Technological evolution in the Martin's Universe.

[Melonica Stormborn]

@ Melonica Stormborn

With regards to gunpowder, IMO the biggest reason that it gets left out is because it ruins everything that is fun about fantasy. Once you have widespread cannon use, castles start to become less and less useful, there is less need for lengthy sieges or siege tower use, less flinging of diseased corpses by trebuchet. It also means that, as Napoleon said, (paraphrasing) God favors the side with the best artillery.

Yeah, that's what I meant when I said many plot points would be moot if we introduce it in the story. For me that's the only answer I really need, and I only tried to rationalize for the sake of conversation. :D

[Fire Eater]

January 21, 2000

Technology in Westeros

There is an aspect of a SOI&F (and all high/medieval fanatasy) which has me puzzled. Why is there so little technological procees? The Starks have been medieval lords and kings for millenia, and it seems that there is very little chance of Westeros ever progessing beyond a medieval society. Is this becuase the existence of magic inhibits or precludes linear technological progress?

Oh, I wouldn't go that far.

I don't know that "linear technological progress" is necessarily inevitable in a society. In fact, if you look at our real world, it only happened once. Other cultures and societies existed for hundreds and in some cases thousands of years without ever experiencing major technological change.

In the specific case of Westeros, the unpredictable nature of the seasonal changes and the harshness of the winters must play a role.

I do think that magic perhaps makes development of the scientific method less likely. If men can fly by means of a spell, do you ever get the Wright Brothers? Or even daVinci? An interesting question, and I'm not sure I know the answer.

Technology does help make power easier to obtain like peasants with firearms, but power has a price for a reason. Power, otherwise, requires sacrifice (time, discipline, etc.) to be obtained with an example being martial arts; by the time a student becomes a master with the ability to kill a man with his bare hands, he doesn't do so unwisely, because by that point he's matured and that kind of power has a built in control so it won't be abused. It is similar with knighthood, knights have to learn how to fight from a young age to gain their power, but there are exceptions like Gregor and Lorch.

[the titan of westeros]

I had actually thought of this a couple times and i figure its the fact that people can accomplish things with magic that we can with technology. Also the fact that winter can last for a decade people are more concerned with food here than technology. For the magic standpoint in ASOIAF someone would wish they could fly so they try to hatch dragons whereas here they wish they could fly the work on engines and build an airplane. And in the north people are just hoping that the weather holds up and are focused on farming, nevermind the fact that the whitewalker invasion probably restarted the whole system again and digressed people thousands of years since humanity was almost wiped out. We didnt have that little problem the worst setback we had in technology was the burning of the library of alexandria which couldnt have set developments back more than 100 years. The people here had to repopulate the planet after they were almost wiped out.

[ab aeterno]

Technology does help make power easier to obtain like peasants with firearms, but power has a price for a reason. Power, otherwise, requires sacrifice (time, discipline, etc.) to be obtained with an example being martial arts; by the time a student becomes a master with the ability to kill a man with his bare hands, he doesn't do so unwisely, because by that point he's matured and that kind of power has a built in control so it won't be abused. It is similar with knighthood, knights have to learn how to fight from a young age to gain their power, but there are exceptions like Gregor and Lorch.

Great work digging up that quote! I guess that really answers the question. Well done!

[Which Tyler]

Coming into this one having read about half way through.

No way does history stretch back 12000 years. We know all about the unreliable observer, and we also know about projecting current trends backwards.

No way has that technology stagnated in that time - after all, we've gone from stone/obsidian weapons, through bronze, and iron, and are now on steel - I believe that's called progress, not stagnation.

No way is technological evolution a straight line, or in any way inevitable.

We don't know what the physical resources are like (do they even have a convenient supply of saltpetre, coal or oil?).

And that's without mentioning the inhibiting effects of Westerosi seasons.

Oh, and magic is in a lull at the moment - the only thing we know about magic from before 120 years or so ago, is that it was more common.

ETA: now I've read through, the North/South vs East/West continental stretch is also very relevant

[littleRickon]

ETA: now I've read through, the North/South vs East/West continental stretch is also very relevant

oh, seems like someone else read "Guns, Germs and Steel"?

great book!

[Septon Meribald]

oh, seems like someone else read "Guns, Germs and Steel"?

great book!

A good read, but the effect of the North/South and East/West axis is overstated. It's also not relevant to any technological discussion in Westeros. Essos has an East/West axis and is no more than a couple hundred miles from Westeros. The Narrow Sea is much closer to the Mediterranean than the Atlantic. Trade is frequent across it and Westeros shares the same temperate climate with most of Essos. I am a firm believer that technology in the World of Ice and Fire has not in fact stagnated and that it's progress is no slower than it should be, but that's not a factor affecting it in my opinion.

[Spring Bass]

I think the Valyrian Freehold's domination of western Essos retarded the technological advancement of weaponry for centuries. It's extremely difficult to kill one dragon, nevermind a whole flight of them being guided by human riders. Those dragons would have made it suicidal for any potential anti-Valyrian forces in the Freehold's territory to attempt combat in open battle with massed formations, and they also offer a devastating way to break sieges (as demonstrated at Harrenhal). Since the primary use of early gunpowder weapons was in sieges and massed infantry formations, they would very limited in their use within the Freehold's territory.

The more prominent use of magic not just in the Freehold, but worldwide, also almost certainly retarded technological development. In low-literacy societies where the intellectual elite are a small minority, magic would have offered an alternative path of study compared to both philosophy and "natural philosophy"/incipient science. The Maesters are an exception to that, but they're also recent - I get the strong impression that they emerged in the past couple of centuries, only a few hundred years before the Targaryens conquered Westeros.