Unrealistic long time span

[slant]

 

There is a lot of difference between mirroring our world's history, and being in what seems like a high medieval stasis for 4000 - 8000 years. 

 

Considering that GRRM prides himself on the realism of his series ("what were Aragorn's tax policies like" etc) he should in fairness at least try to explain why his world has had such an extremely strange social and technological development, where they have first advanced to a level that is actually very high (similar to 14th century Europe's) and then seemingly remained frozen there for an incredible amount of time. 

 

Harsh winters do not really explain it. If anything you'd think that these would in fact encourage technological innovations and social change, especially the latter. 

just clarifying to understand, when in the series timeline has the world first advanced to a high level, similar to 14th century europe?

yes, repeated harsh winters should have given them survival strategies

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

just clarifying to understand, when in the series timeline has the world first advanced to a high level, similar to 14th century europe?

yes, repeated harsh winters should have given them survival strategies

I phrased myself a little weirdly. They are similar to 14th century Western Europe now, and it seems like they were building medieval castles (and were feudal in structure) ever since the Long Night, or at least since a good deal before the Andal Invasions, considering the descriptions of these in A World of Ice and Fire.

 

Meaning that even if we are generous and put them as starting out at about the same time that these kinds of things first started appearing in Europe (around the 900s-1000s) they have remained for many thousands of years in an era that Europe covered in a few centuries, with no real explanation as for why. 

[Free Northman Reborn]

Yes, from a social perspective Westeros has been a feudal type society for 8000 years or thereabouts (maybe 6000 if the alternative timelines are to be believed).

 

That said, the ancient feudal structure seems more akin to a petty king type situation, where a chieftain would rule the lands around his holdfasts for about 3 days ride in all directions. I doubt it was a complex feudal structure like we see today in Westeros. Instead, you had a Flint or Norrey type of situation, with the commoners just following their local chief, be it a Bolton, Stark or Umber.

 

Why should this structure not be stable for thousands of years? Bear in mind that after the Long Night we may have been looking at a total Westerosi population of say 400,000 (1% of today's figure). So you would have ten square miles for every single individual on the continent. In the entire North, for example, you may have had as few as 40,000 humans at that time.With such low population densities, social interaction would be rather limited, especially with zero infrastructure and wild terrain covering most of the continent.

 

Even today, Westeros has very few cities compared to comparatively sized medieval Europe. So isolation and dispersal of the population over a wide region would have slowed down the development of centers of technological advancement. We see that White Harbor only emerged 1000 years ago, with no city existing in the entire North for 7000 years before that.

 

Going back to the population size after the Long Night of say 400,000. Suddenly after the Long Night, the irregular seasons became the dominant feature of Westerosi life. So here you had a primitive population who barely survived the Long Night, down to a bare 1% of their pre-Long Night population size, and suddenly they have to deal with irregular seasons, unpredictable planting calendars and having to revive crops from the few seedlings that were left after 10 years of Long Night.

 

It is a miracle that they even survived the sudden emergence of the irregular season cycle that enveloped the world after the Long Night. This would have slowed down the population recovery from the Long Night nadir immensely, with thousands no doubt dying off each Long Winter.

 

It may have taken thousands of years to get to a population level where more complex social interactions became feasible.

 

With regards to the building technology. I disagree that it has remained largely static. 8000 years ago they built primitive ringforts and wooden longhalls. Sure, the progression from there to the fortresses of today stretched over a long period of time, but again, I argue that the low population density and the struggle for survival against the terrible seasons would have slowed down development considerably.

 

To me it seems as if the current technological level was reached around 3000 years ago, with the 5000 years before that being all about a gradual recovery from the Long Night.

 

As for the last 3000 years, well, I still don't see why social progress like we saw on our world is a compulsory rule for a realistically depicted society. Feudalism survived for centuries on our world before the Rennaisance. Why should a Rennaisance be inevitable on their world?

[Ser Arthur Hightower]

Yes, from a social perspective Westeros has been a feudal type society for 8000 years or thereabouts (maybe 6000 if the alternative timelines are to be believed).

 

That said, the ancient feudal structure seems more akin to a petty king type situation, where a chieftain would rule the lands around his holdfasts for about 3 days ride in all directions. I doubt it was a complex feudal structure like we see today in Westeros. Instead, you had a Flint or Norrey type of situation, with the commoners just following their local chief, be it a Bolton, Stark or Umber.

 

Why should this structure not be stable for thousands of years? Bear in mind that after the Long Night we may have been looking at a total Westerosi population of say 400,000 (1% of today's figure). So you would have ten square miles for every single individual on the continent. In the entire North, for example, you may have had as few as 40,000 humans at that time.With such low population densities, social interaction would be rather limited, especially with zero infrastructure and wild terrain covering most of the continent.

 

Even today, Westeros has very few cities compared to comparatively sized medieval Europe. So isolation and dispersal of the population over a wide region would have slowed down the development of centers of technological advancement. We see that White Harbor only emerged 1000 years ago, with no city existing in the entire North for 7000 years before that.

 

Going back to the population size after the Long Night of say 400,000. Suddenly after the Long Night, the irregular seasons became the dominant feature of Westerosi life. So here you had a primitive population who barely survived the Long Night, down to a bare 1% of their pre-Long Night population size, and suddenly they have to deal with irregular seasons, unpredictable planting calendars and having to revive crops from the few seedlings that were left after 10 years of Long Night.

 

It is a miracle that they even survived the sudden emergence of the irregular season cycle that enveloped the world after the Long Night. This would have slowed down the population recovery from the Long Night nadir immensely, with thousands no doubt dying off each Long Winter.

 

It may have taken thousands of years to get to a population level where more complex social interactions became feasible.

 

With regards to the building technology. I disagree that it has remained largely static. 8000 years ago they built primitive ringforts and wooden longhalls. Sure, the progression from there to the fortresses of today stretched over a long period of time, but again, I argue that the low population density and the struggle for survival against the terrible seasons would have slowed down development considerably.

 

To me it seems as if the current technological level was reached around 3000 years ago, with the 5000 years before that being all about a gradual recovery from the Long Night.

 

As for the last 3000 years, well, I still don't see why social progress like we saw on our world is a compulsory rule for a realistically depicted society. Feudalism survived for centuries on our world before the Rennaisance. Why should a Rennaisance be inevitable on their world?

 

One problem with population growth is that much of Westeros should actually be overpopulated by this point, just like England was prior to the Back death in the early 1300s, regardless of the conditions the population obviously can grow, otherwise human life would have died out, so an area should really be supporting its maximum number of people a thousands years or so after advanced civilisation started. Winters kill people off but obviously aren't enough to stop population growth, and we only know of two epidemics in the last 300 years, neither of which has been  as serious as the Great Plague.

 

I wouldn't say social progress like we saw is a rule, but society will change as different groups of landowners and nobility fight for dominance and the needs and powers or princes change, which is something we don't see.

[Free Northman Reborn]

What if population growth over time is only like 0.01%, rather than the 1% or whatever that we saw in Medieval Europe? Maybe where in our world infant mortality was say 40% (just a random figure, I haven't googled the right number), maybe the Irregular Seasons made it 70% in Westeros, thus making the population grow much more slowly over time. To the point that it took 5000 years to get back to pre-Long Night levels, rather than just 1000 years.

 

Remember that the Long Night is not the cause of the slow population growth. The Long Night caused the initial population crash.  If that was the end of it, recovery would have gone the normal course. But that was not the end of it. After that point, the irregular seasons kicked in out of the blue, and severely slowed down the population growth rate.

 

Sure, it would spurt upwards in Long Summers, but equally it would crash dramatically in Long Winters. Frankly, I suspect every 5 year or longer Winter was a global cataclysm with mass die-offs, taking centuries to recover from. And if you got 2 such Long Winters in a row, well, that surely came close to extinction level events in their own right.

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

Yes, from a social perspective Westeros has been a feudal type society for 8000 years or thereabouts (maybe 6000 if the alternative timelines are to be believed).

 

That said, the ancient feudal structure seems more akin to a petty king type situation, where a chieftain would rule the lands around his holdfasts for about 3 days ride in all directions. I doubt it was a complex feudal structure like we see today in Westeros. Instead, you had a Flint or Norrey type of situation, with the commoners just following their local chief, be it a Bolton, Stark or Umber.

 

Why should this structure not be stable for thousands of years? Bear in mind that after the Long Night we may have been looking at a total Westerosi population of say 400,000 (1% of today's figure). So you would have ten square miles for every single individual on the continent. In the entire North, for example, you may have had as few as 40,000 humans at that time.With such low population densities, social interaction would be rather limited, especially with zero infrastructure and wild terrain covering most of the continent.

 

Even today, Westeros has very few cities compared to comparatively sized medieval Europe. So isolation and dispersal of the population over a wide region would have slowed down the development of centers of technological advancement. We see that White Harbor only emerged 1000 years ago, with no city existing in the entire North for 7000 years before that.

 

Going back to the population size after the Long Night of say 400,000. Suddenly after the Long Night, the irregular seasons became the dominant feature of Westerosi life. So here you had a primitive population who barely survived the Long Night, down to a bare 1% of their pre-Long Night population size, and suddenly they have to deal with irregular seasons, unpredictable planting calendars and having to revive crops from the few seedlings that were left after 10 years of Long Night.

 

It is a miracle that they even survived the sudden emergence of the irregular season cycle that enveloped the world after the Long Night. This would have slowed down the population recovery from the Long Night nadir immensely, with thousands no doubt dying off each Long Winter.

 

It may have taken thousands of years to get to a population level where more complex social interactions became feasible.

 

With regards to the building technology. I disagree that it has remained largely static. 8000 years ago they built primitive ringforts and wooden longhalls. Sure, the progression from there to the fortresses of today stretched over a long period of time, but again, I argue that the low population density and the struggle for survival against the terrible seasons would have slowed down development considerably.

 

To me it seems as if the current technological level was reached around 3000 years ago, with the 5000 years before that being all about a gradual recovery from the Long Night.

 

As for the last 3000 years, well, I still don't see why social progress like we saw on our world is a compulsory rule for a realistically depicted society. Feudalism survived for centuries on our world before the Rennaisance. Why should a Rennaisance be inevitable on their world?

Well, I would rather ask why such a structure should be stable for thousands of years, rather than why it shouldn't. Feudalism is not the default way to run a pre-modern society, and even during the actual high/late Middle Ages not all parts of Europe became feudal (especially not the more thinly populated ones) and the particularly long winters regularly decimating the population should result in the opposite of a static society for Westeros. Because in real history big disasters like that have often been what caused empires and dynasties to fall, and societies to change, rather than the opposite.

 

A really severe magical winter that butchers the population of a kingdom, erodes its tax base, and causes its cities to collapse due to lack of trade, should not make it easier for the families in charge of (and dependent on) all this stuff to remain in power. You'd rather think that it would result in chaos, and make them vulnerable to foreign invaders, domestic rebels, new religious movements, or other ambitious people. 

 

Sure a tiny post-Long Night population could have slowed down technological development a lot, but the time spans we are talking about are still incredibly long. 

 

As for the building technology, it depends on how old you think the current incarnations of the Nightfort, Winterfell, Storm's End etc are. I've got the impression that they are supposed to be very, very old, since they seem to be imbued with magic that does things related to why they were constructed in the first place. Storm's End being buffetted by and repelling storms from the sea, for example. In which case we would be looking at medieval style castles dating from right after the Long Night. The existence of longhalls and ringforts doesn't really disprove this either. The Mormonts still live in a longhall after all, and the rest of Westeros definitely knows about building castles. 

[Ser Arthur Hightower]

What if population growth over time is only like 0.01%, rather than the 1% or whatever that we saw in Medieval Europe? Maybe where in our world infant mortality was say 40% (just a random figure, I haven't googled the right number), maybe the Irregular Seasons made it 70% in Westeros, thus making the population grow much more slowly over time. To the point that it took 5000 years to get back to pre-Long Night levels, rather than just 1000 years.

 

Remember that the Long Night is not the cause of the slow population growth. The Long Night caused the initial population crash.  If that was the end of it, recovery would have gone the normal course. But that was not the end of it. After that point, the irregular seasons kicked in out of the blue, and severely slowed down the population growth rate.

 

Sure, it would spurt upwards in Long Summers, but equally it would crash dramatically in Long Winters. Frankly, I suspect every 5 year or longer Winter was a global cataclysm with mass die-offs, taking centuries to recover from. And if you got 2 such Long Winters in a row, well, that surely came close to extinction level events in their own right.

 

 

The 0.01% example isn't the best; it would take 7,000 years for the population to double.

 

The problem with the idea that a long winter means cataclysm is that everyone seems to be expecting a long winter due to the long summer, whilst they are certainly worried they don't seem to be expecting the population to fall by a significant fraction (a quarter or more). There are worries that the kingdoms could starve, but this seems to be more attributed to the political situation rather than the inevitability of population decline come winter.

 

If we want to measure the minimum time between the long night and present we can take your figures of 400,000 and 40,000,000, and assume a low average population growth of 0.5%, it takes 923 years for this to happen, if we decrease this to 0.1% it takes 4,600 years.

 

IMO an average population growth of 0.1% (that factors in natural disasters and occasional steep drops in population) is too low, however even if we were to go with it Westeros is still maybe 3,000 years too old.

[Mithras]

Preparation for a long winter requires serious planning. First of all, they never know exactly when the winter will come and how long it will take place. Food cannot be stored forever. Different types of foods have different shelf lives. As the summer keeps going on and on, the winter stores should be checked, replenished, and the food should be consumed before it is rotten. Any misfortune or malpractice in this process coupled with an unexpected long winter will result in starvation.

 

In addition, a long winter is always a trouble because sicknesses will appear after fruits and vegetables are finished. George made specific reference to Scurvy in the text (though not by name IIRC). Aemon or Bowen talked about the symptoms of this disease and how it is cured by consuming lemons.

 

As a result, Westeros should have a higher frequency of experiencing disastrous winters that can wipe out significant portions of the population.

[Tucu]

Preparation for a long winter requires serious planning. First of all, they never know exactly when the winter will come and how long it will take place. Food cannot be stored forever. Different types of foods have different shelf lives. As the summer keeps going on and on, the winter stores should be checked, replenished, and the food should be consumed before it is rotten. Any misfortune or malpractice in this process coupled with an unexpected long winter will result in starvation.

 

In addition, a long winter is always a trouble because sicknesses will appear after fruits and vegetables are finished. George made specific reference to Scurvy in the text (though not by name IIRC). Aemon or Bowen talked about the symptoms of this disease and how it is cured by consuming lemons.

 

As a result, Westeros should have a higher frequency of experiencing disastrous winters that can wipe out significant portions of the population.

I agree. We have evidence that winters cull the population, at least in the North. Old men go into the woods to die to leave enough food for the young. See this Hugo Wull quote:

"Winter is almost upon us, boy. And winter is death. I would sooner my men die fighting for the Ned's little girl than alone and hungry in the snow, weeping tears that freeze upon their cheeks. No one sings songs of men who die like that. As for me, I am old. This will be my last winter. Let me bathe in Bolton blood before I die"

[Ser Arthur Hightower]

Well, I would rather ask why such a structure should be stable for thousands of years, rather than why it shouldn't. Feudalism is not the default way to run a pre-modern society, and even during the actual high/late Middle Ages not all parts of Europe became feudal (especially not the more thinly populated ones) and the particularly long winters regularly decimating the population should result in the opposite of a static society for Westeros. Because in real history big disasters like that have often been what caused empires and dynasties to fall, and societies to change, rather than the opposite.

 

A really severe magical winter that butchers the population of a kingdom, erodes its tax base, and causes its cities to collapse due to lack of trade, should not make it easier for the families in charge of (and dependent on) all this stuff to remain in power. You'd rather think that it would result in chaos, and make them vulnerable to foreign invaders, domestic rebels, new religious movements, or other ambitious people. 

 

Sure a tiny post-Long Night population could have slowed down technological development a lot, but the time spans we are talking about are still incredibly long. 

 

As for the building technology, it depends on how old you think the current incarnations of the Nightfort, Winterfell, Storm's End etc are. I've got the impression that they are supposed to be very, very old, since they seem to be imbued with magic that does things related to why they were constructed in the first place. Storm's End being buffetted by and repelling storms from the sea, for example. In which case we would be looking at medieval style castles dating from right after the Long Night. The existence of longhalls and ringforts doesn't really disprove this either. The Mormonts still live in a longhall after all, and the rest of Westeros definitely knows about building castles. 

 I think AWOIAF makes it fairly clear that Winterfell isn't 8,000 years old, Storm's End may or may not be, but either way it would be something of an exception; they were capable of building this one castle through mostly magical means, but it doesn't mean all the other fortifications were at the same level of advancement. If we take the tale of Durran Godsgrief fairly literally and accept Storm's End was built as we see it today roughly 8,000 years before the series it doesn't mean anyone else had anything close to it for hundreds or thousands of years.

[Mithras]

 I think AWOIAF makes it fairly clear that Winterfell isn't 8,000 years old, 

 

How many times Winterfell was sacked and rebuilt?

[falcotron]

To me it seems as if the current technological level was reached around 3000 years ago, with the 5000 years before that being all about a gradual recovery from the Long Night.

I won't even try to argue with why it should take 5000 years to recover a population and culture that only took them 4000 years to create in the first place, or why nobody migrated into this suddenly-empty territory, because none of that matters. Let's take your 3000 years:

As for the last 3000 years, well, I still don't see why social progress like we saw on our world is a compulsory rule for a realistically depicted society. Feudalism survived for centuries on our world before the Rennaisance. Why should a Rennaisance be inevitable on their world?

Sure, Feudalism survived for 500 years in our world, but it was changing continuously and dramatically during that time. Look at just 10th century France vs. 11th century France: a radical decentralization and hierarchicalization of power, French emerging as a separate language from vulgar Latin (including the first attempts to standardize written French), the discovery of hops-based beers that could be traded all the way across the continent, the foundation of the first universities, the invention of the horizontal loom and the subsequent development of the textile trade, the development of jousting saddles and spurs and Norman-style forts and castles and the radical changes they both brought to warfare, and of course the conquest of England. Pick any century, and they had more change than you're claiming Westeros had over 3000 years.

So, even accepting all of your stipulations (which I don't think are very likely, as others have argued), it still doesn't even remotely explain the facts.

[Free Northman Reborn]

I won't even try to argue with why it should take 5000 years to recover a population and culture that only took them 4000 years to create in the first place, or why nobody migrated into this suddenly-empty territory, because none of that matters. Let's take your 3000 years:

Sure, Feudalism survived for 500 years in our world, but it was changing continuously and dramatically during that time. Look at just 10th century France vs. 11th century France: a radical decentralization and hierarchicalization of power, French emerging as a separate language from vulgar Latin (including the first attempts to standardize written French), the discovery of hops-based beers that could be traded all the way across the continent, the foundation of the first universities, the invention of the horizontal loom and the subsequent development of the textile trade, the development of jousting saddles and spurs and Norman-style forts and castles and the radical changes they both brought to warfare, and of course the conquest of England. Pick any century, and they had more change than you're claiming Westeros had over 3000 years.

So, even accepting all of your stipulations (which I don't think are very likely, as others have argued), it still doesn't even remotely explain the facts.

You don't seem to grasp that the irregular seasons did not exist prior to the Long Night.

[falcotron]

You don't seem to grasp that the irregular seasons did not exist prior to the Long Night.

Why are you responding to the part I said I wasn't going to argue because it doesn't matter, and would stipulate for the point of argument? You want me to double-stipulate it before you'll respond to the actual point?

[Free Northman Reborn]

It is more effective to respond to individual points, and get them out of the way, than responding to a full page block of text, containing a multitude of arguments.

 

So let's address the foundational aspects:

 

The irregular seasons had no impact on population growth prior to the Long Night, given that the irregular seasons did not exist then. 

 

Secondly, and tied to this point, is the fact that the low population density in Westeros after the Long Night was not exploited by new migrations of people from Essos for two very important reasons. The first and most important being that the whole world had its population density reduced by the Long Night, so the whole world was similarly empty of human beings. And secondly, the land bridge to Westeros had been destroyed after the Fist Men arrived.

 

How many new waves of migration into the Americas happened after the Bering land bridge disappeared? 

 

So the above bolsters two very important arguments. The first being that the irregular seasons was something humanity was not equipped to deal with after the Long Night. And the second is that the rest of the world was not in a position to exploit Westeros's low population density during the Age of Heroes, because the same issue affected Essos as well.

[Free Northman Reborn]

So now we come to the era after the Long Night.

 

A fundamental difference between our points of view is that I simply think that the impact of irregular seasons is severely underestimated by most readers. I don't really believe that a society with medieval level technology can survive repeated multi-year winters.

 

We learn in Book 1 that some of the Northern lords - due to the long summer - wish to start storing only 10% of their harvest instead of 20%. That tells us that even in the best of times they store only 20% of their harvest for Winter. So it would take 5 harvests to store the equivalent of one normal harvest for consumption during Winter.

 

We don't know the mechanics of crop harvesting in Westeros. Are there 2 harvests per year because Summer last all year round? If so, that means they can store 40% of a normal harvest per year (20% + 20%). Meaning that after a 5 year summer they would theoretically have enough food stored to match two full harvests. So does that mean that after 5 years of summer they have enough food stored to last for 2 years of winter? Or lets say only half a harvest is needed to feed the population. Does that mean that after 5 years of summer they have enough food stored for 4 years of Winter?

 

That is all good and well, provided two other assumptions are made.

 

The first is that the food stored in year 1 of a 5 year Summer has not spoiled by the time Winter arrives 4 years later. I question this. In my view significant spoilage must surely happen during a long summer, meaning that if there is a long Winter thereafter, you are not going to get full value for the amount of food that was stored.

 

The second assumption is that a long Winter will always be preceded by a long Summer. And in this case, we know the assumption is false. So even if you have a number of equally long Summers and Winters, we know the seasons are lopsided and there is no hard and fast rule that applies. In times when you have a long summer and relatively short winters, then great, business as usual. But whenever you have a very long Winter after a short summer, you will have mass die offs.

 

In short, I think that a realistic Westeros would revolve entirely around food production. And that the power structures that make food production as predictable and secure as possible, will endure, given that without mass cooperation such as that found in the feudal lord-peasant relationship, humanity would not survive such a natural cycle.

 

Secondly, in Westeros the percentage of peasants working the land would be much, much higher than in our real world, due to the critical nature of food production. And that in turn will free up fewer people to philosophize, conduct trade, study, and invent new technologies. Hence, progress is slowed down.

 

I would say that Martin has gone for a society which has largely been in a holding pattern since the Long Night, struggling simply to survive the disaster that is the irregular seasons.

[Chaircat Meow]

SNIP

Martin wanted to create a world where power structures and dynamics were more 'realistic' than in Tolkien and where he could base the story on the War of the Roses and other historical models. But he's never said he was going for 'realism' overall, in terms of economics/demographics. The backstory is just more mythical and fantastical than his presentation of current events in the books. I doubt Martin has ever considered the long term effects apocalyptic winters would have.

[Free Northman Reborn]

Hear me Meouw

 

I fully agree with you.

 

I do however enjoy demonstrating to the would-be historians who are so critical of his backstory, why there are mechanisms in place through which he could plausibly explain his historical setting.

[Ser Walter of AShwood]

Haven't read the entire thread, but why are we comparing Earth and its development with a fantasy series? I will compare ASOIAF with some other non-trilogy fantasy series here....

 

If we compare with the Sword of Truth series and its [url=http://sot.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline]timeline[/url], we can see that their great war ended about 2980 years before Richard received the Sword of Truth and became the seeker.

The seeker and confessors have been around ever since. Also, the world has changed in those many years, but nowhere near the changes we see on Earth. Also, the tech-level of the SoT world has deteriorated since the Great War as a lot of magic and skills are lost.

The great war was the start of this technological/magical demise. Before the Great War, all the major cities like Aydindril and the Wizards keep, D'Hara and the people's palace were already in existence, so we can easily add a couple of 1000 extra years to the timeline (let's face it, such major palaces aren't built in a day, and even in the time of the First Confessor the magicians were an old and respected organization).

 

And that is on a planet with exactly the same days in a year, the same seasons and yearcount as Earth since

[spoiler]Richard created a second world where magic doesn't exist, which is an exact mirror image of the SoT world, called Earth.[/spoiler]

 

We do not know if days, hours, months, years or even a lunar month has the same length on Planetos as it has on earth.

We can not compare years, ages between Planetos and Earth, because they aren't similar. 1 is fantasy, the other is real (to us).

If we did, we would then also have to wonder why there are no real dragons on Earth, why nobody was able to create Wildfire on Earth and so on.

 

it is therefore very plausible that Planetos is as old as is written in the books (or half that age due to exaggeration) without the planet developing into 'our' modern age. What if the renaissance never happened on Planetos as it did on Earth, because there was no trigger for it.

There is/was no need for gunpowder on Planetos, because they had dragons and have wildfire, so no gun development.

Books are copied by maesters, AFAIK there is no bookprinting in Panetos (which was one of the triggers for knowledge to become widely available and technology to thrive).

Reading in itself is only for nobles, priests and maesters (Davos as an experienced ships captain, only learns to read after he is appointed as Stannis' Hand).

 

As far as I can read in the books the renaissance hasn't happened, but it might be about to happen in the free cities (the comparison with the renaissance-era Italian city-states is obvious), so Planetos could be on the brink of rapid development (which could be part of the end of the books, similar to the second age of knowledge in the Wheel of Time series, although in this series, it appears to be a repeating of events over a long period of time, which could happen in ASOIAF as well).

 

Anyways, it doesn't bother me that the timelines are off (even if it is a lot), it is not impossible.

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

Hear me Meouw

 

I fully agree with you.

 

I do however enjoy demonstrating to the would-be historians who are so critical of his backstory, why there are mechanisms in place through which he could plausibly explain his historical setting.

You can explain away every other plot hole and issue in the series with far less conjecture than is needed for this one. 

 

All the talk about army sizes and populations etc, is a good example. Because with all the organization and infrastructure the Westerosi civilization must have built up around producing and preserving enough food to last them through their winters, one could easily imagine that they as a side effect are also far more capable of feeding and fielding large armies than real medieval kingdoms. Hence much of their male population could indeed have gone to war during the WOT5K, and the total population of the continent hence be in the low millions or something like that, which is hinted at in the books.

 

Another popular one is that is in an unrealistic Diabolus Ex Machina that Rodrik Cassel leaves Winterfell virtually undefended to chase some pirates on the other side of the kingdom, loses it, and then to top it off gets his army destroyed afterwards because he invites a Bolton commander to his tent even though he should know that all Boltons are either dead or in the Riverlands? Nah. Not a plot hole. Rodrik Cassel is just an idiot. Plenty of them around in the real world, and in a society built around nepotism it is not unrealistic that a bunch of them could rise pretty high.  

 

And so on...