New TWoIaF excerpt from the App [spoiler]

[Ran]

No, not used there. He just says king. But High King does appear in AFfC, when Urras Ironfoot was said to have been made High King of the ironborn.

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

Oh yeah, quoting myself. Always fun.

There will surely be several other "popular assumptions" blown out of the water by this book. This one is pretty surprising, because as someone else pointed out, a normal steel sword lasting so long is a bit unlikely, but surely not impossible. The blade could've been damaged and repaired several times, or even reforged with the old hilt.

Yeah, I think we should be thinking more along those lines indeed. :)

[Free Northman Reborn]

Black Crow

I have no problem with the idea that the North was mostly depopulated during the Long Night, with only a few bastions like Winterfell, the Dreadfort, Last Hearth, Barrowton etc. holding out as some human enclaves.

That said, the darkness is mentioned as spreading across the entire world as far as Ashai, so we don't know the severity in other parts of the world. Given that it appears to have killed off dragons EVERYWHERE, it would suggest that food supplies were severely depleted pretty much all over the world - as would be expected from a 5-10 year "nuclear winter" type of scenario where sunlight reaching the surface is severely reduced.

Still, it seems that all fauna North of the Neck was not eradicated, else you would not find polar bears, snow leopards, mammoths and the like still in existence today. So clearly all human and animal life was not wiped out, even North of the Neck.

We also see in the World Book that one early Stark King drove giants from the North, signifying that they too apparently survived North of the Neck after the Long Night. In fact, Littlefinger also alludes to the fact that many a giant's head was displayed on Winterfell's Walls in ages gone by. Similarly, the Umbers appear to have a long history associated with interactions with Giants.

All of the above suggests that the North were not truly the "dead lands" to the extent that all life was wiped out North of the Neck. In fact, if all of these wild creatures could survive, then humans with their ability to plan, store food and use technology and fire would have fared quite a bit better.

Having said all of that, even if the entire North had to be repopulated 8000 years ago, how long would it take to reach the carrying capacity of the land again? Europe went from a Bronze Age population of very low numbers, up to around 60 million people between say 1000BC and 1000AD.

That is 2000 years. And then the population largely fluctuated around that number, until new technologies appeared well after the Middle Ages.

So even if it took the North 2000 years (an incredibly long time in the real world) after the Long Night to restore its capacity, that is still around 3000 years before the now generally accepted date of the Andal arrival, around 3000 years ago.

EDIT

Although, if it is true that the 13 castles at the Wall predate the Wall, thus being the reason that the Oath refers to the Watch being the Watchers on the WALLS, then the dead lands may in fact have been the lands beyond the Wall.

And if my theory is correct that the Seasons were normal prior to the Long Night, and that the Long Night was the first true lopsided Winter, then there could have been human kingdoms North of the Wall during those days, much like the Thenns.

And those may have become the dead lands. Now, that does not mean that many kingdoms south of the Wall did not also fall before the famine, cold and dead armies - as far as Ashai in fact, the lands of total Other domination may have been only North of the Wall, thus being named the Dead Lands.

[LordBloodraven]

The tidbit about the Vale is very interesting. I don't know why but I was always under the impression that the Arryns led the Andals into the Vale, but it doesn't seem so from what I read.

Also, should we consider that the Andals went into the other regions, after the Conquest of the Vale? And it's clearer now how the North was able to withstand the Andal invasion. They were united when most of Westeros was dominated by rival petty kingdoms

[Rosavel Rusannn]

I was surprised that the dothraki religion was not included in the new section on religions.

[Maia]

Free Northman Reborn:

The animals and giants could have migrated south during the Long Night and then returned/been driven back North afterwards.

There is little reason to think that Winterfell existed prior to LN, nor that there have been human enclaves that "held out".

All the time-spans need to be revised downwards by at least factor 2 as well, IMHO.

And there are good reasons to think that population of the North has increased disproportionally during the last few centuries.

First of all, there is good land in the North for the taking, even at the time of the series, while all land in the South had been parceled out long ago. I.e. there is room for northern population to spread, while the South has to rely on technological advances in agriculture to raise it's population. Winters prevent this, however there are reasons to think that the North has seen more trade (and thus been able to support more people through the Winters) than ever before during the last 400 years.

Which partly has to do with the Doom of Valyria and resultant reorientation of trade routes, the emergence of Braavos as a nearby Essosi hub of maritime trade, etc.

And partly has to do with unification, creation of the kingsroad, removal of political and practical obstacles for the southern trade with the North, crack- down on piracy via the royal fleet and thus making sea trade safer and goods cheaper, etc.

Also, there is a consistent curious note in Umber and Karstark complaints in ASOIAF re: losing so many men to the war, that they have been unable to bring in their last harvest completely. Given how feodal armies normally worked, the way fighters were just a tiny percentage of the general male population, that shouldn't have been an issue. Which, maybe, suggests that higher proportion of available northern men go to war than is customary elsewhere. That could result in comparable army numbers with the Vale despite lower general population numbers.

[Free Northman Reborn]

Maia

While your last post started out reasonably, the final conclusion is completely incorrect.

I will just say that due to the harshness and size of the North they almost certainly have a LOWER mobilization rate than the South, which is the exact opposite of what you conclude. But I'm sure Bright Blue Eyes will be able to explain it better than I can, if he happens to stumble onto this thread.

EDITED

To sound less harsh.

[Lord Varys]

High Kings:

We also know from the App that the Sarnori had High Kings. The term is known.

The High King concept on the Iron Islands could also indicate that the whole 'captains and kings' thing we hear so much about was, at one point, taken very seriously, suggesting that the Kingsmoot kings were effectively High Kings rather than 'Kings of the Iron Islands'. When this title became common among the Ironborn we don't know yet. Perhaps with the ending of the Kingsmoots, with the coming of the Andals, or only after the Conquest.

There would also be a reason as to why Aegon styled himself 'King' rather than 'High King' - most likely because he did reserve that title for himself and refused to allow the kings of the six kingdoms he conquered to keep their royal titles (whereas the Martells, apparently, were allowed to retain their royal title, although we don't yet know whether they had another, more grandiose title in addition to 'Prince(ss)' prior to Daeron II/Maron).

We also know that there are Emperors/Empresses in Martinword, by the way - Daemon claims a jewel he gives to Rhaenyra 'once belonged to the Empress of Leng'.

Lady Forlorn:

My point was that in context of the story it would (and does) make sense that Lady Forlorn was a Valyrian steel blade back then. Considering that we don't know when the Battle of the Seven Stars actually took place, nor when the Valyrians first made Valyrian steel, it would not be entirely impossible that a Andal ancestor of Corbray could have somehow acquired such a blade (say, because he stumbled upon a Valyrian (or his corpse) at one point in his life.

But, of course, both the story about Robar claiming the blade as well as the fact that Lady Forlorn was actually used during the battle, could have been a singer's fancy.

Population stuff:

The North (and many other regions of Westeros) may have only been repopulated by the surviving First Men/Children/giants after the Long Night was over.

My point in regards to relative weakness in the North is that

- they were always the northernmost kingdom and thus winters would have hit them the hardest up there, especially if the continuous warfare had crippled their capability to plant and harvest crops.

- after the Conquest, the kings would have tried to keep all their subjects fed. Spare crops in the Riverlands, the Vale, and the Reach could have been shipped to the North on those occasions when the winter was very harsh in the North.

The Northmen would never profited from that back before the Conquest. Torrhen could muster 30,000 men when he marched south, but he may have taken all the men he could muster, much more than the Stark Lords under the Targaryens ever led into the field. In fact, this seems to be very likely since Torrhen may actually bend the knee because he knows that if he lose against Aegon, his whole kingdom may lose pretty much all of its men fighting age.

And as Maia has just said, the North would have profited greatly from the unification in those points, because land is really to be had everywhere.

The last century could have been a sort of drawback on prosperity in the North, with the Skagos Rebellion, the Greyjoy incursions, Raymun's invasion, Robert's Rebellion, and the Greyjoy Rebellion all taking their toll on the population. Not to mention potentially harsh winters the Iron Throne could not mitigate all that much, because a Blackfyre Rebellion or another crisis happened to destroy many crops in the South.

[Free Northman Reborn]

Lord Varys

It is rather strange that you use the fact that Torhenn raised more men than Robb Stark, to argue that the North was less populated before the Targaryens arrived. I'm sure if Torhenn raised fewer men than Robb, your conclusion would have been the same, despite the evidence being the direct opposite of what you based the conclusion on in the current argument.

Seems like conclusions being made according to preconceived notions, whatever the evidence may be.

Regarding their northernmost location, that is no different today to what it was back then. Their relative population compared to the South would have stabilized thousands of years ago, with periodic fluctuations, just like the populations of the South would fluctuate periodically.

There is no reason why the population in Torhenn's time, relative to the South, would have been significantly different than it was in the time of Brandon the Shipwright, or Brandon Ice Eyes.

And there is certainly zero evidence that the population of the North increased under the Targaryen rule. Torhenn seems to have been easily as strong as Robb Stark, from a military point of view.

EDIT

People seem to have trouble interpreting relative population. By the above I don't mean that the overall population of Westeros remained constant for 8000 years.

But what I mean is if the North has 15% of the total population of Westeros today, there is no reason why they would not have 15% of the total population 500 years ago, or 1000 years ago.

In fact, given that the North was united long before any of the Southron kingdoms were, it could be argued that they experienced the benefit of unification for maybe a thousand years before any of the Southron kingdoms achieved it, thus the North might well have been MORE populous relative to the South, when the Andals arrived 3000 years ago, than they are today.

While the petty kings of the Vale or the Riverlands or Dorne were warring amongst each other non-stop, the entire North was already ruled by the Starks.

[naseridrl]

I would have thought with winter the North's population would decrease quite a bit on a regular basis. Hard winters cause food problems in the modern world, winters that go on for years are going to leave scores of people dead. Winterfell can't feed them all especially with no links to the south to buy food pre-conquest.

It might be due to Winterfell that the Starks became strong because when Winter set in Winterfell wa the place where it had the least impact so whilst the Stark enemies suffered the Starks could hold themselves nice and warm in winter with their food stores and heated castle and when winter was over and their enemies damaged they would attack. Plus keeping people safe and fed in Winter Town would foster goodwill with the smallfolk and also the other smaller house who came for shelter.

[Free Northman Reborn]

Naseridl...

I would agree with that. We know from the books that the North's population drops during Winter.

But that was not any different 3000 years ago to what it is today. And yet today Martin says the North can raise as many men as the Vale.

So despite the loss of population to Winter, the North still has as many people - and probably more, given their comparative mobilization difficulties - than the Vale.

[Lord Varys]

FNR,

I really don't have an agenda here. I'm not some Lannister crony who is paid to play down the military capabilities of the North ;-).

My guess that Torrhen may have taken his full strength rather than what Robb did take when he called his banners in AGoT is based on the fact that King Torrhen apparently took his time (i.e. assembled all the men the North could muster) whereas it is confirmed that Robb was in a hurry and took more or less the cream of the Northmen with him (for instance, Torrhen could have taken some Skagosi with him, whereas it is clear that Robb did not).

It's also confirmed that there is some disproportion in Robb's army due to the fact that some Northern Lords (Lady Dustin, Roose Bolton) did not send as many men with Robb as they could have. Such a thing was most likely not the case when Torrhen marched south.

[Free Northman Reborn]

Lord Varys

I accept that you are not in the pay of the Lannister scoundrels.

Let me put it differently then. I think your assumption that the North increased in proportional strength compared to the rest of the Seven Kingdoms, during the Targaryen reign, is wrong. I think it is that premise that leads you to flawed interpretations of the population numbers, and not any bias in favor of the Lannister blackhearts.

Simply put, we have no evidence of the proportion of his forces that Torhenn raised. It might be that Robb raised 40% of his strength, and Torhenn with more time raised 60% of his strength, before feeling that a 30k host was as big a force as he could march at one time across 1000 miles of territory.

And even if 30k was his maximum strength, the evidence in fact could just as easily support a lower strength for the southron kingdoms as well at that time.

No host had ever been raised that matched the 55k on the field of fire. Not in 8000 years of history.

Yet today we see hosts of 80k with just two kingdoms joining forces, and one of them leaving 20k men behind.

So I can easily accept an argument that the entire Westeros had a lower population in the past, but nothing suggests that the North alone had a lower population, compared to the South.

In fact, as has been discussed before, the North had a lot of benefits before the Targaryen reign - like a 10,000 strong Nights Watch guarding their Northern border, which they no longer have today.

[RumHam]

Simply put, we have no evidence of the proportion of his forces that Torhenn raised.

I thought there was a SSM about how Torrhen had raised just about everyone who could hold a spear, but I can't find anything. I did find this from Ran:

http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/73589-latest-reading-new-info-on-the-military-strength-of-the-regions-when-aegon-landed/page-3#entry3587938

At the time of Torrhen's march, yes, 30,000 is approaching all he could raise. That's my read of it, as a person who's actually read the sidebar through and worked with George on some of the details, rather than having a second hand report (however thorough).

Torrhen's hand isn't really forced, and certainly the sidebar does not convey the idea that he was rushing anywhere. Truth be told, it doesn't really explain his thinking, although strategically it may have been tied to his wanting to seize control of the Trident as a good place to hold off Aegon's forces. There may have been a bit of a hope of carving out some part of the riverlands (still of shaky loyalty to the Targaryens) for himself, too, but that's just speculation based on the role the Trident has in the narrative (which seems like some deliberate symmetry on GRRM's part, re: Robert's Rebellion and the Battle of the Trident).

[Lord Varys]

I guess what we can deduce from the size of Torrhen's host is that he came down there to smash Aegon. Another thought could have indeed been to use the chaos of the war as a way to seize parts of the Riverlands as well, but it is clear that the main motivation would have been to punish Aegon for his presumption to call himself the only king of Westeros and demanding fealty from the Northmen.

If I get the time line of the Conquest right, then Torrhen arrived there after the Field of Fire, that is, he was the last major threat Aegon faced. Considering that Aegon's Conquest took about two years it is pretty clear that Torrhen either called his banners rather late, or he took his time to muster the largest host he could muster.

The 55,000 men of the Lannister-Gardener host most certainly are explained by the fact that the population in the South did not yet reach the peak it has after 300 years of unity, as well as by the fact that neither the Lannisters nor the Gardeners may have mustered as many men as they could have (King Loren could have left some men at home to defend against Ironborn incursions and other attacks, and it would not surprise me one bit if Lord Hightower did send many men to die with King Mern on the Field of Fire).

And we really can't say if people fared generally better in the South or in the North. My gut feeling is that the continuous warfare in the South (especially in the Riverlands, and, possibly, in the Reach) was not as crippling to the population growth than the harsher winters in the North, especially the harsher winters following a war/rebellion on Northern soil.

But I could be wrong there.

[naseridrl]

It seems to me that at least initially the North may have benefitted quite a lot post conquest. They were able to go home intact apart from pride in some peoples eyes, perhaps. They'd also have the door opened to trade with other realms which would help them massively with food in the winter. I think of all the realms early on they probably did okay out conquest, especially as most of their lords and such went home and could carry on as before but with access to now greater resources from the south through much easier trade.

[Free Northman Reborn]

Rumham

Note that Ran is giving us his impression, while stating that the sidebar he had access to does not explain Torhenn's thoughts in any way. So he doesn't know it as a fact.

Given that 55k men from two powerful kingdoms was the largest host ever raised in Westeros at the time I would imagine that 30k men raised by a single kingdom was a very impressive host size up to that point, from any region in Westeros. So Torhenn might well have thought it was overkill to raise any more men. Especially considering the huge host had to march 1000 miles to get to the field of battle, consuming precious resources along the way.

I would imagine that the 30k men might well have been as big a host Torhenn could raise without having to resort to his, lesser raw recruits and untrained reserves. Similar to Tywin Lannister's initial 35k in the recent War, as opposed to the additional host raised by Stafford Lannister at Oxcross.

The fact remains, I am yet to see a host of greater than 30k men being marched over a distance of 1000 miles by any kingdom in this series. Other than maybe Renly's party host that was banqueting and holding tourneys while bogged down on the Roseroad in Clash of Kings.

EDIT

Also note that we have a number of sources - both Robb in the Riverlands, and from Arriane's sample point of view in Winds - that state that the longer a host hangs around in one place or moves around without going to battle, the more forces it starts bleeding away through desertions and other losses.

So Torhenn not rushing is not necessarily an indication that his force was growing the longer he had to bide his time. At some point a force reaches critical mass, and then you either have to march or waiting any longer becomes counter productive. Which may go part of the way to explaining his timing and host size.

[Free Northman Reborn]

Naseridl

Nothing stopped the North from buying food from any other region prior to the Conquest. If they were at war with the Vale, they could buy it from the Riverlands. If they were at War with the Riverlands, they could buy it from the Vale or the Westerlands and even Braavos (since Braavos was unveiled in the last 600 years or so).

The Targaryen conquest did not suddenly make this food available to them at cheaper prices. They would still have to pay for it. Only they would now have to pay for it with 10% less disposable income, or whatever the Iron Throne tax rate was on the North post-Conquest.

That assumes that they ever bought food from other regions on a large scale in the first place. Something which is yet to be confirmed in the books. The logistics of supporting an entire population with imported food, in a medieval context seem fairly challenging to me.

[RumHam]

Rumham

Note that Ran is giving us his impression, while stating that the sidebar he had access to does not explain Torhenn's thoughts in any way. So he doesn't know it as a fact.

I didn't mean to suggest otherwise.

[Free Northman Reborn]

Rumham

Fair enough.