Is the Tarly-Mooton marriage a foolish one?

[sweetsunray]

2 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

I agree with most of what you say, but on the issue of two or more castles, you appoint a cousin or an in law as castellan and collect the income. But if Mooton has sons...

True, but you risk the castellan to get more support and loyalty in the long run than yourself, especially when there is such immense distance between the two. Something like the Eyrie and Gates of the Moon works, because normally the lord over both at least stays in both for half a year, every year. The moment the castellan decides that he or she's the lord or lady of the place now, it's gonna be hard to do something against that - see Bronn at Stokeworht and ward of Rosby for Rosby. 

Of course Randyl won the Maidenpool hearts with his harsh justice, but it theoretically won't last him years and years either. Now, if he had 2 sons who could inherit that would be a different matter. But he basically disinherited his eldest son.

[Lost Melnibonean]

1 hour ago, sweetsunray said:

True, but you risk the castellan to get more support and loyalty in the long run than yourself, especially when there is such immense distance between the two. Something like the Eyrie and Gates of the Moon works, because normally the lord over both at least stays in both for half a year, every year. The moment the castellan decides that he or she's the lord or lady of the place now, it's gonna be hard to do something against that - see Bronn at Stokeworht and ward of Rosby for Rosby. 

Of course Randyl won the Maidenpool hearts with his harsh justice, but it theoretically won't last him years and years either. Now, if he had 2 sons who could inherit that would be a different matter. But he basically disinherited his eldest son.

Lord Tarly is a great lord and the king's master of laws. Betraying him would be foolish. Still, you could keep a hostage back and appoint a couple of other key posts to off each other. 

[sweetsunray]

1 minute ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Lord Tarly is a great lord and the king's master of laws. Betraying him would be foolish. Still, you could keep a hostage back and appoint a couple of other key posts to off each other. 

Well, I don't meant betraying Randyll Tarly anytime soon. As long as Randyl Tarly is alive, he's lord of Horn Hill and for the moment master of laws. Dickon Tarly is neither for the moment. But when Randyl Tarly is dead and Lord Mooton is dead, then everything changes. And Dickon Tarly might still pu tit off, but he'll have to make sure to have 2 sons and have high enough national position to be a remaining insurance against any castellan getting ideas, or any husband of Eleanor's possible sisters. That's why I find the idea of 1 person lording over 2 great castles with half a continent between them uneralistic, on the long term. Heck, Bronn is opposing the Queen-regent and Lady of Caterly Rock and so is the ward of Rosby, at her very doorstep. A brazen castellan, in-law is all it takes.

[Lost Melnibonean]

7 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Well, I don't meant betraying Randyll Tarly anytime soon. As long as Randyl Tarly is alive, he's lord of Horn Hill and for the moment master of laws. Dickon Tarly is neither for the moment. But when Randyl Tarly is dead and Lord Mooton is dead, then everything changes. And Dickon Tarly might still pu tit off, but he'll have to make sure to have 2 sons and have high enough national position to be a remaining insurance against any castellan getting ideas, or any husband of Eleanor's possible sisters. That's why I find the idea of 1 person lording over 2 great castles with half a continent between them uneralistic, on the long term. Heck, Bronn is opposing the Queen-regent and Lady of Caterly Rock and so is the ward of Rosby, at her very doorstep. A brazen castellan, in-law is all it takes.

Wouldn't it be more realistic though? Weren't their lots of cases of European nobility owning estates in different countries, especially across the Channel? 

[sweetsunray]

1 minute ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Wouldn't it be more realistic though? Weren't their lots of cases of European nobility owning estates in different countries, especially across the Channel? 

And it was a huge pain in the ass for them too, with someone else claiming it, and then they had to go to war there to get it back, while back home the brother or other heir/claimant would enrich himself. And there the distance and barriers aren't as much of an issue as in Westeros. We're basically talking about a lord of in Chili with a castle also being lord in a castle in Nicaragua.

[Lost Melnibonean]

28 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

And it was a huge pain in the ass for them too, with someone else claiming it, and then they had to go to war there to get it back, while back home the brother or other heir/claimant would enrich himself. And there the distance and barriers aren't as much of an issue as in Westeros. We're basically talking about a lord of in Chili with a castle also being lord in a castle in Nicaragua.

Isn't all of Westeros supposed to be comparable to the size of South America? If so, wouldn't the distance from Horn Hill in the Reach to Maidenpoolin the Riverlands be less than Chile in South America and Nicaragua in North America? 

[sweetsunray]

5 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Isn't all of Westeros supposed to be comparable to the size of South America? If so, wouldn't the distance from Horn Hill in the Reach to Maidenpoolin the Riverlands be less than Chile in South America and Nicaragua in North America? 

Nicaragua is Central America. But ok. Let's say a castle south Chili and a castle in North Brazil.

[The Bastards Giant Friend]

45 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Nicaragua is Central America. But ok. Let's say a castle south Chili and a castle in North Brazil.

Central America is part of North America. Kind of how the "Middle East" is part of Asia.

I think it is not as far as you two are making it seem. Jaime said that the Twins to Fairmarket is less than a day's ride. I assume that's a hard ride. But can't be more than about 50 miles. Still (very very loosely) it looks to be about the same distance between twins and fairmarket as maidenpool-duskendale(1). And duskendale-KL(2). And maybe twice that for KL-Bitterbridge(4). About the same for bitterbridge-highgarden (6) and then the distance of highgarden to Horn Hill isn't great but it's not on a major road (7). So that's about a weeks hard riding assuming good weather. To cover ~350 miles. Now, marching an army would be significantly longer. And in terms of westeros distance that's a good length of distance.

Please feel free to tell me how wrong I am, I am eyeballing an unverified map of westeros on my phone so I could be way off.

Perspective: South Chile - North Brazil, we are talking 10 times that. ~3,300 miles

[sweetsunray]

1 minute ago, The Bastards Giant Friend said:

Central America is part of North America. Kind of how the "Middle East" is part of Asia.

I think it is not as far as you two are making it seem. Jaime said that the Twins to Fairmarket is less than a day's ride. I assume that's a hard ride. But can't be more than about 50 miles. Still (very very loosely) it looks to be about the same distance between twins and fairmarket as maidenpool-duskendale(1). And duskendale-KL(2). And maybe twice that for KL-Bitterbridge(4). About the same for bitterbridge-highgarden (6) and then the distance of highgarden to Horn Hill isn't great but it's not on a major road (7). So that's about a weeks hard riding assuming good weather. To cover ~350 miles. Now, marching an army would be significantly longer. And in terms of westeros distance that's a good length of distance.

Please feel free to tell me how wrong I am, I am eyeballing an unverified map of westeros on my phone so I could be way off.

Hmmm, Middle East is also called Eurasia. Anyhow, yes, you're correct that all of Central America is considerd to be North America geographically, but people usually don't think of Guatemala, Belize, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama when they use the term North America.

The mistake I made was thinking that George likened Westeros to the Americas (plural), so I picked a country more centrally located.

The maps of Westeros lack "scales", but several SSMs liken Westeros to being the size of South America.

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/Geography   :Westeros comparable in size to South America.

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/2787   :The Wall is 300 miles wide (100 leagues)

And BTW the travel distance between Crossroads Inn/Darry and KL is a fortnight - 2 weeks. Crossing the Neck by KR takes 12 days. From the Neck to the Ruby Ford/Darry/Crossroads Inn over a week. Brienne travels over 2 days between Rosby and Duskendale. So, KL-Duskendale would be between 4-5 days at normal pace. It's certainly double to Maidenpool. 

[The Bastards Giant Friend]

4 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Hmmm, Middle East is also called Eurasia. Anyhow, yes, you're correct that all of Central America is considerd to be North America geographically, but people usually don't think of Guatemala, Belize, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama when they use the term North America.

The mistake I made was thinking that George likened Westeros to the Americas (plural), so I picked a country more centrally located.

The maps of Westeros lack "scales", but several SSMs liken Westeros to being the size of South America.

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/Geography   :Westeros comparable in size to South America.

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/2787   :The Wall is 300 miles wide (100 leagues)

And BTW the travel distance between Crossroads Inn/Darry and KL is a fortnight - 2 weeks. Crossing the Neck by KR takes 12 days. From the Neck to the Ruby Ford/Darry/Crossroads Inn over a week. Brienne travels over 2 days between Rosby and Duskendale. So, KL-Duskendale would be between 4-5 days at normal pace. It's certainly double to Maidenpool. 

Thank you for the links, I will look them over tonight. Brienne is looking for someone and so has to go slowly. But I admittedly would expect it to be closer to double my initial calculations. Making the world bigger allows for more intrigue.

[Lost Melnibonean]

1 hour ago, sweetsunray said:

Nicaragua is Central America. But ok. Let's say a castle south Chili and a castle in North Brazil.

Isn't Central America part of the continent of North America? Doesn't putting Horn Hill of the Reach (above the Honeywine) in Chile and Maidenpool of the Riverlands (South of the Vale) leave scant room for the North and Dorne on our South American size Westeros? 

[sweetsunray]

3 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Isn't Central America part of the continent of North America? Doesn't putting Horn Hill of the Reach (above the Honeywine) in Chile and Maidenpool of the Riverlands (South of the Vale) leave scant room for the North and Dorne on our South American size Westeros? 

Already answered in reply to @The Bastards Giant Friend that yes geographically Central America is part of North America.

Anyhow, I proposed north Brazil once you clarified Westeros is the size of South America, instead of the Americas (which was what I thought mistakenly).

[Lost Melnibonean]

2 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

Already answered in reply to @The Bastards Giant Friend that yes geographically Central America is part of North America.

Anyhow, I proposed north Brazil once you clarified Westeros is the size of South America, instead of the Americas (which was what I thought mistakenly).

But there's nothing north of northern Brazil. North of Maidenpool, we have the Vale and the Neck and all the North and Beyond the Wall. So, maybe a better distance analogy might be the Pampas and the southern tributaries of the Amazon. 

[Lost Melnibonean]

@The Bastards Giant Friend & @sweetsunray, You might find the distance calculators here of interest...

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZsY3lcDDtTdBWp1Gx6mfkdtZT6-Gk0kdTGeSC_Dj7WM/htmlview#

[sweetsunray]

13 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

But there's nothing north of northern Brazil. North of Maidenpool, we have the Vale and the Neck and all the North and Beyond the Wall. So, maybe a better distance analogy might be the Pampas and the southern tributaries of the Amazon. 

Suriname, Venezuela, Guyana, Colombia. But truly, Lord of Punta Arenas will have a better chance of ensuring his castellan won't succeed in getting his 2nd castle with port because the castle is in Rio or Machi Pichu valley in Peru (southerin tributaries of the Amazon) or Buenos Aires in Argentina instead of Fortalezo... NOT.

[Lost Melnibonean]

3 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

Hmmm, Middle East is also called Eurasia. Anyhow, yes, you're correct that all of Central America is considerd to be North America geographically, but people usually don't think of Guatemala, Belize, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama when they use the term North America.

The mistake I made was thinking that George likened Westeros to the Americas (plural), so I picked a country more centrally located.

The maps of Westeros lack "scales", but several SSMs liken Westeros to being the size of South America.

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/Geography   :Westeros comparable in size to South America.

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/2787   :The Wall is 300 miles wide (100 leagues)

And BTW the travel distance between Crossroads Inn/Darry and KL is a fortnight - 2 weeks. Crossing the Neck by KR takes 12 days. From the Neck to the Ruby Ford/Darry/Crossroads Inn over a week. Brienne travels over 2 days between Rosby and Duskendale. So, KL-Duskendale would be between 4-5 days at normal pace. It's certainly double to Maidenpool. 

The Middle East is not Eurasia. Eurasia refers to all of Europe and Asia combined. The part of Colombia I visit regularly is west of Brazil. The reason so many of us think of North America as only the US and Canada is that we think culturally and not geographically. My Colombian wife gets mad at me whenever I make this point. 

[The Bastards Giant Friend]

We may be getting away from the OP, I don't think it was a bad match. For the "friends" theory, and also because it spreads the network of their family outside of the region. Eastern ambitions, if you will. Ultimately, I think it makes sense because both families need to marry their children off and I don't expect either family to sit the throne during this story. So, like 99% of the families in the story, it carries on the line and the system/institution of the present situation.

[sweetsunray]

7 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

The reason so many of us think of North America as only the US and Canada is that we think culturally and not geographically.

I agree with your point. It doesn't help either that HS geography mixes economical, cultural, climate and geographical facts, and when it came to the Americas, I had to learn countries by heart in the division of North America with states, Central America and South America in the 80s. And since we are exchanging personal connections: ex is Nicaraguan, was tourleader in Latin America, mostly central 2 months a year for over a decade.

North Columbia is North of Brazil. And while yes, Eurasia is used as a term to describe Europe + Asia as a giant continental shelf, again it's culturally used by example Turkey to associate themselves with Europe rather than the rest of the Middle East and the rest of Asia.

Anyway, the main point is that Westeros is big.

Comparative travel times with modern transport:

It takes us 3 weeks to travel from Lima to Arequipa, border of Bolivia, Cuzco and then back to Lima by bus and plane and visiting some places. That's only a 1/3 of Peru. If you have 2 months, you can add busses North, and a cargo boat to the Amazon and visit a reserve by canoo for a week. Yucatan peninsula and Chiapas by bus is also 3 weeks. In 10 days you can drive from San Diego to 2/3 down into Baja and back to San Diego by car (you can't drive at night, too dangerous, with cattle seeking the tarmak for heat after dark). Admittedly if you never truly stop anyhere night and day, jumping from minivan, to taxi, to bus, you can get from Roatan to Cancun in 48 hours to catch a flight. 

By comparison I can drive from the border of Germany-Belgium to the North Sea Coast in Belgium in 2 hours, get on a ferry and be at Dover less than 2 hours later, and in London in another hour. Western Europe is small. You can get on a night train in Brussels around 19.00 and be in south of France by morning (Frejus, Marseille), heck even Firenze in Italy. So, roughly it takes about the same time to get from Brussels to Italy than to get from Honduras to Gulf of Mexico. And I can get from Brussels to London in less time than it takes to drive from Cancun to Chichen Itza, using comparative transport in speed.

The point is that no lord can be secure in holding 2 castles in a continent the size of South America, when the other castle is roughly half of that continent away from the other, and that is the reason why many readers imo frown at this "huh, Maidenpool?". On top of that George prefers to make it difficult for greedy lords rather than easy. Chances are higher that in the hypothetical peaceful years ahead with Dickon Tarly, he'd lose either Horn Hill or Maidenpool because of a scheming in-law or brazen castellan. Randyl may be greedy, but he's not stupid either. So, Eleanor Mooton being the heir alone doesn't sound enough good reason for Randyl to think, "Hmmm, Maidenpool." If he is a "friend in the Reach" then Maidenpool as a possible landing port for a potential Targ return makes way more sense. Clearly Aegon returned ahead of schedule, but the "friends in the Reach" would at some point have been alerted about a possible Targ return in the coming 2-3 years. And finally, we know that there's 0% chance of this year (300 AC) and the next (301 AC) to be anything but peaceful. We've got Euron as a threat to the Reach, and possibly Horn Hill, while Tarly is in KL with the Tyrell army, and will likely remain there for another long while, either fighting for or against Aegon. It also appears that the wedding between Dickon and Eleanor occurred at Maidenpool, implying that Dickon is at Maidenpool at present, instead of Horn Hill. This suggests to me that Horn Hill is not safe plot-wise for long anymore, and that Maidenpool may be the stow-away location for Dickon for safekeeping. 

[Stormking902]

Spoiler

 

The Mootons are rich not extremly rich but none the less still above a lot of other houses probably even the Tarlys when it comes to money not army size obviously. Perhaps Tarly wanted a decent sized Dowery for the Mooton girl also the Mootons are an old blood line and were once petty kings house Tarly were never kings so IMO its not an odd match up. 

[Lost Melnibonean]

1 hour ago, Stormking902 said:

  Hide contents

 

The Mootons are rich not extremly rich but none the less still above a lot of other houses probably even the Tarlys when it comes to money not army size obviously. Perhaps Tarly wanted a decent sized Dowery for the Mooton girl also the Mootons are an old blood line and were once petty kings house Tarly were never kings so IMO its not an odd match up. 

Do you think Randyll would have compelled a dowry in a specific amount from Lord William?