Westerosi civil wars

[aadam13]

27 minutes ago, Bironic said:

If you look at how interchangeable they use the words "war", "rebellion", "uprising" etc. I don't think that there is a specific Westerosi definition of civil war.

I mean they use the word rebellion for regional conflicts such as in Skagosi Rebellion or Reyne-Tarbeck rebellion as well as in conflicts that engulfed almost all the 7Kingdoms such as in Robert's Rebellion or First Blackfyre Rebellion, or conflicts that were something in between such as the Greyjoy rebellion. Furthermore Robert's rebellion is named after one of the main leaders while the Blackfyre rebellions, the Greyjoy Rebellion and the Reyne-Tarbeck Rebellion are named after the main houses that rebelled, the Skagosi rebellion is either named after the Island were the rebellion took place or after the people who live there. They don't use one word for a failed attempt (first blackfyre rebellion)and another for a succesful attempt (robert's rebellion). I mean they call the second Blackfyre rebellion a rebellion when we would rather call it a failed attempt to launch a civil war or a botched coup d'etat.

The Westerosi use the word uprising once in a context of a religious order and once in the context of a noble family.  And that's not even mentioning the "War of the 5 Kings", "the war of the Usurper", "the dance of Dragons" or the "the defiance of Duskendale".

There is no pattern whatsoever.

However as I said before, the First Blackfyre rebellion and Roberts's Rebellion (War of the Usurper) were called that to make them seem smaller then they actually were. And the other 3 wars I classes as civil wars just use war which as I explained before was normal in medieval times.

[Bironic]

18 hours ago, aadam13 said:

However as I said before, the First Blackfyre rebellion and Roberts's Rebellion (War of the Usurper) were called that to make them seem smaller then they actually were.

Yes that could be a reason.

Although I think Roberts rebellion seems to be the name that is most often used by the Rebels (who don't have a reason to diminish their accomplishment), while War of the Usurper is most often used by Viserys and Daenerys and probably other Targ loyalists too, most likely to point out that they see Robert as an Usurper and not a legitimate King.

And we do have the second Blackfyre rebellion, which was way smaller in terms of casualties than the other known rebellions. So why should they make it bigger than it was by calling it Rebellion?

Why not call it Blackfyre intrigue, or coup d'etat, or first Peake uprising, or Butterwell defiance, or second Blackfyre attempt, or second blackfyre conflict, or Blackfyre skirmish, or the fiddler's bloody tourney. 

Bottomline is IMHO that there is no westerosi definition of war/rebellion/civil war etc. They just use one of these words randomly, while sticking most of the times to the term rebellion, which is as you pointed out the most used during medieval times.

 

[aadam13]

44 minutes ago, Bironic said:

Yes that could be a reason.

Although I think Roberts rebellion seems to be the name that is most often used by the Rebels (who don't have a reason to diminish their accomplishment), while War of the Usurper is most often used by Viserys and Daenerys and probably other Targ loyalists too, most likely to point out that they see Robert as an Usurper and not a legitimate King.

And we do have the second Blackfyre rebellion, which was way smaller in terms of casualties than the other known rebellions. So why should they make it bigger than it was by calling it Rebellion?

Why not call it Blackfyre intrigue, or coup d'etat, or first Peake uprising, or Butterwell defiance, or second Blackfyre attempt, or second blackfyre conflict, or Blackfyre skirmish, or the fiddler's bloody tourney. 

Bottomline is IMHO that there is no westerosi definition of war/rebellion/civil war etc. They just use one of these words randomly, while sticking most of the times to the term rebellion, which is as you pointed out the most used during medieval times.

 

In regards to Blackfyre point about the Second Blackfyre rebellion is that like the Jacobite rebellions (which the Blackfyre rebellion's are most likely based off), is that since they all have the same aim (put Daemon Blackfyre/his line or put James I/ his male line on the throne) they just call it the 2nd, 3rd one etc. For example all the Jacobite rebellion had no chance of success short of the 1745 one, which had more traits of (the archaic meaning) a civil war, however the historians of the time didn't then decide to call it by a diffrent name and just called the Jacobite rising of 1745 like the smaller one of 1715.

P.S. 

Your constant questioning of the meaning of a medieval civil war (when a country in split in two equal parts or multiple parts ) and a medieval rebellion ( a small part of the country rebelling), made me research it more and I found it did not actually stop being used by the end of the medieval times and was used up until the 19th century (as showed by the Jacobite rebellions/Uprisings) when it got it's current meaning. Which is why I used archaic instead of medieval for the old meaning of civil war since using medieval is incorrect.  

[Bironic]

18 minutes ago, aadam13 said:

In regards to Blackfyre point about the Second Blackfyre rebellion is that like the Jacobite rebellions (which the Blackfyre rebellion's are most likely based off), is that since they all have the same aim (put Daemon Blackfyre/his line or put James I/ his male line on the throne) they just call it the 2nd, 3rd one etc. For example all the Jacobite rebellion had no chance of success short of the 1745 one, which had more traits of (the archaic meaning) a civil war, however the historians of the time didn't then decide to call it by a diffrent name and just called the Jacobite rising of 1745 like the smaller one of 1715.

 

I agree that this is the reason.

18 minutes ago, aadam13 said:

Your constant questioning of the meaning of a medieval civil war (when a country in split in two equal parts or multiple parts ) and a medieval rebellion ( a small part of the country rebelling), made me research it more and I found it did not actually stop being used by the end of the medieval times and was used up until the 19th century (as showed by the Jacobite rebellions/Uprisings) when it got it's current meaning. Which is why I used archaic instead of medieval for the old meaning of civil war since using medieval is incorrect.  

I am not questioning that people before the 19th century used the term rebellion. As you already proved that the word civil war was not used prior to the 17th century and that the term rebellion remained popular even in later centuries (jacobites etc.).

I am just saying that I call it a civil war now, if it fits the modern term, not the archaic. For me for example the First Baron's war is a civil war, even if people prior to the 19th century wouldn't call it that way, or if it didn't fit the archaic definition. We have to probably agree to disagree in this matter, since we seem to talk in circles.

If I got your point right you are saying that we shouldn't use modern terms to describe archaic "things"(in lack of a better word), while I am saying that we can apply modern terms to archaic "things". I can live with both POV, since both have their benefits and problems, I just prefer one version over the other. If I sounded rude sometimes, I apologize, I didn't mean to offend you (my english isn't the best either).

 

[aadam13]

On 11/14/2016 at 8:26 PM, Bironic said:

I agree that this is the reason.

I am not questioning that people before the 19th century used the term rebellion. As you already proved that the word civil war was not used prior to the 17th century and that the term rebellion remained popular even in later centuries (jacobites etc.).

I am just saying that I call it a civil war now, if it fits the modern term, not the archaic. For me for example the First Baron's war is a civil war, even if people prior to the 19th century wouldn't call it that way, or if it didn't fit the archaic definition. We have to probably agree to disagree in this matter, since we seem to talk in circles.

If I got your point right you are saying that we shouldn't use modern terms to describe archaic "things"(in lack of a better word), while I am saying that we can apply modern terms to archaic "things". I can live with both POV, since both have their benefits and problems, I just prefer one version over the other. If I sounded rude sometimes, I apologize, I didn't mean to offend you (my english isn't the best either).

 

No, I don't think you were being rude. However you did get my point incorrect, my point is that since Westeros is set in what we would call medieval times, we should use how we called civil wars back in medieval times for the definition of what the Westerosi would call their civil wars.Which is what this topic is about, what the Westerosi would call civil wars. I was not saying that we should use the archaic meaning for words when talking about them words in the days when that was the meaning for the word. Just to be clear I am not blaming you for thinking I said this, since I am not a good writer.      

[Bironic]

14 hours ago, aadam13 said:

No, I don't think you were being rude. However you did get my point incorrect, my point is that since Westeros is set in what we would call medieval times, we should use how we called civil wars back in medieval times for the definition of what the Westerosi would call their civil wars.Which is what this topic is about, what the Westerosi would call civil wars. I was not saying that we should use the archaic meaning for words when talking about them words in the days when that was the meaning for the word. Just to be clear I am not blaming you for thinking I said this, since I am not a good writer.      

So I agree with you since westerosi seem to use mostly medieval terms such as rebellion to desrcibe their civil wars. Which makes complete sense since they live in a medieval setting.

But I don't think they have a clear definition of civil war. They use other words as well, such as uprising or simply war. And they don't use one term for say regional conflicts and another for larger conflicts.They just use them as synonyms.

[aadam13]

2 hours ago, Bironic said:

So I agree with you since westerosi seem to use mostly medieval terms such as rebellion to desrcibe their civil wars. Which makes complete sense since they live in a medieval setting.

But I don't think they have a clear definition of civil war. They use other words as well, such as uprising or simply war. And they don't use one term for say regional conflicts and another for larger conflicts.They just use them as synonyms.

I agree