How rich are the Starks pre series

[Free Northman Reborn]

16 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

A case can be made that the North was in a worse state in 298 AC then many of the other regions.

The Starks had been facing both internal and external crises for over a century beginning with the Skagos Rebellion, the Great Spring Sickness, the Ironborn raidings, the wildling invasion, the six-year-winter, and so on. This took a toll both on House Stark directly (which was cut down to a single male branch by the time of Lord Rickard's birth) as well as the Northern population in general.

More importantly, we should assume that the War of the Usurper and the Greyjoy Rebellion took a toll on the young men of fighting age. Many young men did not come back to have sons of their own. Especially in Winterfell. House Cassel was nearly extinguished in the male line during those wars (and is now extinct) and the only known male descendant of Old Nan is Hodor.

Unfortunately we don't know much about the troop sizes during the Dance. There were 4,000 Winter Wolves under Lord Roderick (apparently most of them old men prepared to die, one assumes, 9,000 Black men at Tumbleton during the First Battle which were greatly outnumbered by the Hightower army (which thus, perhaps, numbered as much as 20,000 or more). We can also reasonably assume that the original Lannister army must have been pretty big.

From Ran we also know specifically that Lady Jeyne Arryn sent 10,000 Vale men to Rhaenyra's help throughout the war but we don't actually were exactly they fought. Some of them where with her in KL.

The host of Lord Cregan was larger than the host of the Lads from the Riverlands. We also don't know how many men Lord Borros brought to KL from the Stormlands.

As to the general question again:

The North is poor. That is confirmed not just by all the descriptions but simply by the population numbers. Rich and fertile lands support many people. If the Starks and the Northmen were rich then their lands would support much more people. It is as simple as that.

Whether there are many mineral resources and other treasures in the North is unclear - but if they are then the Northmen clearly lack the numbers to actually mine all that stuff. You are only rich if you can use your resources to your advantage.

But if there was more fertile farm land then the population would simply have increased much more over the centuries than it did. Winter is dreadful in the North.

And we get regular late summer snows in the North in, well, late summer. So the whole harvesting and crops planting thing is most likely mainly done in early and middle summer. There isn't much to be harvested in late summer or throughout autumn if snows in those seasons.

A few comments.

The events of the last 100 years seems to have been largely designed to ensure that there are no competing Stark cousins with claims to Winterfell, for plot purposes. Martin has specifically referred to things like the Skagosi rebellion, Raymun Redbeard's invasion and the Ironborn wars as reasons why the Starks are reduced to the main line only. This is obviously necessary for the Bolton rise to power, the importance of Robb's will and the lack of unity in the North until a new Stark emerges.

From a broader point of view one has to ask, why would George be interested in having the North be weaker at this point in time than in other periods of history? There is no need for that. If he wanted them weak, he could just have made them weak in general. I don't see him deliberately orchestrating 100 years of events to bring them to a weaker point today than they were before.

Instead, he provides plenty of hints that Robb's call to arms came at an inopportune time and with too much haste for the North to be able to raise its full strength. 20k men does not represent the North's strength. So to deduce their population numbers from that is incorrect.

It is not disputed that the North's land is less fertile than that in the South - Dorne excluded. This is what leads to the North having a lower population density than the South. But that does not mean that the North as a whole has a lower total population. The North might well have a population equal to that of the Riverlands - but spread over 4 or 5 times the land area.

As for late Summer harvesting in the North. The current harvest happened in Autumn. And seems to have been as bountiful as any other. In fact, it was so bountiful that they needed as many hands as possible to bring it all in. So it is not true that they only rely on early and middle summer for harvests.

Lastly, we know that the Gift is decent farmland. And as to the oft discussed question of whether the rest of the North is necessarily more fertile than the Gift, have come across this little gem from Dance of Dragons, showing that to be true. When Jon explains his plan to settle the wildlings in the Gift to the clan chiefs of Houses Flint and Norrey, we read this:

The Norrey fingered his beard. "You may put your wildlings in these ruined forts, Lord Snow, but how will you make them stay? What is there to stop them moving south to fairer, warmer lands?"

"Our lands," said Old Flint.

It is clear that even the Mountain Clan lands - in the northwestern most Mountains - are warmer and fairer than the lands of the Gift. And the Mountain Clans are generally regarded as poor by the rest of the North, which suggest that the rest of the North is in turn more fertile than the Mountain Clan lands. So the North is most certainly not a desolate wasteland. Almost all of it will have a better climate than the Gift.

Consider that even the Gift is better farmland than the deep desert of Dorne, after all. And all of the North lies South of the Gift.

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

The events of the last 100 years seems to have been largely designed to ensure that there are no competing Stark cousins with claims to Winterfell, for plot purposes. Martin has specifically referred to things like the Skagosi rebellion, Raymun Redbeard's invasion and the Ironborn wars as reasons why the Starks are reduced to the main line only. This is obviously necessary for the Bolton rise to power, the importance of Robb's will and the lack of unity in the North until a new Stark emerges.

Not only Starks died in those wars. And House Bolton, Hornwood, Tallhart, Glover, Cerwyn are also down to only one or two male branches. It is not just the Starks. Roose has neither siblings nor cousins that are mentioned.

1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

It is not disputed that the North's land is less fertile than that in the South - Dorne excluded. This is what leads to the North having a lower population density than the South. But that does not mean that the North as a whole has a lower total population. The North might well have a population equal to that of the Riverlands - but spread over 4 or 5 times the land area.

It certainly does. If the Reach can field 100,000 men and the West 60,000 men then they have both a much larger population than the North.

At the most the North can field 30,000 men - this amount is confirmed for Torrhen Stark. But again, we have no clue whether the population remained the same. Unless we assume nothing changes in this society this is very unlikely. Or do you think lots of people dying during a six-year-winter happens only on paper?

But my point was more that low population density transfers into the land being poorer because people cannot make use of the land they have to the same extent they could if they were more. If 300 people sit on a hill full of copper then they can mine it much better than if thirty or three guys sit on the same hill.

The same goes for all the other natural resources including crops. This is best seen with the NW which is close to a lot of natural resources (timber in the Haunted Forest; a lot of land in the Gifts) but cannot use it to continue to make the Wall higher or keep the forest in check.

1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

As for late Summer harvesting in the North. The current harvest happened in Autumn. And seems to have been as bountiful as any other. In fact, it was so bountiful that they needed as many hands as possible to bring it all in. So it is not true that they only rely on early and middle summer for harvests.

That makes no sense. The weather has an effect on the crops, and if there is snow then there are no crops as confirmed by the crops of the Glovers dying due to the cold. The fact that you use all the men you need to bring in the harvest isn't confirmation that the harvest is bountiful. 

1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Lastly, we know that the Gift is decent farmland. And as to the oft discussed question of whether the rest of the North is necessarily more fertile than the Gift, have come across this little gem from Dance of Dragons, showing that to be true. When Jon explains his plan to settle the wildlings in the Gift to the clan chiefs of Houses Flint and Norrey, we read this:

The Norrey fingered his beard. "You may put your wildlings in these ruined forts, Lord Snow, but how will you make them stay? What is there to stop them moving south to fairer, warmer lands?"

"Our lands," said Old Flint.

It is clear that even the Mountain Clan lands - in the northwestern most Mountains - are warmer and fairer than the lands of the Gift. And the Mountain Clans are generally regarded as poor by the rest of the North, which suggest that the rest of the North is in turn more fertile than the Mountain Clan lands. So the North is most certainly not a desolate wasteland. Almost all of it will have a better climate than the Gift.

Well, this reflects the opinion of those guys. And I'm not necessarily at odds with the idea that some lands of the clansmen are better farmland than some regions of the Gifts. Although it is said that the clans do not actually live off their lands but are rather fishermen and hunters living in their mountain valleys - the easter parts of the Gifts aren't all that mountainous as the western reaches by comparison.

But you cannot infer from that that the farmland down south must get continuously better. The farmland in the Vale might very well be the best farmland in Westeros despite the fact that it is far north compared to the farmland in the Stormlands.

[Free Northman Reborn]

48 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Not only Starks died in those wars. And House Bolton, Hornwood, Tallhart, Glover, Cerwyn are also down to only one or two male branches. It is not just the Starks. Roose has neither siblings nor cousins that are mentioned.

It certainly does. If the Reach can field 100,000 men and the West 60,000 men then they have both a much larger population than the North.

At the most the North can field 30,000 men - this amount is confirmed for Torrhen Stark. But again, we have no clue whether the population remained the same. Unless we assume nothing changes in this society this is very unlikely. Or do you think lots of people dying during a six-year-winter happens only on paper?

But my point was more that low population density transfers into the land being poorer because people cannot make use of the land they have to the same extent they could if they were more. If 300 people sit on a hill full of copper then they can mine it much better than if thirty or three guys sit on the same hill.

The same goes for all the other natural resources including crops. This is best seen with the NW which is close to a lot of natural resources (timber in the Haunted Forest; a lot of land in the Gifts) but cannot use it to continue to make the Wall higher or keep the forest in check.

That makes no sense. The weather has an effect on the crops, and if there is snow then there are no crops as confirmed by the crops of the Glovers dying due to the cold. The fact that you use all the men you need to bring in the harvest isn't confirmation that the harvest is bountiful. 

Well, this reflects the opinion of those guys. And I'm not necessarily at odds with the idea that some lands of the clansmen are better farmland than some regions of the Gifts. Although it is said that the clans do not actually live off their lands but are rather fishermen and hunters living in their mountain valleys - the easter parts of the Gifts aren't all that mountainous as the western reaches by comparison.

But you cannot infer from that that the farmland down south must get continuously better. The farmland in the Vale might very well be the best farmland in Westeros despite the fact that it is far north compared to the farmland in the Stormlands.

No one disputes that the Reach has more people than the North, so no need to try and suggest that as an argument that needs defeating. We are all in agreement on that.

As for the West, it hasn't raised 60000 men. It has raised around 41000 to date, which included sellswords, and which was only reached after they resorted to pot boys and street urchins from Lannisport. In other words, down to the very dregs of their reserves.

And of those 41000, they only ever marched 35,000 beyond their own borders. And of those 35,000, 15,000 went only so far as Riverrun, which is a hop, skip and a jump from the Golden Tooth. So the Westerlands actually hasn't marched more than 20,000 men a significant distance beyond their borders. And even that distance was shorter than the distance Robb marched his own host of 19500 men.

This after we know that the North could have raised a lot more if they had more time, according to Martin himself.

As for what the North's full potential is, it is not confirmed that they can raise "30,000 at the most". Torhenn marched 30,000 to the Riverlands. We neither know whether that was their limit, or how many more they can raise if they don't have to march them 1000 miles South. Even Tywin Lannister has only marched 20,000 men over a distance that comes close to how far Torhenn marched 30,000 men.

Regarding the last harvest. The fact is it took place right up until Dance, when Alys reports to Jon about the Karstark harvest just having finished. This was right before the White Raven arrives from the Citadel, announcing Winter has arrived. So the idea that the North cannot bring in harvests right up to the end of Autumn is clearly disproven by that.

In fact, this harvest happens AFTER the late summer snow we see in Book 1. So it seems this did not disrupt the last Harvest of Autumn in any significant way. In fact, most of the Houses sending so few men to Robb in that same book was due to them being busy with the Harvest.

I'm not sure what you are disputing insofar as the opinion of the Flints and Norreys go. They state that their lands are warmer and fairer than the Gift. Not much to dispute about that. However poor it therefore is compared to the rest of the North, it is still better than the Gift, which in itself is decent farmland.

 

[Maia]

20 hours ago, thelittledragonthatcould said:

Well it has. Just take into account the 'new gift'. Former Stark lands given away (much to the annoyance of the Starks) only for those lands to fall and dwindle.

 

I doubt that a lot of people lived there. I mean, how would it have been possible for Starks to hold these lands in the first place, given that both the mountain clans and the Umbers were both originally independant? What later became the New Gift must have been a no-man's land between them, thinly populated and not desirable enough for either to claim. Yes, I know that the wildlings were impressed with it's fertility. But as @Free Northman Reborn points out, the clans think that their own lands are better still. And their territory is considered poor and inhospitable by the rest of the northmen.  So, once the North was unified, the Starks must have claimed sovereinity over the New Gift lands that was largely pro-forma and their alienation wouldn't have hurt them in any sizeable way.

OTOH, the trade through White Harbor, for instance, must have grown substantially after unification and appearance of the royal fleet to limit piracy, etc.

So, yea, I don't see the North becoming weaker or less populuous after unification of the Seven Kingdoms, but the opposite.

 

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Then there is the theory that Westeros being one kingdom now, some smallfolk might choose to emigrate South rather than face famine in the North. 

 

But it is not that easy, is it? The lands down south are hardly empty. Cregan's host could more or less successfully remain because a lot of local men have been killed in the Dance, so they got to replace them. But in the time of peace? I dunno.

Yes, it is possible and even likely from what we have seen of Stark court at Winterfell, of the Dreadfort, Deepwood Motte, etc. and what we have heard about the clans and other important domains, that the North remained relatively somewhat stagnant compared to the rest of the Seven Kingdoms. But it didn't become weaker than it was when still independant.

I am far from being in the "northern master race" camp, but the evidence that Robb could have raised 10-12 thousands more troops is right there in the books. I.e. Roderik Cassel was able to quickly raise 2K when he tried to free Winterfell, tBoB had 600 picked men as Dreadfort garrison, Stannis got 3K+ clansmen (who didn't provide any men for Robb at all), Dustins and Ryswells raised thousands more for Roose, even though they are only half-heartedly with him, Karstarks sent 400 men to Stannis, Umbers raised men for both Boltons and Stannis, Manderly raised men for Bolton, for the new fleet and has left lots in White Harbor, etc, etc. Yes, some of them allegedly are "old men and green boys", but the same may have been true of King Torrhen's army. 

 

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Really? Can you explain further. I don't recall much being said about the Winter Wolves equipment.

And did the other regions armies not also have the similar improvements? Two centuries is quite a long time.

Really? Not the Reeds? The Mormonts? The Skagosi?

 

 

"...northmen brandishing axes, _mauls_, spiked maces, and _ancient iron swords_.", "shaggy northern horses" as opposed "knights on armored destriers" of the Rivermen in "The princess and the Queen", and heavy cavalry, pikes  that Bran saw in Robb's army in AGoT. Also, to steel weapons and armor and heavy horse seen by Tyrion among them at the battle of Green Fork ditto. In the series proper only the clansmen and, OK, the Reeds have such archaic equipment. Mormonts seem rather unexceptionable, actually, and we haven't seen the Skagosi, who seem rather primitive by reputation. 

Of the 12K men that Robb assembled in Winterfell 3K were "armored lances" according to maester Luwin, there are lots of pikemen with steel-tipped pikes, etc.

 

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As did every other Lord. Tywin from when Tyrion was abducted, Edmure from when he heard of Tywin's army and Renly from (circa) his marriage to Magarery. Robb may have even had a little more time than some others.

 

Look at the distances northern lords had to cover to come to Winterfell and consider that Robb only called his banners after Ned was arrested, while both Tywin and Edmure started assembling their armies earlier, as you point out yourself, and did so from much more compact and densely populated areas. As to Renly, well, he started a little later than Robb, but kept increasing his army right until Stannis attacked Storm's End. And even the Reach is significantly smaller than the North. Not to mention that I think that it could easily provide more men, it is just that army of that size would have been too unwieldly.

So, yea, we know that some of Robb's vassals weren't called up at all - the clansmen, while others could and later did raise more men. We also know that the northern army was at Moat Cailin only 2 weeks after Jaime won his victory at the Golden Tooth, so yes we know that Robb assembled his troops very hastily, implausibly quickly even, given the distances that some of the levies had to travel and the distance from WF to MC.

 

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If all these men are still North then why is he extracting his entire Northern army from the South, as well as the Freys, to win back the North even after he finds out that Balon has died and realizes the Ironborn will have sent men back?

 

Who is there who could be trusted with assembling such an army and leading it against the Ironborn? And there is public perception to consider - Starks are seen as having lost Winterfell and letting Ironborn attack the North at that point, a Stark would need to recover it and kick them out. Not to mention that it could be done much quicker and easier with blooded, disciplined veterans who have followed Robb from victory to victory, than with a green host. It is almost certain that Robb intended to recruit again once in the North - we don't know much about his long-term plans, because Cat wasn't in his inner circle after the Jaime affair, but he did express intention of returning to the Riverlands after dealing with the Ironborn, even left his wife at Riverrun, and he would have needed more men than what remained to him for that.
 

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When does he mention that? How was he expecting to feed the Ironborn or the Arryn support he was desperate for?

 

 

He expected the Ironborn to live from the West, of course, and for the Arryns to bring their own food and help feed his army too. The Vale is very fertile and was completely untouched by war, after all. Robb  kept hoping for these allies to join him despite Cat's and Blackfish's warnings about Lysa, so he had no reason to call for a second army, that the Riverlands couldn't afford to feed. And once it all fell through, he had to go back north himself anyway.

 

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Not only Starks died in those wars. And House Bolton, Hornwood, Tallhart, Glover, Cerwyn are also down to only one or two male branches. It is not just the Starks. Roose has neither siblings nor cousins that are mentioned.

 

Honestly, apart from Bolton and Hornwood, whose lack of collateral branches is significant for the plot, we don't know if the rest of them may have some - GRRM has been adding extra family members when he felt that the plot required it. I.e. collateral Karstarks, the fit Manderly cousin, etc. Even with the Starks, I can't help but wonder about the descendants of Artos the Implacable and why it was pointed out in the genealogical tree in TWoIaF that his sons both had "issue", but no further details were provided. This is going to be significant in some way, I bet.

Sure, the northern men who died in Robert's and Greyjoy's rebellions are missed - not so much their possible sons, who  would have been mostly too young to be in Robb's army. But the almost 10-year-long summer with a few mild winters before that should have resulted in more children than usual reaching adulthood as well, i.e. more available young men, so it should have been a wash.

After all, yes, the last century had a few wars and a famine, but surely such things used to happen even more frequently back when the North was independant.

 

[Lord Giggles]

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Not only Starks died in those wars. And House Bolton, Hornwood, Tallhart, Glover, Cerwyn are also down to only one or two male branches. It is not just the Starks. Roose has neither siblings nor cousins that are mentioned.

It certainly does. If the Reach can field 100,000 men and the West 60,000 men then they have both a much larger population than the North.

At the most the North can field 30,000 men - this amount is confirmed for Torrhen Stark. But again, we have no clue whether the population remained the same. Unless we assume nothing changes in this society this is very unlikely. Or do you think lots of people dying during a six-year-winter happens only on paper?

But my point was more that low population density transfers into the land being poorer because people cannot make use of the land they have to the same extent they could if they were more. If 300 people sit on a hill full of copper then they can mine it much better than if thirty or three guys sit on the same hill.

The same goes for all the other natural resources including crops. This is best seen with the NW which is close to a lot of natural resources (timber in the Haunted Forest; a lot of land in the Gifts) but cannot use it to continue to make the Wall higher or keep the forest in check.

That makes no sense. The weather has an effect on the crops, and if there is snow then there are no crops as confirmed by the crops of the Glovers dying due to the cold. The fact that you use all the men you need to bring in the harvest isn't confirmation that the harvest is bountiful. 

Well, this reflects the opinion of those guys. And I'm not necessarily at odds with the idea that some lands of the clansmen are better farmland than some regions of the Gifts. Although it is said that the clans do not actually live off their lands but are rather fishermen and hunters living in their mountain valleys - the easter parts of the Gifts aren't all that mountainous as the western reaches by comparison.

But you cannot infer from that that the farmland down south must get continuously better. The farmland in the Vale might very well be the best farmland in Westeros despite the fact that it is far north compared to the farmland in the Stormlands.

We only have the Starks, Hornwoods, Boltons and Dustins confirmed to have suffered so much as to have been cut down to a single male branch. The rest of the northern houses from which we've not heard of other male branches may or may not have been we just don't have enough evidence either way. If we are to take the number of male members we've heard of, Houses Tully, Arryn, Baratheon, Blackwood, Bracken, Royce, Carron, Tarth and Hightower are in just as bad a predicament. So either it's a Westeros wide problem(unlikely although not impossible, just look at the drastic reduction in the number of peers between the reigns of Richard II and Henry VI of England) or it's just because GRRM hasn't fleshed out every single house in Westeros. 

You're right, we have no clue whether the population has stayed the same. However, while the famine probably caused significant losses to the North's population and a 6 year winter is going to hurt a lot. The wars on the other, I'd be more skeptical of the demographic impact of. Generally, medieval wars(unless it was your territory they were being fought on) inflicted very little damage upon a kingdom's population given that only a small portion of its population was at war and that portion was men. Part of the reason it was better to send men to war(other than their physical aptitude for it) was that a population which has lost 1% of its men is going to recover a lot faster than one which has lost 1% of its women. So the two most recent wars, Robert's Rebellion and the Greyjoy rebellion, won't have effected the North's population too badly. Add to that that when the books start we're in the midst of a 10 year long summer and I'd say that the North's population is likely to have at least recovered and at best grown. 

Yes lower population density means that the land is poorer than it could be if it had a similar population density to somewhere in the south. However, if its population is the same size as the Riverlands or Vale then that will be because the North produces the same amount of grain, possibly more if we factor in winter. They are going to be poorer than the Riverlands(due to the North having less trade going through the whole of it than the Riverlands) but I'd guess they were at least on the same level as the Vale. 

I'd also like to say that the percentage of their population that the North is able to send south to fight will be lower than the percentage of its men a region like the Reach or Westerlands can commit to a foreign campaign due to the problems with supplying large numbers of men over the kinds of distances that the Northmen need to march just to get to Moat Cailin. 

[thelittledragonthatcould]

2 hours ago, Maia said:

I doubt that a lot of people lived there.

Did I claim that many did? I pointed out that the Starks are weaker now than they were 300 years ago thanks to the loss of a significant amount of land.

 Letters from Lord Stark's brother to the Citadel, asking the maesters to provide precedents against the forced donation of property, made it plain that the Starks were not eager to do as King Jaehaerys bid. It may be that the Starks feared that, under the control of the Castle Black, the New Gift would inevitably decline—for the Night's Watch would always look northward and never give much thought to their new tenants to the south. And as it happens, that soon came to pass, and the New Gift is now said to be largely unpopulated thanks to the decline of the Watch and the rising toll taken by raiders from beyond the Wall.

 

2 hours ago, Maia said:

 

I mean, how would it have been possible for Starks to hold these lands in the first place, given that both the mountain clans and the Umbers were both originally independant?

eh? The last time the Umbers and Mountain Clans were independent was thousands of years ago. They have been ruled by the Starks for some time.

2 hours ago, Maia said:

 

What later became the New Gift must have been a no-man's land between them, thinly populated and not desirable enough for either to claim.

Really? Based on what?

2 hours ago, Maia said:

 

Yes, I know that the wildlings were impressed with it's fertility.

No, that was the Reeds who grew up in swamp. Though I'm not sure your point, I am not arguing that it was any more populated than any other region of the North just that a significant piece of land was given away which means the North is in a weaker position than they were 300 years ago.  How is this even a debate? The Stormlands too lost lands to the Targaryens and they too (more so than even the Starks) are in a weaker position today than they were 300 years ago.

2 hours ago, Maia said:

 

But as @Free Northman Reborn points out, the clans think that their own lands are better still. And their territory is considered poor and inhospitable by the rest of the northmen.

The 'rest of the Northmen'. That is a pretty big claim, care to back that up? The Mormonts, Skagosi, Umbers, Reeds, Glovers and Karstarks (all whose lands are in similar position to the Mountain Clans) think the Mountain Clans lands are inhospitable?

Evidence please. I don't even think the person you are parroting has even made that claim.

 

2 hours ago, Maia said:

 

  So, once the North was unified, the Starks must have claimed sovereinity over the New Gift lands that was largely pro-forma and their alienation wouldn't have hurt them in any sizeable way.

Again, reread what I said. I said weaker, I didnt say by what degree. You are trying to argue a point that was never made, classic strawman 101.

2 hours ago, Maia said:

OTOH, the trade through White Harbor, for instance, must have grown substantially after unification and appearance of the royal fleet to limit piracy, etc.

Sure, just as it will have in other richer nations. Or do you think the growth of White Harbor had superseded the growth of Kings Landing, Oldtown, Gulltown or Lannisport?

2 hours ago, Maia said:

So, yea, I don't see the North becoming weaker or less populuous after unification of the Seven Kingdoms, but the opposite.

Well prove it with text.

We know that they lost a considerable amount of land, we also know that Torrhen was able to raise more than 10,000 more soldiers to travel South with than Robb Stark was able to do after one of the longest summers in Westeros history.

As I have repeatedly said, the Norths growth (if there was any) would have not been as great as most of the other realms. If you think the opposite is true then use examples from the book.

2 hours ago, Maia said:

But it is not that easy, is it? The lands down south are hardly empty. Cregan's host could more or less successfully remain because a lot of local men have been killed in the Dance, so they got to replace them. But in the time of peace? I dunno.

lol that is your argument 'I dunno'. 

Notice the lands of the Crownlands have dramatically increased in the last 300 years, so obviously there has been room.

We can also look at the much larger armies raised by Tywin and Mace in the present series than the combined 55k their predecessors raised 300 years ago.

Together the two kings commanded the mightiest host ever seen in Westeros: an army fifty-five thousand

How do you explain this then?

2 hours ago, Maia said:

Yes, it is possible and even likely from what we have seen of Stark court at Winterfell, of the Dreadfort, Deepwood Motte, etc. and what we have heard about the clans and other important domains, that the North remained relatively somewhat stagnant compared to the rest of the Seven Kingdoms. But it didn't become weaker than it was when still independant.

Of course it does. If it remains stagnant while its peers grow stronger than in effect it has became weaker.

2 hours ago, Maia said:

I am far from being in the "northern master race" camp, but the evidence that Robb could have raised 10-12 thousands more troops is right there in the books. I.e. Roderik Cassel was able to quickly raise 2K when he tried to free Winterfell,

Quickly? Nope. According to the timeline it took Rodrik Cassel two months to gather that host. A host that was so poorly trained that, despite greatly outnumbering, was easily beaten by Ramsay.

And once again you are ignoring what I asked, the evidence that the North had more reserves to fight a campaign in the South. I didnt claim that there was zero men left in the North just like Torrhen would have left some kind of reserves in the North when he went South

2 hours ago, Maia said:

tBoB had 600 picked men as Dreadfort garrison,

600 Boltons, it seems unlikely that the Dreadfort has a 600 man garrison.

2 hours ago, Maia said:

 

Stannis got 3K+ clansmen (who didn't provide any men for Robb at all),

ugh, yeah they did.

Two-thirds of my strength was on the north side when the Lannisters attacked those still waiting to cross. Norrey, Locke, and Burley men chiefly, with Ser Wylis Manderly and his White Harbor knights as rear guard.

2 hours ago, Maia said:

 

Dustins and Ryswells raised thousands more for Roose,

Thousands? Evidence please.

2 hours ago, Maia said:

 

even though they are only half-heartedly with him,

Also evidence for this? One of the Ryswells is named after Roose. Now their allegiance may change in the future but so far there has been nothing half hearted about their support of Roose.

2 hours ago, Maia said:

Karstarks sent 400 men to Stannis,

Yup. They are down to the bare bones.

Alys sighed. "My father took so many of our men south with him that only the women and young boys were left to bring the harvest in. Them, and the men too old or crippled to go off to war. Crops withered in the fields or were pounded into the mud by autumn rains. And now the snows are come. This winter will be hard. Few of the old people will survive it, and many children will perish as well."

2 hours ago, Maia said:

 

Umbers raised men for both Boltons and Stannis,

Yup, similar position to the Karstarks

Tell me, Theon, how many men did Mors Umber have with him at Winterfell?"

"None. No men." He grinned at his own wit. "He had boys. I saw them." Aside from a handful of half-crippled serjeants, the warriors that Crowfood had brought down from Last Hearth were hardly old enough to shave. "Their spears and axes were older than the hands that clutched them. It was Whoresbane Umber who had the men, inside the castle. I saw them too. Old men, every one." Theon tittered. "Mors took the green boys and Hother took the greybeards. All the real men went with the Greatjon and died at the Red Wedding. Is that what you wanted to know, Your Grace?"

 

Do you think that Torrhen stripped the land of all the green boys and greybeards?

2 hours ago, Maia said:

 

Manderly raised men for Bolton,

Yup, 300.

2 hours ago, Maia said:

 

for the new fleet and has left lots in White Harbor, etc, etc.

The new fleet that has yet to set sail? Possibly.

2 hours ago, Maia said:

"...northmen brandishing axes, _mauls_, spiked maces, and _ancient iron swords_.", "shaggy northern horses" as opposed "knights on armored destriers" of the Rivermen in "The princess and the Queen",

Did the current army of the North not have men with similar weapons?

And if you read the full description it certainly sounds like the Northmen were bett er equipped than many of the Riverland soldiers they were fighting with

"three thousand archers, three thousand ragged rivermen with spears, hundreds of northmen brandishing axes, mauls, spiked maces, and ancient iron swords."

 

2 hours ago, Maia said:

Look at the distances northern lords had to cover to come to Winterfell and consider that Robb only called his banners after Ned was arrested, while both Tywin and Edmure started assembling their armies earlier, as you point out yourself,

and started fighting earlier as well.

2 hours ago, Maia said:

and did so from much more compact and densely populated areas. As to Renly, well, he started a little later than Robb, but kept increasing his army right until Stannis attacked Storm's End.

And absolutely nothing prevented Robb from doing the same. He too could have called upon reinforcement from the North. He does not, the thought never seems to enter his mind despite needing more men. Either Robb is an idiot or there simply is not 10k more who can travel South.

 

2 hours ago, Maia said:

So, yea, we know that some of Robb's vassals weren't called up at all - the clansmen, while others could and later did raise more men. We also know that the northern army was at Moat Cailin only 2 weeks after Jaime won his victory at the Golden Tooth, so yes we know that Robb assembled his troops very hastily, implausibly quickly even, given the distances that some of the levies had to travel and the distance from WF to MC.

As did Tywin, Renly and Edmure. All had similar time frames to raise their hosts.

2 hours ago, Maia said:

Who is there who could be trusted with assembling such an army and leading it against the Ironborn?

Rodrik, Wyman or Marlon Manderly, Arnolf Karstark, one of the Umber uncles or even send one of his generals North by boat to raise the host rather than abandon the the Riverlands with his Northern and Frey army.

2 hours ago, Maia said:

 

And there is public perception to consider - Starks are seen as having lost Winterfell and letting Ironborn attack the North at that point, a Stark would need to recover it and kick them out.

And he needed Frey troops to do this as well as his own. There was contact between the Dreadfort and Harrenhal/Riverrun/The Twins. Why did Robb not send word to organize a host so he could have left some of his numbers in the Riverlands where they are needed.

Once again, either Robb is an idiot or the numbers were simply not available in the North.

2 hours ago, Maia said:

 

Not to mention that it could be done much quicker and easier with blooded, disciplined veterans who have followed Robb from victory to victory, than with a green host.

How could it have been done much quicker? Robb was at Riverrun. Even if successful he could be gone from the Riverlands for the best part of a year.

He was sacrificing the Riverlands by taking his army from there (and taking the Freys too was bizarre).

2 hours ago, Maia said:

 

It is almost certain that Robb intended to recruit again once in the North - we don't know much about his long-term plans, because Cat wasn't in his inner circle after the Jaime affair, but he did express intention of returning to the Riverlands after dealing with the Ironborn, even left his wife at Riverrun, and he would have needed more men than what remained to him for that.

Of course he left his wife and mother in the Riverlands, he was facing battle at Moat Cailin. Defeat was a real possibility.

And there is absolutely no evidence that he was intending to recruit again. Pure speculation.

2 hours ago, Maia said:

He expected the Ironborn to live from the West, of course, and for the Arryns to bring their own food and help feed his army too. The Vale is very fertile and was completely untouched by war, after all. Robb  kept hoping for these allies to join him despite Cat's and Blackfish's warnings about Lysa, so he had no reason to call for a second army, that the Riverlands couldn't afford to feed. And once it all fell through, he had to go back north himself anyway.

Exactly, he was expecting the Vale and Riverlands to feed his army. And yet we are too believe that the Starks are as wealthy as the Arryns and Tullys?

2 hours ago, Maia said:

Honestly, apart from Bolton and Hornwood, whose lack of collateral branches is significant for the plot, we don't know if the rest of them may have some

Yeah, I presume there are Bolton cousins in existence.

As for Hornwood, there are other branches out there. The problem was not the lack of Hornwoods but clarity on who was next in line.

Maester Luwin answered. "With no direct heir, there are sure to be many claimants contending for the Hornwood lands. The Tallharts, Flints, and Karstarks all have ties to House Hornwood through the female line

We know that Lord Hornwoods sister was still alive, I'm guessing that he had two more sisters married to a Flint and Karstark but Berena was not the oldest but had sons while the older sister had no sons making the line of succession a little muddied.

2 hours ago, Maia said:

After all, yes, the last century had a few wars and a famine, but surely such things used to happen even more frequently back when the North was independant.

Honestly, GRRM's description of the North the past century sounds pretty bleak.

It's also true that there are many more Lannisters. It also has to be taken into consideration that the North has had frequent revolts and other such problems, that there have been rebel lords in the past, that they've dealt with the Kings-beyond-the-Wall, and the revolt of Skagos, and everything else that's occured in the last hundred years. All of these things are a reason for why there aren't so many Starks in the present as there were in the past.

I'd hate to think that every century was as bad for the Starks and the North than the last one has been.

[Free Northman Reborn]

48 minutes ago, thelittledragonthatcould said:

Did I claim that many did? I pointed out that the Starks are weaker now than they were 300 years ago thanks to the loss of a significant amount of land.

 Letters from Lord Stark's brother to the Citadel, asking the maesters to provide precedents against the forced donation of property, made it plain that the Starks were not eager to do as King Jaehaerys bid. It may be that the Starks feared that, under the control of the Castle Black, the New Gift would inevitably decline—for the Night's Watch would always look northward and never give much thought to their new tenants to the south. And as it happens, that soon came to pass, and the New Gift is now said to be largely unpopulated thanks to the decline of the Watch and the rising toll taken by raiders from beyond the Wall.

 

eh? The last time the Umbers and Mountain Clans were independent was thousands of years ago. They have been ruled by the Starks for some time.

Really? Based on what?

No, that was the Reeds who grew up in swamp. Though I'm not sure your point, I am not arguing that it was any more populated than any other region of the North just that a significant piece of land was given away which means the North is in a weaker position than they were 300 years ago.  How is this even a debate? The Stormlands too lost lands to the Targaryens and they too (more so than even the Starks) are in a weaker position today than they were 300 years ago.

The 'rest of the Northmen'. That is a pretty big claim, care to back that up? The Mormonts, Skagosi, Umbers, Reeds, Glovers and Karstarks (all whose lands are in similar position to the Mountain Clans) think the Mountain Clans lands are inhospitable?

Evidence please. I don't even think the person you are parroting has even made that claim.

 

Again, reread what I said. I said weaker, I didnt say by what degree. You are trying to argue a point that was never made, classic strawman 101.

Sure, just as it will have in other richer nations. Or do you think the growth of White Harbor had superseded the growth of Kings Landing, Oldtown, Gulltown or Lannisport?

Well prove it with text.

We know that they lost a considerable amount of land, we also know that Torrhen was able to raise more than 10,000 more soldiers to travel South with than Robb Stark was able to do after one of the longest summers in Westeros history.

As I have repeatedly said, the Norths growth (if there was any) would have not been as great as most of the other realms. If you think the opposite is true then use examples from the book.

lol that is your argument 'I dunno'. 

Notice the lands of the Crownlands have dramatically increased in the last 300 years, so obviously there has been room.

We can also look at the much larger armies raised by Tywin and Mace in the present series than the combined 55k their predecessors raised 300 years ago.

Together the two kings commanded the mightiest host ever seen in Westeros: an army fifty-five thousand

How do you explain this then?

Of course it does. If it remains stagnant while its peers grow stronger than in effect it has became weaker.

Quickly? Nope. According to the timeline it took Rodrik Cassel two months to gather that host. A host that was so poorly trained that, despite greatly outnumbering, was easily beaten by Ramsay.

And once again you are ignoring what I asked, the evidence that the North had more reserves to fight a campaign in the South. I didnt claim that there was zero men left in the North just like Torrhen would have left some kind of reserves in the North when he went South

600 Boltons, it seems unlikely that the Dreadfort has a 600 man garrison.

ugh, yeah they did.

Two-thirds of my strength was on the north side when the Lannisters attacked those still waiting to cross. Norrey, Locke, and Burley men chiefly, with Ser Wylis Manderly and his White Harbor knights as rear guard.

Thousands? Evidence please.

Also evidence for this? One of the Ryswells is named after Roose. Now their allegiance may change in the future but so far there has been nothing half hearted about their support of Roose.

Yup. They are down to the bare bones.

Alys sighed. "My father took so many of our men south with him that only the women and young boys were left to bring the harvest in. Them, and the men too old or crippled to go off to war. Crops withered in the fields or were pounded into the mud by autumn rains. And now the snows are come. This winter will be hard. Few of the old people will survive it, and many children will perish as well."

Yup, similar position to the Karstarks

Tell me, Theon, how many men did Mors Umber have with him at Winterfell?"

"None. No men." He grinned at his own wit. "He had boys. I saw them." Aside from a handful of half-crippled serjeants, the warriors that Crowfood had brought down from Last Hearth were hardly old enough to shave. "Their spears and axes were older than the hands that clutched them. It was Whoresbane Umber who had the men, inside the castle. I saw them too. Old men, every one." Theon tittered. "Mors took the green boys and Hother took the greybeards. All the real men went with the Greatjon and died at the Red Wedding. Is that what you wanted to know, Your Grace?"

 

Do you think that Torrhen stripped the land of all the green boys and greybeards?

Yup, 300.

The new fleet that has yet to set sail? Possibly.

Did the current army of the North not have men with similar weapons?

And if you read the full description it certainly sounds like the Northmen were bett er equipped than many of the Riverland soldiers they were fighting with

"three thousand archers, three thousand ragged rivermen with spears, hundreds of northmen brandishing axes, mauls, spiked maces, and ancient iron swords."

 

and started fighting earlier as well.

And absolutely nothing prevented Robb from doing the same. He too could have called upon reinforcement from the North. He does not, the thought never seems to enter his mind despite needing more men. Either Robb is an idiot or there simply is not 10k more who can travel South.

 

As did Tywin, Renly and Edmure. All had similar time frames to raise their hosts.

Rodrik, Wyman or Marlon Manderly, Arnolf Karstark, one of the Umber uncles or even send one of his generals North by boat to raise the host rather than abandon the the Riverlands with his Northern and Frey army.

And he needed Frey troops to do this as well as his own. There was contact between the Dreadfort and Harrenhal/Riverrun/The Twins. Why did Robb not send word to organize a host so he could have left some of his numbers in the Riverlands where they are needed.

Once again, either Robb is an idiot or the numbers were simply not available in the North.

How could it have been done much quicker? Robb was at Riverrun. Even if successful he could be gone from the Riverlands for the best part of a year.

He was sacrificing the Riverlands by taking his army from there (and taking the Freys too was bizarre).

Of course he left his wife and mother in the Riverlands, he was facing battle at Moat Cailin. Defeat was a real possibility.

And there is absolutely no evidence that he was intending to recruit again. Pure speculation.

Exactly, he was expecting the Vale and Riverlands to feed his army. And yet we are too believe that the Starks are as wealthy as the Arryns and Tullys?

Yeah, I presume there are Bolton cousins in existence.

As for Hornwood, there are other branches out there. The problem was not the lack of Hornwoods but clarity on who was next in line.

Maester Luwin answered. "With no direct heir, there are sure to be many claimants contending for the Hornwood lands. The Tallharts, Flints, and Karstarks all have ties to House Hornwood through the female line

We know that Lord Hornwoods sister was still alive, I'm guessing that he had two more sisters married to a Flint and Karstark but Berena was not the oldest but had sons while the older sister had no sons making the line of succession a little muddied.

Honestly, GRRM's description of the North the past century sounds pretty bleak.

It's also true that there are many more Lannisters. It also has to be taken into consideration that the North has had frequent revolts and other such problems, that there have been rebel lords in the past, that they've dealt with the Kings-beyond-the-Wall, and the revolt of Skagos, and everything else that's occured in the last hundred years. All of these things are a reason for why there aren't so many Starks in the present as there were in the past.

I'd hate to think that every century was as bad for the Starks and the North than the last one has been.

Sigh.

Looking at the last bolded section above, Martin is talking about House Stark itself, whose leaders appear to be in the habit of leading their battles from the front. They seem to fall in wars quite often, as a result, when it hardly would have been the case had they led from behind, like Tywin from his sheltered position on some hill overlooking the battlefield. None of that means the North as a whole lost vast numbers of its population. Just that House Stark lost lots of members in warfare.

In any case, the details of this debate have been hashed over countless times before. Positions are entrenched. Arguments get repeated.

What it comes down to, is a fundamental question regarding the role that Martin wants the North to play in this series, and in particular their prominence in the remaining books ahead. And there are essentially two camps on this issue.

On the one hand you have people who believe that Martin's intention was to have the North spend what modest strength it originally had, in the War of the Five Kings and its aftermath, with the intent of leaving the North essentially defenseless, weak and at the mercy of the Others when Winter arrives. Presumably this is so that they are forced to rely on Daenerys to come and save them in their hour of need.

In the other camp you have people like myself. I believe that the story of the North is the story of your classic protagonist. Things start out happy and normal. Then you have the disrupting event which upsets this peaceful setting and sets the drama in motion. This is the arrival of Robert and Lysa's letter. Then you have the conflict and tribulation, which brings the North low and scatters the Stark children across the known world. This was the War of the Five Kings. We have now entered the middle period of the story, where the North is temporarily weakened and all hope appears lost.

But once the Starks return to Winterfell the North will rise again to play a leading role in the true battle against the Others and in the resolution of the struggle for the Iron Throne.

Consider that if Martin wanted the North to be weakened and removed as a power player in Westeros, he need not have given Torhenn Stark 30k men at all. He could have given Torhenn 20k men. And he need not have categorically stated that the North cannot raise their full strength at Harvest time or when pressed for time to begin marching.

He did not need to expend so much narrative effort on the struggle for Winterfell and the importance of the rule of the North. I believe that this middle interval is almost over, and that Winds will see a united North return with a strength of around 20k men, putting them on a par with any other kingdom that remains intact after the southron Dance of the Dragons has played itself out, having drastically weakening the Southern kingdoms to shadows of their former selves.

Essentially, all of these debates are about these two opposing camps trying to justify their positions. Personally, (and of course I am biased), but personally I find the logic of the North having many more men left to be incontrovertible.  To mention a few points as examples:

1. I think it is reaching for excuses to try and use the identity of the Reeds in an attempt to denigrate their comments about the Gift being good farmland. These are people as close to nature as you can get in all of Westeros, with ties to the Children going back thousands of years, and yet some want us to think they don't know what good farmland is? I don't buy it for a second. But that's just me.

2. I think it is obvious that if you can raise 3000 men from the Northern high altitude Mountain Clan lands, then you can raise at least that number from similar sized areas on the same latitude, and quite a bit more from similar sized areas further South. In fact, the Karstarks appear able to raise 3000 men from a considerably smaller area than the Mountain clan lands, bolstering the notion that the rest of the North is even more fertile than the Mountain clan lands.

3. I think that Martin included the size of Torhenn's host for no other reason but to demonstrate that the North has raised much larger hosts than Robb's 20k in the past, and that it will be no surprise if they have more men to raise in the remaining books of the series.

4. I think his references to the Dustins keeping men behind deliberately, to the large number of Mountain clan men suddenly appearing out of nowhere, to the Skagosi rebellion being as difficult to put down as it was, to the Manderlys raising every man that can hold a spear, and to men streaming from the Wolfswood and other areas to Stannis, that all these references are intended to lay the foundation for a new Stark host of considerable size.

5. I think this ties in quite logically with Stannis's plans to unite the North under himself to use it as a springboard to relaunch his entire campaign for the Iron Throne. Stannis viewed the North as a prize worth capturing, and based his entire future on that hope. Clearly it wasn't all in the hope for a paltry number of men. And this was before he even knew the Mountain Clansmen existed.

6. I think the North will rise again, and be a key player in the remaining story. It will not be comparatively weaker than the likes of the Riverlands, Westerlands, Stormlands or even the Reach. I think they will all have been reduced by a roughly similar percentage of their original strength come the endgame. The North just had their tribulation earlier. In the South it is about to happen with Aegon's arrival, Euron's reign of terror, the spread of the Grey Plague and the coming of Daenerys with her Blood and Fire mentality.

In short, one of the two camps in this debate will be proven wrong, the other right. I am very confident of my viewpoint, because I believe that the North is more important narratively than regions like the West, the Reach, Dorne, the Stormlands etc. Some find that view distasteful, but I think it is undeniable.

In the end, only Winds of Winter will be able to settle the matter.

By the way, the person who stated that the Mountain Clans are poor compared to the rest of the North was Jon. And Martin himself confirmed this.

[Tarellen]

On July 5, 2016 at 5:46 PM, 300 H&H Mag said:

The North is sparsely populated.  There is only one city in the North.  The Northern folk are poor.  I would think the only great house poorer than the Starks are the Greyjoys.  The Starks are comparably poor relative to the other great houses. 

I think the rank would go as follows:  Lannister, Tyrell, Hightower, Frey, and Tully. 

What evidence do you have the freys are richer then the Starks? And besides if your talking about peasants you know there poor through out the world right?

 

 

[Lord Varys]

7 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Regarding the last harvest. The fact is it took place right up until Dance, when Alys reports to Jon about the Karstark harvest just having finished. This was right before the White Raven arrives from the Citadel, announcing Winter has arrived. So the idea that the North cannot bring in harvests right up to the end of Autumn is clearly disproven by that.

Sure, but I think you agree that snow = no crops = no harvest. Thus there was no snow wherever the hell the Karstarks got some harvest in.

7 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

In fact, this harvest happens AFTER the late summer snow we see in Book 1. So it seems this did not disrupt the last Harvest of Autumn in any significant way. In fact, most of the Houses sending so few men to Robb in that same book was due to them being busy with the Harvest.

The point is that in a land in which it is snowing in late summer there is a pretty good chance that it is also going to snow in autumn and in winter. And that means that wherever it is snowing there are no crops to be had.

Planting crops in the North seems to be a game of chance, really. Especially in late summer and in autumn.

That is all we need to know to conclude that the vast lands of the North are much less fertile than all the lands in the South were late summer snows are no occurring at all. If there are really good harvests in the North then those take place in mid-summer or perhaps early summer when there are (presumably) no summer snows at all. But those days are clearly gone by the time the series begins.

It is still autumn when that snow storm hits Stannis' army. Do you think the Northmen in the vicinity of that snow storm had a chance to harvest some more crops?

Men being busy with the harvest doesn't mean there was much to bring in. I'm not sure how much you know about agriculture but even without the specter of (summer) snows hanging over you even normal bad weather can ruin your harvest. Constant rain, hail, too much heat, all of that can be as bad as the cold. And farmhands have to ready when the crops are ripening because then it is of paramount importance to get in as much as you can before the weather changes or else everything will be lost.

That is how and why there were so many famines in the real middle ages.

Thus even under ideal conditions the harvest in the North should be a huge problem because you have to act fast when the time comes. The lack of men is then causing a huge problem because if you lack the farmhands you might not be able to harvest as many crops in time before the weather changes. One thunder storm involving hail or can destroy an entire field.

6 hours ago, Maia said:

Honestly, apart from Bolton and Hornwood, whose lack of collateral branches is significant for the plot, we don't know if the rest of them may have some - GRRM has been adding extra family members when he felt that the plot required it. I.e. collateral Karstarks, the fit Manderly cousin, etc. Even with the Starks, I can't help but wonder about the descendants of Artos the Implacable and why it was pointed out in the genealogical tree in TWoIaF that his sons both had "issue", but no further details were provided. This is going to be significant in some way, I bet.

Could be. But then, the North has such a great way to explain missing male family members. The Night's Watch. Artos' sons might have gone to and died at the Wall. The same goes for many other cadet branches of Northern houses. Who knows? Perhaps some granduncle of Roose's died twenty years ago at the Wall?

I hoped we would see an unmarried sister of Roose's or something like that in ADwD at the Dreadfort. But nothing came of that, sadly.

And things under Torrhen could have been slightly better than they are today (I expect the North's population to have greatly increased under the Conqueror, the Old King, and Viserys I only to be severely culled during the Dance, the Winter Fever, and the six-year-winter during which no help from the South would have come). Cregan Stark seems to have foreseen that the next winter would be bad (or that his people would unduly suffer if it was bad because the winter provisions could only keep a limited amount of people through winter).

In that sense the prosperity among the Targaryens could actually have had rather unpleasant consequences for the Northmen in really harsh winters, especially those that were preceded by major wars like the Dance (which would not allow them to buy food from the people in the South).

The idea would be that the North had a time of peace and relative plenty after the Durrandons and then the Hoares had taken over the Riverlands because neither of them would have the strength to actually declare war on them in those times. The war with the Vale was also over for a long time, and if the winters prior to the Conquest had been reasonably mild then the population of the North could have increased in those years.

George continues to invent additional branches of families when necessary, yes, but the sense you get is that there are less such people in the North. In the Riverlands, too, actually, but I think that's more due to him killing a lot of people there before he realized that there should be more cadet branches. Where the hell are all the Tullys?

6 hours ago, Maia said:

Sure, the northern men who died in Robert's and Greyjoy's rebellions are missed - not so much their possible sons, who  would have been mostly too young to be in Robb's army. But the almost 10-year-long summer with a few mild winters before that should have resulted in more children than usual reaching adulthood as well, i.e. more available young men, so it should have been a wash.

Yeah, summer should be the time to conceive more children. But whether they live through the next winter depends greatly on that winter. Two longer winters in a row could have a really devastating effect.

4 hours ago, Lord Giggles said:

We only have the Starks, Hornwoods, Boltons and Dustins confirmed to have suffered so much as to have been cut down to a single male branch. The rest of the northern houses from which we've not heard of other male branches may or may not have been we just don't have enough evidence either way. If we are to take the number of male members we've heard of, Houses Tully, Arryn, Baratheon, Blackwood, Bracken, Royce, Carron, Tarth and Hightower are in just as bad a predicament. So either it's a Westeros wide problem(unlikely although not impossible, just look at the drastic reduction in the number of peers between the reigns of Richard II and Henry VI of England) or it's just because GRRM hasn't fleshed out every single house in Westeros.

Sure, but we do know quite a lot about certain Northern houses (more than we do know about a lot of houses in the Reach or the Stormlands) and there is a tendency that many Northern houses are in rather bad shape compared to such houses as the Tyrells or the Lannisters.

And the Hightowers aren't that cut down. Lord Leyton has four adult sons. Granted, we don't know anything about siblings or cousins but we know Ser Gerold was his uncle, so the house is not exactly in a bad shape.

4 hours ago, Lord Giggles said:

You're right, we have no clue whether the population has stayed the same. However, while the famine probably caused significant losses to the North's population and a 6 year winter is going to hurt a lot. The wars on the other, I'd be more skeptical of the demographic impact of. Generally, medieval wars(unless it was your territory they were being fought on) inflicted very little damage upon a kingdom's population given that only a small portion of its population was at war and that portion was men. Part of the reason it was better to send men to war(other than their physical aptitude for it) was that a population which has lost 1% of its men is going to recover a lot faster than one which has lost 1% of its women. So the two most recent wars, Robert's Rebellion and the Greyjoy rebellion, won't have effected the North's population too badly. Add to that that when the books start we're in the midst of a 10 year long summer and I'd say that the North's population is likely to have at least recovered and at best grown. 

I'd say wars and the losses of the male population causes a rippling effect on the population, especially in the North. It would depend when exactly the war is fought, of course, to make detailed predictions but the loss in farmhands should have a bad longterm effect on the harvests, which in turn will increase the probability that more people will die in winter. Which, in turn, will lead to even worse harvests in the next summer which, in turn... And so on.

The gravity of that effect would depend on the number of able-bodied men that were lost in the war and the length of the subsequent winter. Since the Conquest the help of the Crown/the South in general has to be considered as well. But I daresay that the North must have suffered greatly in the wake of the Dance. It lost quite a few people then and had later suffer a six-year-winter and a rather pretty deadly plague. If subsequent winters were all short then a slow population increase is possible. But a very slow increase because even short winters should kill quite a few people in the North.

[thelittledragonthatcould]

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Sigh.

lol  no one is forcing you to respond. If you are not enjoying the debate then you are free to ignore it.

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Looking at the last bolded section above, Martin is talking about House Stark itself, whose leaders appear to be in the habit of leading their battles from the front. They seem to fall in wars quite often, as a result, when it hardly would have been the case had they led from behind, like Tywin from his sheltered position on some hill overlooking the battlefield. None of that means the North as a whole lost vast numbers of its population. Just that House Stark lost lots of members in warfare.

eh? That is not what he said at all. You appear to be grasping. Of course the almost 60 year old Tywin is not at the forefront of battles. That would be a ludicrous suggestion but Jaime was, Tyrion was, Kevan was, Stafford was and I'm guessing the likes of Daven and Tygett did as well.

Can you provide evidence that Ned was leading from the front in battle?

GRRM's point is more than clear, the Starks have faced more wars, battles in the last century and as result there are fewer Starks than there are Lannisters. It is not some point that the Stark, rulers of the Northern master race, lead from the front while the cowardly Southern jessies, the Lannisters, cower at the back. It is that people die in wars, we see that with Jason Lannister in the Nine Penny Wars, Stafford Lannister in the battle of Oxcross or the capture of two of Tywin's nephews in the battle of Riverrun. The North has simply faced more hardship in the last century than the West and as a consequence, GRRM points out, there are more Lannisters than Starks.

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

In any case, the details of this debate have been hashed over countless times before. Positions are entrenched. Arguments get repeated.

And here you are to repeat yours? Cool beans!

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

On the one hand you have people who believe that Martin's intention was to have the North spend what modest strength it originally had, in the War of the Five Kings and its aftermath, with the intent of leaving the North essentially defenseless, weak and at the mercy of the Others when Winter arrives. Presumably this is so that they are forced to rely on Daenerys to come and save them in their hour of need.

I'm not in that camp. I have a feeling that Dany will return to Westeros, that the Starks will regain Winterfell, that Cersei will topple from power and that the Others will be defeated.  Beyond that I don't really know what will happen.

I have a suspicion that the 20k soldiers Stannis sent for will play a role if they come to a North ravaged by Others.

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

 

But once the Starks return to Winterfell the North will rise again to play a leading role in the true battle against the Others and in the resolution of the struggle for the Iron Throne.

Rise again? It will survive and Jon will have a key role against the Others but the North is going to need assistance against the Others as well as surviving the Long Winter.

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Consider that if Martin wanted the North to be weakened and removed as a power player in Westeros, he need not have given Torhenn Stark 30k men at all. He could have given Torhenn 20k men.

He has also been incredible consistent about the lack of men in the North over the five books and the sample chapters of the sixth book in this seven part book series.

No one forced him to make his comments on the Umbers in TWOW or about the Karstarks in ADWD.

The North has been heavily weakened, there is no 10k reserve army that stood by and did nothing as the Ironborn took Winterfell and Moat Cailin or the Wall was desperate for support.

The idea that this secret army could not organize themselves for those crises but will do so in the future is hugely unlikely (though not impossible) as we have been given no evidence of it.

 

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

And he need not have categorically stated that the North cannot raise their full strength at Harvest time or when pressed for time to begin marching.

When did he state that?

I think you may be thinking of this quote

And life is harsher there as well, so lords and smallfolk both need to think carefully before beating those plowshares into swords.

Which clearly Robb did not do as the Umber and Karstark lands can testify to. Robb did not think clearly enough and as a result there is going to be mass starvation in the North for those lucky enough to survive the Others.

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

He did not need to expend so much narrative effort on the struggle for Winterfell and the importance of the rule of the North.

Of course he did. The Starks were the entry to the series, two of the prominent characters of the series were at Winterfell, the capital of the North and the North is most at threat from the actual protagonists of the series; the Others. 

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

I believe that this middle interval is almost over, and that Winds will see a united North return with a strength of around 20k men,

Laughable. There are not 20k Northern soldiers at the start of Winds, the idea that there will be 20k after the Battle of Ice is ridiculous.

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

putting them on a par with any other kingdom that remains intact after the southron Dance of the Dragons has played itself out, having drastically weakening the Southern kingdoms to shadows of their former selves.

Sure, the South may be so weakened after the events of the next two books that the North will be on a par with them. I have nothing against that, just the incredulous idea that the North has currently  20k soldiers or will have that amount after the events of Winds when either the Bolton faction or the Stannis/Mountain Clan faction are going to take casualties.

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Essentially, all of these debates are about these two opposing camps trying to justify their positions.

But they are not. I have never supported either of your claims, none of the my discussions on Northern/Westerland wealth or military numbers comes from what I think should happen in the remaining two books but from what actually had been stated in the previous 5 books.

This is why you are constantly wrong on as you are fixated on what you hope the result will be rather than what has been said in the books.

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

1. I think it is reaching for excuses to try and use the identity of the Reeds in an attempt to denigrate their comments about the Gift being good farmland. These are people as close to nature as you can get in all of Westeros, with ties to the Children going back thousands of years, and yet some want us to think they don't know what good farmland is? I don't buy it for a second. But that's just me.

lol they hunt for Frogs to survive. Anything is a step up from swamp land. They are looked down upon by even the other Houses of the North

He tried to recall all he had been taught of the crannogmen, who dwelt amongst the bogs of the Neck and seldom left their wetlands. They were a poor folk, fishers and frog-hunters who lived in houses of thatch and woven reeds on floating islands hidden in the deeps of the swamp. It was said that they were a cowardly people who fought with poisoned weapons and preferred to hide from foes rather than face them in open battle

This is what the children of Ned Stark have been taught. There is no shame in them being poor.

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

2. I think it is obvious that if you can raise 3000 men from the Northern high altitude Mountain Clan lands, then you can raise at least that number from similar sized areas on the same latitude, and quite a bit more from similar sized areas further South. In fact, the Karstarks appear able to raise 3000 men from a considerably smaller area than the Mountain clan lands, bolstering the notion that the rest of the North is even more fertile than the Mountain clan lands.

Considerably smaller? You will have to prove that with evidence as we have been given little infomation on borders.

And once again, many of these Mountain Clan members are going out to sacrifice themselves, as is common in Winter (which is pretty telling).

 

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

3. I think that Martin included the size of Torhenn's host for no other reason but to demonstrate that the North has raised much larger hosts than Robb's 20k in the past, and that it will be no surprise if they have more men to raise in the remaining books of the series.

Why did he include the information of the New Gift? And the anger from the Starks over it?

And why were the combined forces of the Reach and Westerlands far, far smaller than what Tywin and Mace raised? It seems pretty clear, two regions have prospered from Targaryn rule and one region has not.

And of course why did he need to include the details of Aegon having to send aid to the North as they were facing huge famine (again). Seems GRRM is pretty consistent in his description of the North.

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

4. I think his references to the Dustins keeping men behind deliberately, to the large number of Mountain clan men suddenly appearing out of nowhere, to the Skagosi rebellion being as difficult to put down as it was, to the Manderlys raising every man that can hold a spear, and to men streaming from the Wolfswood and other areas to Stannis, that all these references are intended to lay the foundation for a new Stark host of considerable size.

The Mountain Men did not appear out of nowhere. It is now Winter and there is no more harvest to be brought in.

And as said before, he could have easily made the Umbers and Karstarks stronger but he doubles down on how weak they are now in some of the most recent chapters of the series.

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

5. I think this ties in quite logically with Stannis's plans to unite the North under himself to use it as a springboard to relaunch his entire campaign for the Iron Throne. Stannis viewed the North as a prize worth capturing, and based his entire future on that hope. Clearly it wasn't all in the hope for a paltry number of men. And this was before he even knew the Mountain Clansmen existed.

Well no, he went North because they were asking for a Kings help and his ego perked up on that.

He also ha few better options open to him. The Martells, the Tyrells, Lysa Arryn and even some of his own relatives in the Stormlands had sworn fealty to the Crown.

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

6. I think the North will rise again, and be a key player in the remaining story. It will not be comparatively weaker than the likes of the Riverlands, Westerlands, Stormlands or even the Reach.

They will always be weaker than the Westerlands and Reach. Their realms are going to be able to bounce back quicker than the North ever will. Higher population densities and superior resources will see to that.

I'd say the North was already stronger than the Stormlands at the start of the series while the Riverlands has always been too divided to properly utilize its superior strength over the North, Stormlands, Vale, Dorne, Crownlands and Iron Islands.

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

In short, one of the two camps in this debate will be proven wrong, the other right. I am very confident of my viewpoint, because I believe that the North is more important narratively than regions like the West, the Reach, Dorne, the Stormlands etc. Some find that view distasteful, but I think it is undeniable.

Why would anyone find it distasteful? It is pretty clear that the North, the Wall and Kings Landing are the three principle locations of the series.

The West, this far, is the least important location in the series by some margin.

Now the North being important to the series does not mean that it will magically grow new soldiers or that a great deal of new information will be released about it since so much has already been established already. It is the text that suggests that the North is poorer than most of the other realms of Westeros.

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

By the way, the person who stated that the Mountain Clans are poor compared to the rest of the North was Jon. And Martin himself confirmed this.

Can you provide the quotes from Jon that state the Mountain Clans are poorer than the rest of the North then. I'd like to see this evidence of them being in a worse position of the "backwater" Skagos, the people of the Neck whose heirs resort to hunting frogs to eat, the poor Mormonts or even the Umbers who rule similar lands. It seems many regions of the North are classified as poor, must be just a coincidence.

All I know from GRRM is this about the Mountain Clans

"They do have lands and holdfasts, so at the least they would *** houses and not ** houses. Some may have fastnesses big enough to be called castles, even, though they would be small and rude by comparison to the great castles of the south."

The difference between the Mountain Clans and the neighboring Umber lands seems to be that the lands of the Last Hearth are ruled from one Lord (making the Umbers richer) whearas the various Clans share those lands.

[direpupy]

9 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Sure, but I think you agree that snow = no crops = no harvest. Thus there was no snow wherever the hell the Karstarks got some harvest in.

 

No i do, not quite a while back i provided you with a list of crops that could survive snow so you are just in denial on this point.

[Free Northman Reborn]

1 hour ago, direpupy said:

No i do, not quite a while back i provided you with a list of crops that could survive snow so you are just in denial on this point.

Clearly summer snows - up to a certain intensity - do not ruin crops in the Ice and Fire world. Not a single lord referred to ruined harvests as a result of the summer snow we witness in the Barrowlands in Book 1, and since Ned says these snows are not at all uncommon in late summer it clearly was not only in the Barrowlands that a single incident of snow occurred in late summer.

Instead we hear of harvests happening in the far colder Karstark and Umber lands and we hear lords asking Bran if they can set aside less of their harvest for Winter than normal because production has been so bountiful.

 

[Free Northman Reborn]

9 hours ago, thelittledragonthatcould said:

lol  no one is forcing you to respond. If you are not enjoying the debate then you are free to ignore it.

eh? That is not what he said at all. You appear to be grasping. Of course the almost 60 year old Tywin is not at the forefront of battles. That would be a ludicrous suggestion but Jaime was, Tyrion was, Kevan was, Stafford was and I'm guessing the likes of Daven and Tygett did as well.

Can you provide evidence that Ned was leading from the front in battle?

GRRM's point is more than clear, the Starks have faced more wars, battles in the last century and as result there are fewer Starks than there are Lannisters. It is not some point that the Stark, rulers of the Northern master race, lead from the front while the cowardly Southern jessies, the Lannisters, cower at the back. It is that people die in wars, we see that with Jason Lannister in the Nine Penny Wars, Stafford Lannister in the battle of Oxcross or the capture of two of Tywin's nephews in the battle of Riverrun. The North has simply faced more hardship in the last century than the West and as a consequence, GRRM points out, there are more Lannisters than Starks.

And here you are to repeat yours? Cool beans!

I'm not in that camp. I have a feeling that Dany will return to Westeros, that the Starks will regain Winterfell, that Cersei will topple from power and that the Others will be defeated.  Beyond that I don't really know what will happen.

I have a suspicion that the 20k soldiers Stannis sent for will play a role if they come to a North ravaged by Others.

Rise again? It will survive and Jon will have a key role against the Others but the North is going to need assistance against the Others as well as surviving the Long Winter.

He has also been incredible consistent about the lack of men in the North over the five books and the sample chapters of the sixth book in this seven part book series.

No one forced him to make his comments on the Umbers in TWOW or about the Karstarks in ADWD.

The North has been heavily weakened, there is no 10k reserve army that stood by and did nothing as the Ironborn took Winterfell and Moat Cailin or the Wall was desperate for support.

The idea that this secret army could not organize themselves for those crises but will do so in the future is hugely unlikely (though not impossible) as we have been given no evidence of it.

 

When did he state that?

I think you may be thinking of this quote

And life is harsher there as well, so lords and smallfolk both need to think carefully before beating those plowshares into swords.

Which clearly Robb did not do as the Umber and Karstark lands can testify to. Robb did not think clearly enough and as a result there is going to be mass starvation in the North for those lucky enough to survive the Others.

Of course he did. The Starks were the entry to the series, two of the prominent characters of the series were at Winterfell, the capital of the North and the North is most at threat from the actual protagonists of the series; the Others. 

Laughable. There are not 20k Northern soldiers at the start of Winds, the idea that there will be 20k after the Battle of Ice is ridiculous.

Sure, the South may be so weakened after the events of the next two books that the North will be on a par with them. I have nothing against that, just the incredulous idea that the North has currently  20k soldiers or will have that amount after the events of Winds when either the Bolton faction or the Stannis/Mountain Clan faction are going to take casualties.

But they are not. I have never supported either of your claims, none of the my discussions on Northern/Westerland wealth or military numbers comes from what I think should happen in the remaining two books but from what actually had been stated in the previous 5 books.

This is why you are constantly wrong on as you are fixated on what you hope the result will be rather than what has been said in the books.

lol they hunt for Frogs to survive. Anything is a step up from swamp land. They are looked down upon by even the other Houses of the North

He tried to recall all he had been taught of the crannogmen, who dwelt amongst the bogs of the Neck and seldom left their wetlands. They were a poor folk, fishers and frog-hunters who lived in houses of thatch and woven reeds on floating islands hidden in the deeps of the swamp. It was said that they were a cowardly people who fought with poisoned weapons and preferred to hide from foes rather than face them in open battle

This is what the children of Ned Stark have been taught. There is no shame in them being poor.

Considerably smaller? You will have to prove that with evidence as we have been given little infomation on borders.

And once again, many of these Mountain Clan members are going out to sacrifice themselves, as is common in Winter (which is pretty telling).

 

Why did he include the information of the New Gift? And the anger from the Starks over it?

And why were the combined forces of the Reach and Westerlands far, far smaller than what Tywin and Mace raised? It seems pretty clear, two regions have prospered from Targaryn rule and one region has not.

And of course why did he need to include the details of Aegon having to send aid to the North as they were facing huge famine (again). Seems GRRM is pretty consistent in his description of the North.

The Mountain Men did not appear out of nowhere. It is now Winter and there is no more harvest to be brought in.

And as said before, he could have easily made the Umbers and Karstarks stronger but he doubles down on how weak they are now in some of the most recent chapters of the series.

Well no, he went North because they were asking for a Kings help and his ego perked up on that.

He also ha few better options open to him. The Martells, the Tyrells, Lysa Arryn and even some of his own relatives in the Stormlands had sworn fealty to the Crown.

They will always be weaker than the Westerlands and Reach. Their realms are going to be able to bounce back quicker than the North ever will. Higher population densities and superior resources will see to that.

I'd say the North was already stronger than the Stormlands at the start of the series while the Riverlands has always been too divided to properly utilize its superior strength over the North, Stormlands, Vale, Dorne, Crownlands and Iron Islands.

Why would anyone find it distasteful? It is pretty clear that the North, the Wall and Kings Landing are the three principle locations of the series.

The West, this far, is the least important location in the series by some margin.

Now the North being important to the series does not mean that it will magically grow new soldiers or that a great deal of new information will be released about it since so much has already been established already. It is the text that suggests that the North is poorer than most of the other realms of Westeros.

Can you provide the quotes from Jon that state the Mountain Clans are poorer than the rest of the North then. I'd like to see this evidence of them being in a worse position of the "backwater" Skagos, the people of the Neck whose heirs resort to hunting frogs to eat, the poor Mormonts or even the Umbers who rule similar lands. It seems many regions of the North are classified as poor, must be just a coincidence.

All I know from GRRM is this about the Mountain Clans

"They do have lands and holdfasts, so at the least they would *** houses and not ** houses. Some may have fastnesses big enough to be called castles, even, though they would be small and rude by comparison to the great castles of the south."

The difference between the Mountain Clans and the neighboring Umber lands seems to be that the lands of the Last Hearth are ruled from one Lord (making the Umbers richer) whearas the various Clans share those lands.

You are quite correct. I respond because I enjoy this discussion tremendously. Some of the obstinate points of view become tiresome at times, but a break of a few hours is all that's required to get the enthusiasm going again.

I will say that you are misinterpreting my post and going into a lengthy counter argument against something that wasn't my point. Maybe it was my fault for not being clear enough. My point is that the Starks lost a lot of family members because of wars over the last 100 years. But from a population point of view this largely affects House Stark specifically - and maybe some of the Lordly families that had men fall in these wars along with their liege lords.

But wars such as the Skagosi rebellion, the Ironborn wars and Raymun Redbeard's invasion will have an utterly negligible effect on the population of the North as a whole. This is not about the Starks being braver than the Lannisters. I myself find it stupid for a general to lead from the front, and would prefer the Starks to employ more of Tywin's approach to commanding. The point is, these Starks fell in battles. Not in some continent wide calamity that reduced the population at large, such as plagues or famines affecting the North uniquely.

And the meta reason for this was quite obviously that George needed House Stark to be down to the main line only for plot purposes at the beginning of the series.

Regarding the North's supposedly telegraphed lack of numbers, he has been clear that the North has a low population density compared to the South. In terms of actual numbers, well, he seems to have made the one House that he gives us explicit numbers on (House Karstark) about 50% stronger than the Florents from the deep South, who can only raise 2000 men according to Stannis.

The Boltons seem to quite plausibly be on a similar level to the powerful Freys from the Riverlands.  The Manderlys are quite plausibly depicted as even stronger than the Boltons. The poor Mountain Clans too raise about 50% more men than the Florents. And in general he has plenty of room to raise more men from Northern Houses that he has given us very little actual numerical information on.

To give you an example of how your bias skews your interpretation, here are examples of statements that very plausibly supports higher numbers for the North, but which you invariably twist to mean the opposite:

1: Martin makes it clear that the North cannot raise their full strength during Harvest time, as lords are reluctant to commit their men to war during such a time. You immediately twist this to mean that in this case the Lords nevertheless committed their full strength, as evidenced by Lords Karstark and Umber. This despite Martin giving us Torhenn Stark's host as an example of the type of host that has been raised before, providing clear evidence that at the very least the North can project 10500 more men into the Riverlands than Robb did.

2: Martin gives us a quote about the Gift being good farmland, and without any hesitation you interpret that as evidence not of potentially better land further South, but as evidence of the lack of knowledge of the person providing the quote.

3: Jon tells Stannis that the Clansmen are poor, and you interpret that as Jon meaning the entire North is poor. I have never heard Jon call House Karstark poor, or House Bolton, House Dustin, House Umber, Hornwood, Glover, Tallhart etc. The reasonable interpretation, coupled with everything we know about the Clansmen, their harsh mountain lands, their comparative armour to those of the other Houses, their rude holdfasts and castles - is that they are indeed poor and looked down upon by much of the North. And yet, your interpretation is that Jon specifically points them out as poor to Stannis in the same way that he obviously forgot to point out the Karstarks or Umbers as poor to Stannis when Stannis considered his dealings with those Houses.  Come on. Just be genuine for a change. Jon was making it clear that the Mountain Clans are poorer than the other Northern Houses.

But of course, this is suddenly something which you would not like to admit, because of the quote where their lands are described as warmer and fairer than the Gift, which is already decent farmland. And that has a knock on implication for the lands of other lords at lower altitudes and in lower latitudes. Implications which do not suit your argument.

Regarding my expectation of a new 20k Northern host when the Starks reunite the North, consider this. The North lost 15500 men in the South. How many more they lost in the North during the Ironborn invasion is difficult to estimate, but is likely to be between 2000 and 4000, considering that the Battle of Winterfell was the largest single battle we are aware of, and was not particularly bloody according to Martin - with losses likely in the 500-1000 range I would think - and that no other major battles appear to have been fought with the Ironborn that I am aware of. Let's say they've lost 3000 men up North.

Torhenn marched 11000 more men to the Riverlands than the North has lost to date, which means that even using just his host as the standard, there would be 11000 Northmen left. But as you know, even Ran - who I believe is too conservative in his population estimate for the North - puts the North's strength at about 35k, (excluding Skagos as I recall, but I could be wrong on that last bit). So if you use just Ran's figures, there should be around 16k Northmen left at this point. Not sure about whether that includes or excludes Skagos, I would have to go and listen to his Youtube video again.

I believe the North has a strength of between 40-45k, and I think Ran's number should be higher by as much as 5000-10000. I have shown how I get to that figure probably two dozen times or more, so you know I am not just pulling it out of my hat. You disagree with it, that I accept. But I think my estimates are solid. But even going with Ran's figures we could be looking at around 16,000 men left in the North at this stage.

Now, with regard to the coming Battle of Ice. There are about 3000 non-Northern troops involved on both sides of this battle. 1500 Freys and about 1000-1500 of Stannis's southroners. If the total conflict involves around 12000 men, 20-25% of these men could die without costing a single Northman's life. I think we will lose some Northmen on top of the 3000 southroners, but I think that will be 1000-2000 men tops.

Leaving around 20k Northmen out of their full strength of 40,000-45,000 available at the end of Winds.

[direpupy]

1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Clearly summer snows - up to a certain intensity - do not ruin crops in the Ice and Fire world. Not a single lord referred to ruined harvests as a result of the summer snow we witness in the Barrowlands in Book 1, and since Ned says these snows are not at all uncommon in late summer it clearly was not only in the Barrowlands that a single incident of snow occurred in late summer.

Instead we hear of harvests happening in the far colder Karstark and Umber lands and we hear lords asking Bran if they can set aside less of their harvest for Winter than normal because production has been so bountiful.

 

I am glad you agree with me that snow need not be a problem for a harvest.

[Lord Varys]

2 hours ago, direpupy said:

No i do, not quite a while back i provided you with a list of crops that could survive snow so you are just in denial on this point.

And you seem to be in denial about the fact that the cold killed the crops outside Deepwood Motte in autumn. Thus they were either crops which could not survive long snows or such crops don't exist in Westeros. I'm not seeing the reason why I should assume the Glovers would be stupid enough to plant crops that are most likely going to die in autumn if there are crops which could survive the cold.

I'm with you that there are plenty of plants who can survive temperatures below freezing but that's not all of it. If the plants come out and carry fruit and are then hit by snow which quickly melts then they can easily rot (especially if the ground is still frozen and the water cannot go anywhere). Not only cold can kill crops.

We see that turnips and the like are eaten in the North. But there is also grain for the vast amounts of bread. Grain behaves rather differently.

There is winter wheat, of course, but that actually needs a sufficient period of cold temperatures to develop. It doesn't grow large and carry fruit in winter. It just survives winter and then quickly develops into the adult plant carrying fruit early in spring.

[direpupy]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

And you seem to be in denial about the fact that the cold killed the crops outside Deepwood Motte in autumn. Thus they were either crops which could not survive long snows or such crops don't exist in Westeros. I'm not seeing the reason why I should assume the Glovers would be stupid enough to plant crops that are most likely going to die in autumn if there are crops which could survive the cold.

I'm with you that there are plenty of plants who can survive temperatures below freezing but that's not all of it. If the plants come out and carry fruit and are then hit by snow which quickly melts then they can easily rot (especially if the ground is still frozen and the water cannot go anywhere). Not only cold can kill crops.

We see that turnips and the like are eaten in the North. But there is also grain for the vast amounts of bread. Grain behaves rather differently.

There is winter wheat, of course, but that actually needs a sufficient period of cold temperatures to develop. It doesn't grow large and carry fruit in winter. It just survives winter and then quickly develops into the adult plant carrying fruit early in spring.

And yet it did not kill the crops outside Last Hearth and Karhold or eniwhere else in the North, so something other then cold had to be at play, or they indeed had planted the wrong crops.

There is more evidence for crops surviving the cold and snow in the North then there is against it, so you are most definetly the one in denial here pal.

[Lord Varys]

1 minute ago, direpupy said:

And yet it did not kill the crops outside Last Hearth and Karhold or eniwhere else in the North, so something other then cold had to be at play, or they indeed had planted the wrong crops.

Perhaps the weather was better up there? Just as the weather was better at Castle Black when the snow storm hit Stannis.

1 minute ago, direpupy said:

There is more evidence for crops surviving the cold and snow in the North then there is against it, so you are most definetly the one in denial here pal.

Nope, there is not. I'm not talking about hypothetical snow and cold near the Last Hearth and Karhold, I'm talking about real cold near Deepwood Motte and real late summer snows near Winterfell.

[direpupy]

15 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Perhaps the weather was better up there? Just as the weather was better at Castle Black when the snow storm hit Stannis.

Nope, there is not. I'm not talking about hypothetical snow and cold near the Last Hearth and Karhold, I'm talking about real cold near Deepwood Motte and real late summer snows near Winterfell.

exept that there was snow there so nothing hypothetical about it

[Lord Varys]

Just now, direpupy said:

exept that there was snow there so nothing hypothetical about it

There was if you were answering to statements I made. Which you did.

[direpupy]

12 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

There was if you were answering to statements I made. Which you did.

I am sorry but how does answering to wat you say (statement or not) make the snow at Last Hearth and Karhold dissapear?

There is simply more evidence that crops in the North can survive cold and snow then there is against it, no matter how much you like to deny it.