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Strength of the Northern Houses


Lord Stark

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and Iron Islands 20k.

I'd like to see where GRRM said that. Because he'd be blatantly disagreeing with himself if he did.

The Iron Fleet alone is 10-15k soldiers. We have an SSM that says every major house has that same number of ships, albeit of a third the size, giving roughly 3-5k for those houses. Then you add all the smaller houses. That can't possibly be as low as 20k.

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To counting the Glovers and Tallharts as part of the main Stark house, that is kind of treating, they have been and acted like lords like Umber and Manderly, are their castles crap? yeah, so is Mormont castle. Cerwyn's maybe, but that is a weak maybe. The lands controlled directly by the Starks has only been labelled as Wintertown, are their more? Probably, but we don't know how far any of it extend.


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I'd like to see where GRRM said that. Because he'd be blatantly disagreeing with himself if he did.

The Iron Fleet alone is 10-15k soldiers. We have an SSM that says every major house has that same number of ships, albeit of a third the size, giving roughly 3-5k for those houses. Then you add all the smaller houses. That can't possibly be as low as 20k.

Yes but remember Iron Island, its like everyone is always active. They don't have reserve soldier. And Iron fleet is their main royal army. In other parts of the land most of the force are in reserve and not really fighting. And remember you raise soldiers based on how much people you have and Iron Island is the least populous by far.

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Yes but remember Iron Island, its like everyone is always active. They don't have reserve soldier. And Iron fleet is their main royal army. In other parts of the land most of the force are in reserve and not really fighting. And remember you raise soldiers based on how much people you have and Iron Island is the least populous by far.

Eh, yeah, that's why Balon calls his banners, in other words calls out all those other ships to fight. If the Iron Fleet was the total army he had available, we wouldn't have been seeing all those other lords assembling their fleets. But we did.

As for least populous, that would be Dorne. The Iron Islands is constantly referred to as poor and miserable, not devoid of life.

Lastly, simply looking at population numbers is much, much too simple. Degree of mobilization is just one of the factors that can throw such simplistic considerations completely off.

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If you're estimating 45K total can be raised in the north, you shouldn't include Skagos in that at all. Nobody goes there on any sort of regular basis and there's very little contact with them. Skagos is independent in all but name.


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The theoretical strength of the north might be 45K or 60K or 100K, or even more than that. Take a 12 year old boy (or girl), give him a spear and call him a soldier. The thing about these numbers is that even if you can gather all of the strength of the north, you can't possibly deploy all of those troops as a unified fighting force, because you can't feed them, supply them, etc. An army of 45K moving across the landscape would require a massive supply train, probably a thousand or more wagons, thousands of cattle and pigs, hundreds if not thousands of skilled craftsmen, etc.



Robb had to have had some version of that when he took his army south. I would have liked to read about that.


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The theoretical strength of the north might be 45K or 60K or 100K, or even more than that. Take a 12 year old boy (or girl), give him a spear and call him a soldier.

Eh, no. Theory has to include all factors, you see. There is such a thing as a maximum mobilization percentage, which is dependent on lots of factors, such as effectiveness of agriculture etc. etc.

No nation can simply call out every body able to carry a weapon, someone has to provide food and other supplies. I believe the highest mobilization rate was during the WWII with Britain reaching 22%. In WWI, it was france with 16%. Those high percentages were only possible, though, because of the industrialization.

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Eh, no. Theory has to include all factors, you see. There is such a thing as a maximum mobilization percentage, which is dependent on lots of factors, such as effectiveness of agriculture etc. etc.

No nation can simply call out every body able to carry a weapon, someone has to provide food and other supplies. I believe the highest mobilization rate was during the WWII with Britain reaching 22%. In WWI, it was france with 16%. Those high percentages were only possible, though, because of the industrialization.

Isn't that basically what I just said? Not sure why you're disagreeing with me.

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No nation can simply call out every body able to carry a weapon, someone has to provide food and other supplies. I believe the highest mobilization rate was during the WWII with Britain reaching 22%. In WWI, it was france with 16%. Those high percentages were only possible, though, because of the industrialization.

14%, Germany in spring 1945. You're spot on with the industrialization though.

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14%, Germany in spring 1945. You're spot on with the industrialization though.

Hmmm, my number might be "serving" in the army, which would include a lot more people, while yours could be actual military personel ? I was a bit surprised the british would be above the germans on that.

Anyway, that makes france in WWI the largest percentage of the population actually fighting, with 16%, which is quite frankly, huge, when you consider things like age brackets etc.

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Hmmm, my number might be "serving" in the army, which would include a lot more people, while yours could be actual military personel ? I was a bit surprised the british would be above the germans on that.

Anyway, that makes france in WWI the largest percentage of the population actually fighting, with 16%, which is quite frankly, huge, when you consider things like age brackets etc.

Yes, mine are actual soldiers (of sorts). It's the all-time high and it drafted every somewhat able-bodied male not urgently needed for war industry between 14 and 70. And it wasn't sustainable at all, german industry and agriculture broke down regardless of the blockade and carpet-bombing, because of lack of workers.

France in WWI probably includes some name-only soldiers just like your british numbers for WWII.

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Actually GRRM said who can raise how much soldiers. Starks are in the middle tier along with Dorne, Riverlands and the Vale. They can raise 45 thousand troops though with Dorne its stated they can raise 50k by Quentyn Martell but it might be exaggeration so Dorne can probably raise around 45k like the North. Westernlands can raise up to 50k troops and the Reach can raise from 80k to 100k. Stormlands can raise up to 30k and Iron Islands 20k. So to me North is in the middle. It just gets all the hype because most of the main characters are Stark. However North is the largest but that doesn't mean its the strongest, even though its large it doesn't have that much population.

Well GRRM stated that the actual strength of Dorne is 25k spears. With extreme reserves Dorne could raise 30k men.

As Far as The North is corcerned Robb raised 18k could have raised more if he had time, then Rodrik raised 2k, Ramsey abt 1k, Northern tribes+Morment and Glovers add 4k men to stannis's army later on. So we have seen The North raise around 25k swords so far in the series. And that is not adding the amount of men with Wyman Manderly.

I wanted to give an example, How The Westerlands were able to raise more than 50k men during the WOT5K:

1) Tywin raised 35k men, of which he was commanding 20k men himself, he gave a sub-ordinate command to Ser jamie Lannister of 15k men.

2) Ser Stafford Lannister raised a second host of 10k men and he was training them at Oxcross.

3) After battle of Oxcross Ser Devan Lannister rounded up all the survivors of Oxcross and Battle of the Camps and was raising and training men at Lannisport.

With the 3 points above you can see a common denominator, which is each 4 of the host was either raised or commanded by a Lannister. The Lannisters had that going for them in the WOT5K, they had a lot of their family participating in this War with extremely competent leaders:

1) Lord Tywin Lannister (Freaking ex-Hand and Warden of the West)

2) Ser Kevan Lannister

3) Ser Jamie Lannister (Kingsgaurd + legendary sword who can inspire his men with acts on the Battlefield)

4) Ser Stafford Lannister ( The only weak link amongst them)

5) Ser Devan Lannister (considered as a more than competent leader by The Blackfish which says a lot about his abilities)

6) Ser Damion Lannister (Castellan of CR)

Above mentioned men Tywin, Stafford and Kevan are in the generation of Lord Rickard stark, whereas Jamie is Eddard;s generation. They also have various lannister cousins who are older and more experienced than Robb Stark.

Well if you look at the Stark side Eddard's generation only he produced children, whereas Brandon, Lyanna and Benjen have no children (Acknowledged and Legitimate children), which leaves the Starks with only Robb, Jon at this time is out of question as he is a member of the Nights Watch. Which leaves young Bran Stark a boy of only 8 years when he is left as Lord of Winterfell. The tragedy for House Stark starts here where the 2nd born son of Lord Eddard is only 8 years old and is also crippled. Many see this as a sign of weakness.

I Strongly believe if Robb had a Stark cousin at Winterfell and he left him as castellan things would have been different. The North lacked strong leadership when Ramsey Snow kidnapped Lady Hornwood. Furthermore that Leadership would have come in handy when the IB invasion started. If a strong Stark castellan exsisted he would have been able to call more banners and effective fought off the IB invasion. Hw wouldn't have left 2 of his Prince's in Winterfell to be so easily taken by the IB. If Bran and Rickon didn't die as everyone in westeros thinks of them as dead, Robb wouldn't have slept with Jeyne Westerling, and Lord Bolton wouldn't have defected to the Lannisters. The Fall of Winterfell and loss of his heirs Bran and Rickon was the changing point in Robb's campaign where his position become very weak in-front of his enemies. If a strong Stark leader exsisted he would have been able to raise a 2nd Stark host to either retake The North from the IB or augment Robb's army if needed.

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I Strongly believe if Robb had a Stark cousin at Winterfell and he left him as castellan things would have been different. The North lacked strong leadership when Ramsey Snow kidnapped Lady Hornwood. Furthermore that Leadership would have come in handy when the IB invasion started. If a strong Stark castellan exsisted he would have been able to call more banners and effective fought off the IB invasion. Hw wouldn't have left 2 of his Prince's in Winterfell to be so easily taken by the IB. If Bran and Rickon didn't die as everyone in westeros thinks of them as dead, Robb wouldn't have slept with Jeyne Westerling, and Lord Bolton wouldn't have defected to the Lannisters. The Fall of Winterfell and loss of his heirs Bran and Rickon was the changing point in Robb's campaign where his position become very weak in-front of his enemies. If a strong Stark leader exsisted he would have been able to raise a 2nd Stark host to either retake The North from the IB or augment Robb's army if needed.

Bran Stark, Ser Rodrik and Maester Luwin as a team were more than enough. The problem is that they had to carry the idiot ball to get the plot of the entire series moving on. Weakest part of the books by far.

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The "deaths" of Bran and Rickon though embolden Roose. If they're alive I don't see the northern lords obeying Roose nor the Iron Throne. We see what Rickon means to Wyman Manderly and Robett Glover and what Jon Snow means to Alys Karstark. Even Stannis wants a half-Stark (Jon) to place in Winterfell and for legitimacy.


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The "deaths" of Bran and Rickon though embolden Roose. If they're alive I don't see the northern lords obeying Roose nor the Iron Throne. We see what Rickon means to Wyman Manderly and Robett Glover and what Jon Snow means to Alys Karstark. Even Stannis wants a half-Stark (Jon) to place in Winterfell and for legitimacy.

Of course. They also make it absolutely necessary for him to eradicate the Starks, because there is no way Robb would let House Bolton get away with what Ramsay did.

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The "deaths" of Bran and Rickon though embolden Roose. If they're alive I don't see the northern lords obeying Roose nor the Iron Throne. We see what Rickon means to Wyman Manderly and Robett Glover and what Jon Snow means to Alys Karstark. Even Stannis wants a half-Stark (Jon) to place in Winterfell and for legitimacy.

Yeah, but as BBE just said, it wasn't so much that they were kids as that the Bran-Rodrik-Luwin team were forced by the plot to "carry the idiot ball" and first let Winterfell get taken by the Ironborn (which makes no sense) and then allow Ramsay to massacre all their troops.

I love that phrase BTW - "carry the idiot ball". :)

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