In the small chunk of time that the series takes place.. so many highborn families have been almost wiped out?

[Thuckey]

As opposed to the true history of Westeros being thousands of years.

 

Like almost all the major families have been reduced to almost nothing.

 

The Starks are almost all gone. The Arryns. Baratheons. Tullies. All these familes have been almost destroyed.. yet they all survived for the previous thousands of years.

 

Another thing is where is the rest of them? Thousands of years, surely there have been way more branches of the families cousins, 2nd born sons etc. so shouldn't there be like 1000 members of each family that survived to this day? Sure, the first born son becomes the heir and inherits the castles lands etc. but surely the 2nd, 3rd born had their own families and multiplied like cats. 

 

Not a major issue but just something to think about?

[Lord Ravenstark]

Westeros was never meant to be united (under feudalism, that is). Simply as that.

[TeamWhiteWalkerz]

1 hour ago, Thuckey said:

As opposed to the true history of Westeros being thousands of years.

 

Like almost all the major families have been reduced to almost nothing.

 

The Starks are almost all gone. No they aren't. Of nine Starks at the start, only two are confirmed dead. The Arryns. Robert Arryn was going to die regardless. Baratheons. Again, only two Baratheons have died Tullies. Hoster is dead. That's about it All these familes have been almost destroyed.. yet they all survived for the previous thousands of years. I don't think Tully was a great house prior to Aegon.

 

 

[Bluetiger]

As opposed to the true history of Westeros being thousands of years.

 

Like almost all the major families have been reduced to almost nothing.

 

The Starks are almost all gone. The Arryns. Baratheons. Tullies. All these familes have been almost destroyed.. yet they all survived for the previous thousands of years.

 

Another thing is where is the rest of them? Thousands of years, surely there have been way more branches of the families cousins, 2nd born sons etc. so shouldn't there be like 1000 members of each family that survived to this day? Sure, the first born son becomes the heir and inherits the castles lands etc. but surely the 2nd, 3rd born had their own families and multiplied like cats. 

 

Not a major issue but just something to think about?

Well... even Starks aren't close to extinction...

Sansa, Arya, Bran and Rickon are still alive, and we know about at least two more Stark branches (Starks from Barrowton and White Harbour). Probably 'She-Wolves of Winterfell' will explain why main Stark branch has so few members.

And if Rickard and Brandon weren't killed by Aerys, we'd probably have many more Starks.

[Bluetiger]

I think that Arryns will survive, through Robert, Harrold or some more distant cousins.

Baratheon might survive through legitimised Edric Storm or distant relatives of Baratheon (or Durrandon) or branches like Wensington and Bolling.

Only major house to not survive series might be Targaryen (or Baelish, which is probably only great house in history of the 7 Kingdoms which had 2 branches, 2 seats and only one member).

[Raisin' Bran]

32 minutes ago, TeamWhiteWalkerz said:

 

Stark: [Ned], [Cat], [Robb], Sansa (now Lady Lannister), Arya (missing with fake Arya in North, now Lady Bolton), {Bran (thought dead)}, {Rickon (thought dead)}, {Benjen (presumed dead)}, {Jon (potentially dead)}. 
     Lady Stoneheart does not count.
     For people in-universe, there are no Starks of the male line left. Kind of like House Darry.
     Seems pretty wiped out to me.

Arryn: [Jon], [Lysa], Robert (sickly, with death "imminent").
     After Robert, male line is extinct.
     If Arryn continued after Robert, Harry would need to change his name.

Baratheon: [Robert], Stannis, Shireen, Selyse, [Renly].
     Stannis and fam are in the North, in a fairly precarious position.
     Cercei, Myrcella, Tommen: really are Lannisters.
     Officially in-universe, House Baratheon is ok, technically, not ok.

Tully: [Hoster], [Cat], [Lysa], Edmure (prisoner en route to Casterly Rock), Blackfish (fugitive).
     Yes Roslin is preggos, if its a boy, he will be Tully in name only.
     Things do not look good for House Tully.

If a bastard needs to be legitimized or a cousin needs to change their name for the line to continue, I do not think that means that the house is ok. That is pretty much the last straw for the house.

 

[Lord Velype]

...

[Lord Velype]

3 hours ago, Thuckey said:

As opposed to the true history of Westeros being thousands of years.

 

Like almost all the major families have been reduced to almost nothing.

 

The Starks are almost all gone. The Arryns. Baratheons. Tullies. All these familes have been almost destroyed.. yet they all survived for the previous thousands of years.

 

Another thing is where is the rest of them? Thousands of years, surely there have been way more branches of the families cousins, 2nd born sons etc. so shouldn't there be like 1000 members of each family that survived to this day? Sure, the first born son becomes the heir and inherits the castles lands etc. but surely the 2nd, 3rd born had their own families and multiplied like cats. 

 

Not a major issue but just something to think about?

 

The whole thing that each and everything has existed for "thousands and thousands of years" can be explained with the following i think

a ) GRRM is very bad with numbers or hasn`t really thought thought those different ages out (or doesn`t really care that much about this aspect of his story)

b ) It is rather symbolic and refers to the mindset of medieval people, who generally thought that most things in culture and politics have existed in a similiar form for a long time or couldn`t imagine things being really different from their life-time.

People in the Middle-Ages commonly didn`t believe in progress as a good thing and so most changes or reforms were declared as an act of making something "like it has always been" again.

Also telling people that a certain family has been there for let`s say 10 000+ years is a good way to legitimize it.

At least to the common people who are unlikely to read a book about history.

[RobOsevens]

I think the other thing to consider is that the reason houses are dying off now in the story is because this is the most interesting period of time in ASOIAF history which is why GRRM is telling his story during this time. 

Besides how convoluted would the histories get if we added in another dozen major houses that are all integral to 7K history and have died out?