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Sparta at least had so many slaves because most were owned by the state, those who benefitted from their labour were not allowed to free them even if they wanted to.

That, and learning how to not be a massive bitch.

This fils me with joy. His reign as an cycling boss has resulted in a huge drop off in results from when it was team sky. Long may utd suck balls.

Youngest MP in Norway was 20 at the time (three years ago). Most often there are a few in their 20s each election. Pros for the young are that they're often idealistic, focused on solutions and impatient. Generally, those seeking office are also smart and hard working. Cons for me is that they've generally been in some sort of governing bodies (student councils, local councils, youth organizations etc) for a long time, and are very well known with how governing works now - socialized into it, as it happens - and thus less likely to see problems with the current way of organization of the government itself. Also, as they grow into government, they tend to display a lack of knowledge about working life. Those I teach leave us a 16, but I can easily imagine those *with an interest* doing as well or better than those they will replace. As mormont says, those who aren't really a good fit for government also tend not to seek it, as they don't have an interest. For me, I don't mind having young people in government. Having most walks of life represented is a plus, I believe. (As for the UK, I believe that running for office is expensive whether you win or lose, and that this limits your choice of candidates? Shame if so, as it will mean less representation from those not really half rich).

I've noticed you love being patronising and wrong, and trying to shut conversation down when you disagree with people. Its really quite dickish behavior. We are talking about suitability for someone to be a Councillor. Your experience of student politics is almost completely irrelevant. I on the other hand am a neighbourhood policing team inspector, my bread and butter is local politics. I have meetings weekly with multiple councillors and the local authority on the issues that they care about. And its not like I don't think young people have a voice, or ideas. I was responsible for setting up the only youth IAGs in the MET, i sat on multiple youth parliaments. Young people have great ideas, just not the life skills to implement them. Which is what is being discussed.

That looks completely bonkers. I love it!

I’d agree with this, I don’t trust career politicians and I think it tends to twist people’s priorities and world view. That’s why I would prefer having people in politics who understand the world to some degree, have experienced it, and to have learnt from their own mistakes. That might all be wishful thinking, but it’s one reason I genuinely think it’s very unlikely putting an 18 year old in charge of anything too important would be a good move. There might be some reincarnation of Alexander the Great I suppose but I don’t think they are hanging around town councils.

Industrialisation got going in regions that hadn’t had slavery for centuries. While slavery has been common in many parts of the world, the kind of chatteldom that is practised in Western Essos is pretty unusual. Only a few societies, like Sparta or Haiti, have had such disparity in numbers between slave and free.

Err... it was to my reading. This councillor is being written off based on their age, not their competence. Everything saying "I won't vote for an 18 year old" "18 year olds shouldn't be standing for office" is about age, not competence. If the only competent candidate is an 18 year old, then I'd happily vote for them (for a certain value of the word "happily") to keep out a whole bunch of incompetent 40-somethings. If anyone wants my actual opinion on ages for candidacy (let's face it, no-one does, but here goes anyway) If someone wants to enter politics, they should start at the bottom - not shoot high too early. Ideally, a career in politics would be parish council => town council => county council => parliament. And I have no problem whatsoever with a youth entering at the bottom level before they've sat their A-levels. I have no particular problem with a youth standing at town council level; I'm far more interested in their competence. In an even more ideal world, no-one should be seeing politics as a career, even if it turns out that way for them personally.

Slavery, I doubt, will be much of an issue. I’d expect the Dothraki to be well-sated with plunder, taken from Eastern masters. For them, taking slaves is simply a means to acquire luxury goods in exchange. In matters of religion, I’d expect Daenerys to be like Alexander.

What I'm getting from this topic is that Brandon Sanderson is George Lucas.

So it is not crossing "the poisoned waters". If there are Dothraki willing to follow Dany to that end, it is obvious that they would have left quite a few of their traditions behind. How small or how big Rhollorites zeal on Westeros will be remains entirely on how many will accompany her. If she's bringing them in the thousands sure Fremen mania, but a dozen priests are not going to do nothing Dany does not condone.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wNIUJJ5ons1Rkzv5fkolkSJ-5WI6AbrGiruKFsVOfFU/edit#gid=0 Casting google sheet for S2

Well, there's no doubt about this. ;-) The question is if Symon Hollard is indeed Denys's goodbrother, as the Worldbook says, making him Jon's (Denys's actual goodbrother) brother.

Considering that Daenerys is receiving major support from Rhollorites and fire priests in particular, and many of people coming with her will be followers of R'h'llor, I expect religious dimension to conflict to be significant. Not so certain about that. Even if she herself will not condone any of that, she will not be able to entirely stop her followers from doing it either. Slavery is a big part of Dothraki culture, and Rhollorites are extremely agressive about proselytization.

Good brother always seemed to me to be the same thing as brother-in-law.

So are we looking at a hint about that old dream, and if so why now [ok, March] ?

I wouldn't be so sure of that given lots of R'hlorr followers will likely be part of Daenerys' army, and will view her as a messianic figure. Not to say whether Daenerys herself decides to endorse this, but I doubt whether she would be able clamp down on it effectively. Some people seem to assume Daenerys will just magically be able to instill absolute discipline amongst Dothraki and religious fanatics. While I certainly think she would order them not to plunder and so on I think the effectiveness of such an order would be questionable. The only military force we see that doesn't plunder seems to be The Holy Hundred.

The Lies of Locke Lamora is on sale for 3.99

WRT losses on the Hungarian Marches, and other frontiers between Christians and Muslims, there was a religious dimension to that conflict that will be lacking in this case. Threatening peoples’ religion is the surest way of motivating them to fight to the death. Which is why sensible imperialists don’t threaten the local religion. And, capture in such fights usually meant enslavement. Dany won’t be stupid enough to force people to convert to R’hllor, or impose special taxes on followers of the Seven or the devsirme. Nor will she be taking slaves.

Because I had heard that idea being thrown around like a lot. No, they will not. You think that Daenerys is some all-controlling divine entity... when in reality, even people claiming to be such failed at controlling their followers. Unless Daenerys takes a page from Stannis' book and decides to castrate anyone who rapes, she will not be able to stop Dothraki from doing that. And yes, Dothraki are savages. Being "fanatically loyal to Daenerys" would only make them worse, not better, because you would be adding religious motivation to their savagery. Simple: Martin used actual historical armies as a model, which resulted in Westerosi armies being far more professional than he perhaps intended them to be. Uh, that is not how logistics works. Fact that Renly amassed 100 000 men rather indicates that they were not living off the land, especially since his march was noted as being slow. An army living off the land has to be relatively small, and it has to keep moving in order to avoid exhausting local resources. Neither of which we see with Renly's army. Rather, he was almost certainly living off supplies that would normally have gone to King's Landing. That was in fact his strategy. And if so, that means he wasn't actually imposing any additional burden onto the food situation. I'm certain they will be around for initial battles. I doubt they will be there for much longer than that. Their point is to have something to counter Westerosi massive superiority in cavalry. Visenya Targaryen won allegiance of the Vale because lord of the Vale was a child who wanted to ride a dragon. Do you think all lords in Westeros will die and get replaced by children? And for "real threat of military invasion" she needs military, which is exactly my point. Golden Company were dumped all across the Stormlands by the captains... because storms had scattered the fleet. “To go north, you must journey south, to reach the west you must go east. To go forward you must go back and to touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow” She is not going to land at King's Landing. Ah yes, ripe fruit falls into Daenerys lap with no effort because Mary Sue power... Learn something about sailing, please. And about history in general, for that matter. Gulltown to Eastwatch is a coastal route. That means ships can easily navigate by sight of the shore, and have available shelter in case of storms. Not the case for ships crossing the Narrow Sea. And? Daenerys will just magically create 100 000 ships necessary to feed Westeros with food from Essos and magically order the seas to calm down so that she can transport that food to Westeros? Have you been reading A House of Cats by mistake? Dothraki are the furthest thing from disciplined, and they despise anyone who is not a horse nomad. Also LOL at talking about "xenophobic or racist peasant" when Dothraki themselves are xenophobic and racist. Learn some history, please. https://theecologist.org/2015/may/13/rebellion-and-hunger-how-drought-and-food-scarcity-are-fanning-flames-war And sure, people are likely to flee. But Croatia lost 80% of population defending itself from the Ottomans rather than accept foreign rule. So no matter how you look at it, Daenerys' foreign forces are a liability. Warfare in the Riverlands didn't last for thirty years. Repeated foraging of the same areas can indeed lead to exhaustion and depopulation, but it takes a long time for that to happen. Sure. Except Aegon's campaign at least looks like it will be a fairly straightforward one, especially if you are correct and he doesn't actually go and establish control over most of Westeros. Right now, to gain de iure control over Westeros, all he really has to do is defeat Lannister-Tyrell army in the field and then take King's Landing. Cersei had dismissed most of her forces back to Westerlands.

All the more reason to leave Westeros to its fate. The reason why Dany felt it was her obligation to help slaves and the reason why Dany'd feel it's her obligation to help Westeros are quite different, one it's moral the other is duty. As Westeros queen to be, it'd be her duty to help Westeros, but Westeros isn't a country of slaves so she'd expect the country to give her her dues. What Dany might do to help the people of Westeros without expecting reward is to change the system of serfdom that is in place in the country for something less, even if slightly, oppresive, a la Aegon V but with tools to back up her demands.

I always read it as sum up of Hollards who died, as such i have never read Robin as being the son of Jon. I suppose you could, but it is not the first thing that comes to mind, at least for me, so i think is ambiguous and we should be careful not to assume that Robin is Jon's son without more than one sentence to go on. I don't have the ice and fire app maybe someone who does can look there for additional information. Or its one of the mistakes in WoIaF since he is only mentioned as good-brother there. @Ran perhaps you can shed some light on the good-brother thing?

I'm willing to bet your experience of both politics and student politics is very, very limited and not recent. So yeah, they're similar. In fact they're very similar to council politics, and both of those are regarded as very good training grounds for things like being an MP. I'm not sure why you're so invested in me being wrong about an area I've been working in for two and a half decades and you've never worked in, to my knowledge. But let's leave it at this: 18 year olds are allowed to stand and voters are allowed to pick them.

There are rumours going around that Sadiq Khan might be in trouble in the London Mayoral elections. Susan Hall is said to be hoovering up ULEZ votes in the outer regions and there seems to be apathy and low turnout in general which might hurt Khan. Personally I am highly dubious of these rumours, even if it might not be a huge win for Khan. Susan Hall is just awful, and full scale moron, and as much as I also think Khan has just been a terrible mayor, there were zero credible candidates to challenge him. Having said that, the ULEZ thing really is a factor that has stirred a lot of ‘white van men’ into being political where they might totally uninterested in who is mayor. So who knows.