LordStoneheart Posted August 20, 2015 Share Posted August 20, 2015 It doesn't bug me. It's fiction. Cop out answer? Maybe. But really, fiction just invites cop outs for things, something GRRM as a television writer would know all about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
falcotron Posted August 20, 2015 Share Posted August 20, 2015 Personally I think there's some force regulating the progress of the world and making sure that things never really approach the industrial era. This could be down to people - maesters, priests, green men, faceless men, whatever - on the small scale, winters in the middle, and things like the WWs and the Doom of Valyria when extreme measures are required. The fact that the most advanced civilization (that we know of) ever to grace Planetos was destroyed in a massive cataclysm can't be random - nor can the complete disappearance from history of the potentially-more-advanced people who built the Five Forts (yes, that may be the Valyrians too).Your version is simpler (well, more complex, but it doesn't require as much of a stretch, you know what I mean) at first glance.But Arya Bolton's has something going for it: If it's all down to Valyria, then we have a ready-made explanation for why the last 3-4 centuries haven't been nearly as static.That still leaves open the question of what happened before Valyria, but that takes us back almost to the start of recorded history, so there's not that much evidence that anything weird was going on before Valyria in the first place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drokk Posted August 20, 2015 Share Posted August 20, 2015 Question that probably has been asked and answered, but....do we know if time is measured there at the same rate it is here? Is a day 24 hours? Are there 365 days in a year? How is the calendar in Westeros setup? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
United Essos Posted August 20, 2015 Share Posted August 20, 2015 It can be possible.. I can track my lineage back to 700 years ago, and I am not of ˝great houses˝... Still, we didn't have dragons or long nights in our world, didn't we? That's why I like Epic Fantasy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gwydden Posted August 20, 2015 Share Posted August 20, 2015 This has always bothered me. I dislike it when authors deal with ridiculously long time periods and large swaths of land without taking the work to actually fill them with stuff. I would imagine the long winters would slow down progress, but I don't think even that is a good enough justification. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobby b's bobby Posted August 20, 2015 Share Posted August 20, 2015 It can be possible.. I can track my lineage back to 700 years ago, and I am not of ˝great houses˝... Still, we didn't have dragons or long nights in our world, didn't we? That's why I like Epic Fantasy And did they rule france for 8k years? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
falcotron Posted August 20, 2015 Share Posted August 20, 2015 Question that probably has been asked and answered, but....do we know if time is measured there at the same rate it is here? Is a day 24 hours? Are there 365 days in a year? How is the calendar in Westeros setup?We don't have the complete details on their calendar, but there are SSMs where he confirms enough to be sure that, while 6000 years may be 6120 or 5882 of our years, it's not 1000 or 36000. Years are 12 months with a bit of slack, months are about as long as ours, days are about as long as ours, 16-year-olds on Westeros are the same age as 16-year-olds on Earth, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drokk Posted August 20, 2015 Share Posted August 20, 2015 We don't have the complete details on their calendar, but there are SSMs where he confirms enough to be sure that, while 6000 years may be 6120 or 5882 of our years, it's not 1000 or 36000. Years are 12 months with a bit of slack, months are about as long as ours, days are about as long as ours, 16-year-olds on Westeros are the same age as 16-year-olds on Earth, etc. Ok, thanks, then I agree the timeline seems way longer than it should for various reasons already discussed in this thread...namely lack of technological advancement, knowledge lasting so long, structures lasting so long, little change in cultures and customs. Martin is an incredible student of history, so my guess is he's done this for a reason. Just not sure what that is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
United Essos Posted August 20, 2015 Share Posted August 20, 2015 Nope they didn't rule over France, they ruled over a small place over 2 centuries... I think that such a huge time span gives a certain dimension to the story... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
United Essos Posted August 20, 2015 Share Posted August 20, 2015 triple post Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
falcotron Posted August 20, 2015 Share Posted August 20, 2015 Nope, they ruled over a small place on the Balkans for 2 centuries.. Writing about such a huge time span gives the story a certain dimensionYes, the same dimension as writing about kings who ruled well because they were Good Kings instead of because they had smart advisors and a sensible tax policy and knew how to be ruthless enough but not too ruthless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobby b's bobby Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 Nope, they ruled over a small place on the Balkans for 2 centuries.. Writing about such a huge time span gives the story a certain dimension For me it's meaningless when it doesn't seem like it's true. The Starks don't seem like they have ruled for 8000 years and adding another zero doesn't really do anything apart from make it more unrealistic if they'd ruled for 800 years is still stupidly successful but not impossible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
United Essos Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 You can add much more history and leave much more mysterious in a 8000 time span than in only 800... Thats the dimension I was talking about... If the Long night happened only a 1000 years ago, everyone would have remember it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ingelheim Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 Cataclysmic events and long seasons may be the reason Martin uses. But yes, it's unrealistic. But that's fantasy in itself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bennis of the Brown Shield Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 You can add much more history and leave much more mysterious in a 8000 time span than in only 800... Thats the dimension I was talking about... If the Long night happened only a 1000 years ago, everyone would have remember it... Is it really necessary though? 1000 years is really a long time ago, and even with all the historical research we have done during the last 150 years or so there are still tonnes of mysteries and unkowns about that era in our own world. For medieval people, who did not conduct such research, things that happened 1000 years earlier would have been extremely unclear. Aside from the Bible, perhaps some Roman and Greek authors, and a bunch of old ruins they would have had little idea of what happened back then. For example if you look at Medieval and Renaissance paintings of events that took place in Biblical times then things like architecture, clothing and the equipment of soldiers usually looks a lot like what it did during their own periods, because the painters didn't know any better. As for the "much more history part" GRRM hasn't even come remotely close to filling out these 8000 years of history. Notable historical events for the various Westerosi regions are usually centuries or even millennia apart, which is really unrealistic. In real history you hardly had a king during whose reign big things weren't happening in one way or another (as long as he didn't die after one year due to sickness or something), yet in Westeros it seems like you have 20 kings with completely uneventful lives for every one to whom something actually happens. The fact that the Starks have never needed a fleet between when Brandon the Burner destroyed theirs and until the start of the WOT5K is a good example. If this had been like a 50 or even a 100 year period, then sure. But instead it is like what, 2000 years since Brandon did that? The events we know took place in Westeros' history could easily be squeezed into a millenia or two instead of eight, with plenty of room to spare. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gwydden Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 You can add much more history and leave much more mysterious in a 8000 time span than in only 800... Thats the dimension I was talking about... If the Long night happened only a 1000 years ago, everyone would have remember it... Because modern British people remember the Saxons so well? Or a better example yet, what about Americans? What does the average American remember about what went on in their country a thousand years ago? And that's in the modern era, where we have a relatively well informed knowledge of history. For most ancient and medieval societies even a few centuries in the past was well beyond the realm of history and into the territory of legends and mythology. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Arthur Hightower Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 Because modern British people remember the Saxons so well? Or a better example yet, what about Americans? What does the average American remember about what went on in their country a thousand years ago? And that's in the modern era, where we have a relatively well informed knowledge of history. For most ancient and medieval societies even a few centuries in the past was well beyond the realm of history and into the territory of legends and mythology. It was called the dark ages for a reason, European civilisations didn't produce that much written material in that time for us to study, so knowing the Saxons well is difficult. Regardless we do know a fair bit about the time period, educated people living in medieval times knew a lot about the ancient world. It's rather unfair to use America as an example here. For it to be believable that the Long Night was a cataclysmic event that has fallen into the realm of legend and mythology I think a few thousand years is needed, that isn't to say Martin didn't go over the top with 8,000, but if it was less than 2,000 I don't think it would be prehistory, which it is pretty much supposed to be. Also the Andal invasion really needs to have been about 1,000 years prior to the series for the cultural assimilation to be absolute. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liz Stark-Targaryen Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 I think the chronology of the past mythic events is just fine. Compare the Long Night and the deeds from the Age of Heroes to the cultural memories of Atlantic and other Great Flood mythologies around the world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragonsmurf Posted August 21, 2015 Author Share Posted August 21, 2015 It can be possible.. I can track my lineage back to 700 years ago, and I am not of ˝great houses˝... Still, we didn't have dragons or long nights in our world, didn't we? That's why I like Epic Fantasy 8 000 years is more than ten times longer than 700... I can track my lineage back to around the year 1600. While tracking back to 1300 is very unusual, it is very possible, but 8 000 years just isn't especially since they lacked writing during a long time of those 8 000 years... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragonsmurf Posted August 21, 2015 Author Share Posted August 21, 2015 It was called the dark ages for a reason, European civilisations didn't produce that much written material in that time for us to study, so knowing the Saxons well is difficult. Regardless we do know a fair bit about the time period, educated people living in medieval times knew a lot about the ancient world. It's rather unfair to use America as an example here. For it to be believable that the Long Night was a cataclysmic event that has fallen into the realm of legend and mythology I think a few thousand years is needed, that isn't to say Martin didn't go over the top with 8,000, but if it was less than 2,000 I don't think it would be prehistory, which it is pretty much supposed to be. Also the Andal invasion really needs to have been about 1,000 years prior to the series for the cultural assimilation to be absolute. Actually, it is called the dark ages for no other reason than renaissance people thinking ancient times were cooler. The "dark ages" were dark during the first century or so after the fall of the Roman empire, and civilization stagnated a bit. A couple of centuries after the degeneration of Rome, Europe was once again thriving with a lot of new technology, education begining to spread and a philosophical peak in Europe and a bit later on medical advancements in the middle east. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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