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Why are the no Earls Or Dukes Or Barons In Game Of Thrones?


manchester_babe

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It unnecessarily complicates things. 

Unless you're from a very specific culture or a royal history fan, most people don't know the difference between any of these. King/Queen and Lord/Lady are simple and need no complicated explanations for anyone not familiar with royal rankings.

Also avoided were any well-defined laws, a justice system, economics, etc. 

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Dook, Dook, Dook, Dook of Earl, Dook of Earl, Dook, Dook of Earl, Dook, Dook of, etc, etc.

If the books had been written by a Brit maybe there would have been some effort at providing a hierarchy of the nobility. But they weren't and  there wasn't.

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GRRM has said in the past that in retrospect he might have added a rank or two more.

16 hours ago, Light a wight tonight said:

If the books had been written by a Brit maybe there would have been some effort at providing a hierarchy of the nobility. But they weren't and  there wasn't.

Lol, I remember when I first read the books as a kid, I was genuinely confused as to why there weren't ranks. I didn't realise that that was me being quintessentially British.

Before reading ASOIAF, I was a big fan of Raymond E Feist's Midkemia books, but I find them pretty much unreadable now. He has a very rigid hierarchy for his lords: baron < earl < duke. To me, it is an example of how basic his world is in comparison to GRRM's. The lack of distinction between the nobility reflects the fluid and confusing nature of the 7K. 

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19 hours ago, manchester_babe said:

Basically, why aren't there any other titles besides Lady & Lord in Game Of Thrones?

So Spake Martin:

Quote

The number of titles of medieval nobility multiplied over times, as the feudal system became more complex and the social structure more layered, with various degrees of precedence, etc. In the earlier periods -- say, England around the time of Henry I and William II Rufus -- all those different titles did not exist. I prefered the simplicity of those times. In hindsight, I probably should have added a least one more title to differentiate the great houses from their vassals, but I am glad I stayed clear of using the whole roster of noble stylings.

 

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2 hours ago, The Sunland Lord said:

I quite needed to adjust to some of the titles there already. Hedge knight, landed knight, sworn knight, castellan, lord, queen regent, king who is not of age, a king. 

Of all those only lord and king/queen are titles in the sense of a title of nobility. The rest are just jobs. Although knight is a proper rank, the 'Knight of Junkhold' pattern is basically an emulation of lordly styles.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Besides missing a middle tier between Lord and Knight/Master, GRRM gave us "knight" which could mean any of the three:

- a heavy cavalryman

- a noble landowner (landed knight)

- an anointed knight or "Ser"

With overlap :)

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ecause it would unnecessarily complicate the world. Maybe a different title for the minor lords that rank between a house; Karstark, for example; and landed knights could have been used but I, for one, am glad Martin chose to avoid this. Hell, I'm a brit myself and I don't have a clue about the ranks of our nobility. I know the three titles but not what order they go in or anything like that. On the flip side, I don't have any trouble understanding which lord is which rank in Westeros despite their being only the one title.

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