astarkchoice

True Remebrr the bulk of sellsword companies will be essosi born and bred and they wear armour. The pit fighter barristan fought had never e countered plate but we do see they can make armoir for pit fighters , slave troops and even the man belwas kills outside mereen! Seems.more that pitfighter just hadnt seen plate, his niche was rippimg out and esting hearts so he was probably.never matched vs armour wearers either! Says the forts have fused stone walls 1000ft high! Just like westeros its clear something horrible.came.to essos a long lomg time.ago

Which is why part of the deal was soo many marriages ! Roose and tywins sister already married into the freys pre betrayal then there were 3 manderly- frey marriages and 3 more to lannisters (one being a bastard though) on top of house frey of riverrun being created. The red wedding planners would give a world where theres: House lannsiter of winterfell (sansa and tyrion) House frey of riverrun and house frey of the twins House bolton of hornwood (ramsay would need something) and bolton of the dreadfort lord of the north! House lannister of darry (gatehouse ami and lancel) House baelish of harrenhall overlord of the riverlands and husband + actining lord of the vale Devan lannnister to marry a frey and 3 manderlyd to do the same in a merling vourt filled with frey spies and kiss asses A bastard frey to joy hill (probably has a sweet dowry provided by uncle tywin) The remaining free karstarks plotting to have karrion killed to set up a pro bolton karhold Its an ugly future they set up, thankfully they couldnt have forseen that its unwinding due to all kinds of insane circumstances !!!

Its scummy as hell but its not just revenge, its a calculated ambush spurred by both wanting revenge and walders cold cowardly reassasment of robbs chances to win , its a massacre to end the war utterly and be tied deeply into the winning regime

Hmmm well the ironborn have slaves. The finest armour is supposedly made in essos and most of the sellsword companies men will be essosi born and bred.Numbers would be interesting Securiry wise you sre right but wallwise we dont hesr much of the huge essosi wall and its 5 forts to make a comparsion!

I dont think mereen is any more militarised its just a bit bigger and its harpy movement has ex gladiators to bulk its ranks. Yunkais elite seem to be stupidly giddly with an assured victory over danys mereen hence they have turned vast parts of their army into a joke carnival parade of clowns... but their inital stance vs dany outside their city by contrast seemed competently handled and winnable for them. As for troops outside the niche gladiators and assasins slavers bay seems to produce 3 types of troops the stupidly niche unsullied mass produced 'not worth the swords they carry' that the clanker lords have dressed up sections stupidly ..although we do hear of a lot of crossbows among them (tyrion mentions as useless vs the dragons) which are a good way to make even worthless troops semi effective And the cities guard + military forces, like the volantis tiger guards professional and probably way better treated than most slaves to the point the masters can trust them to put slaves down to keep the status quo intact! New ghis seems to be the exception and for it is far more martial, being largely cut out of the constant swathes of slaves driven by the dothraki to the bay has stopped them going as soft!! Other than that we see the man who fought on horseback vs strong belwas seems.to be a leftover of what was once a military /martial culture among the slaver nobles!

Well they do have assasin cults , ex gladiator muscle , roboticly obedient unsullied guards , sellswords etc to help stamp out growing slave rebellions! Volantis leaders for example seem to be leaning towards the golden company to wipe out the fire priests for them. The sudden and slick organisation of the harpies seems to hint maybe the slavers have done something similar before to keep slaves down just probably smaller scale (and without so many ex gladiators to employ as extra killers)

Itd be hard to see how the logistics of a new slave trade get set up given how dramaticaly the old one is about to burn. If most of the cities move to a bravosi model theyl be richer anyway prevebting slavery resurection. Ig may not go away altogether like westeros with the ironborn thralls but bar a huge essosi wide economic collapse it seems unlikely to ever reemerge at the same industrial scale it is depicted as now

Id say again the slavers are done, their revival seems highly unlikely The dothraki are an essential slave 'gathering ' part of slaver machinery and they are about to either follow anti slavery dany or shel possibly toast large numbers of them before she flees! Mereen is about to be resolved brutaly by the anti slaver forces victory and the fighting forces of the slavers themselves being disease ridden when they flee home. That leaves slavers bay ie the place where almost all slaves get processed/trained up an anti slaverly zone for some time. No slave training = no slaves The free cities we see slaves outnumber freemen 3 or 5 to 1 and are majority fire worshippers all ready to pop ans follow theit anti slavery messiahs example. In Volantis we see half the guard are fire worshippers, the head priest is there with his own 1000 strong force. The widow can get inside the inner black walls , has her own armed forces and says the entire slave population is ready to rock. Add in we know most mercs would be in the disputed lands (varys says they are heating up in 1st few books) and swarming towards bravos for stannis iron bank backed contact for 20k men so most will be too far to intervene in any way. Finaly we know the faceless men and bravos dont like slavery , they were in a position before where tbey had to accept it but now they are in a position to stamp it out anywhere it threatens to emerge

Hes shown himself to be a bad commander once! He shouldnt have diluted his forces so much pre jamies attack! The other command issue .... his inability to read robbs mind! Not a bad commander issue plus he did sucessfuly repel all of tywins pushes even one backed by a 7ft superhuman! Shit if we are talking a tully who fucked up leading its hoster! Utterly failed to bring lord frey to heel , pushed the blackfish away , left edmure unmarried and of course could not have handled the lysa/LF issue worse.....left her bitter and possibly messed up her fertility while tossing away what could have been the son in law to turn his family around!

I think there's some towers along those cliffs as it is. Balon is said to have climbed them as a boy and went into a lords tower possibly the keep at house flint!!!

Cant see how it would occur lady olenna has the reach region nicely tied up with the way the family is married. The tyrells have the claim to the region, they are tied to the powerful fossways , hightowers and redwynnes. She (queen of thorns) was a redwynne married to a tyrell. Her son mace married a hightower, her daughter another redwynne and a further daughter married to a green apple fossaway! Maces uncle is lord commander of oldtowns city watch and grandson garlan (the one whos apparently better than loras with a sword) to another fossway.... unkown red or green! If none of these marriages existed somehow and everyone else still existed itd come down to the hightowers vs the redwynnes! Two financial powerhouses...id lean towards rewynnes due to the flexibility their huge fleet gives and the defensive advatage of being an island off the coast. Therrs no such thing as marines at this stage so the fighting men on the redwynne fleet will be familiar with weapons theyl just need to redrill on the arbor for large scale battle drills in case ome is need to decide the war. The tarlys have randyll tarlys leadership but dont strike as an above adverage strength(by reach terms) numbers wise Minus their lordship of the reach the tyrells arent that strong themselves BUT the cunning of lady olenna and willas cant be discounted nor the martial prowess of garlan and loras to turn even a lopsided battle. But overall itd probably be house redwynne

They travel much much further to raid essos and so on, its got fresh water and food and trees and probably space and rich soft soil for those things to exist on (all things they are short on) , sounds bigger than most of the other ironislands and yes they most certinly do sow...in fact they do better when they 'sow' and only raid essos , its only the arrogant priviligend greyjoys who can afford to not 'sow'! Besides no one else is there..the north has no western fleet, so theres no one to contest them adding this new ripe large island to the bleak stoney iron islands!!

https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Aegon,_Rhaenys,_and_Visenya_(islands)

Red wedding 2.0 will virtualy exterminate the freys , the tullys will retake riverrun. Id doubt the lannsiters will keep darry nor littlefinger keep harrenhall.

I literaly take this as canon! The entire dorne arc and the viper going and clearly wanting revenge makes little sense without it. It ties in perfect with dorans entire niche of caring for innocents etc, he wants revenge but it has to be surgicaly precise not all out warfare