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Why does everyone think that having the iron throne empty or destroyed will make the peasants better off.


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2 hours ago, snow is the man said:

Yes I agree. However when it comes to the time and culture that westeros is supposed to be in comparison to the real world it would be impossible to have a democracy in something bigger then a city state.  In westeros you would have incedible voter intimadation,throwing out votes,and making them up so that any election would be pointless. What I was refrencing was how you said that they would have a reason to make the poor and the rick better off. I won't go into modern politics but it seems more about the message then the actualy policy or act that matters. Westeros doesn't have the printing press or a very high level of literacy  so a press would more or less be someone yelling things out and could be changed in a thousand ways or never get there in the first place and noone would know.

 

I don't think anyone would be able to actually spread their message, I guess it would just come down to people voting on who they have encountered or heard good things about that's in the running.

Usually there is going to be 3/4 candidates, most likely the Wardens but then as you say this leads to bullying for votes... a northerner is hardly going to risk voting or making it be known he would prefer the Warden of the East... at a meeting.

 

The most risk free way I would imagine... is every year, each house gathers its people and they all write down the name they would want to vote for.

The head of each house would then take the final vote with them to another meeting where all the heads of houses gather to reveal who was chosen and after all those votes have been counted.. we have the peoples choice.

This is something I've always wondered just how big is Westeros ? I always thought it was based off of the UK with the whole Northern/Southern divide.. the wall separating the North of England from the Scottish... 

 

 

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5 minutes ago, StoneColdJorahMormont said:

The head of each house would then take the final vote with them to another meeting where all the heads of houses gather to reveal who was chosen and after all those votes have been counted.. we have the peoples choice.

Aaaaaaand on the way there add in a few votes for the head of the house wants.. remove a few for the guy you dont like..

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1 minute ago, Bradam said:

Aaaaaaand on the way there add in a few votes for the head of the house wants.. remove a few for the guy you dont like..

Well yeah if the Head of the House travels alone lol... he would no doubt be accompanied by many other members that also know what the final total was.

It would never be flawless and with each time they would iron out the kinks, but it beats out having someone rule just because they were born to the right Family.

For every 4 year vote for the Head of the Country, They could hold a vote every 2 years for the Warden of the North/East/West/South  position which also stops Families ruling just because they always have.

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The population is too illiterate to vote in their own best interest imo.  They could do some sort of electoral college maybe.  Each area votes in their own lord, then the lords go to kings landing and vote in the "king" or something might work.

But even then some dude is going to get some power and want to keep, abolish the voting, maybe team up with another strong house and crush the rest and right back to square one again.

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1 minute ago, Bradam said:

The population is too illiterate to vote in their own best interest imo.  They could do some sort of electoral college maybe.  Each area votes in their own lord, then the lords go to kings landing and vote in the "king" or something might work.

But even then some dude is going to get some power and want to keep, abolish the voting, maybe team up with another strong house and crush the rest and right back to square one again.

Well that's kind of what I was proposing.

You get each of the houses to meet and vote for their Warden every 2 years. Said Warden is then a candidate to rule the country.

Then on the 4th year all the houses throughout Westero's vote on which of the 4 Wardens they wish to rule the country.

But this would only really work if they managed to get all of Westeros to mingle/relocate, as northerners will always vote for the Warden of the North etc... however if they managed to break down the divide and had families living in whatever part of the country they liked.. it would be a much less biased vote.

I'm using Jon Snow as an example, he was chosen by the North to be King however from his time beyond the wall he also gained a lot of allies and if he was to settle in with the Wildlings he would also be a popular choice behind Tormund for King beyond the Wall.

But this is due to him not saying solely in the north he moved around met other people they got to know him... made up their own mind because of the man he showed he was to them not based on stories.

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3 hours ago, snow is the man said:

However when it comes to the time and culture that westeros is supposed to be in comparison to the real world it would be impossible to have a democracy in something bigger then a city state.

Interestingly, in ESSOS there are alternative polities in certain city-states, particularly in Braavos which was founded by escaped slaves fleeing oppressive rulers. It's not an Athenian-type democracy though; it's an extremely complex form of elected oligarchy.

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52 minutes ago, StoneColdJorahMormont said:

This is something I've always wondered just how big is Westeros ? I always thought it was based off of the UK with the whole Northern/Southern divide.. the wall separating the North of England from the Scottish... 

 

Much bigger. Climate-wise and culturally, Dorne is akin to Spain/Morocco, the Reach to France, further north such as Riverrun is England and the North Scotland with maybe north of the Wall being Norway.

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On 5/16/2019 at 3:09 AM, Winter prince said:

My take on it is that the end of the iron throne will be the end of feudalism.  There will be a shift in politics where the noble houses still remain in charge but the head of westeros will be elected.  In theory, this should create more stability and less fighting between the noble houses.

This, totally. They are moving to representative form of government. The melting of the throne was symbolic of a new age, so to speak.

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8 minutes ago, SansaJonRule said:

This, totally. They are moving to representative form of government. The melting of the throne was symbolic of a new age, so to speak.

 

We've had plenty of elective monarchies in history, they usually end up with someone consolidating power and making it defacto hereditary. It might be more representative but that's not inherently better, if anything the nobles will probably end up fighting more when they have a say in who gets to be king directly. I get what they're doing with the idea being that it's a step in the right direction but it's still dumb, they could have left a positive message of changing politics out all together and I don't think it would hurt the narrative, a story set in a fedual setting doesn't need to change that as some sort of positive message, if anything the whole happy bantering small council was just cringy. 

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10 minutes ago, Trigger Warning said:

 

We've had plenty of elective monarchies in history, they usually end up with someone consolidating power and making it defacto hereditary. It might be more representative but that's not inherently better, if anything the nobles will probably end up fighting more when they have a say in who gets to be king directly. I get what they're doing with the idea being that it's a step in the right direction but it's still dumb, they could have left a positive message of changing politics out all together and I don't think it would hurt the narrative, a story set in a fedual setting doesn't need to change that as some sort of positive message, if anything the whole happy bantering small council was just cringy. 

I think the big difference now is that when the wrong choice is made which there will be one at some point no doubt and said person decided they want more/get power hungry they would surely have put some fail safes in place.

A re-election can be called but all of the lords/council need to reach a majority, with this in place it would prevent a King/Queen from getting to far ahead of themselves and continue to rule as previous ones had.

 

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1 minute ago, StoneColdJorahMormont said:

 

I think the big difference now is that when the wrong choice is made which there will be one at some point no doubt and said person decided they want more/get power hungry they would surely have put some fail safes in place.

A re-election can be called but all of the lords/council need to reach a majority, with this in place it would prevent a King/Queen from getting to far ahead of themselves and continue to rule as previous ones had.

 

 

I mean sure that's probably the idea but it's still stupid because it never works like that, what fail safe can you possibly put in when someone gets rich and powerful enough to just make people vote for them. Elective monarchies are just monarchies with more steps at the end of the day, like I said I get what they're going for but they're still just putting elective monarchies up on a pedestal that they don't deserve. 

 

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7 minutes ago, Trigger Warning said:

 

I mean sure that's probably the idea but it's still stupid because it never works like that, what fail safe can you possibly put in when someone gets rich and powerful enough to just make people vote for them. Elective monarchies are just monarchies with more steps at the end of the day, like I said I get what they're going for but they're still just putting elective monarchies up on a pedestal that they don't deserve. 

 

I get that people can be bought and offered things to elevate them.

But I think that when it comes to the council, they are already as high as they can go.. with the exception of one of them getting the job of the hand.

So maybe when they sense foul play or that the King isn't looking out for the Realms best interests they would be the ones to step in and call for another to rule in their place.

I mean this would require a contract and the King/Queens signature agreeing to it and that the Council can take control of the Kings Guard if they felt necessary to take the throne back and hold it until another is sworn in.

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10 minutes ago, StoneColdJorahMormont said:

I get that people can be bought and offered things to elevate them.

But I think that when it comes to the council, they are already as high as they can go.. with the exception of one of them getting the job of the hand.

So maybe when they sense foul play or that the King isn't looking out for the Realms best interests they would be the ones to step in and call for another to rule in their place.

I mean this would require a contract and the King/Queens signature agreeing to it and that the Council can take control of the Kings Guard if they felt necessary to take the throne back and hold it until another is sworn in.


As high as they can go... except king. If anything you just proved my point, you're saying the council can remove the king so maybe the most powerful counsellor decides he wants to be King and uses his wealth, fear, intimidation etc to influence the council into making him king, boom now there's a king that he can spend his reign consolidating his power to pass on to his son. Fundamentally I simply disagree with the concept that this council of nobles will be benevolent, at some point someone's gonna be king and be too powerful to remove. The Holy Roman Empire was an elective monarchy and yet the Habsburgs ruled for 300 years. 

I mean the North literally decides not to enter into this union in that episode, the other Kingdoms will likely do the same at some point, if anything it's dumb that they didn't do it right then, Dorne's got far more history of resistance to the Iron Throne than the North does. 

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2 minutes ago, Trigger Warning said:


As high as they can go... except king. If anything you just proved my point, you're saying the council can remove the king so maybe the most powerful counsellor decides he wants to be King and uses his wealth, fear, intimidation etc to influence the council into making him king, boom now there's a king that he can spend his reign consolidating his power to pass on to his son. Fundamentally I simply disagree with the concept that this council of nobles will be benevolent, at some point someone's gonna be king and be too powerful to remove. The Holy Roman Empire was an elective monarchy and yet the Habsburgs ruled for 300 years. 

I mean the North literally decides not to enter into this union in that episode, the other Kingdoms will likely do the same at some point, if anything it's dumb that they didn't do it right then, Dorne's got far more history of resistance to the Iron Throne than the North does. 

Well I meant it would be a majority vote that is used when things go sour... and when I say remove only as a holding till another is chosen by the lords... no matter how much power the members of the council could achieve if the lords have the final say.. they would not stand in the way of the new voting system.

I agree it is flawed and would take a while to iron out the kinks... possibly with a lot of setbacks... but it is still lesser of two evils... someone sitting on the throne due to being born with the right name.. leaves a lot more up to chance.. and they are just as vunerable to having it ceased from them as the other way...only difference is people might not be as tempted to do something so rash as with the election system and the fail safe in place it can prevent the need to lead a rebellion to get the same results.

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But seriously...

Not to interrupt the debate and probably expressing points already made.

IRL, the gap between feudalism and nation states is huge, let alone to any notion of the "people" having any say in the polity.

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10 minutes ago, StoneColdJorahMormont said:

Well I meant it would be a majority vote that is used when things go sour... and when I say remove only as a holding till another is chosen by the lords... no matter how much power the members of the council could achieve if the lords have the final say.. they would not stand in the way of the new voting system.

I agree it is flawed and would take a while to iron out the kinks... possibly with a lot of setbacks... but it is still lesser of two evils... someone sitting on the throne due to being born with the right name.. leaves a lot more up to chance.. and they are just as vunerable to having it ceased from them as the other way...only difference is people might not be as tempted to do something so rash as with the election system and the fail safe in place it can prevent the need to lead a rebellion to get the same results.

 

Again like I said almost all elective monarchies are eventually corrupted by power blocs, weak or foreign figurehead monarchs and noble infighting. The Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth was about as successful as one gets and that had all these problems with a much more advanced political and social level than Westeros. Ultimately the names are still all that matters because the nobility controls the king and are likely more powerful than him. All I'm saying is that I disagree based on history that an elective monarchy is fundamentally any better than a hereditary monarchy, it's simply empowering the nobles who are still in power because they're born with the right name and they could be right bastards but who's gonna do anything about that if they elect a weak king purposefully so he can't do shit about that, it's in the nobility's best interest to elect themselves, their allies or figureheads that have no power and throughout history that's exactly what we see. Electing the king because he's gonna be a good king or a good guy simply won't last. 

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Quite contrary destruction of iron Throne would mean at least seven seperate kingdoms which would result in many wars through the time. 

You can just abolish feudalism by destroying a kingdom. 

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No system of government is perfect because they all rely on human beings to run it. The point in the episode is that they know they need to find a better way, and this is the beginning of their attempts to do so. And as Tyrion says, it is the wheel Daenerys wanted to break. Dany's life and death wasn't for nothing. She was a force for positive change.

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1 hour ago, Wild Bill said:

But seriously...

Not to interrupt the debate and probably expressing points already made.

IRL, the gap between feudalism and nation states is huge, let alone to any notion of the "people" having any say in the polity.

To be frank, as a history professor (formerly), the idea there's a natural progression between state types is bullshit.

Russia went from feudalism to totalitarian dictatorship communist state.

Japan went to feudalism and Democracy to dictatorship.

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