The Young Maester

I genuinely think Renly was a nice character, but thats all he was. All you need to do is look at his performance as master of laws. He attended the small council to jest with Baelish. As master of laws we havent seen him try to bring in new ideas for the council or attempt to do something about the corruption of the city watch, which obviously would’ve been useless anyways because Robert didn’t care and Janos Slynt was in littlefingers pocket. But still, if he never did take his post as master of laws seriously what makes people think he’d make a decent king. He might just be another Robert.

As long as no westerlander soldier dies. He is probably happy as long as he gets results. He realised that robb was going to lose the war.

You could start your own thread on this. But be aware that it will bring a lot of heated discussions. Arguments*

For Tywin to have been as responsible for the red wedding as you say. I believe he most have at least ordered the red wedding. If he did than he is probably far more guilty than those that executed it. But we don’t know if he ordered the slaughter of guests during a wedding. But we can assume that he told them what he wanted out of this deal. Its even possible that Tywin just told them to cut off Robb from the north and attack his army from the rear and front. And maybe the Freys came up with the red wedding solution. And as long as no Lannister was involved, Tywin probably thought why not.

I think you’re overthinking it mate.

I think Tywin just told them to kill Robb and take all the nobles as hostages.

I don’t think they’ll ever meet. But if/when Aegon takes the throne, he won’t have time to handle northern affairs even if he had a dragon he’d have his hands full trying to stabilise Westeros. Not to forget that for him to gain a dragon Dany most be in Westeros with her 3 dragons. So you have that other issue of Dany being a possible threat. So Aegon flying north is very unlikely. However an encounter between Dany and Jon is very likely.

Because they are smart. They would the see the nights watch as a bigger threat than the wildlings. Mance and the free folk were doing the job for the others. If the wall falls to the wildlings it will be easier to attack it. The wildlings will definitely man the wall with more numbers but they are not the nights watch. They dont possess the skills of the black brothers. And I very much doubt many will be happy with manning the wall. They’ll likely just raid the richer lands to the south, no matter what mance orders from them. And also if they call for aid from the other realms (which they won’t anyways) no one will come. Although we dont know what the others know about Westeros and its politics. It is very possible that the others are aware of how useful the wildlings will be to them and also how easy it will be to breach the wall with wildlings manning it.

Not expecting it to happen just saying that I wouldn’t be surprised if George decided to pull thousands of soldiers from some northern lords ass. The Ryswells also sent the least possibly men. We dont witness riders from the rills, and we didnt see Lord Ryswell and his sons march south with their levies. Thats an indication that levies were the only things sent with some lordling as their commander. Yes hedge knights and outriders from the white knife no doubt heard of the call to arms. But the landed knights along with the lords and their retainers. They wouldnt have marched to winterfell unless ordered by Wyman. A lord and knight will be more loyal to his local liege lord than to the lord of winterfell. Wyman indicates himself that he still possesses a large number of man and the strongest cavalry in the north. Of the 1500 the fat lord sent south, maybe 300-500 of these are mounted horsemen. Yes but their first oath is to white harbour not to winterfell. Unless they are outriders and hedge knights. The wealthier ones that hold lands wont go to winterfell because they most wait for the muster from white harbour. Manderly definitely kept more than half his strength behind. And if he presumes to have the strongest cavalry in the north than that puts him at at least 1500-2000 cavalry in ADWD. If the Freys are able to muster 1000 cavalry than I think Manderly most have double their numbers.

Yeah but knowing George, their is a possibility that he might just decide that the north needs more man at arms and decide to give them thousands of professional soldiers. It wouldnt be realistic but than again anything related to warfare in this series isnt exactly realistic. Now if most of all the proper soldiers came from the barrowlands, rills, and white harbour. Than maybe it would look a bit more realistic. All three of these houses sent a small portion of their levies (white harbour probably sent a bigger percentage). So it be more realistic if all the man at arms, retainers, and knights came from these 3 houses. The men that these 3 houses aren’t exactly reserves neither. They barely sent any mounted soldiers which indicates they sent mainly levy’s. So these 3 houses still have a strong portion of their professional soldiers.

Bernard Cornwell has written some pretty good books. His books and series arent really full on fiction. More like a fictional character put into certain eras of our own history e.g. viking era, middle ages, Napoleonic wars, american civil war etc. But they are definitely worth a read. One of his most recent series is the Saxon series. It is a well written series about an anglo-saxon boy raised with danes during the Great heathens army invasion of england. It spams 12 books and the last book is due to come out this october. Their is also a tv series called the last kingdom which is adapted from the books (tv show is decent considering they have a limited budget.) Other than that he has made other great series like sharpe, warlord, the grail quest, and others. Bernard is very good at creating a fictional character and being able to fit this character into an historical scenario without ruining or changing the history of that certain period.

George seems to treat warrior classes equally. He would say the north has a manpower pool of 45k, and most likely decide that they are all disciplined soldiers capable of fighting as a cohesive force when the opportunity arises. The next day he treats them as peasants conscripted into their lords army. It is sort of a wild card on what he will do here. It is pretty clear that robb took most of the real soldiers (knights, retainers, man-at-arms etc.). But if 10k-15k men appear in winterfell, I wouldnt be surprised if allot of them seem like actual soldiers and not peasants with scythes, pitchforks and spears.

Lol yeah, I agree with you. Besides the unrealistic Warfare. The whole agriculture and bipolar seasons is what really puts me off. If it wasnt for the amazing character creation and development, id probs avoid its books.

It takes 2 years for a horse to be fully grown from birth. And with the long seasons, a horse wouldnt be experiencing the harsh winters.

It could be something similar to the aftermaths of the Black Plague. The peasants realising that their is little competition for certain jobs, started asking for higher wages from their bosses, and if the boss refused it would be very hard for them to find a replacement that is good enough. So they’d cave into their demands.