Pros and Cons of 9 Kingdoms

[dsjj251]

14 hours ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

Here's the thing though, the Pekes were basically only duches. If we look at the power of other secondary houses and exclude the Hightowers as they are a completely different thing, we never see a small house have a higher army then say 5k men. In Westeros standards that's really small.

Also there doesn't seem like there could be any more major wars we don't know about. The Throne passed smoothly from Viserys II to Aerys II, with only the first Blackfyre rebellion happening between. So besides the Blackfyres there were no other succession wars. We know basically all that happened until Aegon III, we know that him and Baelor didn't wage any wars. So that leaves us with Daeron I. We known very well the war he had. So I don't think we are going to find any new wars in F&B 2 (that is presuming it ever escapes GRRM's prison were he keeps all his books constantly perfecting them).

The Peakes are not a small house and the Reach is far more prosperous than the other regions where we get some in depth info on secondary houses. 

So im not really sure what you are arguing here, other than reinforcing my original statement that we dont know how large a scale it was. 
 

[Alyn Oakenfist]

10 hours ago, dsjj251 said:

The Peakes are not a small house and the Reach is far more prosperous than the other regions where we get some in depth info on secondary houses. 

So im not really sure what you are arguing here, other than reinforcing my original statement that we dont know how large a scale it was. 

No but we can compare. The Peakes are a secondary house (like the Reynes, Rowans, Tarlys, Maderlys, Boltons, etc) so we can compare to find out their approximative strength. For this compassion I think you'll agree we can safely ignore the Hightowers as they are another thing (basically a smaller kingdom). We hear very little of actual numbers, but the ones we do hear of secondary houses they tend to be a able to muster around 4-5k troops (the Boltons have 3.5k after quite a bit of war, though with light losses, so we can presume they started out with 4k+ troops, we are told that the red lion mustered around 2k, which was only half his potential strength, and we know the Freys sent almost all their troops to Robb around 4k and kept around 1k for themselves). So all in all there is no way the Peakes had more then 5k men.

[Bernie Mac]

1 hour ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

No but we can compare. The Peakes are a secondary house (like the Reynes, Rowans, Tarlys, Maderlys, Boltons, etc) so we can compare to find out their approximative strength. For this compassion I think you'll agree we can safely ignore the Hightowers as they are another thing (basically a smaller kingdom). We hear very little of actual numbers, but the ones we do hear of secondary houses they tend to be a able to muster around 4-5k troops (the Boltons have 3.5k after quite a bit of war, though with light losses, so we can presume they started out with 4k+ troops, we are told that the red lion mustered around 2k, which was only half his potential strength, and we know the Freys sent almost all their troops to Robb around 4k and kept around 1k for themselves). So all in all there is no way the Peakes had more then 5k men.

We don't know how much support they had from within and outside of Westeros. We also don't know how powerful they were before the first Blackfyre rebellion and if the Peakes retained the loyalty of their former vassals lost at this time.

The Vulture King was able to raise 30k without any major House directly supporting him. We simply don't know how many men were with the Peakes during their rebellion.

[Alyn Oakenfist]

3 hours ago, Bernie Mac said:

The Vulture King was able to raise 30k without any major House directly supporting him. We simply don't know how many men were with the Peakes during their rebellion.

The Vulture King had peasants which were barely armed. No proper feudal army would use them, mainly because they were completely useless, especially against knights (it was impossible to withstand knights without a combination of morale, discipline and proper gear, all of which would have been missing in a peasant army). Mance was able to raise 20k men without any major house. So what? Neither one applies to the matter at hand. Or are you implying that the Peakes could have amassed 30k men? They were no bigger then any other second house like Reyns, Frey, Tarly, Connington, Yronwood, Dayne, Florent, Royce, etc. I seriously doubt that the Peakes were any higher then these houses.

[Bernie Mac]

12 minutes ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

The Vulture King had peasants which were barely armed.

Sure, many of them were. We don't know how much of his army as like that. Or do you have a quote for the breakdown of how many of the Vulture Kings men were armed and those who were not?

12 minutes ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

 

No proper feudal army would use them,

You are going to have to back this up with evidence.

12 minutes ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

 

mainly because they were completely useless, especially against knights

Dude, that is just a bad take. All armies have 'fodder' that is useless against knights.

No army in the war of the five kings was all knights.

12 minutes ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

 

Or are you implying that the Peakes could have amassed 30k men?

I'm not implying anything. I am explaining to you that we don't know. We have no idea how many men Peake had, if he had sell sword armies, the support of other smaller lords or was just using men sworn to him.

We have a few paragraphs on the entire event. Not enough information to figure the details on how much support and how serious a threat this was.

12 minutes ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

 

They were no bigger then any other second house like Reyns, Frey, Tarly, Connington, Yronwood, Dayne, Florent, Royce, etc.

Again, you are pulling that out of your ass. We don't know how big they were. They may well have been bigger than Tarly, Connington, Florent, Dayne and Frey at the height of their powers or during their rebellion.
 

 

 

[Alyn Oakenfist]

2 minutes ago, Bernie Mac said:

Sure, many of them were. We don't know how much of his army as like that. Or do you have a quote for the breakdown of how many of the Vulture Kings men were armed and those who were not?

Well since they didn't have any support from the noble houses they clearly didn't have knights or men at arms. So there isn't much else. As for weaponry, I can't see how they could have properly armed a 30k army without massive noble support.

9 minutes ago, Bernie Mac said:

I'm not implying anything. I am explaining to you that we don't know. We have no idea how many men Peake had, if he had sell sword armies, the support of other smaller lords or was just using men sworn to him.

We have a few paragraphs on the entire event. Not enough information to figure the details on how much support and how serious a threat this was.

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They were no bigger then any other second house like Reyns, Frey, Tarly, Connington, Yronwood, Dayne, Florent, Royce, etc.

Again, you are pulling that out of your ass. We don't know how big they were. They may well have been bigger than Tarly, Connington, Florent, Dayne and Frey at the height of their powers or during their rebellion.

We don't know for a fact that the Mormont's don't have Mech suits hidden in Bear Hall. However with a lack of clear information, it's safe to assume that there wasn't anything weird about the Peakes. Also there is a paragraph in F&B were we are told that the Tarly's and the Rowans were the strongest houses in the Reach after Tyrell and Hightower. Given that after F&B we know they were in constant decline, it's clear they continued to be overshadowed by those 2 houses. As such it's clear that they were no stronger then the usul secondary house.

Either way they could have been as strong as the Hightowers, and it still wouldn't be that important on a Westerosi scale. The point still stands that a unified Westeros is significantly less bloody then a disunified one (if we want more proof that pre conquest Westeros was more bloody we can see the NW decline, signaling that the main source of ,,volunteers" for a long time, prisoners, was dwindling) 

 

[Bernie Mac]

3 hours ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

Well since they didn't have any support from the noble houses

They didn't? Where is this mentioned in the books?

The most significant death by far that stemmed from the Peake Uprising was that of King Maekar himself, but the chaos this caused has been abundantly chronicled elsewhere.

That is what we are told about the war in the World book.

We have no idea about what kind of support the Peakes had. If hey had the support of other Houses or sellsword armies. That is what I am trying to point out to you.

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they clearly didn't have knights or men at arms.

How is that clear? Can you quote what passages from the series make that clear?

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So there isn't much else. As for weaponry, I can't see how they could have properly armed a 30k army without massive noble support.

Yeah, you are creating strawman arguments here. No one claimed all 30k were well armed.

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We don't know for a fact that the Mormont's don't have Mech suits hidden in Bear Hall. However with a lack of clear information, it's safe to assume that there wasn't anything weird about the Peakes.

What do you mean weird?

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Also there is a paragraph in F&B were we are told that the Tarly's and the Rowans were the strongest houses in the Reach after Tyrell and Hightower.

Please quote it. Don't mention there is a quote and hope that no one calls you out on it.

I have my copy with my right now. There is 12 mentions of Tarly. None of those paragraphs mention that they are second after Tyrell and Hightower.

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Given that after F&B we know they were in constant decline, it's clear they continued to be overshadowed by those 2 houses. As such it's clear that they were no stronger then the usul secondary house.

We simply don't know that for a fact. I am not claiming anything here, I am pointing out that there is a lack of information on the subject.

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Either way they could have been as strong as the Hightowers, and it still wouldn't be that important on a Westerosi scale.

Of course it would. Do you not know how medieval warfare works?

Sometimes a weak crown can be vulnerable to a small army if not enough lords support the King. That does not mean that have to actively be against them, just to sit back and not do enough.

We don't know how serious the Peake uprising was. We will learn later.

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The point still stands that a unified Westeros is significantly less bloody then a disunified one

 

Never argued differently. I have been quite clear what I disagreed with you about.

[Alyn Oakenfist]

7 hours ago, Bernie Mac said:

Please quote it. Don't mention there is a quote and hope that no one calls you out on it.

Don't have it on me honestly, but you can look for it if you want. It's on the part were septon magic cock marches on Oldtown before Maegor dies. I may be mistaken, haven't read F&B in a time. Could you look it up for me? There were some descriptions there of Lord Rowan's strength. Maybe? Not really sure if I'm honest. Probably should have checked that if I'm honest. Sorry if I was wrong. Wasn't intentional.

7 hours ago, Bernie Mac said:

We simply don't know that for a fact. I am not claiming anything here, I am pointing out that there is a lack of information on the subject.

Actually we know that. There war a quote about Unwin Peake's regency I don't recall it exactly it was something on the lines of: ,,Unwin Peake was an ambitious man determined to arrest his houses long decline."

7 hours ago, Bernie Mac said:

I have my copy with my right now. There is 12 mentions of Tarly. None of those paragraphs mention that they are second after Tyrell and Hightower.

Again don't have it on me I'm going to take your word for it.

No matter what how strong the Peakes themselves they couldn't have done much by themselves. It it possible however that other declining houses joined them. You are right that we don't really know. However given the lack of information it is clear that it wasn't Blackfyre rebellion level.

[Bernie Mac]

44 minutes ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

Don't have it on me honestly, but you can look for it if you want. It's on the part were septon magic cock marches on Oldtown before Maegor dies. I may be mistaken, haven't read F&B in a time.

So why are you claiming stuff in there as evidence? Do you know how bad that makes your argument look? When you claim something exists in the books?

44 minutes ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

 

Could you look it up for me? There were some descriptions there of Lord Rowan's strength. Maybe? Not really sure if I'm honest. Probably should have checked that if I'm honest. Sorry if I was wrong. Wasn't intentional.

I get that it was not intentional. But this conversation could have been shorter had we both relied on information we did know.

We don't get any real information on the hierarchy  of the Reach Houses in Fire and Blood. The only region we get that kind of information on is the Riverlands were we learn of the Houses stronger in military numbers than the Tullys

44 minutes ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

Actually we know that. There war a quote about Unwin Peake's regency I don't recall it exactly it was something on the lines of: ,,Unwin Peake was an ambitious man determined to arrest his houses long decline."

Again, we don't know how strong they were. If they had support from other Houses, or outside of Westeros, such as sellsword armies.

No one has denied the Peakes were not as strong as they once were during their uprising, they had lost two of their three castles in the previous generations, but that does not tell us how strong they were at the time.

The Tarbecks are a good example of this. They were pretty small only a few years before they rebelled, but in those years of Ellyn Reyne they rose considerably in strength.

In actual fact the quote you are talking about was less about military strength and more about politial influence.

All this had ended with the coming of the dragons. Lord Armen Peake and his sons had perished on the Field of Fire beside King Mern and his. With House Gardener extinguished, Aegon the Conqueror had granted Highgarden and the rule of the Reach to House Tyrell, the former royal stewards. The Tyrells had no blood ties to the Peakes, and no reason to favor them. And thus the slow fall of this proud house had begun. A century later, the Peakes still held three castles, and their lands were wide and well-peopled, if not particularly rich, but no longer did they command pride of place amongst the bannermen of Highgarden.

The Peakes, in strength at least, seem to be pretty powerful during the Dance and its aftermath.

44 minutes ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

Again don't have it on me I'm going to take your word for it.

No matter what how strong the Peakes themselves they couldn't have done much by themselves. It it possible however that other declining houses joined them. You are right that we don't really know. However given the lack of information it is clear that it wasn't Blackfyre rebellion level.

Which Blackfyre Rebellion? It was certainly a level ahead of some those rebellions.

[Alyn Oakenfist]

2 hours ago, Bernie Mac said:

they had lost two of their three castles in the previous generations, but that does not tell us how strong they were at the time.

Well for one it probably means that they were at that point landed knights instead of lords. That in of itself suggests a very reduced power.

2 hours ago, Bernie Mac said:

Which Blackfyre Rebellion? It was certainly a level ahead of some those rebellions.

Well the first one was the only real civil war. The second wasn't even a rebellion, and the 3rd and 4th were probably on the same scale as the pirate invasion of Tarth were Baelon (or Aemon?) Targaryen died. As for the 5th that seems to have been more of an intervention. We still don't know how the 6th will play out.

2 hours ago, Bernie Mac said:

I get that it was not intentional. But this conversation could have been shorter had we both relied on information we did know.

Good point.