GRRM's mistake: Essos Militaries.

[Abdallah]

So ASOIAF is the best book series I've ever read. I love it, I encourage all my friends to read the books. Yet there is one problem that we always talk about. The militaries that Daenerys is bringing is not suited to war in Westeros. The Dothraki are unarmored and would be cut down by longbows, while the Unsullied are underarmored Spearmen. Now there is the potential that Daenerys will change the way they fight. The Unsullied would make really good Pikemen, if they can carry the heavy armor needed. Of course this isn't helped by the fact they are castrated meaning they don't get natural testosterone. The Dothraki would only have to wear light armor but they would have to serve as basically a skirmishing force. Bringing 40K Dothraki over would be a waste when you really only need around 4K. The biggest problem is GRRM has basically turned real life examples of warriors and tried to turn them a bit more exotic. The Dothraki are based off the Mongols. The problem is the Mongols are different than the Dothraki in many areas. Mongolian warriors were all very well disciplined when Chenghis Khan took control. the Mongols also had heavy cavalry of their own. They were trained with Lances, Axes and Scimitars. They also armored their horses lightly. The Unsullied are a mix of Mamluks and Spartans. But the problem is Spartans are bronze age warriors in a time where cavalry wasn't as important as it was in the medieval age. It probably would have been wiser for GRRM to make the Unsullied regular Mamluks. The Mamluks were very versatile, loyal and able to combat western armies. 8 thousand Mamluks would have been a pretty significant force of elite warriors. Fortunately for Dany Ser Barristan is training the Mothers Men to be heavy cav. If GRRM has the Unsullied turn into Pikemen she will have a real army (though 3 dragons doesn't hurt) 

[the snow dragon]

It is not a mistake. Grrm has written every character, place,event with unbelievable consideration. If he gives dany a army well equipped to deal with westorosi armies then it will not be challenging, making the fight one sided considering dany has dragones to.so he has created dothraki and unsullied who are best in Essos but will be less effective in westeros thus making the conquest more difficult for dany but more interesting for a reader 

[dariopatke]

She isnt mant to be victor without getting tired.

We have Stannis is the North and if he hires sellswords he will have considerable force under his command even if North doesnt follow him after WF.

Euron has too much ships and is about to crush Redwynes ( I am rooting for Paxter but they have to lose because of plot) and then is undisputed ruler of sea.

Lannisters still have enough men on their own, 20k+ Westerland men, at least 4,5k Riverlanders and tens of thousands Reachmen if she doesnt kill Marge or something simillar which I dont think she will do.

Aegon will likely have 10k strong Golden Comlany, Dorne, part of Stormlands and nice part of Reach.

Dany arrives tok late in picture and I dont think people will rally to her cause and see her as foreign invader. Her Dotrakhi can be smashed by Westerosi knights easily and Unsullied by dismounted knights, but she has dragons who are not as big and strong as Balerion and co were.

They are all good with kinda simillar chances to win. Also Vale is wildcard here.

[Michael Mertyns]

Within the context of Essos itself, we see even worse examples from Yunkai. No wonder everyone uses sellswords or tries to buy off their opponents

[Poupsi]

5 hours ago, Abdallah said:

But the problem is Spartans are bronze age warriors in a time where cavalry wasn't as important as it was in the medieval age. It probably would have been wiser for GRRM to make the Unsullied regular Mamluks. The Mamluks were very versatile, loyal and able to combat western armies. 8 thousand Mamluks would have been a pretty significant force of elite warriors. Fortunately for Dany Ser Barristan is training the Mothers Men to be heavy cav. If GRRM has the Unsullied turn into Pikemen she will have a real army (though 3 dragons doesn't hurt) 

Could you tell us about those fabled Manluks? I'd like to know more about them.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

Nope, GRRM intentionally made the Dothraki and Unsullied suck. He intentionally has Dany misjudge them. He intentionally foreshadows their future bad performance (see: arena fight mock Dothraki against mock Westerosi, utter curbstomp together with a literal True Scotsman Fallacy). He intentionally doesn't have Dany pick up on that.

He's building the base for a real bad case of culture shock as soon as Dany leaves Slavers Bay.

1 minute ago, Poupsi said:

Could you tell us about those fabled Manluks? I'd like to know more about them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamluk

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

OP is right, I'm no expert on military history but GRRM seems to have picked and chose from various timeframes without considering how certain tactics supersede others. For instance, when the Unsullied beat the Dothraki at Qohor - apparently they made schiltrons out of their spears a la Bannockburn. Well, in real life once it was demonstrated how infantry could beat a cavalry charge, all the infantries of Europe wised up and tried to adopt those tactics. But in Essos, somehow the Dothrai are still able to dominate despite not having changed their own tactics. A force made up entirely of light cavalry isn't routinely stymied by pike formations, massed archers with longbows or crossbows, or castles...

Also, why don't the Dothraki have any longer weapons, like spears or lances? Arakhs would surely be only a sidearm, like swords were in real life.

You can make the argument that it's not in anybody's interest in Essos to learn to fight the Dothraki when they can just buy them off, but this isn't believable. For every slave-state that pays tribute there must be a couple more nations that get fucked over like the Lhazarene. None of them have bought Unsullied, or trained their own militaries, or bought lots of cheap crossbows or built castles that can withstand sieges, etc?

The books are still great, but this is a flaw in the world-building, I think.

Also, this is a great point:

7 hours ago, Abdallah said:

The Unsullied would make really good Pikemen, if they can carry the heavy armor needed. Of course this isn't helped by the fact they are castrated meaning they don't get natural testosterone.

I don't know whether that's medically accurate or not, but if so then it means the Unsullied are gonna struggle compared to regular soldiers over a long campaign. Their bodies won't be able to heal as well.

(This is also why - CONTROVERSIAL FACT ALERT - they don't, or shouldn't, let women serve in front line infantry roles even in modern militaries.)

[Bright Blue Eyes]

3 minutes ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

You can make the argument that it's not in anybody's interest in Essos to learn to fight the Dothraki when they can just buy them off, but this isn't believable. For every slave-state that pays tribute there must be a couple more nations that get fucked over like the Lhazarene. None of them have bought Unsullied, or trained their own militaries, or bought lots of cheap crossbows or built castles that can withstand sieges, etc?

The Lhazarene are the only nation the Dothraki have actually raided in the last ~350 years. All others have bought them off out of spare change, way less than a war would have cost them.

3 minutes ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

I don't know whether that's medically accurate or not, but if so then it means the Unsullied are gonna struggle compared to regular soldiers over a long campaign. Their bodies won't be able to heal as well.

(This is also why - CONTROVERSIAL FACT ALERT - they don't, or shouldn't, let women serve in front line infantry roles even in modern militaries.)

 The guy trying to sell them makes that very point in his sales pitch. That should tell us something about the extent of it's impact on their performance.

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

4 minutes ago, Bright Blue Eyes said:

Nope, GRRM intentionally made the Dothraki and Unsullied suck. He intentionally has Dany misjudge them. He intentionally foreshadows their future bad performance (see: arena fight mock Dothraki against mock Westerosi, utter curbstomp together with a literal True Scotsman Fallacy). He intentionally doesn't have Dany pick up on that.

He's building the base for a real bad case of culture shock as soon as Dany leaves Slavers Bay.

Interesting notion. The relevant section:

Quote

After the beast fights came a mock battle, pitting six men on foot against six horsemen, the former armed with shields and longswords, the latter with Dothraki arakhs. The mock knights were clad in mail hauberks, whilst the mock Dothraki wore no armor. At first the riders seemed to have the advantage, riding down two of their foes and slashing the ear from a third, but then the surviving knights began to attack the horses, and one by one the riders were unmounted and slain, to Jhiqui's great disgust. "That was no true khalasar," she said.

-- ADWD, Daenerys IX

 

Although this begs the question, why were the Westerosi so afraid of the prospect of a Dothraki invasion? Perhaps they're just judging them on a reputation that's unjustified.

This would make for an interesting twist to the story... but it's still weak world-building. What good explanation is there, in story, for the richer and more populous continent to be militarily inferior?

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

4 minutes ago, Bright Blue Eyes said:

The Lhazarene are the only nation the Dothraki have actually raided in the last ~350 years. All others have bought them off out of spare change, way less than a war would have cost them.

The only nation mentioned. Surely they've raided others - it's a big continent, after all. (And where'd they get all those gods for their city? Unless that's another fraud.)

And... the Dothraki control enormous territory with apparently fertile land. Nobody's been tempted to take it from them and put it to good use?

4 minutes ago, Bright Blue Eyes said:

The guy trying to sell them makes that very point in his sales pitch. That should tell us something about the extent of it's impact on their performance.

I guess it explains why they're generally used as household/city guards rather than an army in the field.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

7 minutes ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

Although this begs the question, why were the Westerosi so afraid of the prospect of a Dothraki invasion? Perhaps they're just judging them on a reputation that's unjustified.

Which Westerosi. Name two. Ned considers them a joke and admonishes Robert on his purely emotional reaction to a Targaryen in leadership of anything.

7 minutes ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

This would make for an interesting twist to the story... but it's still weak world-building. What good explanation is there, in story, for the richer and more populous continent to be militarily inferior?

Essos is both poorer and less populous. The Free Cities are just city states. Big, wealthy cities with barely any hinterland to back them up. Westeros is about the opposite, with 98-99% of it's population and wealth outside the cities.

Furthermore, Essosi military was hit hard by the Doom, requiring a complete restructuring from dragons to the Westerosi model. Which the Free Cities have accomplished in their sellswords. Golden Company, Second Sons, Company of the Rose, all Westerosi outfits, the others are modelled after them.

But the Dothraki are still stuck in the postapocalyptic phase immediately after the Doom, while Slavers Bay has gone back 5,000 years to the warfare from before the rise of Valyria, the last combat they've actually experienced.

7 minutes ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

The only nation mentioned. Surely they've raided others - it's a big continent, after all. (And where'd they get all those gods for their city? Unless that's another fraud.)

Not during the last ~350 years. Only during the immediate aftermath of the Doom did they raid anybody else (and extinguished that Bronze Age military and their civilians).

7 minutes ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

And... the Dothraki control enormous territory with apparently fertile land. Nobody's been tempted to take it from them and put it to good use?

What for? With what people? Essos is largely empty.

7 minutes ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

I guess it explains why they're generally used as household/city guards rather than an army in the field.

Indeed. Loyalty during coups and stuff, not battlefield performance.

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

2 minutes ago, Bright Blue Eyes said:

Which Westerosi. Name two. Ned considers them a joke and admonishes Robert on his purely emotional reaction to a Targaryen in leadership of anything.

Hmm... fair point... but... Ned doesn't think they'll cross the ocean; not necessarily that they'd be a pushover. I remember the whole Small Council being alarmed. But - and it's a big but - I might be getting confused with the TV show. I dunno, I'm half-convinced.

2 minutes ago, Bright Blue Eyes said:

Essos is both poorer and less populous.

I've come away with the opposite impression. What are you basing that on?

2 minutes ago, Bright Blue Eyes said:

The Free Cities are just city states. Big, wealthy cities with barely any hinterland to back them up. Westeros is about the opposite, with 98-99% of it's population and wealth outside the cities.

I've always assumed that there's immense farmland surrounding the city-states, feeding them and enjoying their protection. You can see the gaps where it'd be on the map, and there are mentions of country estates and such. There's just never been a need to go into those details in the story. Or, if you prefer, it's bad world-building. The Free Cities have to be getting their food from somewhere, and they aren't growing it themselves.

2 minutes ago, Bright Blue Eyes said:

Furthermore, Essosi military was hit hard by the Doom, requiring a complete restructuring from dragons to the Westerosi model. Which the Free Cities have accomplished in their sellswords. Golden Company, Second Sons, Company of the Rose, all Westerosi outfits, the others are modelled after them.

But the Dothraki are still stuck in the postapocalyptic phase immediately after the Doom, while Slavers Bay has gone back 5,000 years to the warfare from before the rise of Valyria, the last combat they've actually experienced.

This is an excellent point. Perhaps I'm failing to appreciate just how disruptive the Doom was.

Of course, 400 years ought to be plenty of time to get their militaries back on their feet, but time seems to be moving very slowly on Planetos. At a certain point we just have to go with the flow. 1,000+ year dynasties everywhere you look? Sure, why not!

2 minutes ago, Bright Blue Eyes said:

Not during the last ~350 years. Only during the immediate aftermath of the Doom did they raid anybody else (and extinguished that Bronze Age military and their civilians).

Where are you getting that number?

2 minutes ago, Bright Blue Eyes said:

What for? With what people? Essos is largely empty.

Is it? Again, what are you basing that on? Every culture wants to expand, especially pre-modern cultures with their population pressure. Large amounts of fertile farmland ought to be attractive to any number of smaller nations dotted around Essos; the Dothrai ought to have enemies constantly nibbling at the edges of their territory, especially if they ain't shit militarily.

 

One more thing: what about Qarth? They seem to have been a separate power to Valyria, and never had dragons. So why don't they have a superior military force? And why didn't they take the Doom as an opportunity and expand westward?

[Bright Blue Eyes]

4 minutes ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

I've come away with the opposite impression. What are you basing that on?

 Dany's and Tyrion's chapters. There is basically nothing between Pentos and Vaes Dothrak/Pentos and Selhorys. In Westeros, we'd have seen about five thousand villages, five hundred towns or holdfasts, ten castles and two of the big cities or castles.

Tyrion's voyage is basically equivalent to Kings Landing to Oldtown, with a stop at Storms End on the way. But there isn't anybody there.

4 minutes ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

I've always assumed that there's immense farmland surrounding the city-states, feeding them and enjoying their protection. You can see the gaps where it'd be on the map, and there are mentions of country estates and such. There's just never been a need to go into those details in the story. Or, if you prefer, it's bad world-building. The Free Cities have to be getting their food from somewhere, and they aren't growing it themselves.

Yes, they've got enough hinterland to feed them. But no more. Maybe a 80/20 relation between country and city. In Westeros, it's an 99/1 relation, for a vastly bigger total.

4 minutes ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

This is an excellent point. Perhaps I'm failing to appreciate just how disruptive the Doom was.

Of course, 400 years ought to be plenty of time to get their militaries back on their feet, but time seems to be moving very slowly on Planetos. At a certain point we just have to go with the flow. 1,000+ year dynasties everywhere you look? Sure, why not!

The Free Cities did get their military back on their feet. Westerosi style sellswords everywhere you look - but Slavers Bay and the Dothraki haven't fought any war since, they've got no pressure.

4 minutes ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

Where are you getting that number?

TWOIAF, the attack on the Tall Men, on Quohor, on Ibb, it was all during the first couple decades after the Doom, and that's it. Nothing since.

4 minutes ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

Is it? Again, what are you basing that on? Every culture wants to expand, especially pre-modern cultures with their population pressure. Large amounts of fertile farmland ought to be attractive to any number of smaller nations dotted around Essos; the Dothrai ought to have enemies constantly nibbling at the edges of their territory, especially if they ain't shit militarily.

If they actually have population pressure in the first place. Essos doesn't. It's as empty as Sibiria was.

4 minutes ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

One more thing: what about Qarth? They seem to have been a separate power to Valyria, and never had dragons. So why don't they have a superior military force? And why didn't they take the Doom as an opportunity and expand westward?

Whom should they have fought before the Doom? The Valyrian dragonlords were their only neighbour left.

The Red Waste (and a focus on naval control of the Straits of Quarth).

[Michael Mertyns]

From AGoT Daenerys IV, we have Jorah Mormont's analysis:

Quote

Dany could not pretend to surprise at the disdain in his tone. “What . . . what if it were not Viserys?” she asked. “If it were someone else who led them? Someone stronger? Could the Dothraki truly conquer the Seven Kingdoms?”
Ser Jorah’s face grew thoughtful as their horses trod together down the godsway. “When I first went into exile, I looked at the Dothraki and saw half-naked barbarians, as wild as their horses. If you had asked me then, Princess, I should have told you that a thousand good knights would have no trouble putting to flight a hundred times as many Dothraki.”
“But if I asked you now?”
“Now,” the knight said, “I am less certain. They are better riders than any knight, utterly fearless, and their bows outrange ours. In the Seven Kingdoms, most archers fight on foot, from behind a shieldwall or a barricade of sharpened stakes. The Dothraki fire from horseback, charging or retreating, it makes no matter, they are full as deadly . . . and there are so many of them, my lady. Your lord husband alone counts forty thousand mounted warriors in his khalasar.”
“Is that truly so many?”
“Your brother Rhaegar brought as many men to the Trident,” Ser Jorah admitted, “but of that number, no more than a tenth were knights. The rest were archers, freeriders, and foot soldiers armed with spears and pikes. When Rhaegar fell, many threw down their weapons and fled the field. How long do you imagine such a rabble would stand against the charge of forty thousand screamers howling for blood? How well would boiled leather jerkins and mailed shirts protect them when the arrows fall like rain?”
“Not long,” she said, “not well.”
He nodded. “Mind you, Princess, if the lords of the Seven Kingdoms have the wit the gods gave a goose, it will never come to that. The riders have no taste for siegecraft. I doubt they could take even the weakest castle in the Seven Kingdoms, but if Robert Baratheon were fool enough to give them battle . . . ”
“Is he?” Dany asked. “A fool, I mean?”
Ser Jorah considered that for a moment. “Robert should have been born Dothraki,” he said at last. “Your khal would tell you that only a coward hides behind stone walls instead of facing his enemy with a blade in hand. The Usurper would agree. He is a strong man, brave . . . and rash enough to meet a Dothraki horde in the open field. But the men around him, well, their pipers play a different tune. His brother Stannis, Lord Tywin Lannister, Eddard Stark . . . ” He spat.

Apparently Westeros does not have the advantage in bow range. Other advantages include numbers and better discipline (although that will vary depending on the opponent)

Whenever someone brings up a Dothraki invasion in Westeros the idea is dismissed because nobody thinks the Dothraki would ever actually cross the sea.

[Werthead]

Essos as a whole is certainly far more populous than Westeros: Yi Ti alone likely has a far vaster population, and cities like Qarth, Volantis (and its river towns) and probably Braavos all have far larger populations than any city in the Seven Kingdoms. Westeros is actually rather under-populated compared to, say, Europe in 1300.

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

14 minutes ago, Michael Mertyns said:

From AGoT Daenerys IV, we have Jorah Mormont's analysis:

<snip>

Good to see Jorah confirming my point re: castles. There's a reason people developed holdfasts, and there's a reason nomadic tribes that didn't build anything got replaced. I'm sure if I bothered to look up anything re: the Mongols or the Huns, I'd find that they used to build things, too.

20 minutes ago, Bright Blue Eyes said:

 Dany's and Tyrion's chapters. There is basically nothing between Pentos and Vaes Dothrak/Pentos and Selhorys. In Westeros, we'd have seen about five thousand villages, five hundred towns or holdfasts, ten castles and two of the big cities or castles.

Tyrion's voyage is basically equivalent to Kings Landing to Oldtown, with a stop at Storms End on the way. But there isn't anybody there.

This is a great point, but I'm still not convinced. There are long journeys undertaken in Westeros with nothing seen along the way, too. The Riverlands is the only area that really gets filled in interms of villages and so on, and even there it felt a little sparse to me outside of Arya's chapters. Who's to say that Illyrio simply didn't choose a quiet road when meeting the Griffs, or that Tyrion simply wasn't paying attention, or that Dany wasn't - Dany goes clear across the continent in a couple of chapters, there's not time to mention every little village.

These areas, especially near the Free Cities, were once populous - e.g. Andalos - and they're too far from Valyria to have been devastated by the Doom. There's no in-world reason for the area to be so sparse, so I have to assume that GRRM just hasn't bothered filling in the details there.

[lujo]

On the Unsullied - they're the way they are so that Danny can have a "no rape" army. He might pull twists with it and give ti a spin with military buff friendly elements, but essentially it's to contrast her with all the rape happy war is hell stuff going on in westeros so the reader can peg her as the good guy. If you read the first book carefully, that's why her whole entire plot ends up going up in flames - no way  can you be a "savior" with an army as rape happy, macho and Patriarchal as Drogo's. When my wife read it she even said as much when she read the rapefest chapter - "Why the hell am I reading this crap, this girl's not worth my time" and when it all went to pieces around her my wife was "Hell, yeah, take that!" and thoguht that was the rightful end of Dany and that Miri Maz Dur was epicaly awesome and that having to be subjected to the rape chapter only made any sense as a setup, otherwise she'd have given up on the book right there (and presumably most women in their right mind share the sentiment, Drogo's as appalling as Gregor Clegane was).

So the unsullied are easily unrealistic to a nerdy sciency type, ofc, but you wins some you lose some, and that was the only way to give her an effective "sterile and obedient" robot army without alienating too many people who just put any book down if they smell fantasy or sf too hard. Otherwise he'd could've given her actual golems for all practical purposes, but that would be unrealistic to Joe Public. She couldn't have a "realistic" army, as that was established as waaaaay too rapey to be rooted for or even interesting to read about. If she gets a Kalhasaar again, that's a BIG tip towards "She's gone nuts again" - not necessarily, but VERY likely.

Khalasar's though seem to be very red herringy, and whether it's on purpose or not is not exactly clear, but they're more pre-muhamedan arabs (or even very early muhamedan arabs) who look like conan the barbarian but they inexplicably have the reputation as pre-Mongol steppe dudes (which is in itself a huge red herring and nonsense). They're more just straight up Klingons than any of them, though.

I say pre-muhamedan arabs because the steppe horsefolk did not use light cavalry + (disgused) sabre tactics, but rather very notably and specifically horse archery. Arabs did (except they didn't look like conan). And the steppe guys like Dothraki were actually terrible at sieging stuff because their horses and hordes tended to run out of food before the the besieged folks did (or start squabbling). Mongols were something else, Mongols were (disguised irl) imperial China and a complete opposite of your average "steppe horseman" invasion. Those usually happened because the Chinese kicked some horse folks from somewhere and that would  start a chain of migrations, with the Mongols the Chinese got their ass kicked, and than the new conquerors took the coountry in a "let's see how far we can push this" direction (employing all the tech, resources and military experience from the conquered China which was pretty damned advanced bundled with their tactics and gamebreaking horse archery gimmicks) and, well, ended up conquering almost everything there was. But they were not, effectively, just a mysteriously exceptional bunch of horsefolks led by Conan, by no means, they were for all practical purposes China.

So it's all rather silly, except you can see the story reasons behind both things, and yes, if setting her up to fail or struggle. Unsullied might even work if they were Pikemen instead of just spearmen, but since they aren't they might get screwed over by archers badly. The Dothraki are (sneakily disguised) arabs invading europe, and "Europe" is militarily at the stage where it was when it finally managed to put a stop to it (meaning their guys on horses were basically invulnerable to light cavalry + sabre tactics). This mostly meant that they managed to breed horses big enough to carry fully armored dudes around. Why the Dothraki are even a threat in Essoss and to whom is not entirely clear - they mainly seem to just raid villages, sell slaves and collect rather measly tribute. The Arabs only got truly rolling in much the same way the Mongols did, when the initial Dothraki-like bunch got hold of old Persian and Roman provinces in asia and north aftrica, respecitvely, and got to apply their stuff to warfare, and they only got the initial stuff off because of perfect timing, to be honest.

But Dany has dragons, which has been established as a coplete gamebreaker...

[MinotaurWarrior]

9 hours ago, Abdallah said:

Of course this isn't helped by the fact they are castrated meaning they don't get natural testosterone.

Being castrated as children is actually way, way worse than not getting natural testosterone. Basically, from a hormonal perspective, child eunuchs go through menopause when their peers experience puberty. You have all the problems of child soldiers, compounded by the problems of old women soldiers. Eunuchs cut as boys couldn't stand outside for hours without fainting, nor could they lift their long spears, nor could they withstand the impact of combat without having their brittle bones shatter.

But Unsillied aren't just eunuchs. They're magic.

Quote

"The wine of courage," was the answer he gave her. "It is no true wine at all, but made from deadly nightshade, bloodfly larva, black lotus root, and many secret things. They drink it with every meal from the day they are cut, and with each passing year feel less and less. It makes them fearless in battle. Nor can they be tortured. Tell the savage her secrets are safe with the Unsullied. She may set them to guard her councils and even her bedchamber, and never a worry as to what they might overhear.

I've got some ideas in the back of my head about what all of this means in the grander picture of Essosi history, but the important bit here is really just that they're magic and can't be compared to real soldiers.

[Michael Mertyns]

Some quotes from ADwD Tyrion II regarding the sights of Essos:

Soon after they have left Pentos

Quote

Tyrion pulled the curtain back an inch to peer outside, but there was little to see but ochre fields, bare brown elms, and the road itself, a broad stone highway that ran straight as a spear to the horizon.

Later when they are in Andalos

Quote

Tyrion gestured at the fields. “Who dwells in these Flatlands of yours?”
“Tillers and toilers, bound to the land. There are orchards, farms, mines … I own some such myself, though I seldom visit them. Why should I spend my days out here, with the myriad delights of Pentos close at hand?”
“Myriad delights.” And huge thick walls. Tyrion swirled his wine in his cup. “We have seen no towns since Pentos.”

 

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

5 minutes ago, MinotaurWarrior said:

Being castrated as children is actually way, way worse than not getting natural testosterone. Basically, from a hormonal perspective, child eunuchs go through menopause when their peers experience puberty. You have all the problems of child soldiers, compounded by the problems of old women soldiers. Eunuchs cut as boys couldn't stand outside for hours without fainting, nor could they lift their long spears, nor could they withstand the impact of combat without having their brittle bones shatter.

But Unsillied aren't just eunuchs. They're magic.

I've got some ideas in the back of my head about what all of this means in the grander picture of Essosi history, but the important bit here is really just that they're magic and can't be compared to real soldiers.

Go on, plop down your ideas.

That's interesting re: eunuchs. But IRL, didn't the Ottoman Turks have some castrato soldiers?