No royal army?

[Jon Fossoway]

King's Landing is protected by most other regions. The greek roman empire had the thematas (my memory is kinda hazy at the moment) which were lead by a strategos, who concentrated much of the military required to do whatever needs to be done. Constantinople itself had the varangian guard, and those were sworn to the emperor in office. In simple terms, I believe Constantinople and its thematas worked as King's Landing and its Wardens.

The current form of the Iron Throne (Baratheon Lannister) was initially supported chiefly by the westerlands and by the stormlands. Later on, with Margaery Tyrell in the equation, by the Reach. In the end, King's Landing doesn't really need a standing army to maintain and feed when other regions can raise armies and mobilize if there was any need. When Stannis besieged KL, there was literally an immense host of Lannisters and Tyrells that crushed Stannis' host.

[Aldarion]

2 hours ago, Jon Fossoway said:

King's Landing is protected by most other regions. The greek roman empire had the thematas (my memory is kinda hazy at the moment) which were lead by a strategos, who concentrated much of the military required to do whatever needs to be done. Constantinople itself had the varangian guard, and those were sworn to the emperor in office. In simple terms, I believe Constantinople and its thematas worked as King's Landing and its Wardens.

 

That was true from 641 to 741., approximately. But after Artabasdos' rebellion, Emperors decided they needed central army to put down rebellious themes, and thus created tagmata - fully professional standing army under Emperor's direct command. Themes were still basis of Empire's overall military power, but now Emperor had a military force that answered only to him, and was in fact more powerful than any single theme. In feudal states OTOH kings usually raised army from whatever areas they controlled directly - which in Westeros would be Crownlands.

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

• It's not literally nothing

I'm known for my exaggerations ;-). Especially Tyrion's two companions are more servants than men-at-arms. The king's brother-in-law doesn't even get a knightly retinue.

1 hour ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

• Modern societies have organized crime, so your assertion about dysfunction and crime just falls completely flat. Don't believe me, ask your own bundespolizei

Oh, but correct me if I'm wrong - outlaws are people which only exist(ed) in societies where there is no proper law enforcement the way we know it. After all, being an outlaw usually means everybody can kill you without fearing repercussions - which is the kind of thing they do when they think/know you are a criminal but weren't able to arrest/kill you.

Organized crime is a completely different complex - that exist in our society just as well as it did in medieval societies.

1 hour ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

• We have the inner thoughts of a poacher who was caught by sworn men while poaching. That's the literal definition of proactive.

Yeah, but what kind of guy was that man? Was he on active patrol duty looking for poachers or did they just have a chance meeting in the forest?

How nonexisting law enforcement in Westeros is can be seen how Brandon Stark is nearly killed by wildlings and turncloaks less than a day's ride away from Winterfell. Obviously nobody is policing or patroling the Wolfswood.

1 hour ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

• We have no indication that the KW brotherhood campaign was from Aerys? It was led by Kingsguard knights, Dayne and Selmy. I'm unaware of anyone else who is able to send them on a mission than the king, maybe some members of the royal family. Either way they were representatives of the crown.

Sure, it was the king's mission, evidenced by the fact that KG knights led it. My point was that we have no idea whether it took place (exclusively) on Crownlands territory.

1 hour ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

• We have no idea what would have happened if it had been a different lord. Quit plugging in your fake head canon
•  
  • We also see how lords deal with robber knights in D & E, numerous squabbles (Vulture, implied under brackens / blackwoods under the Brute, Ramsay and Hornwoods, Ramsay and Manderly).

We know that shit like Lady Webber's stuff is no tolerated in Westeros. It goes against the King's Peace, and who breaks that makes himself a rebel and an outlaw. We do know how Rodrik Cassel tried to deal with Roose Bolton's son after he broke the King's Peace. He (believed he) took his head.

And of course lords deal with criminals - that's part of their job. The question is whether they need or have big contingents of professional soldiers for that, especially in light of the fact that we have no reason to believe there are large armies of outlaws in this world, nor that said outlaws are professional soldiers themselves ... or not mainly scum like Chett.

1 hour ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

Basically it boils down to there being canon  evidence for policing and professional soldiers, historical inspiration to draw from, but you hand waiving it because we don't see it 100% throughout the series. GRRM already has an answer for this:  What was Aragorn’s tax policy? Did he maintain a standing army? What did he do in times of flood and famine?

Well, if this were analogous then George sucks the same way Tolkien did there - because he doesn't give us answers to any of this.

I mean, my image is that a house like Starks would have a couple of hundred, perhaps 1,000 professional men-at-arms at the ready, either at Winterfell itself, or in the near vicinity. Those would be the people they use to do such policing stuff. And they would be entirely sufficient for that. Smaller houses would only have a few hundred such men, tops, and smaller ones even less. Depending on the amount of men that is raised they would be a smaller or larger percentage in an actual fighting force.

You see the same thing in the West when Tywin acts quickly to crush the Reynes and Tarbecks - neither he nor they have time to raise large troops. Meaning even the richest houses in the Realm do not maintain a strong contingent of troops.

It is also kind of silly to assume that in a world where private wars are actually illegal and there are no outside enemies anywhere to be found the authorities in charge would allow their vassals and subjects to maintain vast contingents of troops. What the hell would they need such troops for? They would need a garrison, and some police-like forces, especially in towns and cities. The idea that the king or any lord allows some guy to march around the countryside with a hundred knights and squires, playing at war is ludicrous.

The bulk of the forces people call to war are new levies - even more so when there were no (big) wars for decades. I mean, I just realize this, but I guess the best reason why so few men actually fought in the Dance might be that there simply weren't many trained fighters left. The only veterans of a proper war in 129 AC would have been the Velaryons men accompanying Lord Corlys to the Stepstones and the second sons and the like Prince Daemon took there, too. There was no other war during the reign of Viserys I involving Westerosi - and no wars of note, either, during the reign of the Old King. The only people volunteering for stuff when the Dance began would have been men who knew how to fight. Especially since they would also be facing dragons in battle.

9 hours ago, Aldarion said:

We would hear of it if Ned was just a feudal lord. But he rules what is essentially a major kingdom on his own. Yes, some such squabbles will be dealt with by peaceful means; but when you have dozens of people commanding what are essentially armies, do you really expect them not to use those armies? Do you really think that in actual Middle Ages there were no courts of law, judges, and that disputes were never solved peacefully? Fighting happened only when peaceful solutions failed - yet throughout Middle Ages, warfare was endemic, because solutions did fail. I see no reason to believe things are different in Westeros.

Well, I prefer to consider things we know are a thing, not just which might be the case but the author didn't bother to introduce. And there George clearly fails since the War of the Five Kings didn't cause infighting in the West (where Tywin was absent), the death of Jon Arryn and the weak government of Lysa didn't cause order to break down in the Vale, Renly's death didn't cause a civil war in the Stormlands, etc. If things like that do happen then they would mostly happen when the central power/authority is weakened or occupied with more pressing concerns.

I do agree that especially in the North things can get bloody more often than elsewhere, as the Skagosi rebellion and the history of the clansmen show (who are said to often quarrel amongst each other - that being something the Iron Throne clearly never cared about).

But the idea that people in the Vale, the West, the Reach, or the Riverlands going to war over such things - and this being tolerated - is not very likely.

9 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Actually, we can. George has only a handful (relatively speaking) characters in any given period, and Westeros is the size of Europe. Fact that such stuff is mentioned at all means that it is not that unusual.

It could mean that - or it just means the things mentioned are all the things that happen. Very minor things happening in this regard would be completely irrelevant since a Webber-Osgrey conflict clearly is not going to be enough warfare to train people at arms or provide a living for sellswords and freeriders.

9 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Yes, things changed when King Aerys took over. But that doesn't mean that there wasn't such stuff before. Byzantine Empire had problem with bandits, and that was a state far smaller, far more organized and far more socially advanced than Westeros. Modern states have problems with organized crime, and medieval kingdoms had problems with organized crime as well as banditry despite being (on average) far more functional and stable than what Westeros is presented as (regardless of what George might think, in Middle Ages, honour mattered).

It is said the roads get less secure after the death of Daeron the Good - meaning in his reign stuff like that didn't happen.

9 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Of course there will be outlaw hunts when these things become problem for authorities in charge - but that doesn't mean that outlaws do not exist during times when authorities are ignoring them.

Of course, but then they just exist - nobody is hunting them down, which means there are no men around to do something about them. The kind of society you imagine would be a society where there are no outlaws - or only in truly remote places like the North. Not in the forest next to the capital of the Realm. This happens only if you cannot quickly arrest and deal with criminals.

9 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Yes, it is true that stuff like that does not prepare you for proper wars. Neither does fighting the Dothraki or Slaver's Bay states. My point with it was that a) there is still reason to have actual army and b) these soldiers are not just twiddling their thumbs. Why didn't Roman Empire do away with its (standing and fully professional, btw) army during Pax Romana? Yes, there were conflicts during that time, but these were comparatively minor - just as is the case in post-Conquest Westeros.

Well, Westeros never had any sort of standing army so far as we know, hence no reason to abolish it.

9 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Fact that we are dealing with a feudal society means that, yes, he does have enemies - or at least potential enemies - among his neighbours. Which means that he has to train military force to protect himself from it. Fact that such a threat may not materialize in form of outright conflict does not mean it does not exist. Again, feudal society. The only way threat would not exist would be if we were dealing with centralized Roman-style monarchy - and in that case you have professional army anyway, only question is how numerous.

Nah, Westerosi lords are not little princes or kings. They are no sovereigns who own their property, it is granted them as fief by their lieges.

Their is no intention lords are allowed to maintain and train troops for the purpose of attacking their neighbors ... or their liege lords. Instead, men are only drafted in meaningful numbers when people have the right to do that, i.e. when the banners are called. It is quite clear that a lord cannot force anyone to fight for him indefinitely ... not is there any indication that any lord in Westeros can actually maintain and feed and train thousands of men for a longer period of time.

If that were possible, the Lannisters and Hightowers and Tyrells would have large standing armies ... but they don't.

9 hours ago, Aldarion said:

You keep forgetting or else ignoring that Westeros is the size of Europe. Any "proper war" in Westeros would be the equivalent of the First Crusade or Hungarian-Ottoman wars. Of course there will not be much of that. But that does not mean there are no minor conflicts.

If they are, then the author doesn't talk about them. Which means they don't exist or are completely irrelevant since that's literature and not real history.

And your comparison is way off - we hear of the succession war in the Vale, for instance. Or the Reyne-Tarbeck thingy.

9 hours ago, Aldarion said:

The only way out of that is to assume that we are in fact dealing with centralized Byzantine-style monarchy. But that would mean that a) king has standing professional army, b) all other armies are part-time professionals at worst and c) king can actually replace Lords Paramount at will. Point b) is most likely true, but a) and c) are clearly not.

The king can and does create and replace lords paramount at will. There is no indication that a king has to fight a war to attaint a great house. This might be necessary in some cases, but not all of them.

9 hours ago, Aldarion said:

It probably shouldn't. The only possible solution I can think of is that Viserys I had personal loyalty of a sufficient number of dragonriders that others did not dare oppose him even though he himself had no dragon.

That makes no sense considering the only Targaryen dragonriders during the the 15 years of his reign were Daemon and Rhaenyra. Whereas there were three Velaryon dragonriders, one of them controlling the largest dragon alive, who were not exactly on good terms with the king until Rhaenyra married Laenor and Daemon Laena (and then they were a power bloc of their own).

But the dragon thing never made any sense. A couple of dudes who grow old and feeble using bombers really is no basis to establish and maintain control over a continent. It makes no matter whether there are three of them or twenty - in a realistic setting Aegon and Visenya and their brats would have been put down when Meraxes was slain, not to mention that Aegon's image as 'the Conqueror' would have been completely destroyed when he accepted that shameful peace with Dorne.

This whole thing can only work if most Westerosi - including the lords - wanted to lick the boots of the dragons, wanted them to rule over them. After all, the Targaryens never had (m)any lords or troops of their own, ever. Not during the Conquest, and certainly not afterwards. They were completely dependent on the Westerosi to do their bidding.

[Loose Bolt]

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The king can and does create and replace lords paramount at will. There is no indication that a king has to fight a war to attaint a great house. This might be necessary in some cases, but not all of them.

House Peake is much weaker than any great house but powerful enough that king Maekar had to personally lead army to smash that uprising. In the end the king died and somehow house Peake survived. So it seems to me that even middle level houses could sometimes challenge royal house and survive.

[Aldarion]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Well, I prefer to consider things we know are a thing, not just which might be the case but the author didn't bother to introduce. And there George clearly fails since the War of the Five Kings didn't cause infighting in the West (where Tywin was absent), the death of Jon Arryn and the weak government of Lysa didn't cause order to break down in the Vale, Renly's death didn't cause a civil war in the Stormlands, etc. If things like that do happen then they would mostly happen when the central power/authority is weakened or occupied with more pressing concerns.

I do agree that especially in the North things can get bloody more often than elsewhere, as the Skagosi rebellion and the history of the clansmen show (who are said to often quarrel amongst each other - that being something the Iron Throne clearly never cared about).

But the idea that people in the Vale, the West, the Reach, or the Riverlands going to war over such things - and this being tolerated - is not very likely.

Or maybe such things did happen, and we simply do not see them due to being PoV-limited. That being said, Tywin was a very powerful lord who apparently managed to build a highly centralized statelet, while Northmen are highly nationalistic. And in any case, it is lord's duty to solve disputes peacefuly - but for that peaceful solution to be effective, there has to be threat of force, even if force itself is never actually used. Which brings us back to my original problem: king does not appear to have threat of force available to him. So it would seem that kingdoms themselves keep each other in balance, but if it is so, king should be nearly powerless and we should be seeing a council of major nobles (Wardens of North, West, South and East, and/or representatives of each kingdom) coming together once every few years to decide on important issues and have king rubber-stamp their decisions.

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

It could mean that - or it just means the things mentioned are all the things that happen. Very minor things happening in this regard would be completely irrelevant since a Webber-Osgrey conflict clearly is not going to be enough warfare to train people at arms or provide a living for sellswords and freeriders.

 

Warfare never was used for purposes of training people for conflicts. Training is used for training; it is too late to train when you are already fighting.

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

It is said the roads get less secure after the death of Daeron the Good - meaning in his reign stuff like that didn't happen.

 

Less secure =/= things didn't happen when roads were more secure.

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Well, I prefer to consider things we know are a thing, not just which might be the case but the author didn't bother to introduce. And there George clearly fails since the War of the Five Kings didn't cause infighting in the West (where Tywin was absent), the death of Jon Arryn and the weak government of Lysa didn't cause order to break down in the Vale, Renly's death didn't cause a civil war in the Stormlands, etc. If things like that do happen then they would mostly happen when the central power/authority is weakened or occupied with more pressing concerns.

I do agree that especially in the North things can get bloody more often than elsewhere, as the Skagosi rebellion and the history of the clansmen show (who are said to often quarrel amongst each other - that being something the Iron Throne clearly never cared about).

But the idea that people in the Vale, the West, the Reach, or the Riverlands going to war over such things - and this being tolerated - is not very likely.

You are forgetting key point here: "forest". It will naturally be a refuge for any outlaws from King's Landing itself. And as already noted, Crownlands do not have a significant army; most of strength is in the fleet.

Also, if you truly believe that outlaws would not exist in settled areas even in well-organized society:

https://hilo.hawaii.edu/campuscenter/hohonu/volumes/documents/Vol03x13TheOutlawsofMedievalEngland.pdf

Note this:

Quote

For a man looking to find asylum, the English woods, almost impossible to police during the Middle Ages, offered an excellent haven. Most outlaws could easily access the forestJ which offered about as much protection as fleeing to another continent.

England was actually one of more centralized and better-organized medieval monarchies. Yet you got problems with outlaws to the point that whole Robin Hood mythos developed.

I would advise you to learn a bit about this stuff before discussing it. You seem to be idealizing centralized bureocratic state, and therefore any proof of lawlessness means that state in question doesn't function. But that is simply not so.

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

For a man looking to find asylum, the English woods, almost impossible to police during the Middle Ages, offered an excellent haven. Most outlaws could easily access the forestJ which offered about as much protection as fleeing to another continent.

It would be in king's interest to form such, be it in form of a personal banner, mercenary company or else military household - English kings had familia regis, while Hungarian kings had royal banderium. Which brings us back to my original question: why Royal Fleet, but no Royal Army? Why spend so much resources on an extremely expensive navy when there has been no external invasion of Westeros since establishment of Seven Kingdoms - and in any case nobody outside Westeros possesses military capable of challenging Westerosi armies? For pirate suppression - but does Westeros truly possess so much maritime trade that pirate suppression would justify the expense?

The only possible solution I can see is that Targaryens relied on Crownlands army, and that Crownlands in fact do have significant land strength - but this poses question of how can Crownlands maintain an army and a fleet with what is the smallest mainland kingdom? I only read ASoIaF and so was under impression that Crownlands have very limited armed strength - basically only City Watch + royal household troops - but looking at wiki now, a "semi-canon" source suggests that Crownlands can in fact raise 10 000 - 15 000 men (likely ground troops, not counting the fleet). If true, that would answer my question - but as far as I am aware, we never see those forces employed anywhere? We only see Gold Cloaks, which are city guard of King's Landing, not royal army. Where was Crownlands army when Stannis attacked?

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Nah, Westerosi lords are not little princes or kings. They are no sovereigns who own their property, it is granted them as fief by their lieges.

Their is no intention lords are allowed to maintain and train troops for the purpose of attacking their neighbors ... or their liege lords. Instead, men are only drafted in meaningful numbers when people have the right to do that, i.e. when the banners are called. It is quite clear that a lord cannot force anyone to fight for him indefinitely ... not is there any indication that any lord in Westeros can actually maintain and feed and train thousands of men for a longer period of time.

If that were possible, the Lannisters and Hightowers and Tyrells would have large standing armies ... but they don't.

How do you know that they don't have large professional (not necessarily standing) armies? In fact, most of evidence within the books points precisely to existence of such.

And no, Westerosi lords' Paramount territory is not granted to them as fief by the King. Each Lord Paramount rules what is essentially a kingdom, and they are all subordinated to King in King's Landing - it is basically Hungarian-Croatian personal union, except with nine kingdoms instead of two and on a much larger scale.

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

If they are, then the author doesn't talk about them. Which means they don't exist or are completely irrelevant since that's literature and not real history.

And your comparison is way off - we hear of the succession war in the Vale, for instance. Or the Reyne-Tarbeck thingy.

That is because both of these are relevant to characters which are essentially shaping the story. Other wars may well be "completely irrelevant" even if they are of similar scale.

As I have noted, Westerosi political and military organization appears to be very similar to that of 15th century (or even generally post-Mongol-invasion) Hungary. And civil wars were a problem which Hungary had to deal with, even as it was one of more centralized kingdoms at the time.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

If they are, then the author doesn't talk about them. Which means they don't exist or are completely irrelevant since that's literature and not real history.

And your comparison is way off - we hear of the succession war in the Vale, for instance. Or the Reyne-Tarbeck thingy.

When? Starks had ruled North since before Conquest. In fact, most noble families ruling kingdoms date from before Conquest: Stark, Arryn, Lannister, Martell. Durrandons got absorbed by Baratheons, but this was a dynastic marriage. Tullys were established in part of area that Ironborn had conquered, and only Hoares and Gardeneres were outright replaced. But houses established by Aegon the Conqueror had ruled their respective kingdoms since the Conquest. There is literally no evidence that the Iron Throne can replace lords paramount at will.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

This whole thing can only work if most Westerosi - including the lords - wanted to lick the boots of the dragons, wanted them to rule over them. After all, the Targaryens never had (m)any lords or troops of their own, ever. Not during the Conquest, and certainly not afterwards. They were completely dependent on the Westerosi to do their bidding.

And that is where things fall apart, because if that is so, then king should be a joke ignored by most, and not a powerful figure.

[Universal Sword Donor]

12 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I'm known for my exaggerations ;-). Especially Tyrion's two companions are more servants than men-at-arms. The king's brother-in-law doesn't even get a knightly retinue.

Tyrion thinks one's good with a sword and the other's good with a bow.

12 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, but correct me if I'm wrong - outlaws are people which only exist(ed) in societies where there is no proper law enforcement the way we know it. After all, being an outlaw usually means everybody can kill you without fearing repercussions - which is the kind of thing they do when they think/know you are a criminal but weren't able to arrest/kill you.

This is a very specific definition limited to essentially anglo-saxon society, about 400+ years past what GRRM had in mind. An outlaw in normal parlance at this point would just be a criminal.

12 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Organized crime is a completely different complex - that exist in our society just as well as it did in medieval societies.

What do you think bands of robbers are? Disorganized?

12 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Yeah, but what kind of guy was that man? Was he on active patrol duty looking for poachers or did they just have a chance meeting in the forest?

What kind of men were they? They were outriders (military men) who caught a poacher. What would they have been doing if not patrolling? If they were huntsmen or something similar, he would have said so. After all, he is a poacher who knows the difference.

12 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

How nonexisting law enforcement in Westeros is can be seen how Brandon Stark is nearly killed by wildlings and turncloaks less than a day's ride away from Winterfell. Obviously nobody is policing or patroling the Wolfswood.

Right. Police are always there to prevent crime before it happens, that's why movies like Minority Report and RoboCop don't exist.

12 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Sure, it was the king's mission, evidenced by the fact that KG knights led it. My point was that we have no idea whether it took place (exclusively) on Crownlands territory.

It happened in the Kingswood..... even if it dipped into the SL it doesn't matter. It was a crown undertaking.

12 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

We know that shit like Lady Webber's stuff is no tolerated in Westeros. It goes against the King's Peace, and who breaks that makes himself a rebel and an outlaw. We do know how Rodrik Cassel tried to deal with Roose Bolton's son after he broke the King's Peace. He (believed he) took his head.

Yet it happened nonetheless. Shocking

12 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

And of course lords deal with criminals - that's part of their job. The question is whether they need or have big contingents of professional soldiers for that, especially in light of the fact that we have no reason to believe there are large armies of outlaws in this world, nor that said outlaws are professional soldiers themselves ... or not mainly scum like Chett.

No one said they needed large contingents of professional soldiers.

12 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Well, if this were analogous then George sucks the same way Tolkien did there - because he doesn't give us answers to any of this.

He gives us literal novellas and canon material.

12 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I mean, my image is that a house like Starks would have a couple of hundred, perhaps 1,000 professional men-at-arms at the ready, either at Winterfell itself, or in the near vicinity. Those would be the people they use to do such policing stuff. And they would be entirely sufficient for that. Smaller houses would only have a few hundred such men, tops, and smaller ones even less. Depending on the amount of men that is raised they would be a smaller or larger percentage in an actual fighting force.

Like 200 guardsmen? or the 600 men ser rodrik raises? 

12 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

You see the same thing in the West when Tywin acts quickly to crush the Reynes and Tarbecks - neither he nor they have time to raise large troops. Meaning even the richest houses in the Realm do not maintain a strong contingent of troops.

It's a feudal levy system. We have no idea the timeline for Tywin. It could have been 15 minutes or a year. We just know it was quick enough that the Tarbecks and Reynes couldn't gather their own men in their own territory before Tywin rolled in with his 3500 troops marching across the WL.

12 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

It is also kind of silly to assume that in a world where private wars are actually illegal and there are no outside enemies anywhere to be found the authorities in charge would allow their vassals and subjects to maintain vast contingents of troops. What the hell would they need such troops for? They would need a garrison, and some police-like forces, especially in towns and cities. The idea that the king or any lord allows some guy to march around the countryside with a hundred knights and squires, playing at war is ludicrous.

Man castles would need garrisons?! Perish the thought. Would perhaps some of these other troops be settled on land granted to them by the lord in exchange for money or military service?

 

[Lord Varys]

9 hours ago, Loose Bolt said:

House Peake is much weaker than any great house but powerful enough that king Maekar had to personally lead army to smash that uprising. In the end the king died and somehow house Peake survived. So it seems to me that even middle level houses could sometimes challenge royal house and survive.

Maekar did lead a force there himself ... but this doesn't mean he had to. He could have left that to the Tyrells or other loyal Reach houses. And we have to keep in mind here that Maekar apparently didn't intend to the destroy the Peakes ... rather they rebelled against the Iron Throne for some reason.

9 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Or maybe such things did happen, and we simply do not see them due to being PoV-limited. That being said, Tywin was a very powerful lord who apparently managed to build a highly centralized statelet, while Northmen are highly nationalistic. And in any case, it is lord's duty to solve disputes peacefuly - but for that peaceful solution to be effective, there has to be threat of force, even if force itself is never actually used. Which brings us back to my original problem: king does not appear to have threat of force available to him. So it would seem that kingdoms themselves keep each other in balance, but if it is so, king should be nearly powerless and we should be seeing a council of major nobles (Wardens of North, West, South and East, and/or representatives of each kingdom) coming together once every few years to decide on important issues and have king rubber-stamp their decisions.

The Northmen are not 'highly nationalistic', they are, to a point, fiercely loyal to House Stark (unless they are not). That is different. Nationalism has no place in Westeros ... personal loyalty to a royal or noble house, yes.

The idea that you need force to push through a ruling only make sense if people don't believe in the rule of the law. I mean, what power have legal courts in modern societies to enforce their rulings? None, actually. They do not command the military or police forces. We have no indication that people in Westeros are so savage that they only accept rulings if people carry a big a stick and threaten them with (lethal) violence. I mean, there are many characters who believe in the rule of the law, starting with our friend Emmon Frey (who runs around with that document he got from Tommen), Lord Goodbrother of the Ironborn, etc.

9 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Warfare never was used for purposes of training people for conflicts. Training is used for training; it is too late to train when you are already fighting.

But how does it make sense that lords can train large contingents of men when there is eternal peace in Westeros and you don't need vast armies to do police work? How is it that people have to train and draft men when a war starts.

9 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Less secure =/= things didn't happen when roads were more secure.

The roads were more secure because the king was stronger. It is that simple, sort of like Aegon and Aenys and Tytos and Tywin being different characters causing their subjects reacting differently to them despite the fact that King Aenys didn't control fewer dragons than King Aegon and that Tytos Lannister wasn't less wealthy than Tywin Lannister.

9 hours ago, Aldarion said:

You are forgetting key point here: "forest". It will naturally be a refuge for any outlaws from King's Landing itself. And as already noted, Crownlands do not have a significant army; most of strength is in the fleet.

Also, if you truly believe that outlaws would not exist in settled areas even in well-organized society:

https://hilo.hawaii.edu/campuscenter/hohonu/volumes/documents/Vol03x13TheOutlawsofMedievalEngland.pdf

Note this:

England was actually one of more centralized and better-organized medieval monarchies. Yet you got problems with outlaws to the point that whole Robin Hood mythos developed.

I would advise you to learn a bit about this stuff before discussing it. You seem to be idealizing centralized bureocratic state, and therefore any proof of lawlessness means that state in question doesn't function. But that is simply not so.

Oh, but people actually do live in the Kingswood. Lords hold lands within the confines of that forest. It is not empty, just as the Wolfswood in the North isn't empty, either.

This isn't an empty wilderness outside the confines of the feudal order. That might be the case in the Mountains of the Moon or beyond the Wall.

9 hours ago, Aldarion said:

It would be in king's interest to form such, be it in form of a personal banner, mercenary company or else military household - English kings had familia regis, while Hungarian kings had royal banderium. Which brings us back to my original question: why Royal Fleet, but no Royal Army? Why spend so much resources on an extremely expensive navy when there has been no external invasion of Westeros since establishment of Seven Kingdoms - and in any case nobody outside Westeros possesses military capable of challenging Westerosi armies? For pirate suppression - but does Westeros truly possess so much maritime trade that pirate suppression would justify the expense?

We don't know anything about the royal fleet, but it is clear that this kind of thing is necessary for international trade - the Velaryons and Redwynes maintain their fleets, presumably, because they need strength at sea to deal with pirates. One could also assume that the Westerosi need a navy to deter the Free Cities from attacking their merchants at sea, etc.

9 hours ago, Aldarion said:

The only possible solution I can see is that Targaryens relied on Crownlands army, and that Crownlands in fact do have significant land strength - but this poses question of how can Crownlands maintain an army and a fleet with what is the smallest mainland kingdom? I only read ASoIaF and so was under impression that Crownlands have very limited armed strength - basically only City Watch + royal household troops - but looking at wiki now, a "semi-canon" source suggests that Crownlands can in fact raise 10 000 - 15 000 men (likely ground troops, not counting the fleet). If true, that would answer my question - but as far as I am aware, we never see those forces employed anywhere? We only see Gold Cloaks, which are city guard of King's Landing, not royal army. Where was Crownlands army when Stannis attacked?

We don't have good numbers on the Crownlands, but if you consider that tiny Driftmark was able to finance and maintain the largest fleet in Westeros in the days of the Sea Snake, things are put in perpective there. A lot of people must live on that island.

And the Crownlands don't just have KL as a city, but also Duskendale. There are a lot of people there and if you look at the Targaryen days then the Crownlanders are among the first responders in the crises we know, for instance the Second Blackfyre Rebellion. During the Dance they also did the bulk of the fighting together with the Riverlanders, not to mention Maegor's wars.

You also have to keep in mind that the North's military potential is just an illusion. If they need months or a year to marshal a large army/their entire potential, then the war - including a war about the rule in the North itself - would be long over before everybody got their act together and showed up.

9 hours ago, Aldarion said:

How do you know that they don't have large professional (not necessarily standing) armies? In fact, most of evidence within the books points precisely to existence of such.

Because we never hear about even the greatest houses maintaining such armies. To be sure, perhaps the old Targaryens had some such. Aegon I's progresses included hundreds and thousands of knights ... and since he was making a progress more or less each year for most of his reign you would have had some sort of standing army there.

9 hours ago, Aldarion said:

And no, Westerosi lords' Paramount territory is not granted to them as fief by the King. Each Lord Paramount rules what is essentially a kingdom, and they are all subordinated to King in King's Landing - it is basically Hungarian-Croatian personal union, except with nine kingdoms instead of two and on a much larger scale.

Nope, they hold those lands in the name of the king. They are not their own. Even the former royal houses no longer own their lands since they gave up their crowns and received their lands and titles as fiefs by Aegon the Conqueror. They still can draw from the prestige of their old royalty, of course, very successful in the Stark and Greyjoy cases, but they are clearly overstepping their bounds there.

There is a reason why the Iron Throne is a king, not an emperor, and why the great lords are just lords and not kings.

9 hours ago, Aldarion said:

When? Starks had ruled North since before Conquest. In fact, most noble families ruling kingdoms date from before Conquest: Stark, Arryn, Lannister, Martell. Durrandons got absorbed by Baratheons, but this was a dynastic marriage. Tullys were established in part of area that Ironborn had conquered, and only Hoares and Gardeneres were outright replaced. But houses established by Aegon the Conqueror had ruled their respective kingdoms since the Conquest. There is literally no evidence that the Iron Throne can replace lords paramount at will.

When Joffrey took the Riverlands from the Tullys and gave them to House Baelish? When various Lords of Harrenhal are attainted and replaced? When Aegon the Conqueror creates new great houses for the Reach, the Iron Islands, and the Riverlands?

You have differentiate here between the destruction of a house and the merely replacing - one could see a king taking Highgarden from the Tyrells to give it, say, to the Florents, without him having to kill all the Tyrells.

9 hours ago, Aldarion said:

And that is where things fall apart, because if that is so, then king should be a joke ignored by most, and not a powerful figure.

But since he isn't a reasonable theory about stuff like that should help explain how it makes sense that the kings are seen as really powerful and nobody considers them jokes. Even Robert's wrath - clearly the weakest king on the Iron Throne is you consider his dynastic standing - is feared in as remote a place as Winterfell. If Ned and Cat do fear that displeasing Robert can actually be dangerous for them and their family then the power of even one of the most powerful houses in Westeros is built on sand.

And I'd imagine that this is based on the fact that any king can count on the ambition of the bannermen of a great house to replace their liege, i.e. that a Bolton/Frey kind of thing can happen everywhere, especially if such houses were backed by the Iron Throne.

The illusion people seem to have a lot is this idea that the great houses have a greater hold over their bannermen than the king has over them ... instead it seems that the great houses only can be pretty sure their bannermen stand with them if they stand with the king.

The War of the Five Kings is really a special scenario where we have essentially two great houses fighting their own private war - the family of the queen against the family of Robert's old friend.

[Loose Bolt]

27 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Maekar did lead a force there himself ... but this doesn't mean he had to. He could have left that to the Tyrells or other loyal Reach houses. And we have to keep in mind here that Maekar apparently didn't intend to the destroy the Peakes ... rather they rebelled against the Iron Throne for some reason.

Peakes had already rebelled against IT at least twice. So unless they were suicidal their reason for that uprising must have been either very strong or they just were really desperate and thought that their only chance of surviving was to take huge risk of rebellion.

Or there might have been a real possibility that king Maekar really wanted to purge house P or Peakes suspected that he would do that to them. But real problem is that we do not really know motives of any players b4, during and after Peake Uprising.

40 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

The illusion people seem to have a lot is this idea that the great houses have a greater hold over their bannermen than the king has over them ... instead it seems that the great houses only can be pretty sure their bannermen stand with them if they stand with the king.

Ned did not seem to have any problems with his own bannermen when he rebelled against Aerys II. Or I do not know any northern house that were loyal to Targs during the rebellion.

On the other hands Roose did not seem to have any problems either with his own lordlings when he massacred all troops that were loyal to "king Robb".

[Aldarion]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

The Northmen are not 'highly nationalistic', they are, to a point, fiercely loyal to House Stark (unless they are not). That is different. Nationalism has no place in Westeros ... personal loyalty to a royal or noble house, yes.

 

Greatjon disagrees:

Quote

“MY LORDS!” he shouted, his voice booming off the rafters. “Here is what I say to these two
kings!” He spat. “ Renly Baratheon is nothing to me, nor Stannis neither. Why should they rule
over me and mine, from some flowery seat in Highgarden or Dorne? What do they know of the
Wall or the wolfswood or the barrows of the First Men? Even their gods are wrong. The Others
take the Lannisters too, I’ve had a bellyful of them.” He reached back over his shoulder and drew
his immense two-handed greatsword. “Why shouldn’t we rule ourselves again? It was the
dragons we married, and the dragons are all dead!” He pointed at Robb with the blade. “There
sits the only king I mean to bow my knee to, m’lords,” he thundered. “The King in the North!”

That is typical nationalistic rhetoric - marrying ethnic / tribal loyalty (which always existed) to political statehood.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

The idea that you need force to push through a ruling only make sense if people don't believe in the rule of the law. I mean, what power have legal courts in modern societies to enforce their rulings? None, actually. They do not command the military or police forces. We have no indication that people in Westeros are so savage that they only accept rulings if people carry a big a stick and threaten them with (lethal) violence. I mean, there are many characters who believe in the rule of the law, starting with our friend Emmon Frey (who runs around with that document he got from Tommen), Lord Goodbrother of the Ironborn, etc.

 

You always have some people who do not believe in rule of law - especially powerful people, as they usually benefit the most from breaking the law. That doesn't mean that suddenly nobody respects the law, but it does mean that you need force to enforce rule of law when somebody does disrespect the law.

And you are completely misunderstanding modern state here. State as such is one organism. Even if you subscribe to belief that division of power (legislative / executive / judicial), fact is that courts and police are both part of judicial branch. So yes, judicial branch of government very definitely does have power to enforce its rulings.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

But how does it make sense that lords can train large contingents of men when there is eternal peace in Westeros and you don't need vast armies to do police work? How is it that people have to train and draft men when a war starts.

 

We never do see police force in Westeros. Which means that yes, army would be used for police force.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

The roads were more secure because the king was stronger. It is that simple, sort of like Aegon and Aenys and Tytos and Tywin being different characters causing their subjects reacting differently to them despite the fact that King Aenys didn't control fewer dragons than King Aegon and that Tytos Lannister wasn't less wealthy than Tywin Lannister.

 

You are shifting the argument. You stated that:

"It is said the roads get less secure after the death of Daeron the Good - meaning in his reign stuff like that didn't happen."

In context of that it is irrelevant why roads were more secure. But fact is that just that roads were more secure during Daeron the Good does not mean there were no bandits during his reign. Just that there were fewer of them.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, but people actually do live in the Kingswood. Lords hold lands within the confines of that forest. It is not empty, just as the Wolfswood in the North isn't empty, either.

 

It is a forrest. Number of people who can live there is extremely limited.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Because we never hear about even the greatest houses maintaining such armies. To be sure, perhaps the old Targaryens had some such. Aegon I's progresses included hundreds and thousands of knights ... and since he was making a progress more or less each year for most of his reign you would have had some sort of standing army there.

 

Again, professional army =/= standing army. Byzantine thematic armies consisted of professional part-time troops. Hungarian banderial troops were part-time professionals. Troops raised under English livery and maintenance system were a combination of mercenaries and part-time professionals. We do not hear of anybody maintaing a standing army because there is no standing army in Westeros. But that does not mean there are no professional soldiers, or that majority of soldiers are unwilling conscripts.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Nope, they hold those lands in the name of the king. They are not their own. Even the former royal houses no longer own their lands since they gave up their crowns and received their lands and titles as fiefs by Aegon the Conqueror. They still can draw from the prestige of their old royalty, of course, very successful in the Stark and Greyjoy cases, but they are clearly overstepping their bounds there.

There is a reason why the Iron Throne is a king, not an emperor, and why the great lords are just lords and not kings.

Completely incorrect. Yes, they hold these lands in the name of the king. That makes them governors. But that does not mean that said territory is a fief granted by the king. A kingdom is not a fief, and rule is not ownership. What do you think would happen if a king tried to grant North to a Lannister? Do you really think that, if your theory was correct, any of kingdoms would have kept their historical borders for long? A fief, after all, can be split, merged, modified...

King-Emperor is arbitrary difference. Persian Emperor was officially called "king of kings", and Byzantine Emperor was called basileus, which is old Greek word for "king".

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

When Joffrey took the Riverlands from the Tullys and gave them to House Baelish? When various Lords of Harrenhal are attainted and replaced? When Aegon the Conqueror creates new great houses for the Reach, the Iron Islands, and the Riverlands?

You have differentiate here between the destruction of a house and the merely replacing - one could see a king taking Highgarden from the Tyrells to give it, say, to the Florents, without him having to kill all the Tyrells.

And how is that different from, say, Matthias Corvinus taking away position of viceroy of Croatia from one guy and giving it to another? It does not mean that Croatia is personal fief of Matthias - he did have extensive possessions, but neither Hungary as a whole nor Croatia as a whole were considered possession of a king (and, in fact, both maintained the ability to elect a king, independently from each other).

While king may technically be able to replace lord paramount at will, he cannot simply ignore wishes of local nobility - doing so would just mean that he would lose control over kingdom in question. Matthias' Hungary was fairly centralized for a feudal kingdom, with many considering him a tyrant, yet he still sought to name people nobility would accept to positions such as viceroy of Croatia etc.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

But since he isn't a reasonable theory about stuff like that should help explain how it makes sense that the kings are seen as really powerful and nobody considers them jokes. Even Robert's wrath - clearly the weakest king on the Iron Throne is you consider his dynastic standing - is feared in as remote a place as Winterfell. If Ned and Cat do fear that displeasing Robert can actually be dangerous for them and their family then the power of even one of the most powerful houses in Westeros is built on sand.

And I'd imagine that this is based on the fact that any king can count on the ambition of the bannermen of a great house to replace their liege, i.e. that a Bolton/Frey kind of thing can happen everywhere, especially if such houses were backed by the Iron Throne.

The illusion people seem to have a lot is this idea that the great houses have a greater hold over their bannermen than the king has over them ... instead it seems that the great houses only can be pretty sure their bannermen stand with them if they stand with the king.

The War of the Five Kings is really a special scenario where we have essentially two great houses fighting their own private war - the family of the queen against the family of Robert's old friend.

I think it may be a combination of two factors: playing off major houses against each other, and utilizing bannermen from below. Now, we do see that most bannermen are actually fairly loyal to their liege lords. When Robert and Ned rebelled against Iron Throne, they did not have problems with their bannermen. Neither did Robb, or Stannis, or any other "king", when they rebelled against IT. If anything, what we see is typical feudal loyalty: loyalty to immediate superior comes above loyalty to the king. But there is always some who are not loyal (Boltons). Yet fact that Robert is so far away means that threat from below is not (or at least logically should not be) so pronounced: it is simply too risky for Boltons to try replacing Starks under most circumstances, as Starks are fairly popular among other bannermen, and king is simply too far away (and relatively powerless) to protect them.

RE: bolded, illusion as you term it is so widespread because that was what usually happened in a feudal system. And size of Westeros means that king should be, logically, even weaker than your average feudal monarch. So it is easy to say that king is more powerful than Lords Paramount; but why and how?

[Lord Varys]

4 hours ago, Loose Bolt said:

Peakes had already rebelled against IT at least twice. So unless they were suicidal their reason for that uprising must have been either very strong or they just were really desperate and thought that their only chance of surviving was to take huge risk of rebellion.

We have no background info for that rebellion so far, so it is moot to speculate. And they did not rebel twice against the Iron Throne as such, they sided with a pretender who lost. Which is slightly different thing. Their own rebellion in 233 AC seems to have been their own rebellion ... but even there we have no clue whether they rebelled against Maekar as such, or merely against the yoke of Highgarden ... and it only so happened that Maekar, a warrior-king, crushed them personally.

4 hours ago, Loose Bolt said:

Or there might have been a real possibility that king Maekar really wanted to purge house P or Peakes suspected that he would do that to them. But real problem is that we do not really know motives of any players b4, during and after Peake Uprising.

That is even more speculative ... and less convincing consider that Aegon V spared them even although they killed his father. If the Iron Throne wanted to get rid of them Peakes, this would have been the time.

4 hours ago, Loose Bolt said:

Ned did not seem to have any problems with his own bannermen when he rebelled against Aerys II. Or I do not know any northern house that were loyal to Targs during the rebellion.

To be sure, we don't know anything about the situation in the North during Robert's Rebellion. Could be they were all loyal, could be Ned had troubles, too. But to be sure - Aerys II was 'the Mad King'. And said Mad King had just cruelly (and perhaps completely unjustified) executed the Lord of Winterfell and his heir. It makes sense that the Stark bannermen would be outraged over this.

But we don't know how many men Ned could assemble, how many Northmen completely stayed out of the Rebellion, etc.

4 hours ago, Loose Bolt said:

On the other hands Roose did not seem to have any problems either with his own lordlings when he massacred all troops that were loyal to "king Robb".

That is a war situation. Those men were under Roose's command for quite some time, they knew about his disciplinatory methods, etc.

But you make a valid point - how likely is it that something as vile as the Red Wedding actually can be executed by people who should be loyal to the king they slay? How convincing is it that nobody spills the beans? All or nearly all of Roose's men must have been in on the plot. Or do we imagine they could kill over 10,000 people with just a core cabal of Bolton men, with the Freys doing most of the actual work?

That is difficult to say.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Greatjon disagrees:

That is typical nationalistic rhetoric - marrying ethnic / tribal loyalty (which always existed) to political statehood.

Nah, that is a lord addressing his fellow lords. It is about the body of the assembled lord rejecting the current king and proclaiming a new one - one from their own midst whose ancestors happened to be the kings of some of the assembled lords and who has blood ties to the overlord of the others.

There is nothing nationalistic about this. They even create a new state then and there - the kingdom of the North and the Trident.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

You always have some people who do not believe in rule of law - especially powerful people, as they usually benefit the most from breaking the law. That doesn't mean that suddenly nobody respects the law, but it does mean that you need force to enforce rule of law when somebody does disrespect the law.

Such force seems to be the threat that the guy in charge can call on all his bannermen to attack the black sheep bannerman who would stand alone.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

And you are completely misunderstanding modern state here. State as such is one organism. Even if you subscribe to belief that division of power (legislative / executive / judicial), fact is that courts and police are both part of judicial branch. So yes, judicial branch of government very definitely does have power to enforce its rulings.

Oh, you mistook me. I meant if some judicial court things he can limit the power of the executive then they cannot force them to follow their rulings by threat of violence. And a judge also cannot command the executive to maintain prisons or to execute the sentences they give.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

We never do see police force in Westeros. Which means that yes, army would be used for police force.

But outlaws and thugs aren't other armies. Doing this kind of stuff isn't what soldiers are for, especially not professional soldiers.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

You are shifting the argument. You stated that:

"It is said the roads get less secure after the death of Daeron the Good - meaning in his reign stuff like that didn't happen."

In context of that it is irrelevant why roads were more secure. But fact is that just that roads were more secure during Daeron the Good does not mean there were no bandits during his reign. Just that there were fewer of them.

Well, okay, but we don't know anything about bandits during the reign of Daeron the Good, so...?

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

It is a forrest. Number of people who can live there is extremely limited.

Well, check the known maps and look which houses actually do have seats within the Kingswood or the Wolfswood. Those houses do exist. Just as people are living there, as, for instance, the history of the Kingswood campaign shows - where Jaime recalls how Ser Arthur Dayne won the trust of the local smallfolk, allowing them to track and find the outlaws.

I'm not saying there aren't some places in that forest where few to no people live, but said forest being directly next to the capital means that this is no remote place. It should be easy to track and arrest people there, if you actually had the manpower. Also, of course, it would be very easy for the Kingslanders to do away with the entire forest in a decade or so.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

But that does not mean there are no professional soldiers, or that majority of soldiers are unwilling conscripts.

Nobody said anything about unwilling conscripts. It seems people rarely object to do their duty to their lord, but it is just a fact that there is no indication that there is a large group of professional soldiers who are not in service to some lord. Robb's army isn't the entire strength of the North, yet quite a few of their bannermen ruined their harvest over this thing. They did not just call in the men from the garrisons of the various castles or whatever men-at-arms there were.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Completely incorrect. Yes, they hold these lands in the name of the king. That makes them governors. But that does not mean that said territory is a fief granted by the king. A kingdom is not a fief, and rule is not ownership. What do you think would happen if a king tried to grant North to a Lannister? Do you really think that, if your theory was correct, any of kingdoms would have kept their historical borders for long? A fief, after all, can be split, merged, modified...

Those seven kingdoms are no longer kingdoms. If they were, there would still be seven kings.

And they weren't even proper nation states before the Conquest - as names like 'the Reach' or 'the North' or 'the West' testify. Those are not the names of nation states.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

And how is that different from, say, Matthias Corvinus taking away position of viceroy of Croatia from one guy and giving it to another? It does not mean that Croatia is personal fief of Matthias - he did have extensive possessions, but neither Hungary as a whole nor Croatia as a whole were considered possession of a king (and, in fact, both maintained the ability to elect a king, independently from each other).

You don't think the Iron Throne didn't destroy established things when they made Harrenhal the seat of the lord paramount and the Lord Bolton of the Dreadfort the Warden in the North?

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

While king may technically be able to replace lord paramount at will, he cannot simply ignore wishes of local nobility - doing so would just mean that he would lose control over kingdom in question. Matthias' Hungary was fairly centralized for a feudal kingdom, with many considering him a tyrant, yet he still sought to name people nobility would accept to positions such as viceroy of Croatia etc.

I do concede that it would be pretty difficult to replace the Lord Arryn, Stark, or Lannister with an outsider ... but that's why I said they could work with an ambitious nobleman from the region in question. A Bolton for a Stark, a Royce for an Arryn, a Reyne for a Lannister. That kind of thing could work.

In the Reach in the Riverlands it would be even easier, and in the Stormlands, too, one imagines, if the Baratheon in question is a dick or a fool.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

I think it may be a combination of two factors: playing off major houses against each other, and utilizing bannermen from below. Now, we do see that most bannermen are actually fairly loyal to their liege lords. When Robert and Ned rebelled against Iron Throne, they did not have problems with their bannermen.

Robert was nearly killed by three of his own bannermen at Summerhall, and a fourth ended up being the Hand of Aerys II...

As I already mentioned up above - we don't know how the Northmen acted during the Rebellion. I'm fine with the preliminary assumption that nobody stood with the Mad King there, but we do not know. And I'm not assume that many Northmen marched with Ned - both for time constraints as well as, perhaps, the reluctance of certain lords to fully commit themselves to this campaign.

I mean, you do realize if Ned had had 20,000 Northmen at the Trident like Robb later had under his command, more than half the rebel army which is supposed to have consisted of Northmen, Vale men, Rivermen, and Stormlanders would have been Northmen. That is not very likely. Rather, I'd guess, there were perhaps 10,000-15,000 Northmen with Ned.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Neither did Robb, or Stannis, or any other "king", when they rebelled against IT.

Robb certainly had problems with his bannermen sometime along their road. Stannis also had problems with his bannermen once he got a bloody nose - they abandoned him all.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

If anything, what we see is typical feudal loyalty: loyalty to immediate superior comes above loyalty to the king.

Nah, that might be the case if the thing is seen as pretty just, but not under any circumstance.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

But there is always some who are not loyal (Boltons). Yet fact that Robert is so far away means that threat from below is not (or at least logically should not be) so pronounced: it is simply too risky for Boltons to try replacing Starks under most circumstances, as Starks are fairly popular among other bannermen, and king is simply too far away (and relatively powerless) to protect them.

The Boltons aren't the only Boltons in the North, so to speak. All the Northern lords Robb interacts with in the beginnings assess his qualities as a (potential) lord and then act accordingly. If he had sucked, and not passed their tests, they would have marched back home or had sold him to his enemies.

It isn't some weird ingrained loyalty that made, say, the Greatjon stand with Robb - it is the fact that he decided that Robb is worth it. That he is a good Stark and a worthy leader.

The whole things looks as if the status quo with the Starks in charge is stable, but it isn't. The Starks have constantly to prove their mettle as leaders, and apparently did that, more or less, through the ages - which is why they are still alive and in charge.

During the Targaryen era you also see how irrelevant and backwater those great houses are - most were cut out off the government of the Realm for the most part, the most prestigious houses were those with the closest ties to the Iron Throne by virtue of kinship, marriages, and offices at court. The Velaryons were never a great house as such, but they certainly were much more powerful than, say, those traditional great houses due to their vast wealth, their fleet, and their dragons.

The two houses who always could become powerful rivals even to the Targaryens were the Hightowers and Lannisters, due to their wealth, ancestry, and hold over the Faith/Citadel (prior to Baelor I). They have the prestige to aspire to a Targaryen-like royalty - and did so, with Otto and Alicent, and also later with Tywin. And the Tyrells finally have the reputation and means together to play that game, too.

 

[Aldarion]

9 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Nah, that is a lord addressing his fellow lords. It is about the body of the assembled lord rejecting the current king and proclaiming a new one - one from their own midst whose ancestors happened to be the kings of some of the assembled lords and who has blood ties to the overlord of the others.

There is nothing nationalistic about this. They even create a new state then and there - the kingdom of the North and the Trident.

Nothing nationalistic... except the fact that Greatjon clearly takes issue with the fact that people ruling them are not northerners, that they do not know anything about the culture of First Men, that their gods are wrong, and also states that North could and should rule itself again. So yeah, clearly nothing nationalistic here - except for nearly his entire speech.

9 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Such force seems to be the threat that the guy in charge can call on all his bannermen to attack the black sheep bannerman who would stand alone.

 

Which then would mean that no lord - and by extension no king - can become a tyrant, because if they do, they will be overthrown as they are dependant on their vassals.

9 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

But outlaws and thugs aren't other armies. Doing this kind of stuff isn't what soldiers are for, especially not professional soldiers.

 

That... depends. In feudal system low-level vassals would have armed retinues, and those armed retinues would be used for warfare and law enforcement alike. Cities would obviously be an exception, as they would have their own city watch, but elsewhere soldiers would often be used for law enforcement - especially if you had bands of outlaws. We actually do see this in Westeros - see my reply to next part of your post.

Ancient Rome had cohortes urbane and vigiles urbani. Latter were your normal police force / firefighters, while former were more akin to riot squads and SWAT. In medieval England, each hundred and also each shire had its own official who also acted as a policeman. In all cases however, normal police force would be supplemented by military as needed. In ancient Rome, such troops were known as milites stationarii. Their primary duty was to intervene in cases where army and civilians came into conflict, but civilians often turned to them even in general crime cases, and stationarii themselves were not averse to carrying out general policing duties. And in a feudal system, if lord was supposed to have armed retinue, why not use them for policing duties as well?

10 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Nah, that is a lord addressing his fellow lords. It is about the body of the assembled lord rejecting the current king and proclaiming a new one - one from their own midst whose ancestors happened to be the kings of some of the assembled lords and who has blood ties to the overlord of the others.

There is nothing nationalistic about this. They even create a new state then and there - the kingdom of the North and the Trident.

We don't. But we do know about bandits in general. Prince Maekar searched for his sons because he heard rumours about bandits, and outlaws became such a problem in Westerlands that Tywin gave Kevan 500 knights to hunt them down. If bandits were a problem for Tywin, why do you think they are not a problem in general?

The years that followed were as dismal as any in the long history of the westerlands. Conditions in
the west grew so bad that the Iron Throne felt compelled to take a hand. Thrice King Aegon V sent
forth his knights to restore order to the westerlands, but each time the conflicts flared up once again as
soon as the king’s men had taken their leave. When His Grace perished in the tragedy at Summerhall
in 259 AC, matters in the west deteriorated even further, for the new king, Jaehaerys II Targaryen,
lacked his sire’s strength of will and was besides soon embroiled in the War of the Ninepenny Kings.

(...)

Ser Tywin began by demanding repayment of all the gold Lord Tytos had lent out. Those who could
not pay were required to send hostages to Casterly Rock. Five hundred knights, blooded and seasoned
veterans of the Stepstones, were formed into a new company under the command of Ser Tywin’s
brother Ser Kevan, and charged with ridding the west of robber knights and outlaws.

The only thing here is that he is sending out actual knights to deal with bandits, but if those knights also have sheriff-like duties, it is less so.

10 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Well, check the known maps and look which houses actually do have seats within the Kingswood or the Wolfswood. Those houses do exist. Just as people are living there, as, for instance, the history of the Kingswood campaign shows - where Jaime recalls how Ser Arthur Dayne won the trust of the local smallfolk, allowing them to track and find the outlaws.

I'm not saying there aren't some places in that forest where few to no people live, but said forest being directly next to the capital means that this is no remote place. It should be easy to track and arrest people there, if you actually had the manpower. Also, of course, it would be very easy for the Kingslanders to do away with the entire forest in a decade or so.

I checked some maps and there are none. There are some castles/towns near borders of forests, but none deep within them:

https://atlasoficeandfireblog.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/westeros-2020-updated.png

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/gameofthrones/images/4/4a/Map_of_the_Wolfswood.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20150826183800

There are Felwood and Mistwood, but again, both are very close to border of forest:

https://cdn.obsidianportal.com/assets/107062/StormlandsTopo.jpg

And I do not see how it "should be easy to track and arrest people there". It is a forest; there is a reason why guerilla fighters and outlaws always ran away to forests. And even inhabited forests are not usually easy to navigate: see what happened to Varus and his legions.

12 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Well, check the known maps and look which houses actually do have seats within the Kingswood or the Wolfswood. Those houses do exist. Just as people are living there, as, for instance, the history of the Kingswood campaign shows - where Jaime recalls how Ser Arthur Dayne won the trust of the local smallfolk, allowing them to track and find the outlaws.

I'm not saying there aren't some places in that forest where few to no people live, but said forest being directly next to the capital means that this is no remote place. It should be easy to track and arrest people there, if you actually had the manpower. Also, of course, it would be very easy for the Kingslanders to do away with the entire forest in a decade or so.

There are actually indications that soldiers are predominantly professionals - though not necessarily full-time; as I have noted, troops raised through banderial system (or English livery-and-maintenance system) are actually part-time professionals. Westerosi armies are too large, too well-equipped, too organized, too tactically sophisticated and deployed over too long distances and timeframes for them to be anything but part-time professionals at least. Multi-year winters combined with long distances mean that any campaign outside borders of a kingdom – even in middle of summer – has to rely on professional troops, otherwise it would do more damage to kingdom mounting the campaign than to the enemy.

I do agree that there are indications to the contrary as well, such as what you just mentioned. But these make little sense in view of behaviour and organization of armies that we do see. And unlike assumption that Westerosi soldiers are untrained or conscripted peasants, these contradictions can actually be resolved in a logical manner, and one that arguably makes more sense than "conscripted peasant soldiers" explanation even when all other evidence is ignored: camp followers. We rarely hear camp followers mentioned, but they must have been present: after all, even Roman armies had them. Landsknechte had camp followers as well. And in both medieval and early modern armies, camp followers might outnumber actual soldiers: in 1648., a Bavarian army of 40 000 supposedly had 100 000 camp followers, and this was by no means the greatest ratio of camp followers to soldiers which could be had (in some cases it could be as high as 4:1, 5:1 or even higher, IIRC). During American Revolution, ratio was often around 50:50. Camp followers were actually unavoidable as late as 18th or early 19th century, as they provided crucial support services that are today a purview of logistical support apparatus - such as equipment maintenance and repair, medical services, supply, paperwork, and general assistance. If Westerosi armies have unusual numbers of camp followers, and if those are recruited at the last moment, then it is entirely possible that mounting a major campaign might cause localized problems with availability of workforce - or even localized starvation, if majority of working-age males in certain area got "recruited" for army needs. And since camp followers would actually outnumber soldiers, and, as noted, be recruited in a likely disorganized manner, it makes more sense to assume that it was recruitment of camp followers which caused said disruptions than to assume that Westerosi soldiers are peasants to begin with and that camp followers do not exist since we rarely see them. Robb Stark's army of 18 000 would have required between 20 000 and 90 000 camp followers. We know that troops are not recruited wholly locally: Umbers send a contignent. But camp followers likely would be, which would then explain lack of hands to bring in harvest at major mustering areas (such as Winterfell and other more important strongholds - which basically means centres of all houses directly sworn to Starks; smaller houses would actually get away without sending too many peasants with the army).

Long story short: assuming that Westerosi armies consist of professional troops with added camp followers is much better explanation for most if not all of the stuff used to prove the opposite, than assuming that Westerosi armies are 90% conscripted peasants to begin with.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Those seven kingdoms are no longer kingdoms. If they were, there would still be seven kings.

No, there wouldn't be seven kings. Croatia was still a kingdom after 1102. and personal union with Hungary, yet was ruled by a viceroy. Hungary and Croatia both remained kingdoms after 1527. (when they joined Habsburg Monarchy), yet Croatia was still ruled by a viceroy (and would continue to be until 1918).

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

And they weren't even proper nation states before the Conquest - as names like 'the Reach' or 'the North' or 'the West' testify. Those are not the names of nation states.

 

No, those are the names given by a lazy-ass author. As for saying that "the North" or "the West" etc. cannot be names of nation-states, tell that to Kings of the North:

https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/King_in_the_North

And even in real life, you have Norway:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway#Etymology

So no, names like "the Reach" or "the North" have absolutely no relevance to whether those are actual kingdoms.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Those seven kingdoms are no longer kingdoms. If they were, there would still be seven kings.

No, they didn't. Or at least there is no proof they did. When Croatia joined Hungary in a personal union, it remained a sovereign kingdom - we merely had a common ruler with Hungary, but still kept our laws, Parliament etc. Yet - though perhaps not immediately - seat of Croatian government shifted from coastal cities (kings of Croatia usually took residence in Klis, Knin, Nin and Biograd na Moru, though there was no capital city as such) to Zagreb, where it remained until 1918. and afterwards as a matter of tradition. Likewise, viceroy could be named by King of Hungary, though king usually required or at least requested a say-so of Croatian Parliament.

As for Lord Bolton, securing his title as Warden of the North required marriage of Ramsay Bolton to Jeyne Poole who was disguised (successfully) as Arya Stark. This clearly shows that even if Iron Throne did try to replace Lord Paramount, it would never work unless northern lords accepted it.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I do concede that it would be pretty difficult to replace the Lord Arryn, Stark, or Lannister with an outsider ... but that's why I said they could work with an ambitious nobleman from the region in question. A Bolton for a Stark, a Royce for an Arryn, a Reyne for a Lannister. That kind of thing could work.

 

It might work, assuming there are other factors working in its favour. But point is, kings of Westeros are nowhere close to absolute monarchs, and may actually be less powerful than kings of Hungary were during Middle Ages (though they are at least more powerful than medieval kings of France, I'd say). They cannot simply replace major lords at will as if they were Byzantine Emperors. And if they were like Byzantine Emperors, they would be able to afford professional standing army in Crownlands at least (and we wouldn't have feudalism).

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Robert was nearly killed by three of his own bannermen at Summerhall, and a fourth ended up being the Hand of Aerys II...

As I already mentioned up above - we don't know how the Northmen acted during the Rebellion. I'm fine with the preliminary assumption that nobody stood with the Mad King there, but we do not know. And I'm not assume that many Northmen marched with Ned - both for time constraints as well as, perhaps, the reluctance of certain lords to fully commit themselves to this campaign.

I mean, you do realize if Ned had had 20,000 Northmen at the Trident like Robb later had under his command, more than half the rebel army which is supposed to have consisted of Northmen, Vale men, Rivermen, and Stormlanders would have been Northmen. That is not very likely. Rather, I'd guess, there were perhaps 10,000-15,000 Northmen with Ned.

That depends on how many bannermen Robert had. Three might or might not be a significant number.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Robb certainly had problems with his bannermen sometime along their road. Stannis also had problems with his bannermen once he got a bloody nose - they abandoned him all.

 

Stannis didn't just "get a bloody nose", he got shattered. Bannermen follow a liege lord because liege lord provides protection. If he cannot protect them, they will seek one who can - which in that case was Iron Throne, at least for mainland houses. Bannermen from Dragonstone proper did not abandon Stannis. Either way, it has nothing to do with any ideal of loyalty to the Iron Throne versus loyalty to the liege lord.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Robert was nearly killed by three of his own bannermen at Summerhall, and a fourth ended up being the Hand of Aerys II...

As I already mentioned up above - we don't know how the Northmen acted during the Rebellion. I'm fine with the preliminary assumption that nobody stood with the Mad King there, but we do not know. And I'm not assume that many Northmen marched with Ned - both for time constraints as well as, perhaps, the reluctance of certain lords to fully commit themselves to this campaign.

I mean, you do realize if Ned had had 20,000 Northmen at the Trident like Robb later had under his command, more than half the rebel army which is supposed to have consisted of Northmen, Vale men, Rivermen, and Stormlanders would have been Northmen. That is not very likely. Rather, I'd guess, there were perhaps 10,000-15,000 Northmen with Ned.

If that is true, Robert's Rebellion should never have worked.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The Boltons aren't the only Boltons in the North, so to speak. All the Northern lords Robb interacts with in the beginnings assess his qualities as a (potential) lord and then act accordingly. If he had sucked, and not passed their tests, they would have marched back home or had sold him to his enemies.

It isn't some weird ingrained loyalty that made, say, the Greatjon stand with Robb - it is the fact that he decided that Robb is worth it. That he is a good Stark and a worthy leader.

The whole things looks as if the status quo with the Starks in charge is stable, but it isn't. The Starks have constantly to prove their mettle as leaders, and apparently did that, more or less, through the ages - which is why they are still alive and in charge.

Which is a typical feudal system, and again has nothing to do with loyalty to the Iron Throne. Yes, somebody who decides to betray Starks may seek protection of the IT if possible - but just loyalty to the Iron Throne will not cause such desertion if not supported by other causes.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

During the Targaryen era you also see how irrelevant and backwater those great houses are - most were cut out off the government of the Realm for the most part, the most prestigious houses were those with the closest ties to the Iron Throne by virtue of kinship, marriages, and offices at court. The Velaryons were never a great house as such, but they certainly were much more powerful than, say, those traditional great houses due to their vast wealth, their fleet, and their dragons.

More powerful in general, or more powerful at the court? These are two very different things. And "cut out off the government of the Realm" means little when de facto government is in the hands of great houses to begin with. Again, if what you are saying were true, Robert's Rebellion would have been impossible, or at least will not have happened the way it did. But it did, the way it did, and that means that great houses hold overall rule of their territories even without connection to (or approval of) the Iron Throne.

[Lord Varys]

6 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Nothing nationalistic... except the fact that Greatjon clearly takes issue with the fact that people ruling them are not northerners, that they do not know anything about the culture of First Men, that their gods are wrong, and also states that North could and should rule itself again. So yeah, clearly nothing nationalistic here - except for nearly his entire speech.

That just isn't nationalistic speech. It is the speech of an aristocrat who wants to replace one royal house with another.

6 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Which then would mean that no lord - and by extension no king - can become a tyrant, because if they do, they will be overthrown as they are dependant on their vassals.

Tyranny is just a word in this world. We have no clear image what a king is allowed and not allowed to do, and what people consider tyrannical and what they view as okay.

I mean, check Aerys II - nobody of those pompous asses who later turned against the Targaryens shed a tear of those Hollards and Darklyns that were butchered, or did they? Tyranny seems to come down to a mad guy killing the wrong person and then making some mistakes along the line (something mad guys are prone to do).

There is nothing inherently wrong as per the legal framework of the society they live in with kings eradicating entire noble houses. In fact, there are quite a few of precedents for this working rather well.

6 hours ago, Aldarion said:

That... depends. In feudal system low-level vassals would have armed retinues, and those armed retinues would be used for warfare and law enforcement alike. Cities would obviously be an exception, as they would have their own city watch, but elsewhere soldiers would often be used for law enforcement - especially if you had bands of outlaws. We actually do see this in Westeros - see my reply to next part of your post.

The overall point I have is that it makes no sense to assume the Westerosi military is particularly well-trained and competent for proper warfare, since that rarely happens. Even their better trained lords and knights are amateurs playing at war because they never go to war. That is a problem of the author's ridiculous conception of a society where the longest wars seem to last two years (First Dornish War excluded, which effectively only was a proper war in the first year, anyway) and which doesn't have (any) competent foreign enemies or adversaries.

Compared to the real world, Westeros is a medieval paradise where are effectively no wars. Which means it makes sense to assume their warriors know how to fight wars. How could they?

6 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Ancient Rome had cohortes urbane and vigiles urbani. Latter were your normal police force / firefighters, while former were more akin to riot squads and SWAT. In medieval England, each hundred and also each shire had its own official who also acted as a policeman. In all cases however, normal police force would be supplemented by military as needed. In ancient Rome, such troops were known as milites stationarii. Their primary duty was to intervene in cases where army and civilians came into conflict, but civilians often turned to them even in general crime cases, and stationarii themselves were not averse to carrying out general policing duties. And in a feudal system, if lord was supposed to have armed retinue, why not use them for policing duties as well?

Oh, I imagine men-at-arms do that kind of thing, if there is any police at all. But those aren't many people.

6 hours ago, Aldarion said:

We don't. But we do know about bandits in general. Prince Maekar searched for his sons because he heard rumours about bandits, and outlaws became such a problem in Westerlands that Tywin gave Kevan 500 knights to hunt them down. If bandits were a problem for Tywin, why do you think they are not a problem in general?

You mean this was a problem for Lord Tytos, right, a man whose misrule nearly destroyed the Westerlands? Lord Tywin had never problems with outlaws.

6 hours ago, Aldarion said:

I checked some maps and there are none. There are some castles/towns near borders of forests, but none deep within them:

Deepwood Motte is inside the Wolfswood, and they have men sworn to them who also live in said forest and no men that we know of that live outside of it.

Also, those three lords who harass Orys Baratheon's army during the Conquest - Fell, Errol, and Buckler - are known to be familar with the forest the conquerors cross, indicating that even back then the lands of the later Kingswood weren't some unfamiliar, unknown wilderness.

6 hours ago, Aldarion said:

There are actually indications that soldiers are predominantly professionals - though not necessarily full-time; as I have noted, troops raised through banderial system (or English livery-and-maintenance system) are actually part-time professionals. Westerosi armies are too large, too well-equipped, too organized, too tactically sophisticated and deployed over too long distances and timeframes for them to be anything but part-time professionals at least. Multi-year winters combined with long distances mean that any campaign outside borders of a kingdom – even in middle of summer – has to rely on professional troops, otherwise it would do more damage to kingdom mounting the campaign than to the enemy.

Any non-full time soldier is an amateur by my assessment, because any kind of soldier - like, a landed knight, say - who spends half or more his time on his lands and only goes to war when called upon by a lord ... wouldn't do that only once or twice in his lifetime, if at all.

The only real soldiers that are in Westeros would be men permanently in uniform, so to speak. Men serving at castles in soldierly capacity - as guardsmen, sworn swords, etc. ... and at that in a capacity where they are actually needed. Where they actually get something to fight and kill in a while, not just standing on a wall for a couple of decades until they are too feeble to hold a sword.

Any noblemen or soldier who owns an estate, who has land he does return to after a campaign, isn't a professional soldier. And it is those men a lord calls in when he calls the banners. Mind you, he also calls in the retinue of such lords, say, if the Starks call in their banner, not only toothless Lord Glover shows up, but also some of Lord Glover's sworn men, the men-at-arms and garrison he always has under arms.

But if you check the North, for instance, then there are only a dozen or so big castles there - meaning castles important enough to make it on the maps. How large the estates of landed knights and petty lords are, and how many actually professional men-at-arms they can afford is unknown.

And then, combined with things like Lord Sunderland not being able to afford to make all his seven sons knights, means that we cannot really expect most petty lords and landed knights to provide their liege lords with many professional men-at-arms. The men they would bring would be predominantly peasant levies, men who, for some unrealistic and weird reason having nothing to do with real world scenarios, are apparently supposed to follow their lords into war even although they are not qualified for that.

The bulk of the competent men in any army would be lords and highborn knights and their sons, close kin, and their retinues - men like the Lannisters and Tyrells and Hightowers would be able finance hundreds or thousands of those, if you go down the entire family tree -, followed by household knights and sworn swords and their retinues (never forget the squires there). After that would come those petty lords and landed and their sons/grandsons who kept themselves in good shape, and whatever meager professional retinue they would have (could vary considerably if you consider that the Fossoways and Templetons and the likes of the Osgreys are landed knights).

But all that wouldn't be the bulk of an army. The other professional contingent would be men hired for a campaign - hedge knights, sellswords, freeriders. How large that contingent is in any given army depends on the army.

6 hours ago, Aldarion said:

I do agree that there are indications to the contrary as well, such as what you just mentioned. But these make little sense in view of behaviour and organization of armies that we do see. And unlike assumption that Westerosi soldiers are untrained or conscripted peasants, these contradictions can actually be resolved in a logical manner, and one that arguably makes more sense than "conscripted peasant soldiers" explanation even when all other evidence is ignored: camp followers. We rarely hear camp followers mentioned, but they must have been present: after all, even Roman armies had them. Landsknechte had camp followers as well. And in both medieval and early modern armies, camp followers might outnumber actual soldiers: in 1648., a Bavarian army of 40 000 supposedly had 100 000 camp followers, and this was by no means the greatest ratio of camp followers to soldiers which could be had (in some cases it could be as high as 4:1, 5:1 or even higher, IIRC). During American Revolution, ratio was often around 50:50. Camp followers were actually unavoidable as late as 18th or early 19th century, as they provided crucial support services that are today a purview of logistical support apparatus - such as equipment maintenance and repair, medical services, supply, paperwork, and general assistance. If Westerosi armies have unusual numbers of camp followers, and if those are recruited at the last moment, then it is entirely possible that mounting a major campaign might cause localized problems with availability of workforce - or even localized starvation, if majority of working-age males in certain area got "recruited" for army needs. And since camp followers would actually outnumber soldiers, and, as noted, be recruited in a likely disorganized manner, it makes more sense to assume that it was recruitment of camp followers which caused said disruptions than to assume that Westerosi soldiers are peasants to begin with and that camp followers do not exist since we rarely see them. Robb Stark's army of 18 000 would have required between 20 000 and 90 000 camp followers. We know that troops are not recruited wholly locally: Umbers send a contignent. But camp followers likely would be, which would then explain lack of hands to bring in harvest at major mustering areas (such as Winterfell and other more important strongholds - which basically means centres of all houses directly sworn to Starks; smaller houses would actually get away without sending too many peasants with the army).

That camp followers routine is pretty old. Since Meribald doesn't view himself as a camp followed, I summarily dismiss that idea. Even more so since we still have George to mention male camp followers - up to this point those people seem to be predominantly whores in his work.

The idea that early modern day times in a highly specialized and professional war industry (Thirty Years' War stuff) can have any reflection in Martinworld also makes no sense - there wars are usually very short and there is no war industry to speak of.

I'm aware that not all people in an army would be soldiers - but considering we usually are given the number of the soldiers, not the people hanging out in an army - that clearly isn't relevant to the issue.

Although I've gone on record suggesting that the low military numbers for the Dance can perhaps be explained by the fact that our historians go by actual professional fighters, counting only knights and professional archers and men-at-arms, and not counting peasant rabble at all. I also point out that Renly's army might have been much smallers than his exaggerations implied, especially those approximations based on the number of camp fires - who would be the fires of both soldiers and spectators.

6 hours ago, Aldarion said:

No, there wouldn't be seven kings. Croatia was still a kingdom after 1102. and personal union with Hungary, yet was ruled by a viceroy. Hungary and Croatia both remained kingdoms after 1527. (when they joined Habsburg Monarchy), yet Croatia was still ruled by a viceroy (and would continue to be until 1918).

There aren't viceroys in Westeros, so I don't know that is relevant.

6 hours ago, Aldarion said:

No, those are the names given by a lazy-ass author. As for saying that "the North" or "the West" etc. cannot be names of nation-states, tell that to Kings of the North:

https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/King_in_the_North

And even in real life, you have Norway:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway#Etymology

So no, names like "the Reach" or "the North" have absolutely no relevance to whether those are actual kingdoms.

They were kingdoms alright, back in the day, not not nation-states in a modern sense. They were feudal states, meaning the important legal framework of organization was what noble houses controlled what land and owed allegiance to who, not where some kind of state borderline was. That was all in flux, as things were in the middle ages. Land was the property of kings and lords, and they decided what to do with it. There was no national identity there - depending when exactly you talk about.

That the North has a cultural identity somewhat different from the rest - as does Dorne and the Iron Islands - is clear, but there are no such differences between the Riverlands and the Vale or the Westerlands and the Reach. Those lands are pretty much their noble houses, and nothing else. The people do not exist. And without a people, you do not have a nation.

6 hours ago, Aldarion said:

As for Lord Bolton, securing his title as Warden of the North required marriage of Ramsay Bolton to Jeyne Poole who was disguised (successfully) as Arya Stark. This clearly shows that even if Iron Throne did try to replace Lord Paramount, it would never work unless northern lords accepted it.

It didn't require that, Roose was made Warden of the North regardless whether his son would marry 'Arya'. That whole thing was a boon for Roose to give him more legitimacy, not something the Iron Throne thought he had to do to please them.

6 hours ago, Aldarion said:

It might work, assuming there are other factors working in its favour. But point is, kings of Westeros are nowhere close to absolute monarchs, and may actually be less powerful than kings of Hungary were during Middle Ages (though they are at least more powerful than medieval kings of France, I'd say). They cannot simply replace major lords at will as if they were Byzantine Emperors. And if they were like Byzantine Emperors, they would be able to afford professional standing army in Crownlands at least (and we wouldn't have feudalism).

Oh, but in any kingdom being close to the king is the deciding factor. It is what gives you privileges, power, wealth, titles, and all that. It doesn't have to be an absolute monarchy to be this way.

It is a paradox, but as a class the lords of the Seven Kingdoms have no power at all. There is no Parliament, no magna carta, no legal limits nor lordly share in the government of the Realm. The king names his council himself, with no great lord having a right to be considered for a seat, etc.

6 hours ago, Aldarion said:

That depends on how many bannermen Robert had. Three might or might not be a significant number.

He has more, but they didn't really seem to do anything during the Rebellion, considering Robert was pretty much without his own troops after Ashford - and he never had the time to call his banners properly, anyway.

6 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Stannis didn't just "get a bloody nose", he got shattered. Bannermen follow a liege lord because liege lord provides protection. If he cannot protect them, they will seek one who can - which in that case was Iron Throne, at least for mainland houses. Bannermen from Dragonstone proper did not abandon Stannis. Either way, it has nothing to do with any ideal of loyalty to the Iron Throne versus loyalty to the liege lord.

The impression one gets is that Stannis actually strongarmed the Narrow Sea lords to attend him in his foolish campaign by means of him having stolen the royal fleet and hiring sellsails. They had no way to defend themselves against Stannis so they had to go along with his plans. None of those men are known for their loyalty to House Baratheon, much less Stannis personally.

6 hours ago, Aldarion said:

If that is true, Robert's Rebellion should never have worked.

Not sure what you responding to there?

6 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Which is a typical feudal system, and again has nothing to do with loyalty to the Iron Throne. Yes, somebody who decides to betray Starks may seek protection of the IT if possible - but just loyalty to the Iron Throne will not cause such desertion if not supported by other causes.

In relation to the Starks, you have to view things in perspective there. The Iron Throne bloodied them two times in a very ugly way by the time of Robb's proclamation to king. This is a grievance that is felt strongly in the North - and I'm not saying the Arryns and Lannisters couldn't rely on a similar outrage in a comparable situation - in fact, I expect Cersei to play on such feelings in her leal Westermen the way Maria Theresia played the Hungarians in her wars with Prussia - but the point is that a shrewd king could certainly prop up an ambitious vassal of a great lord to replace him. That wouldn't be that difficult.

And in turn the central monarchy is weakened by Robert's usurpation. The Starks, like the Greyjoys, never originally swore an oath of fealty to some stag king. It is Robert's and Ned's friendship that keeps things together ... if they had not been friends Ned could have made himself king the same way Robb did.

6 hours ago, Aldarion said:

More powerful in general, or more powerful at the court? These are two very different things. And "cut out off the government of the Realm" means little when de facto government is in the hands of great houses to begin with. Again, if what you are saying were true, Robert's Rebellion would have been impossible, or at least will not have happened the way it did. But it did, the way it did, and that means that great houses hold overall rule of their territories even without connection to (or approval of) the Iron Throne.

It is quite clear that nobody gives a damn that the Starks rule the North. I mean, you read FaB, nobody gives two cents about the North, for instance. And that has nothing to do with the dragons - the North is so irrelevant that Paxter and Mace don't care whether it remains in the Realm or not. They don't think it is worth enough to fight over. In fact, they may be right, considering how kings wasted the food and winter provisions of the people in the south on starving Northmen in the past.

The idea that any de facto government is in the hands of the great houses doesn't really is backed up by the text. We don't even know that they know more about what's going on their lands than the king? The Starks and Lannisters, etc. do not have a master of whisperers, do they?

Robert's Rebellion worked because a lot of people were willing to go to war against a mad monarch. But where is it stated that it was the authority of their lords who made them do that? It could be ... or they agreed, for instance, with Jon's assessment that the Mad King was mad and had to go.

And again - Robert himself is a royal guy himself. He has Targaryen blood, and unlike Daemon Blackfyre he had the luck or the ability to draw some great lords - and whatever weight they had over their bannermen - to his side.

Those other rebellions and stuff show us how various lords can ignore their liege lords and go to war for the pretender they believe in defiance of whatever their liege lords do.

[Aldarion]

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That just isn't nationalistic speech. It is the speech of an aristocrat who wants to replace one royal house with another.

 

Doesn't matter. Fact that he is focusing on those things means that there is some sort of national consciousness. Now, we do not know whether it is just ethnic consciousness (they know they are the same people) or 19th century nationalism (so ethnic consciousness coupled with statehood) - former is more likely, but fact that he is talking about kings and rulership points to latter. And while I am not certain about other countries, it was aristocracy that was the carrier of statehood, sovereignity and nationalism in 19th century Croatia.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Tyranny is just a word in this world. We have no clear image what a king is allowed and not allowed to do, and what people consider tyrannical and what they view as okay.

I mean, check Aerys II - nobody of those pompous asses who later turned against the Targaryens shed a tear of those Hollards and Darklyns that were butchered, or did they? Tyranny seems to come down to a mad guy killing the wrong person and then making some mistakes along the line (something mad guys are prone to do).

There is nothing inherently wrong as per the legal framework of the society they live in with kings eradicating entire noble houses. In fact, there are quite a few of precedents for this working rather well.

That would mean that there is no class consciousness in Westeros. Yet Aegon V(?) trying to make reforms and then Tywin rolling them back wholesale suggest that there is.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The overall point I have is that it makes no sense to assume the Westerosi military is particularly well-trained and competent for proper warfare, since that rarely happens. Even their better trained lords and knights are amateurs playing at war because they never go to war. That is a problem of the author's ridiculous conception of a society where the longest wars seem to last two years (First Dornish War excluded, which effectively only was a proper war in the first year, anyway) and which doesn't have (any) competent foreign enemies or adversaries.

Compared to the real world, Westeros is a medieval paradise where are effectively no wars. Which means it makes sense to assume their warriors know how to fight wars. How could they?

Yet we do see that they know how to fight. They know the drill, they know tactics, and they do not break as soon as somebody farts in their general direction (or, indeed, in situations much worse than that). Compared to Essosi armies we have seen so far, Westerosi armies are a picture of competence and professionalism - yet it is Essos which has far more war.

So whether it makes sense or not, fact remains that Westerosi armies Martin has portrayed so far are predominantly highly skilled, highly disciplined forces.

As for how it would be logically possible, I do not know. In a normal feudal society, it would be in interest of every lord to maintain his forces in good shape even in peacetime, because there is always a risk of rebellion, or a conflict with neighbouring lord, or a band of marauders. Yet you say that these things do not happen in Westeros, which for a feudal society does not make sense - which would imply that Westeros is actually more centralized than normal feudal society, yet we do not see anything that would either facilitate increased centralization, or allow said centralization to actually secure peace (such as royal army).

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

You mean this was a problem for Lord Tytos, right, a man whose misrule nearly destroyed the Westerlands? Lord Tywin had never problems with outlaws.

 

Right.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Any non-full time soldier is an amateur by my assessment, because any kind of soldier - like, a landed knight, say - who spends half or more his time on his lands and only goes to war when called upon by a lord ... wouldn't do that only once or twice in his lifetime, if at all.

 

OK, so you don't understand how part-time soldiers work...

When soldier is part-time, it does not mean that he does not practice at all. It means that he has peacetime job - be it managing an estate, or working somewhere (as a blacksmith, trader, etc.) in addition to his soldiering duties. So he would not be under arms during peace, but would be required to practice with his weapons, and turn up for unit drills every once in a while, as well as a regular inspection.

It is not dissimilar to US National Guard:

https://www.nationalguard.mil/About-the-Guard/Army-National-Guard/About-Us/Training/

Difference between a landed knight and a member of a feudal levy is that knight is rich - filthy so. As a result, knight can afford to practice every day, every moment of the day - or at least during time when he is not managing his estate. Household knights would not have duties connected to their estate as they live on somebody else's estate, and thus can afford to spend all their time practicing. Thus they are full-time professionals, and would be equivalent of Regular Army (to use example of modern US military). Same goes for household guard in general.

Feudal levy is a different thing. These are peasants. What happens here is that lord selects one man from a certain number of families and assigns him a task - as a pikeman, crossbowman, longbowman, light cavalryman etc. This man is then equipped and supported by the families in their group, or rather, by the lord using resources of said group of families. He still has normal duties - tending to the field etc. - but he also has duty to practice with his weapon and attend group training / drills, so that he can fight in an army. As a result, they have two parallel jobs, but between the two, it is their job as a soldier that is more important- They are thus part-time professionals, and would be equivalent to Army Reserve or National Guard.

Cities also maintain their city guard. These depend on city in question, and could be full-time professionals, part-time professionals, mercenaries, peasants or anything in-between, depending on how city in question runs things. They are thus equivalent to State Defense Force.

Lastly, you have people who are simply picked off the fields and told to "help carry this stuff or else". That is the peasant levy. But they are not core of the army, and most of the time will not even fight - they are there to help with support stuff, tending horses, carrying things, cutting down trees for firewood or siege works... everything and anything that does not actually require fully trained soldiers. But for the same reason, they would actually be the most numerous part of the army: as many as 4/5 of the army might be those peasant levies. They would not however be counted under combat strength, and would not be seen in battles.

15 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Any noblemen or soldier who owns an estate, who has land he does return to after a campaign, isn't a professional soldier. And it is those men a lord calls in when he calls the banners. Mind you, he also calls in the retinue of such lords, say, if the Starks call in their banner, not only toothless Lord Glover shows up, but also some of Lord Glover's sworn men, the men-at-arms and garrison he always has under arms.

 

I'm quite certain Byzantine thematic troops would be surprised to learn that they were not professional soldiers. For context, these were troops who were originally members of ancient Roman field armies, which were withdrawn to Anatolia after oriental provinces were lost to Muslims. In fact, thema originally meant army, and was used only to refer to the army itself; later however it also came to refer to each group of provinces a certain army was quartered, and later yet that division was formalized with themes becoming new provinces. So you have direct developmental lineage from ancient Roman field armies to Byzantine themes. Thematic troops are often referred to as militias, but they were in fact professional troops of a regular army, not ad-hoc formations created by civilians, as name "militia" implies.

And most of troops in feudal societies were the same. They were trained, equipped, and paid to go on a campaign. They had regular (if not very frequent) drill, specialized equipment, and were supported by a whole group of families. You had a certain group of people in a village (one per X houses) that were equipped and trained to go to war - but once equipped and trained, it would always be the same people who would be called out on campaign, expected to drill, to train etc. That is what feudal levy is - not peasants with pitchforks, and definitely not undertrained village idiots.

15 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

And then, combined with things like Lord Sunderland not being able to afford to make all his seven sons knights, means that we cannot really expect most petty lords and landed knights to provide their liege lords with many professional men-at-arms. The men they would bring would be predominantly peasant levies, men who, for some unrealistic and weird reason having nothing to do with real world scenarios, are apparently supposed to follow their lords into war even although they are not qualified for that.

The bulk of the competent men in any army would be lords and highborn knights and their sons, close kin, and their retinues - men like the Lannisters and Tyrells and Hightowers would be able finance hundreds or thousands of those, if you go down the entire family tree -, followed by household knights and sworn swords and their retinues (never forget the squires there). After that would come those petty lords and landed and their sons/grandsons who kept themselves in good shape, and whatever meager professional retinue they would have (could vary considerably if you consider that the Fossoways and Templetons and the likes of the Osgreys are landed knights).

And again, what we actually see in the series is that majority of the army consists of trained soldiers: pikemen, crossbowmen etc. These are levies, yes, but they are feudal levies. This is not levee en masse such as Hungarian Generalis Exercitus, which was a peasant levy - and suffered of all shortcomings of such. 

Peasant levies are a thing in Westeros, true. But they only provide minority of the army, and we do in fact have a lot of evidence that peasants are not - as a rule - expected to fight. Donald Noye states that only 1/20 of peasants own swords. This is how Tyrion describes Tywin's army: His uncle would lead the center. Ser Kevan had raised his standards above the kingsroad. Quivers hanging from their belts, the foot archers arrayed themselves into three long lines, to east and west of the road, and stood calmly stringing their bows. Between them, pikemen formed squares; behind were rank on rank of men-at-arms with spear and sword and axe. These are all professional troops. Tywin does employ peasants and barbarians in that particular battle, but they only form a minority of the army - and not only that, but they are explicitly positioned as a bait, expected to break. Even infantry of the North - the poorest region of Westeros - is described as “pikes and archers and great masses of men at arms on foot”. None of these three groups can be a peasant levy: untrained peasants cannot be pikemen - they would not know how to march in lockstep, how to wheel around, nor would they have the morale to withstand cavalry charge. They would be too poor to afford crossbows, and unable to afford time required for drill with longbow. And of course, full plate armour and weapons of a dismounted man-at-arms would be completely beyond their financial means. Yes, they may be socially peasants - but they are not, as term "peasant levy" would imply, untrained troops.

The bulk of fully professional soldiers in the army would be lords and highborn knights and their retinues, yes. They would also form the bulk of cavalry. But the bulk of the army would still be formed of men whose job is fighting. In other terms, professional troops, even if "only" part-time professionals. You can say that it "doesn't make sense", that "Westeros is too peaceful": but that is what we see: Westerosi armies are predominantly professional in nature.

15 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That camp followers routine is pretty old. Since Meribald doesn't view himself as a camp followed, I summarily dismiss that idea. Even more so since we still have George to mention male camp followers - up to this point those people seem to be predominantly whores in his work.

The idea that early modern day times in a highly specialized and professional war industry (Thirty Years' War stuff) can have any reflection in Martinworld also makes no sense - there wars are usually very short and there is no war industry to speak of.

I'm aware that not all people in an army would be soldiers - but considering we usually are given the number of the soldiers, not the people hanging out in an army - that clearly isn't relevant to the issue.

Although I've gone on record suggesting that the low military numbers for the Dance can perhaps be explained by the fact that our historians go by actual professional fighters, counting only knights and professional archers and men-at-arms, and not counting peasant rabble at all. I also point out that Renly's army might have been much smallers than his exaggerations implied, especially those approximations based on the number of camp fires - who would be the fires of both soldiers and spectators.

Medieval or indeed any pre-modern army cannot function without camp followers. Even if they are not mentioned in histories, they are there. And Meribald quite clearly is a camp follower; whatever delusions of grandeur he may have, that fact is as clear as a day.

I brought up Thirty Years' War stuff specifically to show that even early modern professional armies had camp followers. The idea that, somehow, quasi-medieval armies would be able to get by without masses of camp followers is, put bluntly, foolishness. They are there, even if we do not always see them. They have to be.

We are given numbers of soldiers because that is what is interesting. Histories too usually only mentioned numbers of soldiers: see any description of medieval battles. Only soldiers are mentioned, yet every premodern army also had a tail of civilians and noncombatants in general: smiths, healers, grooms (for horses, not for weddings)... and that is just stuff directly related to combat needs. There would also be peddlers, whores and others hoping to profit off the army. As I mentioned, those would typically heavily outnumber soldiers.

That is what makes up the "peasant rabble" on campaign. But soldiers themselves are not peasant rabble, and peasant rabble are not soldiers.

16 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That camp followers routine is pretty old. Since Meribald doesn't view himself as a camp followed, I summarily dismiss that idea. Even more so since we still have George to mention male camp followers - up to this point those people seem to be predominantly whores in his work.

The idea that early modern day times in a highly specialized and professional war industry (Thirty Years' War stuff) can have any reflection in Martinworld also makes no sense - there wars are usually very short and there is no war industry to speak of.

I'm aware that not all people in an army would be soldiers - but considering we usually are given the number of the soldiers, not the people hanging out in an army - that clearly isn't relevant to the issue.

Although I've gone on record suggesting that the low military numbers for the Dance can perhaps be explained by the fact that our historians go by actual professional fighters, counting only knights and professional archers and men-at-arms, and not counting peasant rabble at all. I also point out that Renly's army might have been much smallers than his exaggerations implied, especially those approximations based on the number of camp fires - who would be the fires of both soldiers and spectators.

There are Lords Paramount. And "viceroy" is merely rough translation for a title of "ban" - who may or may not be directly under the king (there was also title of Herzeg, who may be superior to or at same level as "ban"... it's complicated). But originally, during independent Kingdom of Croatia, ban was merely a governor of Lika, Gacka and Krbava. Later, after Croatia entered personal union with Hungary, ban was ruler of Kingdom of Croatia - which, while subordinated to King of Hungary, was still a separate kingdom, not merely a province.

Point is, kingdom can be a kingdom even if it shares a king with one (or more) other kingdoms. Meaning that your assertion that "Those seven kingdoms are no longer kingdoms. If they were, there would still be seven kings." is wrong. They are in personal union, for sure; but do we know how close that union really is? There is no reason to assume that they are mere provinces.

16 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

They were kingdoms alright, back in the day, not not nation-states in a modern sense. They were feudal states, meaning the important legal framework of organization was what noble houses controlled what land and owed allegiance to who, not where some kind of state borderline was. That was all in flux, as things were in the middle ages. Land was the property of kings and lords, and they decided what to do with it. There was no national identity there - depending when exactly you talk about.

That the North has a cultural identity somewhat different from the rest - as does Dorne and the Iron Islands - is clear, but there are no such differences between the Riverlands and the Vale or the Westerlands and the Reach. Those lands are pretty much their noble houses, and nothing else. The people do not exist. And without a people, you do not have a nation.

Without people, you can still have a state or a kingdom.

16 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

They were kingdoms alright, back in the day, not not nation-states in a modern sense. They were feudal states, meaning the important legal framework of organization was what noble houses controlled what land and owed allegiance to who, not where some kind of state borderline was. That was all in flux, as things were in the middle ages. Land was the property of kings and lords, and they decided what to do with it. There was no national identity there - depending when exactly you talk about.

That the North has a cultural identity somewhat different from the rest - as does Dorne and the Iron Islands - is clear, but there are no such differences between the Riverlands and the Vale or the Westerlands and the Reach. Those lands are pretty much their noble houses, and nothing else. The people do not exist. And without a people, you do not have a nation.

Roose was given an empty title. If Iron Throne could just that easily make or unmake wardens or Lords Paramount, and that could be that easily accepted by people in the kingdom, there would be no need for "Arya".

That is not saying that Lord Paramount cannot be replaced - but that actually depends more on support from other lords than on opinions of a king. When LP does not enjoy support of his bannermen, he is simply ignored, regardless of what his "official credentials" are.

16 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, but in any kingdom being close to the king is the deciding factor. It is what gives you privileges, power, wealth, titles, and all that. It doesn't have to be an absolute monarchy to be this way.

It is a paradox, but as a class the lords of the Seven Kingdoms have no power at all. There is no Parliament, no magna carta, no legal limits nor lordly share in the government of the Realm. The king names his council himself, with no great lord having a right to be considered for a seat, etc.

...except for the fact that each Lord Paramount rules his kingdom basically as he sees fit, and as long as he doesn't step out of the line, he will not have trouble. And no, privileges, power, wealth and titles have nothing to do with being close to the king. Starks were Lords Paramount of the North even when they were not in good relations with the king, Tywin remained Lord Paramount of Westerlands even when Aerys was pissed at him. And Lords do have extensive powers: they create nobles (and minor lords) within their own kingdoms, they grant holdings... taxes are paid to lords, and then those lords pay taxes to king. Yes, we have mostly references to Crown collecting the taxes, but that is likely because those would be monetary taxes, where lords would be able to accept taxes in kind. In fact:

<<"A ruin, a ridge, and a few hovels? Come, my lord. You must suffer for your treason. He will want one of the mills, at least." Mills were a valuable source of tax. The lord received a tenth of all the grain they ground.>>

<<The lords had heard o' Harren's end. Being no fools, they laid their swords at her feet. The queen took them as her own men, and said they'd owe no fealty to Maidenpool, Crab Isle, or Duskendale. Don't stop them bloody Celtigars from sending men to t' eastern shore to collect his taxes.>>

The first quote shows typical taxation in kind that feudal lords would carry out in Middle Ages. So while kings may receive most of taxes in coin, that does not mean that they receive majority of taxes in general.

And no, "in any kingdom being close to the king" is not the deciding factor. In a feudal kingdom, power comes from land, and there were many examples of nobles opposing kings - oftentimes successfully. King was not a source of power and influence - or, at the very least, not the only source of power and influence, though he could act as one of sources if he was powerful enough. This is not Byzantine Empire. How can we even begin to discuss what situation is in Westeros when you don't even understand how relations of power worked in historical kingdoms?

16 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The impression one gets is that Stannis actually strongarmed the Narrow Sea lords to attend him in his foolish campaign by means of him having stolen the royal fleet and hiring sellsails. They had no way to defend themselves against Stannis so they had to go along with his plans. None of those men are known for their loyalty to House Baratheon, much less Stannis personally.

 

That is definitely a possibility. But either case, it does not indicate that crown may have more influence on bannermen than their direct liege lord - just that Stannis may not have been their legal liege lord to begin with.

16 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, but in any kingdom being close to the king is the deciding factor. It is what gives you privileges, power, wealth, titles, and all that. It doesn't have to be an absolute monarchy to be this way.

It is a paradox, but as a class the lords of the Seven Kingdoms have no power at all. There is no Parliament, no magna carta, no legal limits nor lordly share in the government of the Realm. The king names his council himself, with no great lord having a right to be considered for a seat, etc.

To your assertion that nobility of Westeros is by default more loyal to the king than to their liege lord.

16 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

In relation to the Starks, you have to view things in perspective there. The Iron Throne bloodied them two times in a very ugly way by the time of Robb's proclamation to king. This is a grievance that is felt strongly in the North - and I'm not saying the Arryns and Lannisters couldn't rely on a similar outrage in a comparable situation - in fact, I expect Cersei to play on such feelings in her leal Westermen the way Maria Theresia played the Hungarians in her wars with Prussia - but the point is that a shrewd king could certainly prop up an ambitious vassal of a great lord to replace him. That wouldn't be that difficult.

And in turn the central monarchy is weakened by Robert's usurpation. The Starks, like the Greyjoys, never originally swore an oath of fealty to some stag king. It is Robert's and Ned's friendship that keeps things together ... if they had not been friends Ned could have made himself king the same way Robb did.

Yes, king definitely could prop up an ambitious vassal. But that is, if anything, just more evidence that Westeros is a feudal monarchy rather than a modern centralized monarchy, or even just one where significant portions of kingdom owe direct fealty to the Iron Throne (as royal free cities in e.g. Hungary would, though these were actually a minority).

16 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

It is quite clear that nobody gives a damn that the Starks rule the North. I mean, you read FaB, nobody gives two cents about the North, for instance. And that has nothing to do with the dragons - the North is so irrelevant that Paxter and Mace don't care whether it remains in the Realm or not. They don't think it is worth enough to fight over. In fact, they may be right, considering how kings wasted the food and winter provisions of the people in the south on starving Northmen in the past.

The idea that any de facto government is in the hands of the great houses doesn't really is backed up by the text. We don't even know that they know more about what's going on their lands than the king? The Starks and Lannisters, etc. do not have a master of whisperers, do they?

Actually, your first paragraph serves more to support idea that lords paramount are primary rulers of their territories, rather than being mere royal officials akin to Byzantine strategoi.

And they definitely know more about what is going on in their lands than the king. They are closer to the ground, so chances are they don't need master of whisperers.

16 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Robert's Rebellion worked because a lot of people were willing to go to war against a mad monarch. But where is it stated that it was the authority of their lords who made them do that? It could be ... or they agreed, for instance, with Jon's assessment that the Mad King was mad and had to go.

And again - Robert himself is a royal guy himself. He has Targaryen blood, and unlike Daemon Blackfyre he had the luck or the ability to draw some great lords - and whatever weight they had over their bannermen - to his side.

Those other rebellions and stuff show us how various lords can ignore their liege lords and go to war for the pretender they believe in defiance of whatever their liege lords do.

And all of that is perfectly in line with how medieval feudal monarchies functioned. So again, I really do not understand where your idea that Westeros is somehow highly centralized monarchy comes from.

[frenin]

2 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Doesn't matter. Fact that he is focusing on those things means that there is some sort of national consciousness. Now, we do not know whether it is just ethnic consciousness (they know they are the same people) or 19th century nationalism (so ethnic consciousness coupled with statehood) - former is more likely, but fact that he is talking about kings and rulership points to latter. And while I am not certain about other countries, it was aristocracy that was the carrier of statehood, sovereignity and nationalism in 19th century Croatia.

The idea that nationalism can only be 19th ish is just absurd, the hundred years war saw a rise in nationalism already, the north is nationalistic and Greatjon's speech is as nationalistic is William Wallace's is.

 

 

On 8/15/2020 at 6:49 PM, Lord Varys said:

The illusion people seem to have a lot is this idea that the great houses have a greater hold over their bannermen than the king has over them ... instead it seems that the great houses only can be pretty sure their bannermen stand with them if they stand with the king.

Doubtful, the Stormlords stood with Renly and then with Stannis, most of the Reach lords stood with Mace,  the North at whole stood with Robb and Ned, most of the Stormlands stood with Robert, most of the Stormlands stood with Borros,  ditto with the Ironborn and the Martell, in the Dance the only reason given for the Westerlands support for the green is that Jason Lannister is Tyland's brother and he stood with Aegon.

Bar few special cases  were the great lords heed at, most of their bannermen would follow.

 

 

On 8/15/2020 at 6:49 PM, Lord Varys said:

When Joffrey took the Riverlands from the Tullys and gave them to House Baelish? When various Lords of Harrenhal are attainted and replaced? When Aegon the Conqueror creates new great houses for the Reach, the Iron Islands, and the Riverlands?

You have differentiate here between the destruction of a house and the merely replacing - one could see a king taking Highgarden from the Tyrells to give it, say, to the Florents, without him having to kill all the Tyrells.

Legally?? Ofc,  in practice?? The king has to fight them.

The Kings were either fighting this lords (Joffrey)  were about to (Lord's of Harrenhall) or had already defeated this lords (Tyrells, Greyjoy).

The Lothstons, the Gardeners, the Strongs,  the Hoares and the Qoheryes were either destroyed or died out.

If a king wants to effectively replace with another he has to step in.

 

20 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

When Joffrey took the Riverlands from the Tullys and gave them to House Baelish? When various Lords of Harrenhal are attainted and replaced? When Aegon the Conqueror creates new great houses for the Reach, the Iron Islands, and the Riverlands?

You have differentiate here between the destruction of a house and the merely replacing - one could see a king taking Highgarden from the Tyrells to give it, say, to the Florents, without him having to kill all the Tyrells.

Because Tywin himself wasn't intending him to keep that title for long, Tyrion was the one who would inherit the North and it was mandatory for him to marry Sansa and have Ned Stark's grandson.

 

 

On 8/16/2020 at 3:45 PM, Aldarion said:

No, they didn't. Or at least there is no proof they did. When Croatia joined Hungary in a personal union, it remained a sovereign kingdom - we merely had a common ruler with Hungary, but still kept our laws, Parliament etc. Yet - though perhaps not immediately - seat of Croatian government shifted from coastal cities (kings of Croatia usually took residence in Klis, Knin, Nin and Biograd na Moru, though there was no capital city as such) to Zagreb, where it remained until 1918. and afterwards as a matter of tradition. Likewise, viceroy could be named by King of Hungary, though king usually required or at least requested a say-so of Croatian Parliament.

They aren't seven kingdoms, Semi Kingdoms maybe?? In Spain that happened too,  the dynastic union between the Catolonia and Aragon, forming the Crown of Aragon, and later the dynastic union between Aragon and Castille had such arrangement,  the Seven Kingdoms are "truly" one after Jaeharys's reign.

During Aegon 1 reign, there were truly 7 Kingdoms, each one with a different set of laws, etc. Jaeharys created one law and more or less one country.

There is no noticeable difference between the kingdoms that lay between the marches and the Neck.

The North, the Iron Islands are Dorne have always been kind of aloof but overall they accepted their sovereign rule and both the North and the Iron Islands follow the same laws.

 

 

21 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The impression one gets is that Stannis actually strongarmed the Narrow Sea lords to attend him in his foolish campaign by means of him having stolen the royal fleet and hiring sellsails. They had no way to defend themselves against Stannis so they had to go along with his plans. None of those men are known for their loyalty to House Baratheon, much less Stannis personally.

They would've defected then, they didn't even after they saw Renly's army and then it would've been as easy as turning the cloak, it wasn't until Stannis had virtually lost the war, that some of them defected him. 

 

 

 

21 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

No, they didn't. Or at least there is no proof they did. When Croatia joined Hungary in a personal union, it remained a sovereign kingdom - we merely had a common ruler with Hungary, but still kept our laws, Parliament etc. Yet - though perhaps not immediately - seat of Croatian government shifted from coastal cities (kings of Croatia usually took residence in Klis, Knin, Nin and Biograd na Moru, though there was no capital city as such) to Zagreb, where it remained until 1918. and afterwards as a matter of tradition. Likewise, viceroy could be named by King of Hungary, though king usually required or at least requested a say-so of Croatian Parliament.

They did once Robert got the throne.

Oaths tend to binding, yet if a King oversteps, his vassals break their oaths and rebel or crown themselves. Friendship didn't stop Lyonel Baratheon from crowning himself when he felt insulted by the crown.

 

 

21 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

It is quite clear that nobody gives a damn that the Starks rule the North. I mean, you read FaB, nobody gives two cents about the North, for instance. And that has nothing to do with the dragons - the North is so irrelevant that Paxter and Mace don't care whether it remains in the Realm or not. They don't think it is worth enough to fight over. In fact, they may be right, considering how kings wasted the food and winter provisions of the people in the south on starving Northmen in the past.

Quite literally the only ones that are idiots enough to not care about the North are, surprisingly enough,  idiots like Mace Tyrell.

Tywin and Kevan care about what happens to the North and the Stark's claim,  so does Petyr, so does Mace's mother, so does Oberyn Martell and so does Lysa.

Jaeharys himself cared about the North enough while he for example never cared about the Iron Islands and he and his wife personally strived to gain the love of the Northmen and the Starks.

The idea that the North is irrelevant because Mace Tyrell believes so, given its size, population and the fact that it has one of Westeros's five cities is astonishing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lord Varys]

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Doesn't matter. Fact that he is focusing on those things means that there is some sort of national consciousness. Now, we do not know whether it is just ethnic consciousness (they know they are the same people) or 19th century nationalism (so ethnic consciousness coupled with statehood) - former is more likely, but fact that he is talking about kings and rulership points to latter. And while I am not certain about other countries, it was aristocracy that was the carrier of statehood, sovereignity and nationalism in 19th century Croatia.

It means that there is some sort of aristocratic regional chauvinism, perhaps, not nationalism. Westeros doesn't even reached the level where a king rules over a land, not a people. The old titles had kings living in certain regions, for the most part, 'the King in the North', not the King of the North as if the North were a state, the 'Storm King', as if storms were a place, the 'King of the Rock' as if the Rock were all the Lannisters ruled over, etc.

But even the King on the Iron Throne only claims rule over three distinct peoples - the Andals, the First Men, and the Rhoynar. That is like the old medieval concept of 'the King of the English' vs. 'the King of England' - with the latter actually indicating that there was a proper state with borders and an 'identity', etc.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

That would mean that there is no class consciousness in Westeros. Yet Aegon V(?) trying to make reforms and then Tywin rolling them back wholesale suggest that there is.

Nope, that just suggests that various lords weren't happy when there was a king who tried to take away rights and privileges they had. But there was no collective lordly resistance to those reforms, nor were the powers of the monarchy curtailed in any way. The reforms may have failed, but so what? The power of the monarchy remained the same.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Yet we do see that they know how to fight. They know the drill, they know tactics, and they do not break as soon as somebody farts in their general direction (or, indeed, in situations much worse than that). Compared to Essosi armies we have seen so far, Westerosi armies are a picture of competence and professionalism - yet it is Essos which has far more war.

I'm not comparing anything to Essos here ... but I'd like you to give us textual evidence for there being any such drills. There isn't any.

 

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Right.

OK, so you don't understand how part-time soldiers work...

When soldier is part-time, it does not mean that he does not practice at all. It means that he has peacetime job - be it managing an estate, or working somewhere (as a blacksmith, trader, etc.) in addition to his soldiering duties. So he would not be under arms during peace, but would be required to practice with his weapons, and turn up for unit drills every once in a while, as well as a regular inspection.

It is not dissimilar to US National Guard:

https://www.nationalguard.mil/About-the-Guard/Army-National-Guard/About-Us/Training/

I know all that - the problem is: There is no indication that any such classes do exist in Westeros. There are no soldier peasants in Westeros that we hear of, no men who are part-time fighters. There are only professional soldiers and amateurs. There is no middle ground. We don't hear about people on country estates who practice at archery to be able to help their lord in war times. Instead, we hear about people being drafted for war ... and about people in permanent service.

There is no talk about peace-time soldiering, about collective drilling, of, say, one of those four Wardens marshalling an army practice how they could work together as a big army if the need ever arose, etc.

The only places where people actually regularly train at arms are castles - which are used completely differently in Westeros than they were in the real world. In the real world castles were military forts, places built to control an enemy population, especially when you think of all those castles the Normans built in England or the English later in Wales, etc. In Germany they were used to control access to rivers, to collect taxes and tolls, etc.

In Westeros castles are basically places where people live in peace time as well as in war. It is where culture happens, it is where people live and learn and work. They are what towns are in the real world.

In that sense, all professional solciers in Westeros would come from castles or keeps, not from other places.

George take on knighthood also completely clashes with real world scenarios - in the real world knights had to have land and incomes to be able to be able to be knights, whereas in Westeros a lot knights serve other noblemen as household knights, being completely landless (and thus without real income in a feudal world) yet apparently are paid and clothed and fed by their noble masters (something no real noblemen would ever do, especially not in a feudal setting).

In the real world, you had landowners who were holding land as part of a feudal deal which then meant they had the resources and the duty to go to war if their lord called them ... but it is quite clear that the most of the commoners in a Westerosi army are not landowners of any kind who, as part of a feudal deal, have to answer the call of their lords.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Difference between a landed knight and a member of a feudal levy is that knight is rich - filthy so. As a result, knight can afford to practice every day, every moment of the day - or at least during time when he is not managing his estate. Household knights would not have duties connected to their estate as they live on somebody else's estate, and thus can afford to spend all their time practicing. Thus they are full-time professionals, and would be equivalent of Regular Army (to use example of modern US military). Same goes for household guard in general.

Oh, well, whether a knight actually has the time to practice everyday is something we don't know. Especially if he actually holds lands and has to manage an estate. Last time I looked Eddard Stark actually never trained at arms in the books I read. Neither does Tywin Lannister, Kevan Lannister, Robert Baratheon, Stannis Baratheon, and a number of others.

But I certainly do agree that those people are actual professionals. And depending how any given army is described they might actually make a pretty large portion of said army.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Feudal levy is a different thing. These are peasants. What happens here is that lord selects one man from a certain number of families and assigns him a task - as a pikeman, crossbowman, longbowman, light cavalryman etc. This man is then equipped and supported by the families in their group, or rather, by the lord using resources of said group of families. He still has normal duties - tending to the field etc. - but he also has duty to practice with his weapon and attend group training / drills, so that he can fight in an army. As a result, they have two parallel jobs, but between the two, it is their job as a soldier that is more important- They are thus part-time professionals, and would be equivalent to Army Reserve or National Guard.

It would be good or interesting if this was what the author had laid out for us ... but it isn't, as far as I can see. I mean, it would have been simple to do this, mention in passing that from place X showed up the crossbowmen who had been given farms there by Lord Y a hundred years ago, and how that decision had paid off, or something along those lines.

Bottom line is, we have no evidence that such a system is in place. Instead, we have reason to believe that the only places where actually training at arms takes place are castles.

And as I laid out - from castles would come commoners who are professional archers, crossbowmen, pikemen, whatever you want.

It is you who wants to believe they have to have other jobs besides that.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Cities also maintain their city guard. These depend on city in question, and could be full-time professionals, part-time professionals, mercenaries, peasants or anything in-between, depending on how city in question runs things. They are thus equivalent to State Defense Force.

Serving with the City Watch is a full time job. Dunk thinks joining them in Lannisport or KL if he were to fail as knight is a career choice, not to mention that we know from ACoK that the City Watch in KL is hired and paid in coin by the Crown.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Lastly, you have people who are simply picked off the fields and told to "help carry this stuff or else". That is the peasant levy. But they are not core of the army, and most of the time will not even fight - they are there to help with support stuff, tending horses, carrying things, cutting down trees for firewood or siege works... everything and anything that does not actually require fully trained soldiers. But for the same reason, they would actually be the most numerous part of the army: as many as 4/5 of the army might be those peasant levies. They would not however be counted under combat strength, and would not be seen in battles.

It actually seems that for that kind of thing you do have servants of their own. Instead, it is quite clear that drafted commoners are not men who received (a lot of) training before.

This doesn't apply to men living at castles, of course, but for those you fetch from the villages.

You see how this goes in TSS - Lady Rohanne has a contingent of professional soldiers in her castle, just as Ser Eustace has his two sworn swords. If they were going to a proper war then the only professional men Eustace could bring were Bennis and Dunk, whereas Lady Rohanne could bring the men from her castle - knights, squires, men-at-arms, archers (although it would be her decision how many she would leave behind to defend the castle). In addition, both parties could draft commoners, which would have the known Osgrey result whereas Lady Rohanne could likely call on more peasants, meaning she would be able to bring more men. In addition, Lady Rohanne, being an actual lord, could also call on the help of whatever landed vassals she has (who then in turn would bring whatever professional men they have, in addition to whatever peasants they draft).

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

I'm quite certain Byzantine thematic troops would be surprised to learn that they were not professional soldiers. For context, these were troops who were originally members of ancient Roman field armies, which were withdrawn to Anatolia after oriental provinces were lost to Muslims. In fact, thema originally meant army, and was used only to refer to the army itself; later however it also came to refer to each group of provinces a certain army was quartered, and later yet that division was formalized with themes becoming new provinces. So you have direct developmental lineage from ancient Roman field armies to Byzantine themes. Thematic troops are often referred to as militias, but they were in fact professional troops of a regular army, not ad-hoc formations created by civilians, as name "militia" implies.

Oh, man, just let Byzantium out of all that. They were true professional. They were an actual state with a functioning and effective military system - which they needed to expand and, especially, defend their territory. Westeros isn't the Byzantine Empire and most definitely has nothing in common with that at all. There are no parallels there.

I'd like to see sich parallels, but they just aren't there.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

And most of troops in feudal societies were the same. They were trained, equipped, and paid to go on a campaign. They had regular (if not very frequent) drill, specialized equipment, and were supported by a whole group of families. You had a certain group of people in a village (one per X houses) that were equipped and trained to go to war - but once equipped and trained, it would always be the same people who would be called out on campaign, expected to drill, to train etc. That is what feudal levy is - not peasants with pitchforks, and definitely not undertrained village idiots.

But that's not how this is presented in Westeros. I mean, again, it would have been easy if we heard that, say, one commoner we meet was a guy his village trained and equipped for war - say, one of Jon's fellow recruits at the Wall, Pate from Oldtown could have known such people, Arya could have met some on the road, etc.

But this is not how things are presented. This is something you want to force into the text. Something that isn't there.

And mind you - I'm on your side there. I think stuff like that should have been in there. But it isn't. And I think it makes no sense to imagine it must be there, anyway, especially since we are given a lot of indications that rural commoners stand no chance against professional armies ... and if one wants to view things in a positive light one can suggest that the lords actually forbid rural commoners and peasants to train at arms or have a martial culture of their own to prevent them for every becoming a danger to castle culture controlled by the nobility. The people who are allowed to train at arms are the people in the castle ... under the watchful eyes of their lords.

Of course in market towns in the Reach and the Riverlands and wherever else we have some of those people would also have their own men-at-arms and stuff ... but those places would be around/near a castle and its lord.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

And again, what we actually see in the series is that majority of the army consists of trained soldiers: pikemen, crossbowmen etc. These are levies, yes, but they are feudal levies. This is not levee en masse such as Hungarian Generalis Exercitus, which was a peasant levy - and suffered of all shortcomings of such.

Actually, we don't have any reason to believe that those men you mention are feudal levies. They could actually be simply men in service of their lords and landed knights, i.e. the professional men-at-arms in their service.

We have discussed the Green Fork battle before, and I repeat my assessment from way back: Those are Westermen you are talking about. Lords rich as hell, for the most part. We have no idea how many pikemen and archers and crossbowmen the Crakehalls and Braxes and Presters and Marbrands, etc. can feed and cloth. How wealthy these people are can be drawn from landless Kevan being able to feed 2,000 (!) knights.

Also, I'd like to remind that especially those pikemen you find so important only show up as a group of warriors in AGoT and once in ACoK - and the only people using them are Westermen and Riverlords (the Freys and Mallisters, to be exact). Men described as 'pikes' shouldn't necessarily be seen as those professional pikemen you think they have to be, since George actually uses the word 'pike' to just describe a sharpened stick or simply a spear-like weapon.

And to be sure - for the North I'd say your take on things has some plausibility. We know that harvest doesn't work properly when men go to war, meaning even professional warriors might help on farms there. We also know there aren't many big castles in the North, meaning the castle culture is not as widespread there than in the south. We also know that the clansmen - while professional warriors - aren't really proper nobility, meaning they are basically clans who fight and plow the land - and the same might be true for the Umbers to a lesser extent.

But that doesn't change that men are still just drafted into service ... although I doubt that can happen to the same degree in the remote North than it does in the populous Reach, Westerlands, Riverlands, etc.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Donald Noye states that only 1/20 of peasants own swords.

We would not expect peasants to be allowed to wield swords. They would be using less noble weapons.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

The bulk of fully professional soldiers in the army would be lords and highborn knights and their retinues, yes. They would also form the bulk of cavalry. But the bulk of the army would still be formed of men whose job is fighting. In other terms, professional troops, even if "only" part-time professionals. You can say that it "doesn't make sense", that "Westeros is too peaceful": but that is what we see: Westerosi armies are predominantly professional in nature.

Compared to the wildlings, who don't live in an environment where people are disciplined.

And to be sure, we have no idea how high the percentage of 'rural commoners' (such who don't live inside/close to castles) compared to that of 'castle peasantry' in any given army actually is.

Perhaps the bulk of the commoners in each army actually are men trained in castles and towns. We don't know. It might also differ on a case by case basis.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Medieval or indeed any pre-modern army cannot function without camp followers. Even if they are not mentioned in histories, they are there. And Meribald quite clearly is a camp follower; whatever delusions of grandeur he may have, that fact is as clear as a day.

He talks about actually fighting in actual battles ... that's not what camp followers do, no?

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

I brought up Thirty Years' War stuff specifically to show that even early modern professional armies had camp followers. The idea that, somehow, quasi-medieval armies would be able to get by without masses of camp followers is, put bluntly, foolishness. They are there, even if we do not always see them. They have to be.

But there is a difference in the sense that there is no professional war industry in Westeros compared to early modern times. Especially not one based on mercenaries.

And you see how an army doesn't even get from Oldtown to KL in the Dance, meaning marching isn't all that easy.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

We are given numbers of soldiers because that is what is interesting. Histories too usually only mentioned numbers of soldiers: see any description of medieval battles. Only soldiers are mentioned, yet every premodern army also had a tail of civilians and noncombatants in general: smiths, healers, grooms (for horses, not for weddings)... and that is just stuff directly related to combat needs. There would also be peddlers, whores and others hoping to profit off the army. As I mentioned, those would typically heavily outnumber soldiers.

That is what makes up the "peasant rabble" on campaign. But soldiers themselves are not peasant rabble, and peasant rabble are not soldiers.

Of course, but then we don't know whether Gyldayn's numbers and the numbers given to us by our POVs are the same in principle. Are both not counting rabble, or are only Gyldayn and his sources not counting rabble, whereas our guys in the books do? We have no idea.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

There are Lords Paramount. And "viceroy" is merely rough translation for a title of "ban" - who may or may not be directly under the king (there was also title of Herzeg, who may be superior to or at same level as "ban"... it's complicated). But originally, during independent Kingdom of Croatia, ban was merely a governor of Lika, Gacka and Krbava. Later, after Croatia entered personal union with Hungary, ban was ruler of Kingdom of Croatia - which, while subordinated to King of Hungary, was still a separate kingdom, not merely a province.

Well, there are actually only two lords paramount, namely the Lord Paramount of the Trident and the Lord Paramount of the Mander, whereas the other great houses do not actually have such a title as far as we know.

But our great lords are never described as governors ore viceroys in their roles. We don't even know what it means to be a great lord in practice. What kind of jurisdiction does this give to you? How much can you interfere in the affairs of your vassals? And is it Ned's role as Lord of Winterfell - or Tywin's as Lord of Casterly Rock - that gives him the authority to call the banners and stuff, or is that the whole Warden thing? We don't know. The crucial thing that makes Roose the big shark in the North after the Red Wedding is the Wardenship, though.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Point is, kingdom can be a kingdom even if it shares a king with one (or more) other kingdoms. Meaning that your assertion that "Those seven kingdoms are no longer kingdoms. If they were, there would still be seven kings." is wrong. They are in personal union, for sure; but do we know how close that union really is? There is no reason to assume that they are mere provinces.

No, there is no personal union there. That's modern stuff. If that were the case, then the King on the Iron Throne would have a different string of titles.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Roose was given an empty title. If Iron Throne could just that easily make or unmake wardens or Lords Paramount, and that could be that easily accepted by people in the kingdom, there would be no need for "Arya".

There is no need for 'Arya'. It is supposed to smooth things out, just like Lancel's Frey marriage is supposed to.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

...except for the fact that each Lord Paramount rules his kingdom basically as he sees fit, and as long as he doesn't step out of the line, he will not have trouble. And no, privileges, power, wealth and titles have nothing to do with being close to the king. Starks were Lords Paramount of the North even when they were not in good relations with the king, Tywin remained Lord Paramount of Westerlands even when Aerys was pissed at him. And Lords do have extensive powers: they create nobles (and minor lords) within their own kingdoms, they grant holdings... taxes are paid to lords, and then those lords pay taxes to king. Yes, we have mostly references to Crown collecting the taxes, but that is likely because those would be monetary taxes, where lords would be able to accept taxes in kind. In fact:

That is because the kings didn't want to take their lordships from them. In any kingdom, political power is wherever the king is. If you don't have the ear of the king, you don't have power. I mean, if being some backwater lord makes you all so powerful why the hell did Gaveston and the Despensers hang out with Edward II rather than leave for the countryside after they got some titles?

Land helps you to raise an army and stuff, of course, but power in a peace time isn't about who can raise the biggest army in war times, it is about who can actually influence the policies in the land.

And there you see that no great lord ever had a say in the matter of the unification of the laws of Westeros as done by Jaehaerys I - that was done by the king, the queen, a lowborn septon, a maester, and lesser lordling (and, to be sure, perhaps by Lord Rodrik Arryn and later still by Prince Aemon when both served as masters of law, depending how long the entire enterprise took).

But nobody asked the input of any great lords there who didn't serve it court in an official capacity. Which means they had very little political power and effectively no way (aside from treason and rebellion, of course, but that's something you can always try to do) to shape the policies of the Realm.

The reason why you want to be close to the government in any land is to influence policies and to ensure nobody acts against your interests. That's what lobbying is for. If you write the laws or ensure they favor you you don't have to rebel.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

That is definitely a possibility. But either case, it does not indicate that crown may have more influence on bannermen than their direct liege lord - just that Stannis may not have been their legal liege lord to begin with.

Actually, when push came to shove it seems a lot of lords couldn't care less about what their liege lords thought. I mean, even in Robert's Rebellion a lot of regions were split, as they were during the Dance and, especially, during the Blackfyre Rebellions. No great house openly supported a Blackfyre pretender and most, perhaps all, fought for the Targaryens during those wars, yet many of their bannermen sided with the Black Dragon.

George's view on allegiance is actually pretty simple. It is about the personality of the leader - the lord, king, etc. - in question. If he is respected, feared, popular, viewed as strong, people do fall in line and follow him. If he is despised, hated, unpopular, viewed as weak, they do not (necessarily) follow him and might even turn against him.

This is exemplified with Aegon-Aenys, Tytos-Tywin, etc.

But in the end people are more likely to side with the king since he would be viewed as more powerful than a lord even if he is weak, not to mention his means to reward leal service and show favors are infinitely larger than those of a mere lord.

For the vicinity - North, Dorne, Iron Islands - we can assume that the people there stick with the devils they know (their own rulers) because they should, for the most part, have not very strong ties to the king.

I mean, if you look at what you know about the history of Westeros ... it is only the Conquest and the War of the Five Kings where the great houses really played a big role as leaders and generals. The first time because their lands were taken from them, and the second time because the royal house of Baratheon effectively ripped itself apart. It is remarkable how irrelevant the Lannisters and Starks were throughout the first 136 years of the Targaryen reign, how little impact even as powerful a house as the Tyrells had. The Arryns had some prominence, the Hightowers were very important, but nobody seemed to need the great lords, not even in war. Even during the Dance their contributions are small to nonexistent. Most of the fighting was done at the behest of other generals.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Yes, king definitely could prop up an ambitious vassal. But that is, if anything, just more evidence that Westeros is a feudal monarchy rather than a modern centralized monarchy, or even just one where significant portions of kingdom owe direct fealty to the Iron Throne (as royal free cities in e.g. Hungary would, though these were actually a minority).

Of course, the legal framework is feudalism there ... but this doesn't mean the king is viewed as dependent on his lords.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Actually, your first paragraph serves more to support idea that lords paramount are primary rulers of their territories, rather than being mere royal officials akin to Byzantine strategoi.

They aren't officials. Or rather: Not only officials, hereditary officials, perhaps. And one does have to differentiate between the former royal houses of high standing (Lannisters, Arryns, Starks) and the Tullys and Tyrells there.

But I'm not really sure how it is important how difficult it is to get rid one of those ... what we do know is that a man like Ned is afraid to displease/antagonize the king. We do know those great lords do their duties as the king sees fit. They are not independent of him and actually fear his wrath. They enforce the king's policies, and not their own.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

And they definitely know more about what is going on in their lands than the king. They are closer to the ground, so chances are they don't need master of whisperers.

That might be the case in the Vale, perhaps, or on the Iron Islands, but in the North? Not very likely. How much Rickard/Ned/Robb knew about Roose's doing is pretty obvious ... nothing, actually.

7 hours ago, Aldarion said:

And all of that is perfectly in line with how medieval feudal monarchies functioned. So again, I really do not understand where your idea that Westeros is somehow highly centralized monarchy comes from.

Oh, it is not centralized at all. The idea is just that the king is seen as the guy in charge, the guy who has more power, over all, in the Realm than an individual great lord has in his domains.

[Lord Lannister]

For all this talk of Hungary, how is that relevant to Westeros? Hungary was a landlocked power surrounded by potential foes. The need for a central army is plain for them. The Seven Kingdoms is a continental power who's only land border is covered by the most elaborate fortification ever built. It makes perfect sense why they have a royal fleet not not necessarily a royal army. 

[Universal Sword Donor]

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

George take on knighthood also completely clashes with real world scenarios - in the real world knights had to have land and incomes to be able to be able to be knights, whereas in Westeros a lot knights serve other noblemen as household knights, being completely landless (and thus without real income in a feudal world) yet apparently are paid and clothed and fed by their noble masters (something no real noblemen would ever do, especially not in a feudal setting).

You've just described a mesnie, or the lord's household. If you've read "The Great Knight" it mentions these pretty often, most often about William Marshal's household of knights and supporters (e.g. administrators and stewards). His words:

"In real terms this meant not only paying for a knight's living cost and funding the upkeep of their equipment, arms, and horses; it could also involve rewards of land and title, even the arrangement of a beneficial marriage."

There are prolly dozens of examples in the book. I'll let you find those if you want.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

In the real world, you had landowners who were holding land as part of a feudal deal which then meant they had the resources and the duty to go to war if their lord called them ... but it is quite clear that the most of the commoners in a Westerosi army are not landowners of any kind who, as part of a feudal deal, have to answer the call of their lords.

Is it? We don't really have much information at all

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, well, whether a knight actually has the time to practice everyday is something we don't know. Especially if he actually holds lands and has to manage an estate. Last time I looked Eddard Stark actually never trained at arms in the books I read. Neither does Tywin Lannister, Kevan Lannister, Robert Baratheon, Stannis Baratheon, and a number of others.

“She could see him [Yohn Royce]  in the yard, a practice sword in hand, hammering her father to the ground and turning to defeat Ser Rodrik as well.”

Then we get into the sheer ridiculousness of lords not training at arms. Above is your proof Eddard has trained whilst lord. But the list of lords who participated in tourneys is staggeringly large, both canon and semi canon.

Just from the Hand tourney:

• Jason Mallister
• Renly
• Gregor Clegane 
• Yohn Royce
• Beric Dondarrion

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Also, I'd like to remind that especially those pikemen you find so important only show up as a group of warriors in AGoT and once in ACoK - and the only people using them are Westermen and Riverlords (the Freys and Mallisters, to be exact). Men described as 'pikes' shouldn't necessarily be seen as those professional pikemen you think they have to be, since George actually uses the word 'pike' to just describe a sharpened stick or simply a spear-like weapon.

The Karstarks bring 2000 infantry to Winterfell and Bran specifically notes seeing pikes. Later we see Karstark spearmen performing a complex maneuver while in formation and unidentified infantry advancing in formation behind shields and pikes.There are pikemen in Renly's camp, both seen explicitly and mentioned by Renly in his conversation with Catelyn. 

References to pikemen do disappear after ACOK, but that's not entirely surprising since the only real battles where pikes would be deployed happen in the first two books. Most of the other conflict we see is either off page (e.g. Duskendale) or are sieges where pikes are going to more limited utility than shorter spears and other infantry weapons. 

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

He talks about actually fighting in actual battles ... that's not what camp followers do, no?

That's more or less how the Scots won the battle at Stirling Bridge.

But he never actually mentions that he fought in battle, just that one of his brother's died. A camp follower dying from fighting is hardly worth noting. It happened all the time. Meribald accompanied his brother, who was a pot boy with a stolen knife and died of fever. Basically he ran away from home and joined the army with no arms, armor, or training. Pretty much the only two things he could be are a camp follower or the follower of a cheap lord who was desperate for warm bodies.

We know that the crown and LP put a lot of time and effort into fighting the Band of Nine, and the command was given to the Hand of the King and later the LC of the KG. Meribald's purported appearance as a soldier in the war doesn't really jive with what we know actually happened.

[Aldarion]

8 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I'm not comparing anything to Essos here ... but I'd like you to give us textual evidence for there being any such drills. There isn't any.

 

"They know the drill" doesn't mean that we see them having drill, but that they display knowledge of drill in battle itself. I don't know, maybe they are genetically engineered troops who are born with ingrained knowledge of drill, march and countermarch, but we do see them display it in battle:

Quivers hanging from their belts, the foot archers arrayed themselves into three long lines, to
east and west of the road, and stood calmly stringing their bows. Between them, pikemen formed
squares; behind were rank on rank of men-at-arms with spear and sword and axe. 

Above shows a fairly well-ordered army. We do not see any evidence of chaos, of serjeants running around and ordering rabble in lines which ought to be obvious in a peasant levy. Each unit knows where to go, where to deploy and what their role in battle will be. This can only be a result of drill.

And untrained troops are clearly not the rule. This is what Tyrion thinks about Tywin's left wing:

 He watched Ser Gregor as the Mountain rode up
and down the line, shouting and gesticulating. This wing too was all cavalry, but where the right
was a mailed fist of knights and heavy lancers, the vanguard was made up of the sweepings of
the west: mounted archers in leather jerkins, a swarming mass of undisciplined freeriders and
sellswords, fieldhands on plow horses armed with scythes and their fathers’ rusted swords, half-
trained boys from the stews of Lannisport and Tyrion and his mountain clansmen.

Crow food,” Bronn muttered beside him, giving voice to what Tyrion had left unsaid. He could
only nod. Had his lord father taken leave of his senses? No pikes, too few bowmen, a bare
handful of knights, the ill-armed and unarmored, commanded by an unthinking brute who led
with his rage... how could his father expect this travesty of a battle to hold his left?

Far from being considered usual, Tyrion is outright shocked that Tywin would even consider employing peasant rabble as part of his main battle line. Northern troops are similarly professional:

As the horns died away, a hissing filled the air; a vast flight of arrows arched up from his right,
where the archers stood flanking the road. The northerners broke into a run, shouting as they
came, but the Lannister arrows fell on them like hail, hundreds of arrows, thousands, and shouts
turned to screams as men stumbled and went down. By then a second flight was in the air, and
the archers were fitting a third arrow to their bowstrings.

(...)

A crescent of enemy spearmen had formed ahead, a double hedgehog bristling with steel,
waiting behind tall oaken shields marked with the sunburst of Karstark. Gregor Clegane was the
first to reach them, leading a wedge of armored veterans. Half the horses shied at the last second,
breaking their charge before the row of spears. The others died, sharp steel points ripping
through their chests. Tyrion saw a dozen men go down. The Mountain’s stallion reared, lashing
out with iron-shod hooves as a barbed spearhead raked across his neck. Maddened, the beast
lunged into the ranks. Spears thrust at him from every side, but the shield wall broke beneath his
weight. The northerners stumbled away from the animal’s death throes. As his horse fell,
snorting blood and biting with his last red breath, the Mountain rose untouched, laying about him
with his two-handed greatsword.

Again, it takes a combination of missile bombardment and cavalry charge to break them, and even then majority of Northern army retreats in good order. That is not something peasant rabble can pull off.

I don't care what you think Martin intended. What Martin has shown is well-equipped, highly disciplined, organized and trained army at all levels: from basic infantry to heavy cavalry. Yes, conscripted peasants are present. But they are clearly not the basis of the army.

8 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I know all that - the problem is: There is no indication that any such classes do exist in Westeros. There are no soldier peasants in Westeros that we hear of, no men who are part-time fighters. There are only professional soldiers and amateurs. There is no middle ground. We don't hear about people on country estates who practice at archery to be able to help their lord in war times. Instead, we hear about people being drafted for war ... and about people in permanent service.

There is no talk about peace-time soldiering, about collective drilling, of, say, one of those four Wardens marshalling an army practice how they could work together as a big army if the need ever arose, etc.

The only places where people actually regularly train at arms are castles - which are used completely differently in Westeros than they were in the real world. In the real world castles were military forts, places built to control an enemy population, especially when you think of all those castles the Normans built in England or the English later in Wales, etc. In Germany they were used to control access to rivers, to collect taxes and tolls, etc.

In Westeros castles are basically places where people live in peace time as well as in war. It is where culture happens, it is where people live and learn and work. They are what towns are in the real world.

In that sense, all professional solciers in Westeros would come from castles or keeps, not from other places.

George take on knighthood also completely clashes with real world scenarios - in the real world knights had to have land and incomes to be able to be able to be knights, whereas in Westeros a lot knights serve other noblemen as household knights, being completely landless (and thus without real income in a feudal world) yet apparently are paid and clothed and fed by their noble masters (something no real noblemen would ever do, especially not in a feudal setting).

In the real world, you had landowners who were holding land as part of a feudal deal which then meant they had the resources and the duty to go to war if their lord called them ... but it is quite clear that the most of the commoners in a Westerosi army are not landowners of any kind who, as part of a feudal deal, have to answer the call of their lords.

We see that vast majority of Westerosi armies - infantry included - consist of well-trained, well-equipped, professional soldiers. This completely excludes "peasant rabble" option, and leaves only two options: full-time professionals and part-time professionals. If you believe that there are no part-time professional troops, then the only logical option left is that all Westerosi troops are full-time professionals. Which simply does not make sense any more than "peasant rabble" option makes sense: that is not how feudal system worked, and in any case, threats that Westeros does face are not sufficient (as you yourself point out) to warrant such expenditure - which for a premodern state would truly be massive. 

Why would there be talk about such stuff? It is self-understandable to anyone with even rudimentary knowledge of feudal military system, and it does not provide any value for the story. You are asking author to include stuff that is only relevant for our debate. And again, we see world through eyes of nobles: we see people drilling at castles because nobles live at castles, but that does not mean there is no drill done elsewhere. And at any rate, we do not spend enough time at peacetime stuff to see how things are done outside wartime. You are asking for stuff author did not reveal, and then deciding that because author did not show that stuff, all other evidence he did show is worthless. We  do not know that "only places where people regularly train at arms are castles"; that is your own inference based on lack of evidence. We do have Anguy however - and he uses longbow, which is not something a peasant would use for hunting. It is a weapon which requires regular drill, and he is clearly skilled with it. So either Westerosi peasants regularly train with weapons, or we have semi-professional troops who are not from castles. Either way the outcome is same: Westeros has a large pool of well-trained troops.

And you are wrong about nature of castles. In feudal society, castle had multiple uses. Some castles - typically those under king's own control - were indeed military fortresses, used to control countryside, trade, for purposes of tax collection, as staging grounds for troops, to house garrisons and so on. But vast majority of castles were residences of landed nobility. They were places where nobility lived, and from which they administered their lands. From castles, nobles would collect taxes (mostly in kind), administer lands, patrol the countryside. Such castles were fortified residences - "household" is quite a clear term, and yes, they were places where people (nobles and their households) lived, where culture happened (even if in a rather limited way), and in general were a combination of a military fortress and a countryside villa. In fact, they developed from latter, as Roman nobility retired to countryside villas and fortified them. So castles in Westeros are actually fairly faithful to real-life model.

Likewise, even in real world, knights did not necessarily have land. Many were in fact landless, and served for money. These "knights bachelor" were usually poor, often young, and fought under guidance of a more senior knight. They were regularly paid, and were thus "professional" in fullest sense of the word.

So yes, all full-time troops would likely come from castles. But that does not mean that all professional (trained) soldiers would come from castles.

All and all, your ideas about what "real world" was like are highly incorrect.

9 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

It would be good or interesting if this was what the author had laid out for us ... but it isn't, as far as I can see. I mean, it would have been simple to do this, mention in passing that from place X showed up the crossbowmen who had been given farms there by Lord Y a hundred years ago, and how that decision had paid off, or something along those lines.

Bottom line is, we have no evidence that such a system is in place. Instead, we have reason to believe that the only places where actually training at arms takes place are castles.

And as I laid out - from castles would come commoners who are professional archers, crossbowmen, pikemen, whatever you want.

It is you who wants to believe they have to have other jobs besides that.

We do in fact have such evidence: behaviour and equipment of troops actually deployed by the lords during War of the Five Kings. Tactics and equipment they use clearly show that these troops are trained, that fighting is their job, even if not the only job. Likewise, sheer distances armies are deployed over prevent them from consisting of peasant rabble. So they are professionals - full-time or part-time. But the fact that Westeros is a feudal society suggests the latter.

And again, you thinking that author has to do something doesn't mean he really has to. Or that him not spelling something out automatically means that things are the complete opposite of what he hasn't spelled out.

9 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

It actually seems that for that kind of thing you do have servants of their own. Instead, it is quite clear that drafted commoners are not men who received (a lot of) training before.

This doesn't apply to men living at castles, of course, but for those you fetch from the villages.

You see how this goes in TSS - Lady Rohanne has a contingent of professional soldiers in her castle, just as Ser Eustace has his two sworn swords. If they were going to a proper war then the only professional men Eustace could bring were Bennis and Dunk, whereas Lady Rohanne could bring the men from her castle - knights, squires, men-at-arms, archers (although it would be her decision how many she would leave behind to defend the castle). In addition, both parties could draft commoners, which would have the known Osgrey result whereas Lady Rohanne could likely call on more peasants, meaning she would be able to bring more men. In addition, Lady Rohanne, being an actual lord, could also call on the help of whatever landed vassals she has (who then in turn would bring whatever professional men they have, in addition to whatever peasants they draft).

And again, all evidence we have in books shows that, for major campaigns at least, drafted peasants form minority of the army.

9 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, man, just let Byzantium out of all that. They were true professional. They were an actual state with a functioning and effective military system - which they needed to expand and, especially, defend their territory. Westeros isn't the Byzantine Empire and most definitely has nothing in common with that at all. There are no parallels there.

I'd like to see sich parallels, but they just aren't there.

I was pointing out that your binary differentiation of "full time professionals" and "peasant rabble" is incorrect. Let me remind you, this is what you wrote:

Quote

Any noblemen or soldier who owns an estate, who has land he does return to after a campaign, isn't a professional soldier.

Now you say that Byzantine armies were "true professional". But the above quote is a very good description of Byzantine thematic troops: they owned land, they drew incomes from the land, and they went out campaigning as required by strategos or by the Emperor. Infantrymen, who had smaller estates to support themselves than cavalrymen did, also personally worked on their own lands (so they were actually peasants), while cavalrymen merely lived off the lands which were worked by peasants. So which one is it? Are Westerosi troops "peasant rabble" and "amateurs", or are Byzantine armies "true professional"? You cannot have both, because they are essentially identical - what differences there were are well above the level of individual soldier, and concern mostly organization and logistics.

9 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

But that's not how this is presented in Westeros. I mean, again, it would have been easy if we heard that, say, one commoner we meet was a guy his village trained and equipped for war - say, one of Jon's fellow recruits at the Wall, Pate from Oldtown could have known such people, Arya could have met some on the road, etc.

But this is not how things are presented. This is something you want to force into the text. Something that isn't there.

And mind you - I'm on your side there. I think stuff like that should have been in there. But it isn't. And I think it makes no sense to imagine it must be there, anyway, especially since we are given a lot of indications that rural commoners stand no chance against professional armies ... and if one wants to view things in a positive light one can suggest that the lords actually forbid rural commoners and peasants to train at arms or have a martial culture of their own to prevent them for every becoming a danger to castle culture controlled by the nobility. The people who are allowed to train at arms are the people in the castle ... under the watchful eyes of their lords.

Of course in market towns in the Reach and the Riverlands and wherever else we have some of those people would also have their own men-at-arms and stuff ... but those places would be around/near a castle and its lord.

We do see it in the text. Sure, we do not see drill as such, but we do see how soldiers behave in battle. In other words, we se results of the drill. And we do meet Anguy, who considering he uses longbow must have been a trained soldier - a militiaman at least.

I am willing to accept that Martin presents a schizofrenic picture - he definitely does. But there is evidence for presence of professional troops, and you cannot simply dismiss it because there is other evidence which contradicts that. Personally, I believe that evidence against presence of professional troops is actually weaker of the two, and can be explained away by either assuming a mix of professional troops with small portion of draftees or else professional troops with camp followers. Meanwhile, evidence that majority of Westerosi soldiers are professionals is simply too solid.

And to be clear: I am not saying that commoners as such are allowed to train with arms - in fact, we see evidence they may not be, such as only one in 20 peasants owning a sword. But this just means that it makes that much less sense to assume that majority of Westerosi armies consist of drafted peasants. You don't take away all rights someone has and then give him a sword.

12 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Actually, we don't have any reason to believe that those men you mention are feudal levies. They could actually be simply men in service of their lords and landed knights, i.e. the professional men-at-arms in their service.

We have discussed the Green Fork battle before, and I repeat my assessment from way back: Those are Westermen you are talking about. Lords rich as hell, for the most part. We have no idea how many pikemen and archers and crossbowmen the Crakehalls and Braxes and Presters and Marbrands, etc. can feed and cloth. How wealthy these people are can be drawn from landless Kevan being able to feed 2,000 (!) knights.

Also, I'd like to remind that especially those pikemen you find so important only show up as a group of warriors in AGoT and once in ACoK - and the only people using them are Westermen and Riverlords (the Freys and Mallisters, to be exact). Men described as 'pikes' shouldn't necessarily be seen as those professional pikemen you think they have to be, since George actually uses the word 'pike' to just describe a sharpened stick or simply a spear-like weapon.

And to be sure - for the North I'd say your take on things has some plausibility. We know that harvest doesn't work properly when men go to war, meaning even professional warriors might help on farms there. We also know there aren't many big castles in the North, meaning the castle culture is not as widespread there than in the south. We also know that the clansmen - while professional warriors - aren't really proper nobility, meaning they are basically clans who fight and plow the land - and the same might be true for the Umbers to a lesser extent.

But that doesn't change that men are still just drafted into service ... although I doubt that can happen to the same degree in the remote North than it does in the populous Reach, Westerlands, Riverlands, etc.

Importance of the Green Fork battle does not rest only on Westermen, or just on the fact that pikemen are present. Northmen show inferior equipment, but their drill and discipline is not much - if any - inferior to Westermen. They too are clearly trained, drilled soldiers - not a bunch of peasants picked off the fields and given a crash course, but rather men whose job is fighting. Is it their only job? Probably not - infantrymen at least probably also work their own farms. But again, their behaviour, their morale, their organization and theri equipment all point to conclusion that we are dealing with feudal levies, well-trained, well-equipped and comparatively well organized; completely unlike the picture that term "peasant levy" brings to mind. If North, likely the poorest (relative to number of people living there) of Seven Kingdoms, can and does field semi-professional troops, then it must be rule for most other kingdoms (Iron Islands possibly excepted).

Consider:

1) Northmen are equipped in mail shirts and pikes. Mail is expensive - it costs literally a year of average person's income if not more, much like buying a sports car today. Pikes meanwhile are a weapon which requires drill and training to use.

2) They are highly disciplined. Northern infantry holds against missile barrage, and only breaks under heavy cavalry charge. Later, another group of Northern pikemen holds against Lannister pikemen, and breaks under missile barrage. And even then they don't actually break, as Roose manages to extract most of his infantry from the battle.

And at this particular battle we see Karstark pikemen and another, unnamed group of pikemen. Earlier we see Freys having pikemen. But in general, pikemen almost always appear whenever composition of infantry is actually given - we see them guarding a ford at Riverrun, IIRC, which is not something pikemen are ideal for. Northern host under Roose Bolton includes "pikes and archers and great masses of men-at-arms on foot". The only times they don't appear is when either a) we don't know what infantry consists of or b) they would not be useful anyway (such as sieges).

Yes, men would be drafted to service, I agree with that. I just don't agree that they would form the backbone (or majority) of actual soldiers. Men who get drafted would serve first and foremost as working hands, assistants and other support staff which formed 80% of any medieval army but which GRRM rarely bothers with.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Actually, we don't have any reason to believe that those men you mention are feudal levies. They could actually be simply men in service of their lords and landed knights, i.e. the professional men-at-arms in their service.

We have discussed the Green Fork battle before, and I repeat my assessment from way back: Those are Westermen you are talking about. Lords rich as hell, for the most part. We have no idea how many pikemen and archers and crossbowmen the Crakehalls and Braxes and Presters and Marbrands, etc. can feed and cloth. How wealthy these people are can be drawn from landless Kevan being able to feed 2,000 (!) knights.

Also, I'd like to remind that especially those pikemen you find so important only show up as a group of warriors in AGoT and once in ACoK - and the only people using them are Westermen and Riverlords (the Freys and Mallisters, to be exact). Men described as 'pikes' shouldn't necessarily be seen as those professional pikemen you think they have to be, since George actually uses the word 'pike' to just describe a sharpened stick or simply a spear-like weapon.

And to be sure - for the North I'd say your take on things has some plausibility. We know that harvest doesn't work properly when men go to war, meaning even professional warriors might help on farms there. We also know there aren't many big castles in the North, meaning the castle culture is not as widespread there than in the south. We also know that the clansmen - while professional warriors - aren't really proper nobility, meaning they are basically clans who fight and plow the land - and the same might be true for the Umbers to a lesser extent.

But that doesn't change that men are still just drafted into service ... although I doubt that can happen to the same degree in the remote North than it does in the populous Reach, Westerlands, Riverlands, etc.

Actual noble weapon of 15th century was a pollaxe. Most of peasants did own swords.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Compared to the wildlings, who don't live in an environment where people are disciplined.

And to be sure, we have no idea how high the percentage of 'rural commoners' (such who don't live inside/close to castles) compared to that of 'castle peasantry' in any given army actually is.

Perhaps the bulk of the commoners in each army actually are men trained in castles and towns. We don't know. It might also differ on a case by case basis.

True. The only good overview we have is that of Lannister army. But whenever we do see descriptions of soldiers - such as Northern troops, Stannis' army, Reach army etc. - it is clear that majority of troops, infantry included, are not just drafted peasants. Drafted peasants would not be able to afford mail shirts or wield pikes, longbows, crossbows. Thus it can be assumed that majority of soldiers in Westeros do have some training.

For example, Frey infantry: "a long column of pikemen, rank on rank of shuffling men in blue steel ringmail and silver grey cloaks"

Northern infantry at Oxcross is described as "advancing with measured tread behind a wall of shields and pikes", which is something only trained troops can pull off.

Also Oxcross: "his huge mass of pikemen had pushed the northerners back against the hills. They were struggling on the slopes, pikes thrusting against another wall of shields, these oval and reinforced with iron studs.". Note the "struggling on the slopes" part. Maintaining formation over such broken terrain would be well beyond the ability of raw recruits.

Westerosi crossbowmen: "Behind the lords came a hundred crossbowmen and three hundred men-at-arms, and crimson
flowed from their shoulders as well."

And in fact we see that crossbowmen are not counted as peasants: "At a place called Sow’s Horn they found a tough old knight named Ser Roger Hogg squatting stubbornly in his towerhouse with six men-at-arms, four crossbowmen, and a score of peasants."

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Compared to the wildlings, who don't live in an environment where people are disciplined.

And to be sure, we have no idea how high the percentage of 'rural commoners' (such who don't live inside/close to castles) compared to that of 'castle peasantry' in any given army actually is.

Perhaps the bulk of the commoners in each army actually are men trained in castles and towns. We don't know. It might also differ on a case by case basis.

Depends. Now to take a look:

Septon Meribald disagreed. “More less than more. There are many sorts of outlaws, just as there are many sorts of birds. A sandpiper and a sea eagle both have wings, but they are not the same. The singers love to sing of good men forced to go outside the law to fight some wicked lord, but most outlaws are more like this ravening Hound than they are the lightning lord. They are evil men, driven by greed, soured by malice, despising the gods and caring only for themselves. Broken men are more deserving of our pity, though they may be just as dangerous.
Almost all are common-born, simple folk who had never been more than a mile from the house where they were born until the day some lord came round to take them off to war. Poorly shod and poorly clad, they march away beneath his banners, ofttimes with no better arms than a sickle or a sharpened hoe, or a maul they made themselves by lashing a stone to a stick with strips of hide. Brothers march with brothers, sons with fathers, friends with friends. They’ve heard the songs and stories, so they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they will see, of the wealth and glory they will win. War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know.
“Then they get a taste of battle.
“For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they’ve been gutted by an axe.
“They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now. They take a wound, and when that’s still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from the marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water.
“If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron halfhelm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the smallfolk whose lands they’re fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chickens, and from there it’s just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don’t know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they’re fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world...
“And the man breaks.
“He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another
day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them... but he should pity them as well.”
When Meribald was finished a profound silence fell upon their little band. Brienne could hear the wind rustling through a clump of pussywillows, and farther off the faint cry of a loon. She could hear Dog panting softly as he loped along beside the septon and his donkey, tongue lolling
from his mouth. The quiet stretched and stretched, until finally she said, “How old were you when they marched you off to war?”
“Why, no older than your boy,” Meribald replied. “Too young for such, in truth, but my brothers were all going, and I would not be left behind. Willam said I could be his squire, though Will was no knight, only a potboy armed with a kitchen knife he’d stolen from the inn. He died upon the Stepstones, and never struck a blow. It was fever did for him, and for my brother Robin. Owen died from a mace that split his head apart, and his friend Jon Pox was hanged for rape.”
“The War of the Ninepenny Kings?” asked Hyle Hunt.
“So they called it, though I never saw a king, nor earned a penny. It was a war, though. That it was.”

This does describe rabble - but take a look at description of actual armies. How many people are in armies that are "poorly shod and poorly clad", with provisional weapons? Not many. There cannot be many - such men would die en masse before even reaching battlefield, and on battlefield itself proper shoes are even more important. They would not be able to hold against a cavalry charge, to maintain a formation, to execute complex maneuvers... in other words, they would not be able to do any of the things we see Westerosi armies do. And he never says that he, himself, fought in a pitched battle.

Also, take note of this: “Too young for such, in truth, but my brothers were all going, and I would not be left behind. Willam said I could be his squire, though Will was no knight, only a potboy armed with a kitchen knife he’d stolen from the inn. He died upon the Stepstones, and never struck a blow. It was fever did for him, and for my brother Robin. Owen died from a mace that split his head apart, and his friend Jon Pox was hanged for rape.”. They only had one knife between them, and absolutely none of the equipment we see when actual armies are described. They have no mail hauberk, no helmets, no swords, no spears, pikes, pollaxes, not even gambesons. As such, they can only be camp followers - pressed to fight in a battle, on occasion, but definitely not bulk of the troops.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

But there is a difference in the sense that there is no professional war industry in Westeros compared to early modern times. Especially not one based on mercenaries.

And you see how an army doesn't even get from Oldtown to KL in the Dance, meaning marching isn't all that easy.

Again, Westerosi armies definitely have camp followers. If an early modern carmy cannot do without camp followers, Westerosi armies definitely cannot. Mercenaries would actually have less extraneous weight lugged around than feudal armies.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

But there is a difference in the sense that there is no professional war industry in Westeros compared to early modern times. Especially not one based on mercenaries.

And you see how an army doesn't even get from Oldtown to KL in the Dance, meaning marching isn't all that easy.

Actually, we do. As I have explained, Westerosi armies are not comprised of rabble - they may not be professional soldiers as a rule, but they are trained, disciplined and well-equipped (most of them, anyway). And for numbers in books, numbers given for armies add up to numbers of soldiers seen in the field (where numbers are available, that is), which means that no, rabble is not counted in army numbers.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Well, there are actually only two lords paramount, namely the Lord Paramount of the Trident and the Lord Paramount of the Mander, whereas the other great houses do not actually have such a title as far as we know.

But our great lords are never described as governors ore viceroys in their roles. We don't even know what it means to be a great lord in practice. What kind of jurisdiction does this give to you? How much can you interfere in the affairs of your vassals? And is it Ned's role as Lord of Winterfell - or Tywin's as Lord of Casterly Rock - that gives him the authority to call the banners and stuff, or is that the whole Warden thing? We don't know. The crucial thing that makes Roose the big shark in the North after the Red Wedding is the Wardenship, though.

Wardenship and Winterfell, actually. And consider this:

"Tarth," Jaime said. "A ghastly large rock in the narrow sea, as I recall. And Evenfall is sworn to Storm's End. How is it that you serve Robb of Winterfell?"

This may be just a figure of speech, but if not, then it might be that it is possession of Winterfell which gives Roose authority he does have, not (just) Wardenship.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

No, there is no personal union there. That's modern stuff. If that were the case, then the King on the Iron Throne would have a different string of titles.

 

How the hell is personal union "modern stuff"? Do you think that "modernity" starts before 1102.? Last time I checked, it is usually considered to start mid-15th century.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Well, there are actually only two lords paramount, namely the Lord Paramount of the Trident and the Lord Paramount of the Mander, whereas the other great houses do not actually have such a title as far as we know.

But our great lords are never described as governors ore viceroys in their roles. We don't even know what it means to be a great lord in practice. What kind of jurisdiction does this give to you? How much can you interfere in the affairs of your vassals? And is it Ned's role as Lord of Winterfell - or Tywin's as Lord of Casterly Rock - that gives him the authority to call the banners and stuff, or is that the whole Warden thing? We don't know. The crucial thing that makes Roose the big shark in the North after the Red Wedding is the Wardenship, though.

Why is she - having her, saving her - considered so important in the books, then? Are all Northmen on drugs?

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That is because the kings didn't want to take their lordships from them. In any kingdom, political power is wherever the king is. If you don't have the ear of the king, you don't have power. I mean, if being some backwater lord makes you all so powerful why the hell did Gaveston and the Despensers hang out with Edward II rather than leave for the countryside after they got some titles?

Land helps you to raise an army and stuff, of course, but power in a peace time isn't about who can raise the biggest army in war times, it is about who can actually influence the policies in the land.

And there you see that no great lord ever had a say in the matter of the unification of the laws of Westeros as done by Jaehaerys I - that was done by the king, the queen, a lowborn septon, a maester, and lesser lordling (and, to be sure, perhaps by Lord Rodrik Arryn and later still by Prince Aemon when both served as masters of law, depending how long the entire enterprise took).

But nobody asked the input of any great lords there who didn't serve it court in an official capacity. Which means they had very little political power and effectively no way (aside from treason and rebellion, of course, but that's something you can always try to do) to shape the policies of the Realm.

The reason why you want to be close to the government in any land is to influence policies and to ensure nobody acts against your interests. That's what lobbying is for. If you write the laws or ensure they favor you you don't have to rebel.

Sorry, but that is just wrong. If you cannot accept the fact that not all kingdoms are absolute monarchies, and that authority of the king can, in fact, be quite limited in reality, there is no point in debating this with you any more. Fact is, in feudalism, king depends on his vassals far more than they depend on the king. He gives them titles, yes, but they can do without titles. But king cannot do without armies and without incomes he draws from his vassals. This means that power of the king depends on support of his lords - and lords will know that. If that is not the case, then we do not have feudalism.

So either Westeros is not a feudal society, king does not have the powers you think he has, or Martin has (again) majorly screwed up.

And why would lords care about unification of laws of Westeros? They still choose which laws they will enforce on their own lands. You are looking at a mouse and making an elephant out of it. And if lords were that powerless, there would be no War of the Five Kings.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Actually, when push came to shove it seems a lot of lords couldn't care less about what their liege lords thought. I mean, even in Robert's Rebellion a lot of regions were split, as they were during the Dance and, especially, during the Blackfyre Rebellions. No great house openly supported a Blackfyre pretender and most, perhaps all, fought for the Targaryens during those wars, yet many of their bannermen sided with the Black Dragon.

George's view on allegiance is actually pretty simple. It is about the personality of the leader - the lord, king, etc. - in question. If he is respected, feared, popular, viewed as strong, people do fall in line and follow him. If he is despised, hated, unpopular, viewed as weak, they do not (necessarily) follow him and might even turn against him.

This is exemplified with Aegon-Aenys, Tytos-Tywin, etc.

But in the end people are more likely to side with the king since he would be viewed as more powerful than a lord even if he is weak, not to mention his means to reward leal service and show favors are infinitely larger than those of a mere lord.

For the vicinity - North, Dorne, Iron Islands - we can assume that the people there stick with the devils they know (their own rulers) because they should, for the most part, have not very strong ties to the king.

I mean, if you look at what you know about the history of Westeros ... it is only the Conquest and the War of the Five Kings where the great houses really played a big role as leaders and generals. The first time because their lands were taken from them, and the second time because the royal house of Baratheon effectively ripped itself apart. It is remarkable how irrelevant the Lannisters and Starks were throughout the first 136 years of the Targaryen reign, how little impact even as powerful a house as the Tyrells had. The Arryns had some prominence, the Hightowers were very important, but nobody seemed to need the great lords, not even in war. Even during the Dance their contributions are small to nonexistent. Most of the fighting was done at the behest of other generals.

And again, that is just typical feudalism, or at least feudalism in which value of oaths is severely curtailled. You subordinate yourself to a liege who can provide you protection, and if he cannot, you go to one who can. I still have trouble seeing how you go from that to "Iron Throne is more powerful than major houses".

As for the first 136 years of the Targaryen reign... that would be the time when Targaryens had dragons, no? That would kinda change things a bit.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Of course, the legal framework is feudalism there ... but this doesn't mean the king is viewed as dependent on his lords.

 

...except that is precisely what feudalism means. He does not need absolute support, but majority of lords do have to support him if he wants to stay in power.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Actually, when push came to shove it seems a lot of lords couldn't care less about what their liege lords thought. I mean, even in Robert's Rebellion a lot of regions were split, as they were during the Dance and, especially, during the Blackfyre Rebellions. No great house openly supported a Blackfyre pretender and most, perhaps all, fought for the Targaryens during those wars, yet many of their bannermen sided with the Black Dragon.

George's view on allegiance is actually pretty simple. It is about the personality of the leader - the lord, king, etc. - in question. If he is respected, feared, popular, viewed as strong, people do fall in line and follow him. If he is despised, hated, unpopular, viewed as weak, they do not (necessarily) follow him and might even turn against him.

This is exemplified with Aegon-Aenys, Tytos-Tywin, etc.

But in the end people are more likely to side with the king since he would be viewed as more powerful than a lord even if he is weak, not to mention his means to reward leal service and show favors are infinitely larger than those of a mere lord.

For the vicinity - North, Dorne, Iron Islands - we can assume that the people there stick with the devils they know (their own rulers) because they should, for the most part, have not very strong ties to the king.

I mean, if you look at what you know about the history of Westeros ... it is only the Conquest and the War of the Five Kings where the great houses really played a big role as leaders and generals. The first time because their lands were taken from them, and the second time because the royal house of Baratheon effectively ripped itself apart. It is remarkable how irrelevant the Lannisters and Starks were throughout the first 136 years of the Targaryen reign, how little impact even as powerful a house as the Tyrells had. The Arryns had some prominence, the Hightowers were very important, but nobody seemed to need the great lords, not even in war. Even during the Dance their contributions are small to nonexistent. Most of the fighting was done at the behest of other generals.

Ned is afraid to antagonize the king because he knows that king in question has (at least nominal) support of all the other lords. Thus antagonizing the king means risking war against rest of the realm. But that does not mean that king is not dependant on support of major houses, or that said support cannot be withdrawn.

4 hours ago, Lord Lannister said:

For all this talk of Hungary, how is that relevant to Westeros? Hungary was a landlocked power surrounded by potential foes. The need for a central army is plain for them. The Seven Kingdoms is a continental power who's only land border is covered by the most elaborate fortification ever built. It makes perfect sense why they have a royal fleet not not necessarily a royal army. 

It is relevant because language used in the text ("banners", "calling the banners" etc.) indicates military organization that is similar, if not necessarily identical, to Hungarian banderial system. At any rate, as I have repeated several times by now, I was not asking "why not standing army", but "why not royal army". In a feudal system, king is basically most powerful lord. As such, he will have his own lands, and his own vassals, which will provide what is feudal equivalent of royal army - to use example of Hungary again, royal army would be nothing more than king's household banderium. Robert was a Baratheon king, so his personal army would be composed of Baratheon troops. But their detachment at the capital does not appear to be an "army", but rather more of personal guard. There are Gold Cloaks, but they too are not an army but rather simply City Watch. And in any case Westeros was originally ruled by Targaryens, which means that their personal holdings (Crownlands + Dragonstone) should have had an army of its own.

At any rate, it appears that Crownlands do have army of some 15 000 men, so my original premise was based on misunderstanding resulting from the fact that I limited myself to just War of the Five Kings initially.