Diaspora. The Future of Essos and Westeros.

[Bullrout]

The question of population, specifically controlling human population, has been brought up repeatedly on this forum.  Curiously, I do not recall it brought up in the novels other than the people of the north who voluntarily kill themselves to help conserve resources when the weather is harsh.  At least it has not been directly addressed in the novels.  There are things we know that we can build upon to support a theory that the land does have a way to control population growth and to contain the spread.

1. Asshai is thinly populated though it covers an area considerably larger than any known city.
2. The Dothraki Sea has endless miles of grasslands but very little human habitation other than the nomadic horse people.
3. The western land mass had, until recently, been devoid of humans.
4. The Targaryens waited a century to build their kingdom on the western landmass.  They could have done it easier when they had more dragons.  For that matter, the Valyrians could have expanded westwards but chose to stop at Dragonstone.
5. The Stepstones was a land bridge in ancient days.  Likely this is due to lower sea levels.

Westeros does not appear to be over populated.  Not by our standards anyway.  But I believe it is worth considering the possibility that humans were never meant to live in the west.  The land belonged to the Children, giants, and god knows who or what else.  To the Others, it is the humans who are the invaders.  Humans have short, fleeting lifespans but that may not hold true for the Others.  Maybe they remember a time when the land was free of humans.  They're only coming back to retake what belonged to them.  The Children are like our Native Americans.  They lived in harmony with nature until the foreign invaders came along.  They tried to coexists but the invaders started clearing the forests and cutting down their trees.  The Others want to take back control of their land and bring balance back to nature.  History is a lie.  The Children lived in harmony with nature.  The Others are a force of nature and they had an agreement with the Children.  Instead of the weirwood repelling the Others perhaps it is the opposite.  The Others and the Children need the weirwoods. 

The First Men, the Rhoynar, and the Andals migrated to the west.  The Valyrians knew of this pact and stayed out.  Perhaps they knew of the dangers.  The First Men knew nothing about this pact.  Or maybe they did but stayed on anyway.  Whatever the reason may be, man established on the land and built his stone castles, cleared the forest for the livestock, and chopped the trees for building material.  Now the situation has come to a head.  The Children are active again in a desperate move to get rid of man.  Bloodraven is on their side and wants to push man across the Stepstones and back to the east.  This is the best time because sea levels will fall during the long winter and the land bridge will be passable again.  Should that prove impossible, the Others may be content with pushing man to the south and out of the north.

A similar event must have happened in Essos.  Very little is actually known of the lands north of the Five Forts.  It was probably the boundary between man and whatever is on the other side.  The war between man and the Essos Others took its toll and the population in many areas remain small to this day.  If we carefully consider the myths and the legends of Azor Ahai, the woman with the monkey's tail, Hyrkoon, it seems something similar to the long night happened in Essos.  A big war with a powerful foe that left most of the humans dead.  The population was greatly reduced.  Asshai was a war zone and just like the Romans sowing salt to destroy the farm lands, man's enemy did the same thing but with something worse than sea salt.  Ghost Grass, a powerful biological weapon that kills food crops. 

 

[Wolf's Bane]

Craster found a way to live side by side with the WW.  Is it possible the people of Asshai pay for the safety of Essos with baby sacrifices?  Blood sacrifice is evil to us but it saves many lives.  Battles kill thousands of men that can be avoided with periodic sacrifices of baby boys.

[Varysblackfyre321]

8 minutes ago, Wolf's Bane said:

Craster found a way to live side by side with the WW.  Is it possible the people of Asshai pay for the safety of Essos with baby sacrifices?  Blood sacrifice is evil to us but it saves many lives.  Battles kill thousands of men that can be avoided with periodic sacrifices of baby boys.

Is it possible the wildlings are really just Westeroes's sacrifices to the others? And really the NW was meant to keep the wildlings in for harvest? I mean surely after hundreds and thousands of years the majority of people would get tired and try to migrate south. Meh, not likely. 

[Wolf's Bane]

Just now, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Is it possible the wildlings are really just Westeroes's sacrifices to the others? And really the NW was meant to keep the wildlings in for harvest? I mean surely after hundreds and thousands of years the majority of people would get tired and try to migrate south. Meh, not likely. 

Now that is an interesting thought.  The wildlings are the feeder fish to keep the white walkers happy. 

[Varysblackfyre321]

15 minutes ago, Wolf's Bane said:

Now that is an interesting thought.  The wildlings are the feeder fish to keep the white walkers happy. 

Meh, not really much textual evidence. I mean there is a whole Other of such practices being common before (the others "take" instead of steal you implies it was an offering some say), but really such a thing seems to be far-fetched.

And the wildlings proudly say they chose their lot beyond the wall...but then again that could be something that's been grilled into their minds for so long they've forgotten the truth. 

But come on. 

 

[Lady Dacey]

I think the whole idea of "Westeros should never have been populated by man" hard to consider. I believe the fact that we get more of the "before men history" of Westeros is due to the fact that the story is set mostly in that continent and that all POV characters are westerosi - but Essos probably also had magical creatures around before men established themselves. 

The First Men coming from Essos to Westeros through the now-gone Arm of Dorne is akin to the well-accepted (though disputed) theory that the first human populations in the American continent were Homo sapiens that crossed the Bering Strait from Asia to North America. Even the supposed origins of the First Men ethnic group (the Dothraki grass land) are parallel to real natural history of the spread of people around the continents. 

[300 H&H Magnum]

• The weirwood is like an afterlife to the COTF.  One can hardly blame them from protecting their chance for everlasting life. 
• I think fire and ice take turns bringing their own brand of destruction.  Valyria was destroyed by fire.  The north will be destroyed by ice.