Company of the Rose

[Lord Varys]

37 minutes ago, Stallion That Mounts Texas said:

The interest payments to the IB are going to be tremendous.  Should Stannis ultimately win this thing, he is going to need a huge indemnity from the Westerlands and the Reach, which is unlikely if wants longterm peace with those regions.  As Robert found out, debt is detriment to power.  Every coin borrowed will likely need to be paid back tenfold.  This is in addition to the massive debt the crown already had to the IB among many others.  Paying off houses may not be an option.

Oh, I don't know. Stannis' peace would be the peace of a graveyard. He would not allow any of his enemies or the people he doesn't particularly like or trust to keep their lordships, seats, and wealth. And that includes the Faith, actually. It should not be that difficult to take the coin to pay back the loans from the Lannisters and Tyrells - houses that are not likely to survive the rule of a King Stannis, anyway. But if they do then most likely because they buy their lives and seat with a lot of gold.

It is also quite clear that a King Stannis would enforce a severe austerity mandate on the court and the Realm, allowing him to use much of the regular tax revenue (and perhaps even the revenue from new taxes he would introduce) to pay back his debts very quickly.

A King Stannis wouldn't waste any money on tourneys or ridiculously high price money.

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Also, how many competent companies are left?  All of the heavy hitters seem to be accounted for.  Unknown to Stannis, the GC is already spoken for.  Hopefully, Massey can do a competent job and keeps his oath.

We get some more numbers and names in TWoIaF making it clear that not all companies - and not necessarily all good companies - are in Slaver's Bay right now.

However, a Stannis swimming in cash will always be able to hire new sellswords - and that's going to become an ever stronger threat on his enemies considering that the continuous civil war is going to weaken and weaken the regular Westerosi troops. That is why the sellsword threat at the end of the Dance was a severe and real threat for Aegon III new government - while there was still a good chance that Tyland and the others would actually come back with sellswords.

Chances are very good that Massey is not going to Braavos all by himself. Selyse and Shireen are likely going to accompany him, and even if they wouldn't - Selyse is going to send a retinue with him to ensure he does his duty. Ser Axell might very well go with him.

But it would be very difficult for Massey to betray Stannis there - the contract is between Stannis and the Iron Bank, not Massey, and Massey is not going to get a lot of gold to hire sellswords all by himself. Instead he'll most likely get bills of credit allowing him to hire sellswords on behalf of the Iron Bank/Stannis, and those men will then collect their payment from the Iron Bank/its representatives, not from Massey.

[The Grey Wolf]

If memory serves there are 20 or 40 sellsword companies*.

*According to TWOIAF.

That makes me wonder why there are none west of the Narrow Sea.

[Lion of the West]

8 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

If memory serves there are 20 or 40 sellsword companies*.

*According to TWOIAF.

That makes me wonder why there are none west of the Narrow Sea.

I would guess because major wars are not common enough in a united Westeros for there to be a market for large groups of organized sellswords. I mean that a minor lord may hire a dozen sellswords to bulk out his men in a feud with his neighbor, but Lord Tyrell don't need like 12 000 of them for a war with the Lannisters, so while there's a market for individual sellswords or small groups of them, there would be none for the great numbers in the companies.

But I would totally think that there could have been sellsword companies travelling across the Narrow Sea according to demand before the Targaryens brought unity to Westeros.

[The Grey Wolf]

@LionoftheWest

I meant why aren't there any Westerosi* Free Companies prior to the Conquest.

*Founded and working in the 7K.

Every example we have consists of Westerosi going east to form sellsword companies but never back home or the other way around.

[Ran]

I would guess there were, but the histories we have are about kings and rarely get into just where all their soldiers came from.

[The Grey Wolf]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

I would guess there were, but the histories we have are about kings and rarely get into just where all their soldiers came from.

That really makes me wonder what the cut material from TWOIAF consists of and how much of that there is.

Not to mention the stuff cut from the Dothraki and Yi Ti sections.

[Ran]

8 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

That really makes me wonder what the cut material from TWOIAF consists of and how much of that there is.

Not to mention the stuff cut from the Dothraki and Yi Ti sections.

There is some. None of it deals specifically with sellsword companies in Westeros, though.

[The Grey Wolf]

1 minute ago, Ran said:

There is some. None of it deals specifically with sellsword companies in Westeros, though.

I know. I meant I wonder what is in that cut material and how much of that cut material there is.

Btw, can you confirm if part of the material cut from the Stormlands section addresses the issue of Durran the Third?

[Ran]

Just now, The Grey Wolf said:

 

Btw, can you confirm if part of the material cut from the Stormlands section addresses the issue of Durran the Third?

No, doesn't talk about Durran the Third.

[The Wondering Wolf]

59 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Btw, can you confirm if part of the material cut from the Stormlands section addresses the issue of Durran the Third?

What issue do you mean?

[The Grey Wolf]

15 minutes ago, The Wondering Wolf said:

What issue do you mean?

Durran the Third lived during the time of Nymeria but there were already multiple Storm Kings named Durran by the time of the Andal Invasion.

@Ran says it isn't an error but nothing in the text tells us that.

[Lord Varys]

21 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Durran the Third lived during the time of Nymeria but there were already multiple Storm Kings named Durran by the time of the Andal Invasion.

@Ran says it isn't an error but nothing in the text tells us that.

Well, it is an error in the text as it is given. If there is some convoluted explanation as to why it is not an error we would need that to understand that it is no error ;-).

[The Wondering Wolf]

But I think Ran already gave an explanation for that one. Durran the Third is not the same as Durran III. The first one is a nickname, the second one the royal numbering. So Durran the Third actually might have been Durran XXV or something like that. Of course we do not know the orign of Durran's nickname, but I guess he was the third son of a Stormking and his brothers had been named Durran as well.

[Ran]

1 minute ago, The Wondering Wolf said:

But I think Ran already gave an explanation for that one. Durran the Third is not the same as Durran III. The first one is a nickname, the second one the royal numbering. So Durran the Third actually might have been Durran XXV or something like that. Of course we do not know the orign of Durran's nickname, but I guess he was the third son of a Stormking and his brothers had been named Durran as well.

Thank you.

Is it so strange that George would have fun with the fact that there's a zillion Durrans?

[Lord Varys]

8 minutes ago, Ran said:

Thank you.

Is it so strange that George would have fun with the fact that there's a zillion Durrans?

No. But one can see why the whole thing gets confusing sometimes.

Is it the same explanation for the Tristifer kings, by the way?

[The Grey Wolf]

@Ran

It would help if the text provided that information.

I, for one, took it to be a sign that the Stormlands were then going through a civil war not unlike the RL Year of the Four Emperors.

[Ran]

Just now, The Grey Wolf said:

@Ran

It would help if the text provided that explanation rather than forcing us to make our own inferences.

There are a lot of things in the book intended to be evocative, mysterious, or even confounding because that's what history can be like, especially when you're seeing it told by someone in-universe who has a mish-mash of sources and knowledge, may make assumptions about references his audience (i.e. not us) will understand, and so on.

We make no apologies for it, and I doubt George will, either. It was half the fun of writing the book.

 

[The Grey Wolf]

3 minutes ago, Ran said:

There are a lot of things in the book intended to be evocative, mysterious, or even confounding because that's what history can be like, especially when you're seeing it told by someone in-universe who has a mish-mash of sources and knowledge, may make assumptions about references his audience (i.e. not us) will understand, and so on.

We make no apologies for it, and I doubt George will, either. It was half the fun of writing the book.

 

That doesn't mean I can't grouse about it.

[The Wondering Wolf]

34 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Is it the same explanation for the Tristifer kings, by the way?

What was the issue here?

[Lord Varys]

@Ran The book mostly works in that fashion. In fact, at times things fit together way too much so that the Ironborn inconsistencies are actually real inconsistencies.

It would be much more fun if there were many different and completely contradictory stories about many of the events in the distant past. The way it is, far too many people take the thing at face value.

But things like differences between proper numbers and 'the Third', 'the Fourth' etc. are somewhat odd.

18 minutes ago, The Wondering Wolf said:

What was the issue here?

Aren't they also written in the 'the Fourth' manner in TWoIaF? Or am I confusing things?