Down with the Free Folk

[kissdbyfire]

Just now, Alyn Oakenfist said:

You're right. That's so much better. It's completely different. Kidnapping and raping wifes would be horrific but doing it to daughter's is no biggie. You're missing the point. 7k people don't go to another country to kidnap and rape their future wifes. (and stop comparing it to arranged marriages, those are a fringe phenomena with even fringer chances of it posing problems ie marital rape)

LOL what a pathetic strawman.

You said wives are taken and the raiders kill their whole families. You claimed it as if stating a well-established fact. I'm asking for a quote to back your claim up. But no worries, I knew you wouldn't be able to provide one anyway. 

[Lord Varys]

3 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

LOL what a pathetic strawman.

You said wives are taken and the raiders kill their whole families. You claimed it as if stating a well-established fact. I'm asking for a quote to back your claim up. But no worries, I knew you wouldn't be able to provide one anyway. 

LOL, as if 'You know nothing' Ygritte were a credible source for anything. We do know the wildlings routinely invade, raid, and kill the people of the Gifts.

And last time I looked a widow was no longer a wife.

[Alyn Oakenfist]

20 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

LOL what a pathetic strawman.

First off, please knock it off with the personal insults. Let's have a respectful conversation.

20 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

You said wives are taken and the raiders kill their whole families.

Yes I made a small inaccuracy, haven't read ASOS in a while. However you think that, if they can steal the daughters, they won't kill the families or at least loot them, which still means killing them, only slower?

[Lord Varys]

15 minutes ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

First off please knock it off with the personal insults. Let's have a respectful conversation.

Yes I made a small inaccuracy, haven't read ASOS in a while. However you think that if they can steal the daughters they won't kill the families or at least loot them, which still means killing them, only slower.

Well if you knew that's great!

We can be sure that many a family of Northmen and Gift people were slaughtered by the wildlings who came to raid and 'steal women' because any self-respecting man would not stand idly by while a bunch of savages stole their property and abducted and raped his female family members. Even the cowards would fight back, especially in autumn/winter when the preservation of the winter provisions was the difference between life and death. Nobody could afford to allow some filthy, stinking savages run away with their winter provisions.

It is ridiculous to imagine how some wildlings just threaten a couple of nice Gift peasants with some knives, how they gently inspect their daughters, fondle them a little bit, check them out, and then take those who are to their liking while the peasant parents serve them some tea and talk about the weather and how life is across the Wall...

[kissdbyfire]

 never mind

[Alyn Oakenfist]

3 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

saying you're making a strawman argument is insulting only to the argument, not you.

Sorry, I may have misunderstood, I do have the occasional problem with english expressions.

3 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

And now what, they are killing them softly?

No but in times of crisis stealing their food is equal to a death sentence. They're still going to die as a result of the wildling raid, only slower and far more painfully.

[The Jingo]

I think ultimately what matters is that when comparing the Seven Kingdoms to the Wildlings you keep in mind that we're talking about general cultural mores.

Even if we accept the modern definition of rape and assert that the Seven Kingdoms have a rape culture based around arranged marriages, they are still better than the Wildlings.

The Seven Kingdoms in this scenario is a rape culture where the top 1% of the population would fear rape as part of their life and the remaining 99% of that society don't consider it a sure thing. It might happen, but it's also entirely reasonable that a farmer's daughter living in the Reach would never be sexually assaulted by anyone in her life.

In comparison 100% of the Free Folk would consider rape a fact of life. Either they do it, or it's done to them, or they expect someone at some point to attempt to do it to them, or they expect at some point to do it to someone else. Even the most progressive man north of the Wall who would never lay a hand on someone that didn't consent to it is going to acknowledge that there is an almost certain possibility that someone at some point will attempt to assault his wife/sisters/mother/daughters/ect. Conflict in general, and sexual conflict in particular, is part and parcel of living north of the Wall.

Rape might occur in both cultures, but it's quantitatively worse in the second.

[kissdbyfire]

Just now, Alyn Oakenfist said:

Sorry, I may have misunderstood, I do have the occasional problem with english expressions.

No worries.

Just now, Alyn Oakenfist said:

No but in times of crisis stealing their food is equal to a death sentence. They're still going to die as a result of the wildling raid, only slower and far more painfully.

This is a gross exaggeration though. Not only that, but you're changing the goal posts. Because first you said it was bad b/c the wildlings would take the women and kill their whole families, but that argument was proven wrong so now it's even worse because they take literally everything and the poor families die slowly and suffering even more. 

[Alyn Oakenfist]

2 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Not only that, but you're changing the goal posts. Because first you said it was bad b/c the wildlings would take the women and kill their whole families, but that argument was proven wrong so now it's even worse because they take literally everything and the poor families die slowly and suffering even more. 

I'm just extending the possibilities. They would probably kill whoever they don't kidnap, but even if they just pillage them, it can still be a death sentence.

[Lollygag]

5 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

Quote

No but in times of crisis stealing their food is equal to a death sentence. They're still going to die as a result of the wildling raid, only slower and far more painfully.

This is a gross exaggeration though. Not only that, but you're changing the goal posts. Because first you said it was bad b/c the wildlings would take the women and kill their whole families, but that argument was proven wrong so now it's even worse because they take literally everything and the poor families die slowly and suffering even more. 

Technically it's not always an exaggeration. Stealing horses - the means for travel and working their farms for food - was punished by death in rl because the consequences of stealing food, the means for acquiring food or producing food could be very severe, especially for poor families or during times of food scarcity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_theft

Quote

Horse theft was very common throughout the world prior to widespread car ownership. Punishments were often severe for horse theft, with several cultures pronouncing the sentence of death upon actual or presumed thieves. Several societies were formed in the United States to prevent horse theft and apprehend horse thieves.

...

Horse theft was a well-known crime in medieval and early modern times and was severely prosecuted in many areas. While many crimes were punished through ritualized shaming or banishment, horse theft often brought severe punishment, including branding, torture, exile and even death.^[2] According to one 18th century treatise, the use of death as a punishment for horse theft stretches back as far as the first century AD, when the Germanic Chauci tribe would sentence horse thieves to death, while murderers would be sentenced to a fine. This practice derived from the wealth of the populace being in the form of livestock which ranged over large areas, meaning that the theft of animals could only be prevented through fear of the harsh punishment that would result.^[3]

...

The term horse thief came into great popularity in the United States during the 19th century. During that time the Great Plains states, Texas, and other western states were sparsely populated and negligibly policed. As farmers tilled the land and migrants headed west through the Great Plains, their horses became subject to theft. Since these farmers and migrants depended on their horses, horse thieves garnered a particularly pernicious reputation because they left their victims helpless or greatly handicapped by the loss of their horses. The victims needed their horses for transportation and farming. Such depredation led to the use of the term horse thief as an insult, one that conveys the impression of the insulted person as one lacking any shred of moral decency.^[7]

 

[kissdbyfire]

3 hours ago, Lollygag said:

Technically it's not always an exaggeration. Stealing horses - the means for travel and working their farms for food - was punished by death in rl because the consequences of stealing food, the means for acquiring food or producing food could be very severe, especially for poor families or during times of food scarcity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_theft

 

Sure. But it is a gross exaggeration in universe, because we haven’t had a single example of anything like this happening. 

[Lollygag]

5 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Sure. But it is a gross exaggeration in universe, because we haven’t had a single example of anything like this happening. 

We're rarely told much from the commoners' POV and this isn't something we even need to be told.

It's basic math. Steal food and livestock especially from the poor or when food is limited, they starve. There's a reason why Tywin burns fields and steals livestock as a terrorism tactic in the Riverlands. There's a reason why the wildlings, Ironborn and Dothraki are so viciously hated for their raiding and it's not because raiding is merely inconvenient like us getting our big-screen tv stolen. Over and over in the books, we see different areas of that world deal with food scarcity along side wide-spread poverty. 2+2.

 

[kissdbyfire]

13 minutes ago, Lollygag said:

We're rarely told much from the commoners' POV and this isn't something we even need to be told.

It's basic math. Steal food and livestock especially from the poor or when food is limited, they starve. There's a reason why Tywin burns fields and steals livestock as a terrorism tactic in the Riverlands. There's a reason why the wildlings, Ironborn and Dothraki are so viciously hated for their raiding and it's not because raiding is merely inconvenient like us getting our big-screen tv stolen. Over and over in the books, we see different areas of that world deal with food scarcity along side wide-spread poverty. 2+2.

 

How are they going to carry all that stuff, especially livestock, back to the north side of the Wall? In the case of wildlings raiding south of the Wall it is a gross exaggeration to say they carry off everything and people die a slow and painful death due to starvation. 

[Lollygag]

18 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

How are they going to carry all that stuff, especially livestock, back to the north side of the Wall? In the case of wildlings raiding south of the Wall it is a gross exaggeration to say they carry off everything and people die a slow and painful death due to starvation. 

If they're poor as most Westerosi are or they're richer but low on food, there's no "all that stuff". They butcher it. If they take a horse, they ride it. Eat whatever as they go. Often, it's sold.

Take the only goat from a poor family, and that's all of their children's milk. No grocery store for backup. Neighbors are far away and they likely have little or nothing to spare. Take one horse, and their fields rot unharvested. When you have next to nothing, they don't need to take much to be left with nothing. There's a reason stealing a single horse was a death sentence irl. I grew up with my Grandpa using horse thief as a grave insult hence why I pulled that. I didn't understand it for a long time until I thought about how little they had and what that theft really meant. And the average Westerosi has a lot less.

[Mystical]

12 hours ago, The Jingo said:

The Seven Kingdoms in this scenario is a rape culture where the top 1% of the population would fear rape as part of their life and the remaining 99% of that society don't consider it a sure thing. It might happen, but it's also entirely reasonable that a farmer's daughter living in the Reach would never be sexually assaulted by anyone in her life.

That would make the 7K better than our current oh so civilized societies. Considering that we have laws against rape and pedophilia (not to mention actual law enforcement) and society abhors both and are raised to abhor both, both still happens. And as you could see from the statistics someone posted, at least in the US it still happens to 1 out of 6 women (and there are statistics for men as well). But you think the people, especially the women, have it better in the 7K in that regard than our current times? Somehow I really doubt that.

I mean all one has to do is follow Sansa's story (who is 11-13) in the books. It doesn't matter where she is geographically in Westeros, anything with a penis wants to do her. High and lowborn alike. For the most part she was protected by her family name (a protection the smallfolk don't have) but it's a downright miracle she has escaped being raped so far. Now that she is posing as a bastard the chances of it happening are even higher. Not to mention she is also being sexually groomed by a creep. And that's just the story of one girl out of millions. They live in a society where men are raised to believe they can do whatever they want to any woman so long as they are sure there will be no consequences. And even that doesn't stop some of them.

[Lord Varys]

5 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

How are they going to carry all that stuff, especially livestock, back to the north side of the Wall? In the case of wildlings raiding south of the Wall it is a gross exaggeration to say they carry off everything and people die a slow and painful death due to starvation. 

You could just as well ask how the hell they get the women they steal across the Wall... They do, somehow. And one assumes that a big raiding party, one that robs entire villages, and not just some isolated farms and the like, returns back not by going across the Wall but by boat/ship across the Bay of Ice.

But especially during the winter raids of the wildlings (which terrorized the North during the cruel winter early in the reign of Jaehaerys I) they wouldn't steal lifestock, because the peasants wouldn't have any left. They would all/mostly be slaughtered and part of their winter provisions.

3 hours ago, Mystical said:

That would make the 7K better than our current oh so civilized societies. Considering that we have laws against rape and pedophilia (not to mention actual law enforcement) and society abhors both and are raised to abhor both, both still happens. And as you could see from the statistics someone posted, at least in the US it still happens to 1 out of 6 women (and there are statistics for men as well). But you think the people, especially the women, have it better in the 7K in that regard than our current times? Somehow I really doubt that.

Well, most actual rapes/sexual abuse/harassment cases involve people you know. This kind of thing - that men/people of power groom or abuse or harass people they have power over - isn't exactly something that would be acknowledged as a problem anywhere in Martinworld.

But the violent stranger rapist, the guy who attacks you at night in a part or who breaks into your house to rape you, etc. (which is a tiny fraction of the rapes that actually occur, of course), that guy is a problem in the Seven Kingdoms. And these people are punished just as they are in our world if they are caught.

Whereas the wildlings neither have the means to punish things like that nor do they see this kind of thing a crime. In fact, rape like that is a crucial part of their 'marriage tradition'.

3 hours ago, Mystical said:

I mean all one has to do is follow Sansa's story (who is 11-13) in the books. It doesn't matter where she is geographically in Westeros, anything with a penis wants to do her. High and lowborn alike. For the most part she was protected by her family name (a protection the smallfolk don't have) but it's a downright miracle she has escaped being raped so far. Now that she is posing as a bastard the chances of it happening are even higher. Not to mention she is also being sexually groomed by a creep. And that's just the story of one girl out of millions. They live in a society where men are raised to believe they can do whatever they want to any woman so long as they are sure there will be no consequences. And even that doesn't stop some of them.

And how is this worse than the wildling world? Where women are brutally abducted as if they were property, not people?

Sansa is a very attractive young woman - no longer a girl, because girls become legitimate objects of desire and sex in this world as soon as they start to bleed - without any protection. But you cannot say that all men drawn to Sansa are willing to do what would qualify as a rape in the Seven Kingdoms. Sandor is very close to raping her but he never does it. Littlefinger didn't rape Sansa (yet), Marillion seems to have wanted to rape Sansa but he was a piece of shit.

Shae was apparently raped/abused by her father and eventually became a whore that way. Some people really suffer sexual abuse and lead horrible lives in the Seven Kingdoms because the way the society is set up. Nobody denies that. But the majority of the people of the Seven Kingdoms have no reason to fear that their farm or village is going to be attacked and raided by a band of stinking savages who take everything they own and abduct and rape all of their daughters. This kind of thing happens only in regions where wildling raids are common (i.e. in the Vale and the North).

The people of the Seven Kingdoms do not live in a paradise, but they live in a much better world than those beyond the Wall. If you are the daughter of loving, caring, normal people in Westeros you are not going to be groomed to be a whore like Shae ... and if there are no wildlings around and no rebellion or civil war terrorizes your region you will live a fine, healthy life within the framework of this society.

How great life in the Seven Kingdoms can be you can guess at when you just take all the regions we haven't visited yet and where we know there is no war. The people there may not have even realized/not care that there was a War of the Five Kings...