GRRM's mistake: Essos Militaries.

[lujo]

31 minutes ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

But IRL, didn't the Ottoman Turks have some castrato soldiers?

They had castrato bureaucrats like Varys. The Janisarry were slave-soldiers (actually children collected as tribute and riased by the states to be soldiers) but not castrated (afaik)

Oh, and yeah, castrating stuff before it's fully grown is a bad idea regardless of the species. You can visibly tell, for example, a cat wich has been castrated too early ( got one ), it's old and still looks like an adolescent cat rather than an adult one.

The unsullied are a narrative compromise, not something you're supposed to tink too hard about, necessarily.

[Jasta11]

30 minutes ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

Go on, plop down your ideas.

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

 

The Janissarys were not castrated, no. They were often kidnapped from vassal states and indoctrinated, however, at least at first. Eventually they became a respected warrior caste rather than slaves.

Interestingly, they also basically took over large parts of the Ottoman government within a few generations, by sheer virtue of being the empire's biggest badasses. While the Unsullied have basically been sitting as their city's main (and almost only) military force for centuries, if not millenia, and have never lifted a finger. But Dany only has to say a speech to them and they massacre their masters, no strings attached.

Unsullied are walking, sometimes talking plot devices.

[lujo]

16 minutes ago, Jasta11 said:

Unsullied are walking, sometimes talking plot devices.

Heaven forbid someone just flat out says they're her robot army. Cause they totally aren't her robot army. Definitely not a robot army, cause no way are they for all practical purposes a robot army, right? Because a robot army would be composed of sexeless, eerily precise, easily comanded machines, and not sexeless, eerily precise, easily commanded humans, right? I mean, writers only use robot armies in fiction when they need to disassociate an army from the realistic faults of human combatants, like the propensity for rape, so no reason for anyone to think "robot army" when they see the Unsullied, right?


Oh, one non robot army (which Unsullied are sooooo totaly not, ofc) related thing: castrating young boys was done in europe to prevent them from maturing or going through puberty well enough so that they could keep their high pitched singing voices. In Europe. Really. That's the sort of thing you can expect from folks who've been castrated young.

[MinotaurWarrior]

25 minutes ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

Go on, plop down your ideas.

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

I'm only aware of eunuchs being used as guards, and many of those (most) being castrated as adults. The idea was that it was very important that they be inable to impregnate the household women, and not as important that they be able to fight. Consider how many security guards today are horribly out of shape. Guarding is more about just being present.

Crazy ideas

[the snow dragon]

1

Everyone seems to forget one important detail about Essos.it is to hot to wear full armor.knights are only effective in colder climate. In hot essos summer they will just boil in there own armor.fighting in less or no armor is actualy more practical.for real life example look into the jerrushilum wars between muslims and Christians.

2. Horse riders has a great advantage of greator mobility.in a battle archers has only has little time to shoot before cavelary comes to close.a spear wall is effective but is les mobile. So dothraki has advantages on vast fields of Essos.                                               3 Esoss is not less populated or poorer then westerose.Essos is  just enormously bigger than westerose that it apears to less populated because of low population density.                          4 sorry for spelling mistakes or any other gramer mistakes

[lujo]

55 minutes ago, the snow dragon said:

it is to hot to wear full armor.

Not a well known fact, but the concept of heavy cavalry, that is very armored up knights on horses, was imported into Europe from Persians in early medieval times and a bit before that. It took quite a while for europeans to grow big enough horses for it.  It only became a signature european thing after it helped stop the arab light cavalry (what Dothraki are when you look at them closely). Though, back in the day, the greek word for knights meant something like "kettles" or "boilers" becauseo of how hot wearing armor was, that's true.

And the mobility didn't mean that much unless the guys on horses were archers. 

[Bright Blue Eyes]

1 hour ago, the snow dragon said:

1

Everyone seems to forget one important detail about Essos.it is to hot to wear full armor.knights are only effective in colder climate. In hot essos summer they will just boil in there own armor.fighting in less or no armor is actualy more practical.for real life example look into the jerrushilum wars between muslims and Christians.

Not a problem. Just drink more water. As lujo said, the armored knight is basically a Persian invention, straight into the hottest part of the Middle East.

Furthermore, there are armored sellswords all over Essos. They've got no problems with that.

4 hours ago, Werthead said:

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.

Please let's exclude Yi Ti, that's so disconnected from everything else, lumping it together with the Free Cities doesn't work.

Apart from that, Essos has bigger cities. Yes. Maybe 6-7 millions living in cities, compared to the <1 million in Westeros. But it's rural population is a joke. Where Westeros got 40, 60, 80 or 100 million living in the countryside, Essos got maybe 15 million.

4 hours ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

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.

It's the main road from Pentos to Ghoyan Droye and then down the Rhoyne. That's the most attractive real estate in Essos, basically the equivalent of the Kingsroad and the Trident - which are very, very densely settled.

4 hours ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

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.

No. They were devastated by the original Valyrian conquest. The Valyrians committed genocide there (upon the Rhoynar among others) and nobody resettled the area since.

[YorEmixam]

5 hours ago, Bright Blue Eyes said:

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.

Where did you see that? The Iron Bank is the biggest financial institution of the known world while Westeros is in serious financial difficulties. For the population I don't know I just feel the more complex industries like silk , linen, olives, etc. needs lot of people in the field, I can't recall westerosis export other than wine and lemons. There might be less pop/km2 , but overall I'm not convinced.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

11 minutes ago, YorEmixam said:

Where did you see that? The Iron Bank is the biggest financial institution of the known world while Westeros is in serious financial difficulties. For the population I don't know I just feel the more complex industries like silk , linen, olives, etc. needs lot of people in the field, I can't recall westerosis export other than wine and lemons. There might be less pop/km2 , but overall I'm not convinced.

Urbanization. That is the key difference. Essos concentrates let's say 20% of it's entire population in cities, as well as about 95% of it's wealth. And as merchant cities, most of that wealth is coin. Hard cash.

Westeros has about one to two percent of it's entire population in cities, and maybe 4-5% of it's wealth. Everything else is distributed in the countryside, from holdfast to castle to village to mill. And as a primarily agrarian society, most of that wealth is tied up in products, not in coin.

[House Beaudreau]

13 hours ago, Abdallah said:

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) 

I have always thought that the Dothraki were more based on the Comanche and Sioux Native Americans, culture wise and military wise. Their were no finer horsemen in all of the world than the Comanche. I have read accounts by Texas rangers and Pioneers that said a 10 year old Comanche boy could already be a seasoned raider and would have been riding since he was five. It was said that the Comanche could break a horse in a single ride and bare back at that. 

The Dothraki are very much like the Sioux culturally speaking. The semi nomadic group that spans an expansive grassland plain. They are a confederate nation, several different tribes that are politically sovereign but belong to a larger group who all identify as the same people.

  

[DMC]

1 hour ago, Bright Blue Eyes said:

Apart from that, Essos has bigger cities. Yes. Maybe 6-7 millions living in cities, compared to the <1 million in Westeros. But it's rural population is a joke. Where Westeros got 40, 60, 80 or 100 million living in the countryside, Essos got maybe 15 million.

First this is only based on your 1 to 99 (Westeros) compared to 20 to 80, or 1 to 4, (Essos) comparison of city to rural population.  Second, even using those ratios, 6-7 million in non-Yi Ti cities would yield a rural population of 24 to 28 million - not 15 million - no?  Third, those ratios effectively would mean when holding city population constant Westeros would have 25 farmers for every 1 Essosi.  That seems....extremely disparate.

It seems clear from the World Book that between the Nine Free Cities - particularly Volantis and its three tributary "towns" - along with Qarth and Slaver's Bay, Essos' city population dwarfs Westeros' by at least about 4 to 1.  Now, I agree that between the Dothraki's destruction of Sarnor, the Century of Blood in general, and the vast destruction of the Rhoynish, Ghiscari and Andalos civilizations within Essos by the Valyrians, the rural population is much less in proportion to Westeros.  Simply looking at the map depicts this.

However, it strains credulity that in order to feed the city populations, Essos doesn't have a ratio that at least approaches Westeros.  Unless they heavily rely on Yi Ti (which has never been mentioned) or Westeros (which doesn't make sense) for imports, one would think we'd be hearing much more about mass starvation in Essos otherwise.  In terms of Tyrion and Dany's chapters, I don't think the latter's are really relevant considering she's traveling with a Khalasar that would be avoided, mostly through the Red Waste.  IRT Tyrion, first, he's taking a pretty direct route on the Valyrian roads and then on the Rhoyne.  Second, he DOES see people in the seemingly "abandoned" towns on the shoreline - they just clearly avoid outsiders and/or unknown travelers. 

Now, does Westeros' rural advantage result in a larger population than "Essos proper?"  Sure - say, 40 to 1 compared to 8 to 1 could do it.  Personally, I think both could have anywhere between 30 to 50 million people total, and I don't really care beyond that.

[Anthony Pirtle]

Dany doesn't have to worry about castles and archers and all that jazz. She has dragons. Ask King Harren how safe the Westerosi will be behind their walls.

[Twenty of House Goodmen]

The Unsullied should've been more like the Jannissaries while the Dothraki should've been more like the Seljuk Turks or Ottomans. Instead, they are both laughably clownish. Tbh, Essos in general, aside from maybe Braavos, is pretty crap. Easily the weakest part of his world.

Still, I suspect we'll see both the Dothraki and Unsullied perform well in Westeros, as unrealistic as it may be. This is still fantasy after all. Plus, it'll play up to stereotype of eastern warriors being superior to western warriors, and I honestly don't believe that Westerosi knights and armies are as competent as their real life medieval counterparts.

[lujo]

9 minutes ago, Anthony Pirtle said:

Dany doesn't have to worry about castles and archers and all that jazz. She has dragons. Ask King Harren how safe the Westerosi will be behind their walls.

What does she need her rape cavalry and her robot army for then?

Really, wth, last peroxide blond person to invade who had dragons won it with just dragons.

[Dragon_Rider]

4 minutes ago, lujo said:

What does she need her rape cavalry and her robot army for then?

Dragons are only good for attacking and subduing your opponent. You still need an army to enforce your rule.

[Werthead]

The population of Westeros is about 40-45 million, maybe 50 tops. None of the research or other suggestions really makes a bigger population work. If it was bigger, than the armies should all be considerably larger.

The population of Essos is harder to work out, but, put simply, a city of hundreds of thousands can't exist by itself. It needs very large and efficient farms, or lots of small ones, to feed and support it. Each person living and working in a city needs x number of people working in the fields to feed him or her (where x changes due to agricultural methods and technology).

Each one of the Free Cities has supporting settlements, in some cases implied and in others outright confirmed:

• Pentos has the farmsteads on the Flatlands. There isn't anything a lot bigger out there, because of the Dothraki threat, but the Flatlands are huge so there could be a lot of small farms and trading settlements out there.
• Braavos controls the coast of Essos south for 450 miles, swings across the peninsula to the east and then controls the entire west coast of Lorath Bay. There's plenty of room there for forts, towns, villages and even small cities. Braavos actually needs quite a lot of supporting infrastructure given the lack of space on the islands to grow anything.
• Lorath itself is quite small, but it does control the east coast of Lorath Bay and the small city of Morosh at the mouth of the Sarne.
• Norvos explicitly has numerous towns and villages supporting it; Daenerys passes quite a few in AGoT. It controls a lot of territory up through the hills and mountains that share its name, and it controls mines and means of transport along the surrounding rivers. The surrounding territory could be quite densely populated.
• Qohor likely has logging settlements in the Forest of Qohor and fishing and transport villages along the Qhoyne. It controls the river almost to Dagger Lake, so it needs some form of infrastructure to ensure that control.
• Myr, Tyrosh and Lys all seem to be fairly large and control significant territories extending into the Disputed Lands. The Disputed Lands themselves are likely not so well-populated but the three cities need towns and forts to enforce their claims into the disputed territory. Lys and Tyrosh also need toeholds on the mainland, which are likely sizable ports themselves. The Heel of Essos, on which the Disputed Lands sit, is also called "fertile" in the world book suggesting that even its fringes could be reasonably populous.
• Volantis appears to control the most populous territory of the Free Cities. Volon Therys, Selhorys and Valysar are each bigger than King's Landing, so Volantis is far huger still (and described as such), its population likely well north of a million people. There are also other river towns and villages on the Rhoyne, plus there's the territory Volantis controls extending west into the Disputed Lands and along the Orange Coast. The total population of Volantis's territory is likely considerably larger than any of the Seven Kingdoms, but probably not as much as the Reach.

Factored on top of that are the populations of Omber, Saath, Mantarys etc. The Slaver's Bay cities all seem to be quite large and well-populated (Meereen, at least, is probably bigger than any city we've seen apart from Volantis and Braavos, and probably bigger than King's Landing). Even taking into account western Essos only, the population seems reasonably large. There isn't enough extant canon information to declare it larger than Westeros, but it's certainly not the case it's an uninhabited, barren wasteland apart from the nine Free Cities. That certainly isn't the case.

[YorEmixam]

1 hour ago, dmc515 said:

 Simply looking at the map depicts this.

I don't think Essos' map tells much. We know cities like Draconys but we don't even know where it is, or if its in ruins. They say it might have been on the Valyrian peninsula, but we are not sure. so for the map being rather empty, I think its because Grrm didnt put too much work on it, or in world they might only mark major place, maybe only for trade purpose, on their map.

[House Beaudreau]

17 hours ago, Abdallah said:

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) 

I think the combo army Dany is forming is actually the best force to take into Westeros

the Unsullied are a lock step legion. If the can form up and meet any foe in the field the are very formidable. Like the Spartens, lightly armor but protected by linked shields and long spears and short swords. Waves and waves of heavy Calvary will crash and break on even a single unit of the unsullied. The Spartans were bronze age warriors but that doesn't apply in GRRMs world because we have accounts of the Unsullied standing up to formidable cavalry charges.  

The Dothraki are the greatest horsemen in the world. They will scout, flank and charge as well as any Westerosi cavlary. The are at a disadvantage by not having armor, but most infantry in Westeros will be lightly armored as well and archers will probably only be wearing half helms. The Dothraki will cut down footmen as easily as you like. The Dothraki also have units of horseback archers that will mow down any  anti-calvery units like pikemen or foot archers. The Dothraki would make the best foragers in all the realm.( I doubt Dany would ever allow any of her units to attack smallfolk tho)

Any Sellsword companies she brings will age armored calvary and armored infantry. These companies will no doubt make up the Vanguards of any force Dany puts out. 

Dany will have the numbers on any force she meets in Westeros which mean a lot but if she invades during winter she will lose thousands to exposure and starvation. 

    

[DMC]

43 minutes ago, YorEmixam said:

I don't think Essos' map tells much.

Fair enough.  I was just conceding the point that as the maps stand now, Westeros seems far more developed in terms of rural populations than Essos.

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Factored on top of that are the populations of Omber, Saath, Mantarys etc.

Yeah my head-canon groups Mantarys with Elyria, Tolos, and New Ghis as part of Slaver's Bay, which underscores the point the region has quite a formidable population.

[Abdallah]

11 hours ago, Poupsi said:

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

The Mamluks were bought as children, usually from Central Asian Turkic peoples and Circassians but also included Armenians, Georgians, etc, depending on the dynasty that bought them. They were trained as Horse Archers and as heavy cavalry. They remind me alot of the role the cataphract played in Byzantine and Persian armies, minus how they were recruited. They were used against Byzantine Cataphracts, Crusader Knights, Ottoman Sipahis, Mongolian Horsemen and even the Russian Imperial Guard's Cavalry when fighting for Napolean at austerlitz. They had around 1000 years of History, I'm actually planning on writing a book on them.