Aegon as a king

[Morte]

1 minute ago, SeanF said:

The Plebs developed their own aristocracy, families like the Porcii Catones, Caecilii Metelli, Antonii, Livii Drusi, who developed much closer ties with the Patricians than with the lower classes.

Yes. That doesn't make anything better. It just shows how strong the oligarchic/aristocratic element is, and now money and power can corrupt.

That's why only very few offices are actually voted for in the Athenian Democracy, most were choosen by lot.

[broken one]

According to Montesquieu republic is non monarchic state, with authorities chosen in election, there are two kinds of republic - aristocratic and democratic. Modern Poland is democratic republic.

I am not buying the "3 elements republic definition". I wonder what is the monarchic element in roman republic or aristocratic and monarchic elements in modern poland?

[Morte]

37 minutes ago, broken one said:

I am not buying the "3 elements republic definition". I wonder what is the monarchic element in roman republic or aristocratic and monarchic elements in modern poland?

You can buy it or not, it's the original antique definition, made by Polybios on the very case of the first republic we know as such: the Roman one.

For modern Poland according to the antique definition that would be:

democratic elements: legislation in the hand of the commons (albeit representative - only or mostly? Do you have something like a referendum in Poland?)

aristocratic elements: voting for offices (including the representatives in parliament), not having them been chosen by the lot (exceptions: specialists, they can be voted for or nominated even in ancient democracies); depending on how strong and powerful the executive (chancellor/minister-president and their ministers) is compared to the legislative and how independent they are from each other, the executive can fall into that category, too

monarchic element: the president (a weak one, in this case; almost or as weak as in Germany, but that doesn't matter - it's about the mix, not which elements are stronger)

The monarchic element in Rome was the dictator.

[Aldarion]

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I'm sorry, this discussion is pretty much leading nowhere. You pretty much beg the question, presupposing the things you want to prove and disguising that by citing completely irrelevant real world knowledge.

It is irrelevant how you think people behaved in the real world in the middle ages, when you cannot prove that your knowledge influenced the author or the author actually cares about making his characters behave in a 'realistic real world manner'.

It is fallacious to use real world history stuff to fill in the blanks in George's world - especially when we have evidence that his system is actually different from what the real world 'parallel'.

The only evidence you have for pikemen and infantry and the like behaving the way you think they have to is just that - you don't know how things in this regard are in Westeros. I'd agree that archers do have to train, but unless we actually see people mounting a shieldwall and know what kind of training they got or see pikemen use their pikes and Manderly men their tridents and what not there is just no basis for this idea of yours.

Especially since you completely ignore those portions of the text where George gives us proper background on warfare, meaning in the Meribald speech, the way mustering is depicted in TSS, the way Maegor's wars are depicted, etc.

It is also quite ridiculous to argue that men who effectively have little to no actual experience in warfare are superior to men whose very trade is warfare. That just doesn't make any sense. The entire chivalry of Westeros aren't warriors. They are, to a man, decadent tourney knights since they rarely fight in actual battles or wars. In part this clearly is unintentional on George's part - I'm sure he doesn't intended Randyll Tarly being considered 'the finest soldier in the Realm' to be a completely meaningless statement but that's what it is when the man only fought in a single battle prior to the War of the Five Kings. That's like saying you are the greatest musician in the country on the basis of a single concert.

And as such it is unrealistic to assume they have the stamina or the discipline or the abilities to stand against the Dothraki or professional sellswords. It just doesn't fly that they would be much of a match for such people - especially not after a civil lasting for a couple of years.

How shitty Westerosi are at war you can also see during the First Dornish War - what amateurs Orys Baratheon and his knights are, and how stupid Harlan Tyrell and his men are.

George never anywhere plays up the strength of the Westerosi infantry - there are some trained men there, some competent men, but most of them are seen as insignificant rabble.

And to be sure - I do not think Daenerys has to have all that much success. I'm merely pointing out that she is not going to fail because of a lack of resources or because she doesn't have professional warriors. That is simply not a proclamation one can make at this point.

The idea to play up the competence of the Westerosi infantry is also rather weird to be done at this point considering the author doesn't take any efforts at all to play them up as a powerful force - unlike he did with the Dothraki, unlike he does with the Golden Company (and especially Black Balaq's archers who played a prominent role in the attack on Griffin's Roost).

There certainly is strong infantry in Westeros - for instance, Stannis's clansmen are most likely to fight afoot at the lake. Those men are professional fighters. But they are not men that were drafted for war. They seem to be what one could call soldier peasants - semi-noble clans of men living in a harsh environment where a martial culture prevails (like it does on Bear Island, too, where even the women are drawn into this thing).

I have already acknowledged that there is some evidence for "conscript peasant army", but majority of evidence does not support that position. My comparisons with real life serve to provide basis for interpretation of evidence. All you have going for your position of "untrained peasant infantry" are several statements by characters - but these are not supported by actual evidence seen, that is, by organization, tactics and equipment of forces actually deployed to battle. And most of said statements can be explained by context.

Also, it is not fallacious to use real life stuff because a) George himself has stated that he is basing things on real life stuff and b) even if he has not, comparing with real life is necessary to allow for interpretation of evidence. You can say that Westerosi infantry are peasants with sticks, but then you have to prove that they behave as peasants with sticks, and that is possible only by comparing them with forces as were deployed historically. In other words, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck - irrespective of how many character statements you have that it is, in fact, a gryphon.

I am not ignoring either Meribald's speech or muster from TSS; I have already explained why they are not necessarily representative of quality of typical Westerosi army. And even disregarding that, it only means that evidence goes both ways - and seeing how present-tense descriptions of events > character statements, it means that we actually have stronger evidence that Westerosi armies are in fact trained and disciplined. Not necessarily to level of professional armies - Westerosi infantry typically utilizes shield wall which do not require all that much training - but at least to the level of real-world militias, and definitely better than your typical peasant uprising. We actually do see both Lannister and Northern infantry utilizing shield wall in battle (AGoT again), and we know that usage of shield wall in battle is not exceptional - Randyll Tarly states that "it takes more than a pretty cloak to charge a shield wall" in ACoK, and Ser Rodrik breaks Ironborn shield wall with cavalry charge. And we see Northern shield wall stand up to both missile barrage and cavalry charge - when they are broken it is by impact of the charge, not by morale failure as you would have expected from half-trained peasants. Also, crossing at Riverrun is guarded by a force of archers and pikemen - both troop types which require training and discipline.

And no, men whose whole trade is warfare will not necessarily be superior to amateurs. That is only true if all other factors are same or at least similar enough. Training and experience are major factors, that I agree with, but are not the only factors there are. Amateurs can be extremely effective, especially when they are defending their homes - motivation counts for a lot. So do tactics. Charles the Bold had highly professional army, yet he lost every battle he fought against Swiss militias - who at the time were not yet mercenaries. And by the time Daenerys invades, Westerosi armies will have been fighting in a war for quite some time. I also have to question the value of experience gained by fighting Slaver's Bay's armies. Unsullied, considered the best force in Slaver's Bay, are rank amateurs by Westerosi standards, at least as far as their tactical abilities go. They are essentially hoplites, and - unlike Westerosi style of warfare - that is simply not the mode of warfare where experience confers a major advantage. Against Westerosi-style army utilizing infantry and cavalry in combined-arms approach - as done by Tywin at Red Fork, and Edmure at the Fords - they are mince meat, unless Daenerys gains a large number of heavy cavalry from somewhere. Unsullied may have experience, but it is questionable how much of an advantage it actually provides. Unless you have evidence that they are in fact a manipular formation, but even then they are at disadvantage against Westerosi pikemen.

If anything, civil war lasting several years will have improved tactical abilities of Westerosi armies as well as training, not reduced them. 

Orys Baratheon is hardly an idiot. Situation in which he was defeated could only reliably have been avoided by not marching into Dorne in the first place, or else using the fleet as Daeron I had done. It might be that he did not take sufficient precautions, but we simply do not know. Or at least TWoIaF does not give sufficient details.

I simply do not see how Daenerys can match Westerosi armies at this point, unless a) she only fights a small portion of said armies, b) she gains significant additions to her military potential, or c) she gains significant allies. And I also do not see how Dothraki can possibly justify their scary reputation in Westeros without it being corny as hell. Golden Company at least we know is a fully-professional combined-arms outfit. Daenerys might be able to create something similar, centered on Unsullied, but for now she has no organic force which can match Golden Company in a battle, and very few which can match Westerosi troops (her sellswords, basically).

15 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Of course people can also take up arms when they don't know what they are doing

Except they knew full well what they were doing. And Ottomans at the time were played up as massive bogeymen (not without cause). Yet peasants still mobilized.

15 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

This isn't about the lords who also stay at home to watch over the harvest, but their men. Professional warriors - even such who have a farm of some sort - would have the resources to leave whenever they were called upon because they would have the men to bring in the harvest for them.

 

Read up on Byzantine thematic infantry. Even trained soldiers may not be able to spend too long time away from their lands - infantryman, especially light infantry, would simply not have so large a landholding to be able to afford the help you assume (though such people would likely also not be able to afford metal armour - Byzantine infantrymen wore quilted jacks - but we know many Westerosi infantryman use similar armour). As I have already pointed out, I am not arguing that Westerosi infantry are full time professionals, just that they are professionals in a sense that fighting is their job. In other words, US National Guard, not US Army.

9 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

Why would Dany perceive Westeros to the same as slavers then? You said yourself, "Westerosi society is not comparable to that of Slaver's Bay".

 

No, it is not. But human brain is not always in step with reality.

9 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

Of course people can also take up arms when they don't know what they are doing

You are insomuch as main argument brought up was not question of Dothraki as such, but of possibility of Daenerys gaining support in Westeros.

[Lord Varys]

11 hours ago, SeanF said:

I expect that Aegon and the Dornish will team up, and succeed in driving the Tyrells and Lannisters out of Kings Landing.  I'm sure that a lot of people there and in the Crownlands will welcome a "Targaryen" king and Queen Arianne, but their authority won't extend very far into the Reach or the West.  I expect to that there will be some grim settling of scores, on the part of Jon Connington and the Sands.  It's hard to know what impact that will have on the new regime's popularity.

There is potential for support in the Reach and the Riverlands, but as I laid out above, there is also potential for conflict among the Reach lords/Marcher lords and the Dornishmen, especially if Aegon were to marry Arianne and staff his council and court with a lot of Dornishmen - or even make Arianne his co-ruler like Alysanne or even Rhaenys/Visenya. This was the root of the Blackfyre Rebellion, and there are chances that another Dornish queen is going to cause similar problems.

Connington and the Sand Snakes paying back the Lannisters with the same coin could eventually cause trouble, too. It certainly won't help their cause in the West if Tommen and/or Myrcella were brutally murdered.

11 hours ago, SeanF said:

Euron wants the Iron Throne, too.  Will he team up with the Tyrells and/or Cersei?  Possibly, although there is historic ill feeling between the Ironborn and the peoples of the Western coast, especially if he destroys the Redwyne fleet.

I imagine the destruction of the Redwyne fleet will have the same effect on the Hightowers and Reach lords close to the coast as Harrenhal and the Field of Fire had on Westeros back during the Conquest - terror and awe and refusal to press the issue while one doesn't have the means to do so. Euron should win the allegiance of Oldtown and the Hightowers and some other Reach lords that way. And he'll also take the Arbor, of course.

The West is there for an alliance since the Ironborn didn't invade them. For Cersei Euron is her natural ally against the Tyrells/Reach as well as against Aegon or any other enemy she might make in the future.

And if Cersei decides to take a course of vengeance no matter she could end up opening the coffers of Casterly Rock and throw gold at everybody who wants to fight for her. She could raise an army even if all the lords of Westeros were turning against her simply by bribing men.

11 hours ago, SeanF said:

Dany will almost certainly have potential allies when she arrives in Westeros.  Basically, anyone who has lost out to whoever is in charge at Kings Landing when she gets there.  

Not just those, also people who are sort of lukewarm about Aegon and the other pretenders, waiting for a better alternative.

[Morte]

11 hours ago, SeanF said:

The problem was that Dany thought the Slaver coalition was stronger than it actually was. She had an enemy within (which she could have wiped out if she chose to turn the freedmen loose on them) and an enemy without, which comprised a huge army, but much of which was of doubtful quality. 

Yes, but she couldn't know that. I wonder whether they could have get that information if the audience with Pretty Merris wouldn't have been "sabotaged" by Quentyn & Co. Or if it had been enough, if Meereen wouldn't have been so very much occupied with itself.

11 hours ago, SeanF said:

People like the Tattered Prince could appreciate that the Yunkish army was a joke, and were willing to switch sides.  Brown Ben realised, in the TWOW sample chapters, just how bad, militarily, the Slavers were, once he switched sides.  And, the Pale Mare is hitting the Slaver army just as hard as it's hitting the residents of Meereen. 

I'm not sure the Tattered Prince is "willing to switch sides" or if he rather had come to Meereen with the plan to go over to Dany already in place, and used the contract with the Yunkish just to get there undisturbed. Of course it this would be really the case it would not be for the greater good, but because he wants something (and not only Pentos) or has motivations still unknown to us.

11 hours ago, SeanF said:

I think the Slavers will break apart like rotten fruit, under combined attack from Ser Barristan, the Ironborn, and the Tattered Prince, in TWOW.

That, imho, is a given. I'm very much interested in the aftermatch.

[Rose of Red Lake]

11 hours ago, SeanF said:

The problem was that Dany thought the Slaver coalition was stronger than it actually was. She had an enemy within (which she could have wiped out if she chose to turn the freedmen loose on them) and an enemy without, which comprised a huge army, but much of which was of doubtful quality. 

Daario proposed the wipe out solution and she didnt want it because she saw it as monstrous. "Fickle, faithless, brutal. He will never be the stuff of kings." Dany could have been describing herself. Dany felt more in common with Daario at the end.

[broken one]

6 hours ago, Morte said:

You can buy it or not, it's the original antique definition, made by Polybios on the very case of the first republic we know as such: the Roman one.

For modern Poland according to the antique definition that would be:

democratic elements: legislation in the hand of the commons (albeit representative - only or mostly? Do you have something like a referendum in Poland?)

aristocratic elements: voting for offices (including the representatives in parliament), not having them been chosen by the lot (exceptions: specialists, they can be voted for or nominated even in ancient democracies); depending on how strong and powerful the executive (chancellor/minister-president and their ministers) is compared to the legislative and how independent they are from each other, the executive can fall into that category, too

monarchic element: the president (a weak one, in this case; almost or as weak as in Germany, but that doesn't matter - it's about the mix, not which elements are stronger)

The monarchic element in Rome was the dictator.

I’d rather stick to the Frenchman, much more into theories of the state than the ancient historian (biased admirer of the rome ).

As for the elements - the connections seem apparent to me. There is technical question the possessors of the rei must answer - what form a body (an authority) should have to perform its tasks, collegial or single? It is impossible for everyone to go to pairlament and vote, but it does not make the representatives aristocratic (at least it should not, it would be pathology). Meritocracy is not aristocracy either. Single post =/= king.

Quote

why the first Rzeczpospolita wasn't a republic, even if it gave the Aristocrats powers and rights similar to democratic assemblies and called itself that way, simply because the plebs weren't involved and had no political rights within the system

king, aristocratic senate (house of lords) and democratic sejm (house of nobility / citizens). Badumtsss… we have the republic in the eyes of Polybios XD. There is no problem with plebs, as peasantry are dediticii and townsmen  are metics (regarded metics) so the „common thing” is not their thing. Was it much different In Rome (hordes of slaves, legal aliens)?

 EOT sorry 

[SeanF]

29 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Daario proposed the wipe out solution and she didnt want it because she saw it as monstrous. "Fickle, faithless, brutal. He will never be the stuff of kings." Dany could have been describing herself. Dany felt more in common with Daario at the end.

Daario espoused realpolitik.

What, ultimately, is the point of the slave-drivers?  What value do they bring to the world?

[Rose of Red Lake]

14 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

That makes her a darker character, but in the same way that Jon "kill the boy and let the man be born" Snow has become darker.

She will do something to destroy herself if that's the case. Jon thought he had to rule with an iron fist and that showing humanity was weakness. He thought he shouldn't sit at a table with his friends and that he had to send them all away. That was wrong. Jon ended up dead because he had no one in his corner. Aemon gave the same advice to Egg. Maybe he took that to mean being a "man" has to involve using dragons on his own people? That was also wrong. Egg ended up dead because dragons always end with destruction.

Back on topic, I dont like how the GC are basically imprisoning Arianne, that's not a good vibe and I dont think she will completely ally with him because of that situation. I see Dorne getting stuck in delay and indecision again. I see Aegon as a missed opportunity for Dany, as the person she really should have made an alliance with because he was raised a Targaryen in Essos and would be fine with incest and would gel better with her Targaryen worldviews. 

[SeanF]

1 minute ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

She will do something to destroy herself if that's the case. Jon thought he had to rule with an iron fist and that showing humanity was weakness. He thought he shouldn't sit at a table with his friends and that he had to send them all away. That was wrong. Jon ended up dead because he had no one in his corner. Aemon gave the same advice to Egg. Maybe he took that to mean being a "man" has to involve using dragons on his own people? That was also wrong. Egg ended up dead because dragons always end with destruction.

Back on topic, I dont like how the GC are basically imprisoning Arianne, that's not a good vibe and I dont think she will completely ally with him because of that situation. I see Dorne getting stuck in delay and indecision again. I see Aegon as a missed opportunity for Dany, as the person she really should have made an alliance with because he was raised a Targaryen in Essos and would be fine with incest and would gel better with her Targaryen worldviews. 

I don't think Jon ruled with an iron fist, although he could be quite tough.

Jon will likely be tougher, assuming he's resurrected.  Bowen Marsh et al will be on a bonfire.

[Rose of Red Lake]

19 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Daario espoused realpolitik.

What, ultimately, is the point of the slave-drivers?  What value do they bring to the world?

In a book where there is no simple solution to complex problems, why would Daario fucking Naharis suddenly have one!

Daario is endless war and has no idea how to rule without it. If she's supposed to be more like Daario, don't be surprised if you get a ruthless tyrannical warlord in Westeros who only knows how to kill people and can't do anything else of value.

I think Dany, in that moment, was being more realistic. She said that a Red Wedding for slavers would just cause more people to rise against he and this true in the context of the story, as we see folks trying to quell rebellions using extreme force and failing. The wack-a-mole analogy is true to life. She can't end slavery all over the world if she doesnt want to sit down and do the hard work of ruling a free city. And especially if she wants to dip out and head to Westeros. 

 

[Morte]

45 minutes ago, broken one said:

I’d rather stick to the Frenchman, much more into theories of the state than the ancient historian (biased admirer of the rome ).

Do this.

It's just that the whole thing comes from the res publica. So a republic naturally has to match at least the Roman example. Historians who specialize in ancient history tend to be very critical with this kinds of definitions, sorry. But the whole discussion began with Rome, so it also was fitting.

45 minutes ago, broken one said:

There is technical question the possessors of the rei must answer - what form a body (an authority) should have to perform its tasks, collegial or single?

See, that's what makes this so interesting, as the Romans who agreed with and adopted Polybios' definition (Cicero, for example) would raise their brows alone to the fact that most of our authorities are not collegial, because they saw it as a very crucial element of the res publica.

45 minutes ago, broken one said:

It is impossible for everyone to go to pairlament and vote, but it does not make the representatives aristocratic (at least it should not, it would be pathology).

Hm, depends. That's what a imperative mandate is for. As most modern republics don't have strong direct democratic elements and the parliament is under very little control from the people in most countries, the old Athenians would see a lot of nowadays systems as already flawed, democracy-wise.

45 minutes ago, broken one said:

Meritocracy is not aristocracy either.

No, in fact, it doesn't fair well with aristocracy at all.

That's why I said, specialist were elected or put into office even in Athens. In fact, the way it should be, a gremium of specialists, the European Commission is actually a very democratic institution.

45 minutes ago, broken one said:

king, aristocratic senate (house of lords) and democratic sejm (house of nobility / citizens). Badumtsss… we have the republic in the eyes of Polybios XD. There is no problem with plebs, as peasantry are dediticii and townsmen  are metics (regarded metics) so the „common thing” is not their thing. Was it much different In Rome (hordes of slaves, legal aliens)?

Except that the sejm wasn't for the commons, but also for nobility. That would have bugged him, albeit... he might have let it pass. But I think he would have defined it as a aristocracy with a strong hint toward republic/strong republic elements. There are such things in Antiquity: "Softer" Oligarchies with democratic elements, etc.

/Offtopic end

[Rose of Red Lake]

20 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I don't think Jon ruled with an iron fist, although he could be quite tough.

Jon will likely be tougher, assuming he's resurrected.  Bowen Marsh et al will be on a bonfire.

The Lord Snow persona wasn't necessarily for the best, he acted as if everyone was his inferior and isolated himself because of it. Ned managed to wear a Lord's face while also taking it off with his kids and his men. Jon never took it off and thought he had to wear it at all times. 

I'm not too worried if Jon does get darker because he has his family to ground him. Dany doesn't.

[Lord Varys]

14 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

Good observation. To add to this, "if I look back I am lost" started when Dany realised MMD betrayed her, and pops it up again when she has conflicting thoughts. In AGOT she uses it to quash her self-doubt so she can hatch the dragons, but in ADWD she repeats the mantra to suppress who she was before she settled in Meereen. In her last chapter, she's literally turning her back on her child, Drogon, and crawling back to Meereen because "if I look back I am lost". But then she has an epiphany: "to go forward I must go back". She's, as you say, finally accepted her mistakes.

Yeah, and as I recall my fear when first reading that chapters wasn't that Daenerys would go nuts or become cruel, but she isn't going to return to Slaver's Bay at all (or only when things have changed there completely) - that this means she is washing herself off that entire episode of her life and is going to something else now. Because if this is a fundamental change in attitude and priorities then she might just no longer care about those people there - and it might actually considerable persuasion by visiting dragonriders and stuff to convince her to change her views. Because taking over the Dothraki is going to create a new set of priorities, involving hundreds of thousands of people.

And if she continues on the chosen path of 'going forward by going backwards' her next goal after Vaes Dothrak should be Qarth, not Slaver's Bay - because there plot threads left dangling there, too, most importantly, Quaithe - who is the one who gave her that riddle advice in the first place.

14 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

I think this is not pointing to Dany becoming carelessly violent or bloodthirsty, but to her returning to being the confident leader she was in ACOK ("if I look back" was absent that book), except now she's also made peace with the fact that war cannot be bloodless. So if anything she will be more deliberate in her violence. That makes her a darker character, but in the same way that Jon "kill the boy and let the man be born" Snow has become darker.

Actually, with Jon one should see the 'killed boy' as the literally killed Jon Snow at the end of the book. Maester Aemon certainly meant well, but the comparison Egg-Jon always felt very off to me - Egg was a married man and a father by the time he became king - but he was never groomed for the kingship and likely never expected to ever sit the throne until his father died (if Maekar had lived another 10-20 years then little Maegor certainly would have succeeded his grandfather) and thus had to settle down and take responsibility, etc. But Jon was never the kind of guy who didn't take seriously, so we should see that more as foreshadowing thing than something Jon actually does or need to do insofar as his attitude was concerned.

Even more so since we can very much say Jon/Dany sort of mimic each other very much in ADwD. Jon executing Slynt is reflected by Dany crucifying slavers - but neither has what it takes (yet) to really lead people. Dany very much ruins herself by being far too soft, and Jon fails to convince his own people to see things his way. He grows into another version of Robb who, in the end, only listens to his own advice and ignores the people around while not keeping an eye on them.

Dany was saved from certain death only by a lucky accident ... and by the fact that even in her weakness she did antagonize or send away her friends. Barristan, her Unsullied, Dothraki, freedmen, and companions never lost faith in her nor were they forced to leave. Jon set himself up for the slaughter by sending away Aemon, Samwell, Grenn, Pyp, Dareon, Edd, Iron Emmett, etc. and not replacing the leading officers of the Watch with his own men. Nobody would have gutted him if he had been surrounded by loyal men.

Daenerys needed to be poisoned, because she was, even in her weakness, protected by loyal people. This wasn't the case for Jon, and that was his own mistake.

Overall, though, I'm not sure that Dany has particular illusions about warfare so far. She knows how the game is played, that's why she went to buy the Unsullied to not repeat Rhaegar's mistakes. It was more about her desire to not be who destiny wants her to be - which in the end is one of the crucial leaders in the fight against the Others, i.e. some kind of war leader - to be able to live a normal happy life that's not all about destiny and duty and vengeance and what not.

13 hours ago, Morte said:

Exactly. As was said a hundred times in this and other threads: We can happily rant about him doing history wrong, no problem with this, I will just as happily participate. But we can't say this or that will happen because of history, nor that this or that is impossible because it would be impossible in reality. If Martin wants to see specific events unfold, so he will make them unfold.

Yeah, I get the fun of speculating how things in a fantasy world not covered by an author in great detail work or might be seen to work, but the time to do that is when the story is finished and/or the author dead, so we have a complete textual basis.

Prior to that, speculating about how the story is going to continue makes a lot of sense, but that should be done on the basis of plot and character development, not with weird idea that tertiary background details sort of shape or determine in what directions the plot can progress.

When I started to predict years ago that I expect Euron and Cersei to eventually hook up if Euron doesn't get Daenerys and Cersei cannot remain in KL - which was both a pretty strong possibility even back before ADwD came out - then I based that on realpolitik logic the kind of George actually uses - Euron and his Ironborn didn't attack the Westermen although they were pretty close, AFfC made Cersei and the Tyrells more and more into enemies, the Lannisters do have access to vast amounts of gold and still have powerful armies, Euron wants a highborn woman as mother of his legitimate children, Cersei fits that bill, is not yet beyond her childbearing years, and is the best alternative if Euron cannot get Dany, they are both dabbling into magic and stuff. And then there was that brief moment when this was actually considered as a match in KL.

To a point one can reasonably predict that the North is not going to suddenly reveals some sort of hidden super army, but as the sudden disappearance of Tywin's army in AFfC shows (they are sent back home while the Tyrells troops conveniently remain, which is pretty much plot convenience) the plot drives the action, not logistics or stuff like that.

And on the plot level we can expect that Daenerys is going to acquire troops to deploy them successfully and not unsuccessfully.

13 hours ago, Morte said:

It was a very interesting take on him, really. I liked how Pabst put into accounts how old he was then all of it started, and how he wouldn't have been a cynic at that age but more guided by expectations and ideals on how he has to act. He sure was a pragmatic (or turned into one quite quickly), but also a very dutiful person, imho. Someone who functions within the parameters given (or self-given).

And just imho as an Aspie, but I think he had some funny aspergian traits, too.

I think the fact that his immediate successors pretty much fucked things up chances are that the whole thing was a trial-and-error thing with it working for him because of his personal gravitas and the respect he earned among his peers for what he did - Tiberius didn't have his charisma or the personality to work within that particular framework, and Caligula didn't even try.

Overall, that doesn't really involve that much planning ahead, and it seems that in the long run it was somewhat of a construction flaw to have this kind of dictator guy within/alongside the republic system. That is actually a very weird way to establish a monarchy and one assumes there is a reason why the family name gave the name to that particular office rather than it later being just interpreted as a monarchy.

13 hours ago, Morte said:

Yes, good observation. But I think Brown Ben also saw how the whole Meereen-situation is leading nowhere. And this is, imho, a very interesting titbit on how the sellswords ready to fight for a agenda think, and also how most likely at least parts of the GC think: They are ready to fight and (to a degree) die for the side they chose, but they will abandon it if the cause seems lost or the agenda changes too much.

Yeah, but the deciding factor were the dragons - he asks Dany whether they will be used/help them in battle, and he makes his call when she tells him they won't. It was the last little tidbit, earlier her decision not to attack Yunkai while they were attacking Astapor likely also played a role. They had the advantage originally but Dany decided that they would not push it.

But as things unfolded he eventually realized the Yunkai'i weren't exactly the horse one would want to back, either.

13 hours ago, Morte said:

In a way: Better to return to the shitty system with as little looses as possible than dying senselessly without even that much a difference made. I don't think the Second Sons would have changed sides if Dany's agenda within Meereen would have been intact, the Harpy crushed, and they were only facing the battle outside it's walls.

No, if they had felt that Dany would want to fight they wouldn't have betrayed her. That is the overall problem of her approach in ADwD. Her weakness triggers most, if not all the severe resistance she faces. Starting with the Meereenese, but continuing with the Yunkai'i and the betrayal of the sellswords.

[Hodor the Articulate]

43 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Overall, though, I'm not sure that Dany has particular illusions about warfare so far. She knows how the game is played, that's why she went to buy the Unsullied to not repeat Rhaegar's mistakes. It was more about her desire to not be who destiny wants her to be - which in the end is one of the crucial leaders in the fight against the Others, i.e. some kind of war leader - to be able to live a normal happy life that's not all about destiny and duty and vengeance and what not.

I phrased it poorly. What I meant was, Dany became too consumed with guilt about Eroeh and all the other victims of war. She kept making wrong choices in Meereen because she blamed herself for all the deaths instead of the people doing the actual killing. I think going forward, she'll understand that she can't save everyone, and that her war against the slavers was just.

8 hours ago, Aldarion said:

No, it is not. But human brain is not always in step with reality.

So provide evidence that Dany has a distorted perception of Westerosi lords and thinks they are the same as slavers.

8 hours ago, Aldarion said:

You are insomuch as main argument brought up was not question of Dothraki as such, but of possibility of Daenerys gaining support in Westeros.

I addressed this several times too. Robert thinks some lords will rally around Viserys/Dany's son with a Dothraki army at their back. This shows Westeros does not think of a claimant with a Dothraki army as "not that much different from bringing the Others and wights". Your argument against this is that the Targ heading the army trumps fears/disapproval of the Dothraki, except you've no evidence that Westeros hated Robert over the Targs so much that they'd accept the equivalent of Others and wights.

[Hodor the Articulate]

3 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

She will do something to destroy herself if that's the case. Jon thought he had to rule with an iron fist and that showing humanity was weakness. He thought he shouldn't sit at a table with his friends and that he had to send them all away. That was wrong. Jon ended up dead because he had no one in his corner. Aemon gave the same advice to Egg. Maybe he took that to mean being a "man" has to involve using dragons on his own people? That was also wrong. Egg ended up dead because dragons always end with destruction.

That's not what I said. Dany will be darker in that she'll have to grow up and do what is necessary to achieve her goals. Both will be more ruthless in the coming book.

3 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Back on topic, I dont like how the GC are basically imprisoning Arianne, that's not a good vibe and I dont think she will completely ally with him because of that situation. I see Dorne getting stuck in delay and indecision again. I see Aegon as a missed opportunity for Dany, as the person she really should have made an alliance with because he was raised a Targaryen in Essos and would be fine with incest and would gel better with her Targaryen worldviews. 

Doran might stall but Arianne will do what furthers her ambitions, particularly when she finds out Quentyn is dead. There's too much pushing Dorne and Aegon together for it not to happen.

[Lord Varys]

10 hours ago, Aldarion said:

I have already acknowledged that there is some evidence for "conscript peasant army", but majority of evidence does not support that position. My comparisons with real life serve to provide basis for interpretation of evidence.

And that is the problem, because real life does not provide a basis to interpret fantasy literature unless it is very, very clear and obvious that such real world parallels can be drawn - which isn't, in fact, for the most part of Martinworld.

Especially not Byzantine stuff.

10 hours ago, Aldarion said:

All you have going for your position of "untrained peasant infantry" are several statements by characters - but these are not supported by actual evidence seen, that is, by organization, tactics and equipment of forces actually deployed to battle. And most of said statements can be explained by context.

You are begging the question - you claim that the men you say behave professionally because you say they do. That's it. You claim pretty much untrained (i.e. people drafted to war with poor equipment and no years-long training at arms) cannot march in quarters and make shieldwalls or use pikes accurately.

And I don't buy that until I actually hear in-universe that this is the case.

10 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Also, it is not fallacious to use real life stuff because a) George himself has stated that he is basing things on real life stuff and b) even if he has not, comparing with real life is necessary to allow for interpretation of evidence. You can say that Westerosi infantry are peasants with sticks, but then you have to prove that they behave as peasants with sticks, and that is possible only by comparing them with forces as were deployed historically. In other words, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck - irrespective of how many character statements you have that it is, in fact, a gryphon.

I just don't buy that it depicts any of the duckiness you claim to see there.

10 hours ago, Aldarion said:

I am not ignoring either Meribald's speech or muster from TSS; I have already explained why they are not necessarily representative of quality of typical Westerosi army. And even disregarding that, it only means that evidence goes both ways - and seeing how present-tense descriptions of events > character statements, it means that we actually have stronger evidence that Westerosi armies are in fact trained and disciplined. Not necessarily to level of professional armies - Westerosi infantry typically utilizes shield wall which do not require all that much training - but at least to the level of real-world militias, and definitely better than your typical peasant uprising. We actually do see both Lannister and Northern infantry utilizing shield wall in battle (AGoT again), and we know that usage of shield wall in battle is not exceptional - Randyll Tarly states that "it takes more than a pretty cloak to charge a shield wall" in ACoK, and Ser Rodrik breaks Ironborn shield wall with cavalry charge. And we see Northern shield wall stand up to both missile barrage and cavalry charge - when they are broken it is by impact of the charge, not by morale failure as you would have expected from half-trained peasants. Also, crossing at Riverrun is guarded by a force of archers and pikemen - both troop types which require training and discipline.

I'm not saying shieldwalls have to be broken just because they are mounted by half-trained peasants - I merely say I think they will break when the Dothraki charge at them. I don't contradict the stuff we are given, I don't buy the things you try to conclude from those.

I'm not even seeing where exactly our differences are. My take is to stress that Westerosi infantry are, for the most part, not men living at castles/towns/cities and thus not men trained properly at arms. Whatever training they receive they receive in preparation for a specific campaign for which they are drafted. Such training would be very brief, done by whoever oversees their drafting.

Those are the bulk of the men who march to war - archers and longbowmen and crossbow men would be different people. They are among the well-trained men-at-arms who, for the most part, would be living at castles and towns and cities, too. There would be some wiggle room there, of course. The Marchers are famed for their archers, so there should be many of them there, possibly even in remote villages. And there is of course also the possibility that even in some regions there are local archery competitions and that sort of thing. But we don't have any insight if there is a martial culture independent from the lords among the smallfolk.

Only men permanently in service to a lord as a guardsmen or a hunter or living in a castle would have the time for permanent training at arms. Our friend Rolly Duckfield is a good example for this. He had the luck of being born the son of a blacksmith at Bitterbridge, so he got a chance to train at arms and gain a place in Lord Caswell's guard - that wouldn't have happened had he born a peasant in a rural village.

But in most armies we see so far those professional fellows don't make up the bulk of forces - it is not just all archers in the infantry, just as it isn't all armored knights in the cavalry.

You only have to imagine the infantry breaks immediately, when you imagine the cavalry must all be super great warriors - they aren't either.

If you take something like the Green Fork then the Northmen fared exceptionally well there, facing a superior force with effectively no cavalry at all (Robb took 90% of his horse when he split up the armies at the Twins) while Tywin had the chivalry of the West assembled in his armies (or at least a good chunk of them). I'd not assume that Roose Bolton his least disciplined, least prepared, least professional in his vanguard and center - he could risk that his men are routed, both because that could end up with him in Lannister custody, him dead, or him in disgrace in the eyes of his young (future) lord.

10 hours ago, Aldarion said:

And no, men whose whole trade is warfare will not necessarily be superior to amateurs. That is only true if all other factors are same or at least similar enough. Training and experience are major factors, that I agree with, but are not the only factors there are. Amateurs can be extremely effective, especially when they are defending their homes - motivation counts for a lot.

Nobody in our scenario is going to defend his or her home. And most in the previous wars never did. The only people defending their homes are the Brotherhood without Banners and the Northmen trying to throw the Ironborn out back in ACoK.

The Riverlords and their levies technically defended their homes in the last war ... but they failed.

10 hours ago, Aldarion said:

So do tactics. Charles the Bold had highly professional army, yet he lost every battle he fought against Swiss militias - who at the time were not yet mercenaries. And by the time Daenerys invades, Westerosi armies will have been fighting in a war for quite some time. I also have to question the value of experience gained by fighting Slaver's Bay's armies. Unsullied, considered the best force in Slaver's Bay, are rank amateurs by Westerosi standards, at least as far as their tactical abilities go. They are essentially hoplites, and - unlike Westerosi style of warfare - that is simply not the mode of warfare where experience confers a major advantage. Against Westerosi-style army utilizing infantry and cavalry in combined-arms approach - as done by Tywin at Red Fork, and Edmure at the Fords - they are mince meat, unless Daenerys gains a large number of heavy cavalry from somewhere. Unsullied may have experience, but it is questionable how much of an advantage it actually provides. Unless you have evidence that they are in fact a manipular formation, but even then they are at disadvantage against Westerosi pikemen.

George really likes to send the message that it is important that you train and learn your trade. That is how fewer people crush many untrained people - it is also how Robert crushed Rhaegar the Trident, how Maegor crushed the Faith Militant, etc.

10 hours ago, Aldarion said:

If anything, civil war lasting several years will have improved tactical abilities of Westerosi armies as well as training, not reduced them. 

That would only be relevant if people really wanted to fight Daenerys on the smallfolk level - which I flat-out won't consider until there is any indication given they magically hate her.

So far constant civil war reduces the land into the ruined Riverlands - which aren't exactly fit to unite or deal with another invasion. Even more so because continuous warfare makes people on all level wary and reduces the mustering abilities of a given lord. People won't be at home, won't want to fight another pointless war, fields will be burned, provisions stolen, etc.

All that won't only cripple morale, but also the mere ability to raise an army even if some people were willing to fight.

10 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Orys Baratheon is hardly an idiot. Situation in which he was defeated could only reliably have been avoided by not marching into Dorne in the first place, or else using the fleet as Daeron I had done. It might be that he did not take sufficient precautions, but we simply do not know. Or at least TWoIaF does not give sufficient details.

Of course the guy was an incompetent moron. One look at a history book, one talk with one of his Stormlanders should have told him how dangerous and narrow a road the Boneway was, and how easy it would be to be lured into a trap there.

10 hours ago, Aldarion said:

I simply do not see how Daenerys can match Westerosi armies at this point, unless a) she only fights a small portion of said armies, b) she gains significant additions to her military potential, or c) she gains significant allies. And I also do not see how Dothraki can possibly justify their scary reputation in Westeros without it being corny as hell. Golden Company at least we know is a fully-professional combined-arms outfit. Daenerys might be able to create something similar, centered on Unsullied, but for now she has no organic force which can match Golden Company in a battle, and very few which can match Westerosi troops (her sellswords, basically).

You will have to wait for some Dothraki action. We haven't seen any so far, just as we don't have seen how great the Golden Company is. They are only 500 knights and 500 squires, never forget that. Their infantry are professionals, too, and they have a thousand archers, which certainly is something (but only 50 archers do have goldenheart bows).

Aegon winning any victories with the Golden Company - especially early victories - will depend completely on how they are deployed and whether they can make good use of the terrain and outmaneuver the enemy with good tactics and strategy.

I think George will give Aegon easy and quick victories in the beginning of his campaign ... but that won't last.

As for the Dothraki action - how long time do you think this Second Dance thing is going to last in Westeros? I certainly expect at least one volume for that war, but I don't expect many battles (the War of the Five Kings lasted for about 1 1/2 novels and there weren't that many in that one, either.

As I said, nobody will conquer Westeros. They will just try to take or defend the Iron Throne. Which means this Second Dance will likely boil down to a battle for King's Landing, and then a couple of manhunts or surgical strikes. Prior to that, Daenerys' armada might be attacked at sea, but whether that's going to be part of the Second Dance thing remains to be seen if we see that as a war between Aegon and Dany (which it doesn't have to be) since Aegon definitely will never have the strength to challenge Daenerys at sea.

Unlike the First Dance Westeros is not going to be split in two over this as they were with Rhaenyra and Aegon II, and we are especially not going to see shit like there being battles all over the place because many lords think they have to take up arms now to help settle the succession issue.

In that sense fighting there will be very limited, and Dany will of course also gain allies in Westeros and a lot of people who stay out of the entire thing.

Nobody, to my knowledge, ever imagined the Dothraki sweeping throughout all of Westeros fighting knights at every corner.

10 hours ago, Aldarion said:

As I have already pointed out, I am not arguing that Westerosi infantry are full time professionals, just that they are professionals in a sense that fighting is their job. In other words, US National Guard, not US Army.

Definitely not that. Fighting isn't their job - fighting isn't even the job of the guardsmen and sworn swords in lordly castles: because there are no wars in Westeros.

[Aldarion]

4 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

I addressed this several times too. Robert thinks some lords will rally around Viserys/Dany's son with a Dothraki army at their back. This shows Westeros does not think of a claimant with a Dothraki army as "not that much different from bringing the Others and wights". Your argument against this is that the Targ heading the army trumps fears/disapproval of the Dothraki, except you've no evidence that Westeros hated Robert over the Targs so much that they'd accept the equivalent of Others and wights.

Targaryen supporters in Westeros definitely did hate Robert so much. Remember that Aegon and Rhaenys were killed, effectively, under Robert's authority - even if he did not give orders himself. And this is the world in which grudges can be held for centuries over a bloody watermill. The only reason why they did not do anything is because a) Robert had major support and b) they had no figurehead present to rally around. A Targaryen, even a Targaryen leading the Dothraki, would provide such a figurehead.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

And that is the problem, because real life does not provide a basis to interpret fantasy literature unless it is very, very clear and obvious that such real world parallels can be drawn - which isn't, in fact, for the most part of Martinworld.

Especially not Byzantine stuff.

Actually it does, because a) Martin was very clear about his inspirations and b) humans in Martinworld are assumed to be same as real humans - so no psychic powers, or genetically inherited martial knowledge. This means that if Martin shows troops acting as professional troops, these troops can be safely assumed to be, in fact, professional troops.

Byzantine stuff is still useful because we are still talking about landed troops and their limitations. Essentially, difference between Byzantine thematic setup and Western feudal setup was not in troops themselves, it was in political and military organization of said troops. The only place where troops themselves were different was the existence of Imperial tagmata, who were full-time professionals, something which did not exist in Western Europe until Compagnies d'Ordonnance in France and Black Army in Hungary.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

You are begging the question - you claim that the men you say behave professionally because you say they do. That's it. You claim pretty much untrained (i.e. people drafted to war with poor equipment and no years-long training at arms) cannot march in quarters and make shieldwalls or use pikes accurately.

According to you, then, Unsullied have absolutely no advantage over Westerosi infantry because training provides absolutely no advantage in the first place, and everything spent training them was just waste of time and money because peasants with sticks can fight just as well.

To use real-world example again, we know that Athens had system of compulsory military service for 18-20 year olds, and other states followed similar policy, which means that no they did not just give peasants sticks and sent them out to fight. And hoplites were rank amateurs compared to what Westerosi pikemen had shown.

Fact that Westeros has pikemen is by itself enough to show that their armies are highly professional. Pikemen - who, again, have much more complex tactics than Greek phalanx, and we see that in ASoIaF - were always elite troops, even when bows and crossbows were replaced by muskets. Reason is simply that you need time and dedication to train someone to wield the pike effectively. If we were talking about spearmen here, then I might agree - spear is a relatively short weapon and thus is not reliant so much on formation and technique. You can relatively quickly train spearmen (again, Greek hoplites); but pike - long, unwieldy and absolutely dependant on strict maintenance of formation - is a completely different matter.

Basically:

• Knights = professional troops (expensive equipment, extensive training)
• Dismounted men-at-arms = professional troops (expensive equipment, extensive training)
• Mounted archers = professional troops (extensive training)
• Pikemen = professional troops (extensive training, maybe expensive equipment)
• Crossbowmen = professional troops (expensive equipment)
• Longbowmen = professional troops (extensive training)

Any untrained or only superficially trained troops will not fit in any of the groups listed above. So basically, 1) take Westerosi army and 2) subtract all the groups listed above, and you will get proportion of troops who fit your "peasants with sticks" model.

And again, point here isn't how professional exactly those troops are, but how trained and disciplined they are. Advantage of professional troops is that they can usually afford to be much more trained and disciplined than militia; but that's it. Militia that is as trained and disciplined as fully professional troops will be able to fight the latter on equal basis. But I use "professional" here as a shorthand for "disciplined, trained and organized".

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

You are begging the question - you claim that the men you say behave professionally because you say they do. That's it. You claim pretty much untrained (i.e. people drafted to war with poor equipment and no years-long training at arms) cannot march in quarters and make shieldwalls or use pikes accurately.

It does. You are just too focused on character word-of-mouth.

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I'm not saying shieldwalls have to be broken just because they are mounted by half-trained peasants - I merely say I think they will break when the Dothraki charge at them. I don't contradict the stuff we are given, I don't buy the things you try to conclude from those.

 

You are contradicting stuff we are given. Northern shield wall broke under missile barrage followed by charge of heavy, armoured cavalry. Dothraki wear no armour, and have no heavy cavalry from what has been shown so far. Expecting them to be able to break Westerosi shield wall because Westerosi knights managed to do so simply does not compute; like thinking a helium baloon can be used for bowling because it is about as round as a bowling ball.

Literally the only thing knights and Dothraki have in common is that they are both mounted. That's it.

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I'm not even seeing where exactly our differences are. My take is to stress that Westerosi infantry are, for the most part, not men living at castles/towns/cities and thus not men trained properly at arms. Whatever training they receive they receive in preparation for a specific campaign for which they are drafted. Such training would be very brief, done by whoever oversees their drafting.

Those are the bulk of the men who march to war - archers and longbowmen and crossbow men would be different people. They are among the well-trained men-at-arms who, for the most part, would be living at castles and towns and cities, too. There would be some wiggle room there, of course. The Marchers are famed for their archers, so there should be many of them there, possibly even in remote villages. And there is of course also the possibility that even in some regions there are local archery competitions and that sort of thing. But we don't have any insight if there is a martial culture independent from the lords among the smallfolk.

Only men permanently in service to a lord as a guardsmen or a hunter or living in a castle would have the time for permanent training at arms. Our friend Rolly Duckfield is a good example for this. He had the luck of being born the son of a blacksmith at Bitterbridge, so he got a chance to train at arms and gain a place in Lord Caswell's guard - that wouldn't have happened had he born a peasant in a rural village.

But in most armies we see so far those professional fellows don't make up the bulk of forces - it is not just all archers in the infantry, just as it isn't all armored knights in the cavalry.

You only have to imagine the infantry breaks immediately, when you imagine the cavalry must all be super great warriors - they aren't either.

If you take something like the Green Fork then the Northmen fared exceptionally well there, facing a superior force with effectively no cavalry at all (Robb took 90% of his horse when he split up the armies at the Twins) while Tywin had the chivalry of the West assembled in his armies (or at least a good chunk of them). I'd not assume that Roose Bolton his least disciplined, least prepared, least professional in his vanguard and center - he could risk that his men are routed, both because that could end up with him in Lannister custody, him dead, or him in disgrace in the eyes of his young (future) lord.

My point is that vast majority of troops we see used in Westeros are simply not the type of troops which can be taken from fields, given "crash course" and then sent to fight; much less be sent to fight without training, as your emphasis on "peasant soldiers" seems to imply.

Basically, even Westerosi infantry are trained and disciplined - they have to be if they are used on the battlefield. And that is what I mean under "professional" - fighting is their job; but nowhere did I imply that it is necessarily the only job they have (thus they are professional troops, just not standing troops, which is what you seem to assume under "professional" moniker. But it is not a binary thing).

I did calculation earlier based on Tywin's army in AGoT, and between 70% and 85% of his army are highly trained troops, although it appears he did not have as many archers as was typical in English armies.

And yes, untrained infantry would break immediately under cavalry charge. It doesn't matter how good or bad cavalry is, as long as they are willing to charge at the infantry, discipline is required to prevent that ape "fight or flight" portion of brain from activating and sending troops into a headlong rout. Fact that we see infantry stand against cavalry charge and not immediately collapse means that they are trained and disciplined.

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Nobody in our scenario is going to defend his or her home.

They will, if Daenerys invades and it comes to fighting.

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Nobody in our scenario is going to defend his or her home.

And that would matter if Westerosi troops were untrained - but they are not. Untrained troops would not show the discipline, tactics or the combined-arms abilities of Westerosi armies.

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That would only be relevant if people really wanted to fight Daenerys on the smallfolk level - which I flat-out won't consider until there is any indication given they magically hate her.

 

Why would that be? Matter of the fact is, fighting results in a) troops who are experienced in war and b) dissemination of knowledge gained in the fighting as veterans translate their knowledge to new recruits.

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That would only be relevant if people really wanted to fight Daenerys on the smallfolk level - which I flat-out won't consider until there is any indication given they magically hate her.

 

Dorne is a mountainous country. I live in Dalmatia, and I can tell you that, if you go through mountains, there is almost no way of avoiding chokepoints. The only way to avoid such a situation will have been to not march into Dorne at all. In fact, Orys' situation is almost exactly the same as that of Ottoman Daut-pasha, who managed to ambush Matthias' army in mountains on a river crossing. Difference is that Ottomans actually lost that battle.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

You will have to wait for some Dothraki action. We haven't seen any so far, just as we don't have seen how great the Golden Company is. They are only 500 knights and 500 squires, never forget that. Their infantry are professionals, too, and they have a thousand archers, which certainly is something (but only 50 archers do have goldenheart bows).

 

True. But going from history and the type of troops Dothraki are, I simply cannot imagine them justifying their scary reputation in Westeros.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

As for the Dothraki action - how long time do you think this Second Dance thing is going to last in Westeros? I certainly expect at least one volume for that war, but I don't expect many battles (the War of the Five Kings lasted for about 1 1/2 novels and there weren't that many in that one, either.

As I said, nobody will conquer Westeros. They will just try to take or defend the Iron Throne. Which means this Second Dance will likely boil down to a battle for King's Landing, and then a couple of manhunts or surgical strikes. Prior to that, Daenerys' armada might be attacked at sea, but whether that's going to be part of the Second Dance thing remains to be seen if we see that as a war between Aegon and Dany (which it doesn't have to be) since Aegon definitely will never have the strength to challenge Daenerys at sea.

That depends on how dangerous Daenerys' dragons will turn out to be and whether they are somehow countered. Attacking a fortified city without first neutralizing enemy armies in the field is a recipe for disaster (see sieges of Belgrade in 1456., Sisak in 1593.). If her dragons are not an instand "I win" button, going straight for King's Landing would be sheer stupidity on her part.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Unlike the First Dance Westeros is not going to be split in two over this as they were with Rhaenyra and Aegon II, and we are especially not going to see shit like there being battles all over the place because many lords think they have to take up arms now to help settle the succession issue.

In that sense fighting there will be very limited, and Dany will of course also gain allies in Westeros and a lot of people who stay out of the entire thing.

Nobody, to my knowledge, ever imagined the Dothraki sweeping throughout all of Westeros fighting knights at every corner.

We'll see.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Definitely not that. Fighting isn't their job - fighting isn't even the job of the guardsmen and sworn swords in lordly castles: because there are no wars in Westeros.

Whether there are wars in Westeros (and there are) is irrelevant to whether fighting is their job.

[Rose of Red Lake]

13 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

That's not what I said. Dany will be darker in that she'll have to grow up and do what is necessary to achieve her goals. Both will be more ruthless in the coming book.

 

I dont think leaving Meereen or using a giant flamethrower is the mature choice, I dont think she can achieve her "goals" that way, and her goals are quite distorted now that she doesnt even think she belongs in Meereen.