Is something wrong with time/history in GRRth?

[Mithras]

The comparison between real world history and ASOIAF universe does not mean anything because ASOIAF universe is a fictional space. It is not meaningful to apply real world historical models, especially if it serves no narrative purpose. The problem of George is to tell us a story, not to give us history lessons from a fictional world.

[Damon_Tor]

Or maybe you meant that the rotation itself is regular, but its axial precession is not? But either way, we know that's not true, because GRRM has explicitly said that the planet has a perfectly normal orbit, and its abnormal seasons are caused by magic.

Magic is the root cause, sure, but I see no reason to assume that the magic doesn't cause the planet to tilt as the mechanism by which the seasons change. After all, the days DO get shorter in the winter, implying that one of two things is occurring:

1. As in our world, the surface of (one hemisphere of) the planet tilts away from the sun during the winter

2. The sun moves faster through the sky during the winter

Either way, the result is an irregular rotation of the planet. Sure, it's magic that causes it (hence the inability to model it) but that doesn't mean the mechanics aren't similar.

Unless of course the system of Planetos is non-copernican, in which case all bets are off. Maybe the sun itself is "lightbringer". Maybe the long night 8000 (or whatever) years ago was the death of the actual sun, and Azor Ahai was a scientist/wizard who turned one of the planet's two moons into an artificial sun, but its orbit gets messed with by too many other factors, like the other moon, and by passing comets and stuff.

[GwynBleiddRaven]

My idea is that history of Planetos is slow because Winters frequently slow it down or move it back even. Pretty much as in great book "ICE" by Jacek Dukaj.

Sudden, pretty much surprising coming of harsh winters would really stop people from thinking of new ideas. They would instead think of survival. Huge portion of population would die dwarfing the economies and preventing development. Quite like the plagues in European history.

However, the Winters most likely result in big migrations southward, so one may wonder why Sothoryos is not more explored and populated by Westerosi. But the environment there may be more hostile.

After the Winter or migration people would try to reestablish what they had lost not on progress. Needless to say they often did not manage before coming of the next winter.

But this should not affect Essos.

We don't have much info on Winters there.

TL;DR

Winters dwarf population and slow the progress.

[BalerionTheCat]

This is fantasy, but it's not Tolkien.

Also, if this were a static, Tolkienesque world, that wouldn't explain why so much has changed over the past 400 years in ASoIaF. Again, Tyroshi bastard Valyrian and Astapori bastard Valyrian are at the edge of mutual intelligibility.

Also, people certainly do care about what happened in those 10000 years. Tolkien wrote extensive notes on them, and stories that took place within them, and there's a 12-volume series that took Christopher decades to organize and that thousands of people have read.

Finally, the reason Tolkien's world was static is pretty clear: the magical beings and even deities that were still present until the end of the Third Age had powers specifically related to preservation (the Elves) or to domination (Sauron); the time of Man had not yet come. Tolkien's aborted story The New Shadow, set barely a century into the Fourth Age, already implied the coming of technology and industry. Tolkien abandoned the story because, in effect, anything set after the Third Age wouldn't be a Middle Earth story; it would be "just a thriller". And if you want to argue that the millennia before the conquest were like the Third Age, and the Valyrians were akin to the Elves and Sauron in one, and had magical rings that perfectly preserved the world for thousands of years... well, that's basically the same thing as my theory in the first place.

OK, I see your point. GRRM cultures are evolving, but not at the expected rate, while Tolkien was totally static for specific reasons.

Personally, I'm fine if the only inconsistency in GRRM world, is the large scale history. I believe GRRM wanted to place some events in the very long past, so to be inaccurately remembered, only as half-forgotten legends. While at the same time, giving precise knowledge of other events, by placing them in the recent history, Conquest and after. And we have a big hole in between.

That said, I would give an explanation (seems enough for me) for this stagnation and sometime regression, by the dismaying Dothraki barbarism, the pettiness of old kings, the influence of the Children technology-less culture, and the gods and magic. It was only recently, with the decline of the magic and faith in gods, and the prosperity given by a stable kingdom, that the progress returns at an expected rate in Westeros.

Forgive me, I know next to nothing in history, but I don't think the European middle age saw much evolution either, and it was a regression from the Roman empire. And not much changed during the Pharaon dynasties too.

[falcotron]

The point is that the length of winter is semi-random. There is a huge difference between 1-year long winter and 5-year long winter. Moreover, winter severity is different in various parts of Westeros, so it doesn't affect everyone equally. No wonder the North is so underpopulated. One very long winter (8-10 years) can easily keep the population down. The more severe winters are probably like giant cataclysms.

But the question isn't why the North is so underpopulated (you hardly need to explain that; much of the North is probably barely hospitable even in the summer), but why the entire world is so underpopulated. For example, why has nobody resettled the southern Rhoynelands in the 1000 years since they've been abandoned? Certainly not because winter there is harsher than winter in Braavos (or the Vale, or Ib--or because summer there is harsher than in, say, Dorne).

http://www.tor.com/2011/05/04/how-seasons-qworkq-in-a-song-of-ice-and-fire/- check it out; there is a link to an interview with Martin in the comments, too. Interesting stuff.

Definitely. Especially the interview.

And, by the way, does it snow in the South during the winter?

Yes, some times, in some places. The Mountains of the Moon get quite a lot of snow, the Vale and the riverlands and the west rather less, but some. King’s Landing gets snow infrequently, the Storm Lands and the Reach rarely, Oldtown and Dorne almost never.

So, according to GRRM's description, winter in Dorne is basically like winter in Southern California. Things don't sound quite as cataclysmic as the books make out. For the North, sure. (As he puts it "Famine happens. The north is cruel.") But for humanity as a whole, or even the Seven Kingdoms as a whole, it seems pretty survivable.

http://www.tor.com/2011/04/27/the-uncommonly-stable-records-of-history-in-a-song-of-ice-and-fire/- this might interest the OP

Thanks; this is interesting.

I don't think the conclusions in the first half make much sense. Essentially, Linda dismisses everything more than 6000 years old, and some of the details of things over the past 6000 years, and therefore... what? None of that challenges the basic problem that both she and I started with: there is at least a basic sketch of events going back 6000 years, which is 10x as long as is believable.

The second half starts off with:

Why does A Feast for Crows start to introduce doubts about the commonly accepted history? Simply a decision by Martin to maybe adhere more to the reality of history’s uncertainties, especially the further back you go? Or will it play some role in the events to come in the novels, perhaps illuminating some facts that were unclear or even unknown?

I think this is a key question. He didn't just give us an implausible historical scale, he explicitly pointed out the problem to us. I don't think he's trying to correct a mistake he made in the first two books, or to make the series more realistic as he goes along; I think it means something story-internally. And the other key question, which she didn't address, is: why has he gone out of his way to show us that everything (language, economics, etc.) has been developing at a realistic pace for the last 400 years? Again, I think that contrast means something.

Beyond that, she basically just says that maybe all of the information GRRM gave us on history is not just subtly wrong, but completely and totally wrong, and anyway, we should just accept that because it's fantasy. I don't think GRRM would do something stupid just because every sub-Tolkien hack for the the past 50 years has done it; in fact, that's usually when he deliberately does the opposite.

[falcotron]

The comparison between real world history and ASOIAF universe does not mean anything because ASOIAF universe is a fictional space. It is not meaningful to apply real world historical models, especially if it serves no narrative purpose. The problem of George is to tell us a story, not to give us history lessons from a fictional world.

So, when GRRM complains that Lord of the Rings never gives us any reason to believe that Aragorn will be a good king because it doesn't tell us about his tax policy or how he handles dissidents, that doesn't mean anything because Middle Earth is a fictional space, and it's not meaningful to apply real world historical models?

[falcotron]

Personally, I'm fine if the only inconsistency in GRRM world, is the large scale history.

It's not about being fine with it. I can enjoy the books just fine if he never addresses this. But I think he's called enough attention to this inconsistency that it probably means something in the story.

I believe GRRM wanted to place some events in the very long past, so to be inaccurately remembered, only as half-forgotten legends. While at the same time, giving precise knowledge of other events, by placing them in the recent history, Conquest and after. And we have a big hole in between.

If that's what he wanted, there'd be a very simple way to do things: Instead of telling us that written history goes back "only" 6000 years, and everything before that is legend, tell us it goes back only, say, 600 years. So, why did he push it all the way back to 6000 years? (And it's not just that one line by Sam, of course; the 6000 years thing is pretty consistent.)

That said, I would give an explanation (seems enough for me) for this stagnation and sometime regression, by the dismaying Dothraki barbarism, the pettiness of old kings, the influence of the Children technology-less culture, and the gods and magic.

The Dothraki appeared 400 years ago, not 6000, which means it's the exact opposite of an explanation here. Are recent kings any less petty? The Children's culture could explain the First Men, but the Andals? The gods, we've been told, either don't exist, or don't take an active interest. So, that leaves you with magic being the reason for the otherwise-unaccountable 5600-year stagnation. Which is exactly what I suggested in my original post.

It was only recently, with the decline of the magic and faith in gods, and the prosperity given by a stable kingdom, that the progress returns at an expected rate in Westeros.

I don't think there's any evidence of a decline of faith in gods--if anything, we're seeing the reverse. Also, while Westeros may have been more stable for the past 400 years than for the thousands of years before, for western Essos the situation was definitely the exact opposite. So, if that's the explanation Essos should have been progressing at the expected rate for thousands of years, and then stopped progressing 400 years ago--and yet, the exact opposite happened.

As for a decline in magic: Over the short term, it's definitely increasing, if anything. However, it does seem that there was a precipitous decline in magic 400 years ago, with the Doom. And that fits the timeline perfectly: Valyria's magic went away, and suddenly history started to work the way it normally does. But that's not an alternative to my explanation, that is my explanation: Valyria is what stopped history.

[Mithras]

So, when GRRM complains that Lord of the Rings never gives us any reason to believe that Aragorn will be a good king because it doesn't tell us about his tax policy or how he handles dissidents, that doesn't mean anything because Middle Earth is a fictional space, and it's not meaningful to apply real world historical models?

The point is, GRRM used that comparison for a narrative purpose (i.e. being a hero king does not mean being a good ruler).

What could be the narrative purpose of twisting the known timeline of history? What contribution can it have to current characters or plots?

[Bright Blue Eyes]

Forgive me, I know next to nothing in history, but I don't think the European middle age saw much evolution either, and it was a regression from the Roman empire. And not much changed during the Pharaon dynasties too.

Utterly untrue. That's what the writers of the Enlightenment period wanted to propagate, to separate themselves from the earlier ones, but it is no more than a legend.

[Cybvep]

But the question isn't why the North is so underpopulated (you hardly need to explain that; much of the North is probably barely hospitable even in the summer), but why the entire world is so underpopulated. For example, why has nobody resettled the southern Rhoynelands in the 1000 years since they've been abandoned? Certainly not because winter there is harsher than winter in Braavos (or the Vale, or Ib--or because summer there is harsher than in, say, Dorne).

Well, we know many things about Westeros and we know a bit about Essos, but at the same time, we know next to nothing about other places. Supposedly there are grand empires beyond Asshai (China connotations?).

As for Essos, there actually are many big cities there, separated by large swatches of empty land ruled by horse nomads. IMO there are several important factors affecting this continent:

1) The Doom of Valyria. We still know shit about it, but it's obvious that it was a massive cataclysm which destroyed a major empire and caused much upheaval. I think that there may be more to this, too.

2) Dothraki who rule the wastes, pillage towns and raid coastal towns and cities. It's not easy to resettle in these conditions, so we have a situation resembling Australia's - developed coasts and empty central plains.

3) Large distances between major cities in Essos and the importance of naval transportation. Basically, trading has to be done by sea in most of coastal Essos. It's cheaper, it's faster and the Free Cities are too busy with themselves and are not powerful enough to invest in resettlement effort. Whoever accomplishes this may potentially create a new grand empire.

4) Plagues. Greyscale seems to be a serious problem in parts of Essos. I wouldn't want to visit the Sorrows.

[sootfish]

-snip-

[sootfish]

First, to nitpick: the Japanese don't have over 1500 years of written history. It's more like 1300 years, and though we have enough references in other sources to verify the date of these earliest historical texts, the earliest extant manuscript is from the 14th century.

Yes, we know that historical texts are not always "factual" as Bright Blue Eyes pointed out, but you have to be aware of huge differences in the culture context of historical writing. East Asia (particularly China where it mainly comes from) puts a large emphasis on factual recording, so we're reliably sure that their records (going back more than 2000yrs) are of real rulers and battles. Fanciful stuff (King Lear etc) are relegated to other genres of which some have no equivalent in Western cultures.

I take it that Westeros is more of a Europe equivalent, so I wouldn't really take their history as factual per se...

A lot of things don't really make historical or common sense in Westeros, I feel. The logistics and chance which would be needed to keep scrolls of thousands of years alone is staggering. The scale, as op points out, is very improbable. Even with the long winters (which don't even affect all parts of the known world equally), if we must accept that the Planetos population is intellectually similar to us then there that is no excuse to the glacial pace of discovery and innovation.

[falcotron]

As for Essos, there actually are many big cities there, separated by large swatches of empty land ruled by horse nomads.

This is getting way off topic for this thread; do you mind if I start another one instead?

(edited to link the new thread)

[falcotron]

A lot of things don't really make historical or common sense in Westeros, I feel. The logistics and chance which would be needed to keep scrolls of thousands of years alone is staggering. The scale, as op points out, is very improbable. Even with the long winters (which don't even affect all parts of the known world equally), if we must accept that the Planetos population is intellectually similar to us then there that is no excuse to the glacial pace of discovery and innovation.

Or maybe there is an excuse, and GRRM just hasn't revealed it to us yet. I personally think this is more likely than GRRM making it clear that he knows how historical evolution is supposed to work, but then screwing up and making it not work and not realizing or not caring that he'd done so. Which is why I'm trying to come up with a theory that fits what we've been told and with the style of GRRM's world building. If I'm wrong and it's just sloppiness, then of course I'm wasting my time.

[Jasta11]

I always thought that the 8 000 years of history was inflated. It just makes no sense that, even counting magc and long winters, Planetos has roughly gone from the Bronze Age to the late Middle Ages in the timespan it took us to go from the very first civilizations to this day and age.

To be honest, I kinda handwave the timespan. But the scale is something that always bugs me. A 700 feet tall, hundred kilometer long Wall? I get it, fantasy likes thing to be big, but this is just ridiculous. I'm amazed the ground around the Wall didn't sink. Same for Harrenhall, which is described as so massive that it amazes me it doesn't collapse upon itself.

Other things; one language for a highly diverse continent the size of South America? Silly. Civilization surviving years-long winters when the nobles all seem like irresponsible dicks who barely make any effort to preserve crops and harvests? Eeeeh. Lannister gold mines abundantly lasting thousands of years and counting? I'm no expert, but those are some mighty deep mines.

[falcotron]

To be honest, I kinda handwave the timespan. But the scale is something that always bugs me. A 700 feet tall, hundred kilometer long Wall? I get it, fantasy likes thing to be big, but this is just ridiculous. I'm amazed the ground around the Wall didn't sink.

Well, this is the way you know that the Wall is magical, unlike the vast majority of other structures in Westeros. (That said, it does seem strange that people in the story question whether it's really magical; I'm curious how they think it was built, and stays up for even a fortnight much less 8000 years.)

Other things; one language for a highly diverse continent the size of South America? Silly. Civilization surviving years-long winters when the nobles all seem like irresponsible dicks who barely make any effort to preserve crops and harvests? Eeeeh. Lannister gold mines abundantly lasting thousands of years and counting? I'm no expert, but those are some mighty deep mines.

I think at least the first and last of these are just consequences of the time scale. As mentioned earlier in this thread, we have a pretty good example of one language for a highly diverse continent the size of South America: South America itself. If the Andals conquered most of the continent in the span of a century, you'd end up with a whole continent speaking the same language; the only part that seems implausible is that they're still speaking that language, unchanged, 6000 years later.

But the mines are an interesting point; that implies that if magic is stagnating or preserving the world, it's affecting more than just culture. Another point in favor of A Song of Ass and Fire's moon-spell theory over my simpler history-spell theory.

[SeanF]

Utterly untrue. That's what the writers of the Enlightenment period wanted to propagate, to separate themselves from the earlier ones, but it is no more than a legend.

Also, some medieval writers liked to look back on the Roman Empire as a lost golden age.

I think that the disintegration of the Western Empire did cause a sharp decline in trade, population, literacy, and living standards for 3-400 years, followed by a gradual recovery, gathering pace after 1000 AD. I don't doubt that by c.1400, most of Western Europe was more advanced than 1,000 years previously.

[FoolishOwl]

My impression is that, in general, GRRM isn't uniformly methodical. There are details that he's carefully worked out; details that he's intentionally exaggerated because it's a classic fantasy trope for everything to be larger or older than is realistic; and details where he just wasn't particularly concerned about consistency. Where it gets frustrating is that I think there are details where he expects us to catch inconsistencies as clues to what's really going on -- but which details are the ones we're supposed to notice, and which fit into the other two categories?

I've mostly thought about this with regards to the Wall. There's a lot about the Wall that just doesn't make sense. When it was pointed out that a structure made of ice on that scale couldn't hold its shape for long, GRRM answered that it's held together by magic. But that's not the only odd thing about it. It's too old, it's too big, and why would you build a wall out of ice anyway, especially if you're worried about enemies who have fantastic powers for reshaping ice? But, which of these are we supposed to be puzzled by, and which are supposed to simply leave to artistic license?

I think we're supposed to be puzzled by timelines. Our attention is drawn to the incomplete records, at two points in particular. In most detail, when Samwell Tarly explains to Jon Snow about the fragmentary and incomplete records at Castle Black, that nevertheless contradict what's known of history (and Samwell's explanation is cut off). Secondarily, there's the conversation between Asha Greyjoy and Rodrik Harlow, in which Harlow talks about the debates about history among maesters and scholars. I think there's also some significance to the fact that the library at Winterfell was destroyed early in the story.

But as I said, I think it gets frustrating, as we have a puzzle plot told by a storyteller who isn't as meticulous about details as some assume, so it's difficult to work out what's a clue and what's a blunder.

[Mithras]

But as I said, I think it gets frustrating, as we have a puzzle plot told by a storyteller who isn't as meticulous about details as some assume, so it's difficult to work out what's a clue and what's a blunder.

Agreed. There are great blunders in the World Book, especially in Iron Islands, North, Reach, and Riverlands sections.

[falcotron]

But as I said, I think it gets frustrating, as we have a puzzle plot told by a storyteller who isn't as meticulous about details as some assume, so it's difficult to work out what's a clue and what's a blunder.

That's all true, and a good point.

That's why I try to look for the things he seems to call attention to, in multiple places. But that's neither a trivial task, nor guaranteed to give the correct answers. Still, what else are you going to do, go read something else? :)