Jump to content

Small Questions v.10099


Jon Weirgaryen

Recommended Posts

Is it ever mentioned why Dorne has no major city? Sunspear or Plankytown seem to be in perfect position for a smaller major city much Like Gulltown or White Harbor to form in with trade to the free cities. The Martells don't seem to be poor and actually seem quite wealthy so i am wondering if Dorne as a region is just one of the poorest in Westeros?

Poor? Be careful not to let the Dornish hear you. They seem to have no great agriculturally useful lands dorne south in Dorne. Hence sustaining a city should be just as difficult as it is with Braavos. There's much fewer population in Dorne, so even with trade there is less to be traded with than in Braavos. Well, my thoughts on the matter so far.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When I applied to gymnasium class with extended English, I had to write a "linguistic skills" exam and English exam. When I got into this school ( I had to had good marks, because it wasn't my "region" school and they weren't obliged to accept me ) I had to choode second language I'll learn.

I had choice between german and french... I chose french as I thought it'll be easier and more useful in life...

Now, after nearly 2 years I'm not sure if it was a good decision...

I whish dothraki, quenya and sindarin were taught at school :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

WoIaF, the new Alanye chapter and the new Got season have got me diving into the lore again which has brought back up a number of questions I've had at various times. I'm just going to rapid-fire them off and people can answer whichever ones they want.



1) How exactly does succession work in Westeros in terms of distant relatives taking over when the main line dies out? Petyr's explanation about Harrold Hardyng's potential to become Harrold Arryn suggests that in Westeros a family name lives on as long as they have so much as a distant relation (as opposed to real world history where a distant relative might take over but they'd keep their own name and essentially found a new dynasty; ex. Plantagenet to Tudor, Tudor to Stuart) which would certainly help explain the ridiculous longevity of many of these houses; however this in turn brings up the question of how some houses do die out. Presumably any house that's been around long enough is going to be able to trace back to distant relations even if the main line dies. So is the only way a Westerosi house can go extinct is that not only does the direct line have to die out but the house has to be attainted, too? All the major houses that have gone extinct (Hoare, Durrandon, Gardener, Reyne, Darklyn, Stark [apparently, at least]) seem to have not only lost all their named members but also had been in opposition to the ruling power at the time this happened; otherwise, one would assume at least some of them would have distant relations that could have then taken on the name. This all seems like the most likely explanation but I was wondering as to other people's thoughts on the topic.



2) How does succession work in terms of female heirs and the carrying on of a family name? We know that in Westeros - or at least large parts of it - a daughter of a lord inherits over male cousins or uncles. This is straightfoward enough; however it brings up the question of how the family name is passed down. One would normally expect the child to take on the name of its father and yet when one considers the above-mentioned longevity of many Westerosi houses along with the fact that daughters taking over a house is not uncommon it would suggest that this is not in fact the case. Nor does it seem - at least from what we've seen - that the practice of merging two houses with a child as heir to both parents is that common, once again due to how long many of these houses have been around. Would it be right to presume that when a female inherits a house, even a major one, she'll only take to husband a relatively minor noble (a fourth son, a cousin to a major branch, etc) that stands extremely likely to inherit anything himself so that their child will in turn take her name and inherit her line only.



3) Where were the Crownland's forces during the lead-up and actual Battle of the Blackwater? The Crownlands are a decent size, fairly densely populated and home to a number of large settlements, rivers and good farmlands. Comparing them to other regions it seems to me like they should be able to call up at, least, say thirty-thousand men yet King's Landing only has a few hundred knights and four thousand extra watchmen added to its ranks in a time of grave threat. Nor can this these numbers be accounted for amongst Stannis' forces as he is only able to call up a few thousand men himself and pretty much all are from Narrow Sea houses and not the mainland. Is it possible that the men in the Crownlands available for military service are primarily used for the navy and not land-based forces and if so is it possible that these men would have been effectively been stuck with serving Stannis via being based out of Dragonstone even if the lands and lords they originally come from declared for Joffrey? And it not, where the hell where all those Crownland soldiers?



4) Furthermore, if mainland Crownlanders weren't counted amongst Stannis' naval forces then where did he get all the people to man his fleet? A fleet that massive would require at least ten thousand men - and that's a fairly conservative estimate - yet Stannis was only able to call up a few thousand men initially and the twenty thousand or so he gained after killing Renly fought on land. The islands of the Narrow Sea certainly don't have the population of several million needed to supply ten thousand or more extra men as rowers, and while a number of ships in Stannis' fleet were Free City sellsails and presumably manned by their own crews he still has a hundred or more ships that need to be manned by people provided by himself and his lords.



5) In that same line of question, where do the Redwynes get the manpower for their massive Arbor fleet? Once again we're looking at a need for ten to twenty thousand men, and while the Arbor is nice and fertile I still don't see them maintaining a population in the millions on an island that size, especially with no cities or even towns on the scale of Duskendale or Fairmarket. And apparently all the minor lords on the mainland coast near the Arbor are sworn to Hightower, not Redwyne. Are they able to borrow men from other Reach houses? And once, in the case of a civil war (or a scenario where one side just sits a conflict out like Lord Redwyne did during most of the Wo5K) would these men more likely fall under the control of the lands and lords they come from or the lord(s) that maintain the ships they serve on.



I suppose one additional question I would have that might help clear up those last two aren't related specifically to the workings of Westeros but rather deal with how pre-modern navies worked in general in terms of manpower. I'm fairly ignorant about this part of history so I was wondering if anyone might know whether naval manpowers worked like most of the land-based military and was only called up when needed or whether the men were constantly on duty for a set term of service. Because the former seems like it would effectively doom someone like Stannis who has all the ships but little manpower of his own but the latter might make a navy-reliant coup somewhat possible.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Has the Tullys ever intermarried with Freys before Edmure and Roslin? Sorry that I am weak in ASOIAF history

No reason to be sorry :) we don't know much about Tully-marriages from the past, or Frey-marriages from the past, so at this moment, I can't tell you with certainty.

It should be noted, that Walder isn't counted as kin to the Tully's, nor did he bring up such a match in his retellings of his attempts to make a match with one of his own to Edmure.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No reason to be sorry :) we don't know much about Tully-marriages from the past, or Frey-marriages from the past, so at this moment, I can't tell you with certainty.

It should be noted, that Walder isn't counted as kin to the Tully's, nor did he bring up such a match in his retellings of his attempts to make a match with one of his own to Edmure.

The bolded-by-me parts make me think the otherwise not-so-honorable Walder Frey might have long-term gambled for a honorable right-of-conquest over the Tully family take over of the supremacy of the riverlands.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Article about Starks is terrible... http://wiki.westeros.pl/index.php?title=R%C3%B3d_Stark%C3%B3w

I think someone put parts of AWOIAF into Google Translator...

Zakamuflowany Mance Rayder, wysłany przez Jona Snowa, nakłania słabego Theona Greyjoya, by ten pomógł w ucieczce Jeyny do Stannis. Prawdziwa Arya przybywa do Braavos, gdzie rozpoczyna szkolenie w Domie Czerni i Bieli by stac się Człowiekiem bez Twarzy. Bran przybywa do jaskini trójokiej wrony, gdzie spotyka ostatnie Dzieci Lasu i zaczyna doskonalić trudną sztukę greensight. Rickon is said to be on Skagos, gdze Lord Wyman Manderly has requested that Davos Seaworth search for him, so that Stannis can rally the Northmen to fight in his name.

Terrible vocabulary and style...

"Gdze" should be "gdzie" = where

Also it lacks of ą ć ę ź ż ó ł ch

Orthography also is weird...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Could someone explain me why polish http://wiki.westeros.pl/index.php?title=Strona_g%C5%82%C3%B3wna Westeros Wiki has articles in English copied from AWoIaF?

I know close to no Polish - and would have no chance to look deeper in what people wrote in the update history.

So here's my guess:

When I need a not-yet-existing wiki page in my language, I go for the already existing page that has the most complete information at the moment. That's usually the one culturally closest to the topic, and in our case that means English. Take it, translate it myself if I am able, or google translate it. Then fix the errors in it *) and then save it. Maybe it has been saved before the translation was done, for reasons unknown.

eta: * and mark the page as being a translation of ...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Google translator is awful when it comes to polish...

I think that articles should be translated by wiki users or written once again...

Google translator doesn't understand differences between "Winter fall" and Winterfell, or "Kettleblacks" and kettle black... and it translates names it shouldn't

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There may be quite a number of reasons, and I am probably going to miss a few.


  1. Someone had to do the dirty job - err, lead the expedition.
  2. Loras Tyrell seemed to be out for vengeance and also overly foolish - Eddard wanted justice delivered, not vengeance. So: not Loras.
  3. Beric is a Stormlander, a foreigner to the riverlands and hopefully impartial in all other riverlands affairs the party might get involved with.
  4. He is affiliated through his squire Edric with the Dayne family, to which Eddard already has had a few relations and ties.
  5. Plot reasons ;-)
  6. ...
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...