Mistakes/Contradictions in the books?

[SeanF]

7 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Yeah, but we don't have Ned giving fancy gifts to the royal family, do we? All he seems to be doing to throwing a huge feast at the royals, and housing/feeding all the hangers-on in the royal party. Considering the Starks control of the North they should be able to get all the food via the usual taxes they collect from all their bannermen but the whole thing still caused them some financial trouble. Perhaps the Starks had to hire more servants, cooks, etc. and had to pay them in coin for the royal visit? Castles seem to be centers of civilization in Westeros, so coin most likely is mostly used there and in cities and (market) towns. In villages like those we see in TSS on the Osgrey lands people most likely only scarcely saw coin, or used it in everyday life.

If there had been singers, mummers, tourneys, etc. during the royal visit at Winterfell the Starks may have been really fucked, but just paying some additional people and food their losses weren't that great.

 

The Starks could very well be feeding a couple of thousand people for weeks, when the Royal Court arrives. 

[Lost Melnibonean]

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Nope.

That makes no sense. 

[Lost Melnibonean]

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

 

Double post.

[Lord Varys]

36 minutes ago, SeanF said:

The Starks could very well be feeding a couple of thousand people for weeks, when the Royal Court arrives. 

Yeah, but do the Starks - and any (great) lords for that matter - actually need to buy the food the eat? Or do their feudal rights enable them to collect all the necessary food from their vassals, tenants, and levies?

Colemon suggests that they had a financial loss, too, not just empty storerooms after Robert had left. But if they didn't buy any food then the only financial losses they could have had would be restricted to pay additional servants. At least I've no idea what they could have spend coin on since there were no fancy gifts and no fancy entertainment (mummers, singers, tourneys, and the like). Ned and Robert going hunting wouldn't have cost him any coin, either. They were hunting on Stark land, used Stark horses and hounds.

3 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

That makes no sense. 

Well, the whole thing is a mistake, so that's sort of evident ;-).

[Lost Melnibonean]

4 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Another contradiction that occurs to me. In ACOK, Theon says his first sexual partner was the Brewer's Wife. In ADWD, it's a girl on a quilted blanket (and thus very unlikely to be a married woman).

Why? Cause married ladies like to do it in the dirt? 

[Nittanian]

We also don't know her age or when she married Barth, so it's not necessarily a mistake.

[Lychnidos]

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I guess there is also the chance that the Crown gave Sandor enough gold in weight to equal 40,000 dragons. I mean, that would have been possible. Presumably a number of ingots would have been worth as much as 40,000 dragons.

Medieval Roman gold coins weighted around 4.5 g, florins and ducats ~ 3.5 g, so possible to move around with a carriage or few horses. The silly thing is, that he can hire a decent army for several months with that amount.

 

[RedShirt47]

One thing that bugs me a little is GRRM's use of height for walls.
He has the outter walls of Winterfell as 100 feet with the inner walls even higher. Medieval castles walls were generally around 30 feet, with tall ones at 45 - 50 feet. So Winterfell is twice as tall as very tall medieval castles.

Then there is The Wall at 700 feet, that's a crazy height for a wall. Although I think he has admitted himself that this was too tall. When he saw the galcier in Iceland which the show uses as the wall he thought it was way too high and it's only 300 feet.

As for the Starks needing money to throw a feast, I imagine they had to bring in many barrels of wine. They may have need new goblets and platters (likely silver for the royals). I don't know how well grain grows in the North but a lot of this would be needed for the horses and likely imported. I'm sure the north had plenty of boar, goats, game birds and the like but not everything for a feast would be available in the North.

[The Marquis de Leech]

11 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Why? Cause married ladies like to do it in the dirt? 

Describing a married woman as a "girl" feels odd. 

[Lord Varys]

12 hours ago, Lychnidos said:

Medieval Roman gold coins weighted around 4.5 g, florins and ducats ~ 3.5 g, so possible to move around with a carriage or few horses. The silly thing is, that he can hire a decent army for several months with that amount.

The thing is, that we know Sandor wasn't riding around with many horses. He may have had one pack horse, but that would have been it. And the whole idea of him actually heading towards the Riverlands with such a huge wealth doesn't make much sense, either.

10 hours ago, RedShirt47 said:

As for the Starks needing money to throw a feast, I imagine they had to bring in many barrels of wine. They may have need new goblets and platters (likely silver for the royals). I don't know how well grain grows in the North but a lot of this would be needed for the horses and likely imported. I'm sure the north had plenty of boar, goats, game birds and the like but not everything for a feast would be available in the North.

Wel, I guess there could have been wine of the sort the English made in the middle ages (which was a huge joke across the entire world due to its taste) but considering that the North is essentially the Scotland to the South's England that is not very likely.

Therefore you most likely are right. Wine would have been something the Starks had to import.

The insight we get from Jorah's story about Lynesse and their time together on Bear Island gives a little bit of insight in the whole Northern situation. Essentially Bear Island is just a smaller, more primitive Winterfell. And Jorah clearly lacks the coin to afford even the most basic luxuries and entertainments that are common in the South. At least on a regular basis.

One could easily see a Hightower girl despairing at Winterfell exactly the same way Lynesse despaired on Bear Island. Even Catelyn had issues with their way of life at first.

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

21 hours ago, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

Braavos was a city made for secrets, a city of dogs and masks and whispete. It's very existence had been a secret for a century, the girl had learned; its location had been hidden trice that long. (AFFC, Cat of the Canals)

 

Sealord Uthero Zalyne put an end to that secrecy, sending forth his ships to every corner of the world to proclaim the existence and location of Braavos, and invite men of all nations to celebrate the 111th festival of the city's founding. (TWOIAF, The Free Cities: Braavos).

 

So when did the location of Braavos become known?

Nobody has an explanation?

[Neddy's Girl]

It says festival rather than anniversary, so maybe it's like the Olympics or less regular than that? Or maybe they didn't start celebrating until later on, like the first Christmas wasn't year 1. Just guessing.

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

13 minutes ago, Neddy's Girl said:

It says festival rather than anniversary, so maybe it's like the Olympics or less regular than that? Or maybe they didn't start celebrating until later on, like the first Christmas wasn't year 1. Just guessing.

But the existence of Braavos was revealed after a century (AFFC), which TWOIAF specifies with 111th festival.

 

It's about the contradiction between AFFC stating that there was two hundred years between the reveal of Braavos' existence and the reveal of the city's location, and TWOIAF stating that existence and location were revealed at the same time.

[Raisin' Bran]

9 minutes ago, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

But the existence of Braavos was revealed after a century (AFFC), which TWOIAF specifies with 111th festival.

 

It's about the contradiction between AFFC stating that there was two hundred years between the reveal of Braavos' existence and the reveal of the city's location, and TWOIAF stating that existence and location were revealed at the same time.

Perhaps the Braavosi were exaggerating. Or Yandel's research was wrong.

[Blackfyre Bastard]

12 minutes ago, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

But the existence of Braavos was revealed after a century (AFFC), which TWOIAF specifies with 111th festival.

 

It's about the contradiction between AFFC stating that there was two hundred years between the reveal of Braavos' existence and the reveal of the city's location, and TWOIAF stating that existence and location were revealed at the same time.

Maybe it's a typo and it should read 411.

[Neds Secret]

7 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The thing is, that we know Sandor wasn't riding around with many horses. He may have had one pack horse, but that would have been it. And the whole idea of him actually heading towards the Riverlands with such a huge wealth doesn't make much sense, either.

Wel, I guess there could have been wine of the sort the English made in the middle ages (which was a huge joke across the entire world due to its taste) but considering that the North is essentially the Scotland to the South's England that is not very likely.

Therefore you most likely are right. Wine would have been something the Starks had to import.

The insight we get from Jorah's story about Lynesse and their time together on Bear Island gives a little bit of insight in the whole Northern situation. Essentially Bear Island is just a smaller, more primitive Winterfell. And Jorah clearly lacks the coin to afford even the most basic luxuries and entertainments that are common in the South. At least on a regular basis.

One could easily see a Hightower girl despairing at Winterfell exactly the same way Lynesse despaired on Bear Island. Even Catelyn had issues with their way of life at first.

That's why the Ned kept Catelyn busy breeding, and despising Jon Snow in her spare time.

[Lychnidos]

11 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The thing is, that we know Sandor wasn't riding around with many horses. He may have had one pack horse, but that would have been it. And the whole idea of him actually heading towards the Riverlands with such a huge wealth doesn't make much sense, either.

Wel, I guess there could have been wine of the sort the English made in the middle ages (which was a huge joke across the entire world due to its taste) but considering that the North is essentially the Scotland to the South's England that is not very likely.

Therefore you most likely are right. Wine would have been something the Starks had to import.

The insight we get from Jorah's story about Lynesse and their time together on Bear Island gives a little bit of insight in the whole Northern situation. Essentially Bear Island is just a smaller, more primitive Winterfell. And Jorah clearly lacks the coin to afford even the most basic luxuries and entertainments that are common in the South. At least on a regular basis.

One could easily see a Hightower girl despairing at Winterfell exactly the same way Lynesse despaired on Bear Island. Even Catelyn had issues with their way of life at first.

The state of life at Winterfell also makes little sense. Contrary to the amount of land and people the Starks control, they live like small time barons, only the size of the castle testifying otherwise.

[Lost Melnibonean]

7 hours ago, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

 

Oops. (Is there a way to cancel a post once you've stared it?)

[Raisin' Bran]

16 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Oops. (Is there a way to cancel a post once you've stared it?)

I exit out of the thread in that case.

[Lost Melnibonean]

6 minutes ago, Raisin' Bran said:

I exit out of the thread in that case.

Every time I do that, when I try to post another comment quoting another post, I am stuck with the post I exited out of.