Universal Sword Donor

I was a fan of the concept of the great ranging, just quibbled with the numbers. Would have left more men back at CB and increased the patrols on top of the wall. Not much one can do to predict wights and WW, which is ironically one of the things he sent out to find (where Waymar and Benjen went).

I've seen some theories / guesses that sheepstealer or cannibal could still be around and may have taken part in the skagosi rebellion. Cannibal would be far too old for that based on what we know but Sheepstealer was young enough to make it possible. She'd be as big as Vhagar was when she died, most likely, so being around without notice or attempted capture would be quiet perplexing given the Targs like Aegon V and Aerion Brightstar.

It's a fantasy book with dragons and zombies.

The IB rely heavily on fishing and don't really have much in the way of animals, at least beasts of burden. Theon notes that thralls working the fields pull the tills themselves. Pretty sure goats are mentioned though

A farmer can be more than a man who just who trades a spear for a hoe. The historical precedent that GRRM draws upon would have Steelshanks listed as a fairly well-to-do land owner or someone equipped by that person. No but this story is driven almost entirely from the noble perspective. We know plenty of people who participated in RR, Greyjoy Rebellion or the Stepstones and participated in a war 10-20 years later. It would strain credulity to believe that the infantry, with the valuable arms and armor they own, would not also be called back up or or even possibly train on a semi regular basis. The arms and armor in Westeros are based on a sliding scale of advancement through the centuries per GRRM, so him basing feudal levies on something like any of the Assize of Arms is not only reasonable but pretty common sensical given the weight he places on conducting research.

Steelshanks Walton doesn't exist then? Roose would make this guy a captain even though he never trains at arms? There has been two major wars and campaign to put down guerrilla warfare near the capital in the last twenty years, ignoring the current Wo5K. There are plenty of veterans. Amateurs with training, experience, and expensive arms and armor.

That would be consistent with what we see from most of the infantry we see up close. Karstarks marching into WF Freys at the Inn and leaving the Twins Prisoners at HH (Karstarks, Frey, Cerwyn, Bolton) Piper archer after the RW There are more in the chapters in the crownlands and riverlands, but in general infantry seems to wear their lord's livery and those lords don't seem to be any lower than direct vassals to LPs Per Davos half of those men left were Florent men, so they would be from his post DS army. And we get lessons from Jon, Tyrion / Tywin, Qhorin, Asha / Theon, and even Magnar on how important discipline is in battle. A lot of those descriptions involve references to arms and armor too, which is something Meribald's group lacked completely. Robb's army is definitely a threat to Tywin. Even opining that to be the case is just bonkers. Tywin's entire camp was set up over multiple leagues, fortified and manned by active groups of sentries and outriders. If Roose had rolled the dice and charged through the camp, he'd have stood a decent chance at routing Tywin's army while his men were asleep or arming themselves.

Penny

Apropos of nothing, that might be one of my favorite lines in F&B.

I might be wrong but I'm pretty sure Robert of Nedbert bromance fame killed him.

His strategy was awful unless he was intending those smaller forces as harrying forces like we see Marq Piper and Karyl Vance to Jaime's forces. Martin takes a lot of liberties with castles falling but a fully equipped, large army would be able to sweep up spread out, disorganized resistance and even take a lot of holdfasts without much effort.

Right. No plan is perfect admittedly. Such gross violation of the king's peace would be untenable under a strong king like Robert in lieu of say the Warden of the West's grandson who's a psychopath

Right so it's conscription / impressment since we have to fall back to the definition of english words. There are definitely ...... No. Because those domains and demesnes would belong part and parcel to the lords. We see as much in the Bracken / Blackwood conflict. They have livery and similar arms. Are you really saying there are no landowners of any size beyond crofters in their domains? Or you just underestimate the attention to detail an author who admits he only has like two types of nobles and made a mistake. And yet we see otherwise with the Frey men Harry the Heir is a noble, and he is heir to the Vale. Nameless men at arms are not anything similar. Why would anyone care who Frey thug #178 wears on his livery, which is 100% completely different than a personal sigil.

This plus guarding the Golden Tooth meant that the mountain could be caught in the act returning to the WL. Relatively hard to deny your bannerman was breaking the king's peace if you can produce him as a captive or corpse with no identifying marks just like the witnesses said.

I don't believe Robert had a son named Goku.