dynasties collapsed into chaos, Mesopotamia etc. Essos seems to have gone the other way. So it's contrary to what human historical experience would make us expect.

So - I understand GRRM wants Essos to be the way it is because that serves the story he is telling. It's his creation. But compared to his other creation, the world of Westeros, Essos really doesn't measure up IMHO. Westeros is cool - it comes across (in an effortless way) as a really deep, believable world. It taps into so much "real" humanity without copying or mimicking it. Essos, on the other hand, doesn't tap into anything I recognize as humanity or history. I could spend weeks reading invented history from Westeros, but invented history from Essos just doesn't interest me very much because Westeros spoiled me to expect higher plausibility in the invented history than conventional fantasy has to offer. :)

[History of Westeros]

If Tyrion were to go to Norvos, for example, and spend time in the area surrounding the city as he did with Volantis, I bet we'd have a list of names of nearby settlements (Selhorys, Volon Therys et al) and all of a sudden those names would be appearing on the maps.

In other words, I suspect you are greatly underestimating how many towns, minor cities etc. exist in the "space in between". I realize that is part of your point, that the fact that it's less developed makes it less enjoyable. Personally I like Essos a lot but I admit Westeros is a lot more fun.

That said I think you are basing quite a bit of your criticism on what is lack of development rather than a failure of realism. Pentos is surrounded by farms and mines etc, we see them.

I find GRRM's explanation that Slaver's Bay is what it is due to deforestation and devastation by dragonfire to be satisfactory. There is no "returning to the countryside" when such is barren. Also I don't find comparisons to Rome, China, very useful when speaking of the Fall of Valyria. All of those empires declined gradually or at least semi-gradually. In some cases the decline was very slow. Valyria literally vanished in a moment.

You can't take the real world comparisons too seriously where the fantasy elements are so strong.

[BreastplateWithNipples]

Yes the level of detail isn't high. But my points weren't so much about that. The fantasy-tropeyness is in things that (I think) aren't going to look so much different when more detail is provided. For example Tyrion's journey already have us a big insight into the Rhoyne region and that river's middle section is explicitly described as an empty landscape full of ruins which is not claimed by any of the free cities.

You'd expect that in a realistic world some mention would be made of petty kings, tribes or whatever polity people have there but that's not so, it's said to be no man's land with I find rather fantasy-tropey and unrealistic.

Just one of the things I find make Essos less interesting than Westeros. If you like fantasy worlds (and there's nothing bad about that, it's just not my thing ;) ) then Essos surely is a decent enough fantasy world though and surely has more fantasy stories still waiting to be told.

[Jaak]

Empty lands are found in fantasy, but many are less realistic than Essos, because they fail to provide a sensible reason for the lands to have stayed empty. Like Eriador of Lord of the Rings.

But Rhoyne is more believable.

Not sure how much China was depopulated - Mongols unlike Dothraki had an empire - but just look at Eastern Europe!

In 15th-16th century, there were no towns or villages along the whole Volga between Kazan and Astrahan. And west of Kazan, no settled inhabitants south of Tula and Kiev. But neither did the nomads settle and herd the Wild Field - they did some herding on the southern parts, and raided across the Field, but a band hundreds of kilometres wide had no regular use by man.

So, in that sense the empty Rhoyne makes perfect sense.

Regarding the city-states - an obvious medieval analogy was the city-states of northern Italy. Venice, Milan, Genua, Firenze, Pisa, Siena.

They HAD countryside nobility - and suppressed it. Various discriminatory laws against "magnates".

And they dominated and controlled smaller towns, too.

But they were not confronting nomad raiders... How would a city-state organize a defence against Dothraki?

[History of Westeros]

Also, Germanic tribes would lay waste to vast swaths around their home territory, creating "neutral zones" where it was death to tread. It was part of their warrior culture and tied to the lack of natural borders.

Huge areas of unsettled/unpopulated territory are entirely realistic.

[Melian Dayne]

Yeah. Yi Ti is reminded me of India on the maps. But a man can dream....

btw, what does "bright eyes" mean ? Colorful eyes ?

I think Yi Ti is like China and Asshai is like India (or South Asia as a whole). I mean think about it, the whole fire pyre thing, anyone who is Hindu or studied Hinduism knows the significance of the fire in regards to purification, sacrifice and fighting evil, makes sense for India to be the inspiration for Asshai (R'hllor worship seriously reminds me of Agni, Hindu deity of Fire).

Yi Ti, I mean come on, we have the Jade Sea (China is the land of Jade) and the supposed monkey-tail hats they wear (Manchu hair?).

[AzureOwl]

I think Yi Ti is like China and Asshai is like India (or South Asia as a whole). I mean think about it, the whole fire pyre thing, anyone who is Hindu or studied Hinduism knows the significance of the fire in regards to purification, sacrifice and fighting evil, makes sense for India to be the inspiration for Asshai (R'hllor worship seriously reminds me of Agni, Hindu deity of Fire).

Yi Ti, I mean come on, we have the Jade Sea (China is the land of Jade) and the supposed monkey-tail hats they wear (Manchu hair?).

When looking at the map of the Jade Sea, the analogy that comes to mind is that Leng is the Japan/Korea to Yi Ti's China.

Another thing that I've been thinking about is the reason for all the cities around Great Moraq. We have Faros and Vahar to the west and Port Moraq and Zabhad to the south. We know that the bulk of the trade to Yi Ti goes thru Qarth, so there's no reason for going all the way around Great Moraq.

So the theory I've come up with is that Great Moraq and all the islands around it function as a miniature version of the Moluccas Islands with most of the spices being produced there, and being shipped from Zabhad, Port Moraq, Vahar and Faros and headed north to Qarth, to be dumped in the international trade routes.

[Mrs.Grumpy]

I think Yi Ti is like China and Asshai is like India (or South Asia as a whole). I mean think about it, the whole fire pyre thing, anyone who is Hindu or studied Hinduism knows the significance of the fire in regards to purification, sacrifice and fighting evil, makes sense for India to be the inspiration for Asshai (R'hllor worship seriously reminds me of Agni, Hindu deity of Fire).

Yi Ti, I mean come on, we have the Jade Sea (China is the land of Jade) and the supposed monkey-tail hats they wear (Manchu hair?).

I couldn't agree more.

We have the same idea with "monkey-tail hats".

[Dheep']

The single most interesting question for me ,that I want to know more about - The Valyrians / Their Technology (Fused roads -Dragons?/etc) / and "The Doom"........MORE please.

#2 - "The Shadow /Asshai" . I saw a interview where Mr. Martin seemed shoot down any more explanation of the Seasons / Its relation to the planets' Orbit etc. He didn't seem too interested in explaining any of it.