Jump to content

What aspects of GRR Martin's world would you fix if you could?


Tukata12

Recommended Posts

Personally:

 

  • The languages. It seems VERY odd that every people in a territory the size of Westeros speak the same language, despite some of them being extremely isolated, or separated from each other by gigantic regions. In medieval times, every country was a melting pot of countless local languages and patois, so much so that we know from reliable sources that a few centuries ago the differences in language were so great from one region to another that a Frenchman from the South could hardly understand a Frenchman from the North. And Westeros is a LOT bigger than France. So, if I could, I would retroactively divide the continent of Westeros into 3 or 4 different language groups (a language for Dorne, a language for the southern lands in general, a language for the northern provinces in general, and a language for the wildlings. And also why not a language specific to the natives of the Iron Islands).  It's much less than reality (a continent of this size would contain hundreds and hundreds of languages) but it's still a work of fantasy. I would explain the fact that the characters understand each other despite their different origins by the fact that the nobles receive an education teaching them all a common language. The interractions between nobles and peasants should then be modified and generally involve an interpreter (which would modify the scenario, in some cases).
  • The number of cities in Westeros. There's what, a handful of big cities in Westeros? For a continent this size? It doesn't make any sense. Right now, Westeros is an area in which regions larger than several European countries combined are completely devoid of cities. Personally, I would retroactively include hundreds of cities in Westeros and the few that are mentioned very often would be really gigantic cities. 
  • The Free Cities. Same problem as above. Nine cities along a coast this big is absurd. There should be hundreds and hundreds of city-states and small realms along the western coast of Essos. I would explain that they are rarely evoked by the fact that all of them are the vassal of one of the Nine Free Cities. These Free Cities, like Braavos or Lys, would be city-states by name only. In reality, each of them would rule a territory encompassing several minor nations and other cities.
  • The same goes for the cities of the Slaver's Bay. There should be way more. There also should be way more kingdoms and countries in the heart of Essos, around the Dothraki Sea. Dozens and dozens of big and smaller countries, not just three or four. We're talking about a territory the size of Europe+Asia.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ironborn had raided the North thousands of years and last time during Ned's lifetime. So if I were their ruler I would have build 2 navies (one for each coasts). But northmen do not have a navy even they would have access to lot of timber and huge potential men power. So they should be able to build more powerful navy than Greyjoys.

But I assume the real reason why the North do not have a navy is the PLOT. Or the allmighty author wanted successful IB invasion to the North and strong Northern navy at Sunset Sea would had made that very unlikely.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, broken one said:

The iron islands are tiny, twice as big as Tarth I think. It is strange they pose such threat. 

Yes. It is very odd that neither North, Reach or Westerlands had ever had a ruler during last couple thousand years who had decided to use final solution to finally eliminate that threat. Or any of those 3 kingdoms should have been strong enough to wipe out IB if they really wanted to do so.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why are they even allowed to posses warships, since they use them only to rebel against crown and raid westeros? Somebody is missing something, time after time. Not to mention the number of the ships (and crews) seems disproportionately high for small, deforestated islands.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since naval technology on the Planetos seems closer to that of XV century AD than 2000 BC (no problem to build a ship propelled by wind only) and each oarsman and supplies for him means less cargo I would remove 95% "merchant galleys" from the books, leaving only those transporting caviar and soft fruits XD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Houses are waaay to old, and survived just too much, to start dying off like flies in the current period, with Stark Tully, Arryn, Baratheon all close to ending...

For instance the Greyjoys constatly revolting but not only still going on, but still lords of the IB.

There is also seems to have almost no evololution on technology.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Arthur Peres said:

The Houses are waaay to old, and survived just too much, to start dying off like flies in the current period, with Stark Tully, Arryn, Baratheon all close to ending...

For instance the Greyjoys constatly revolting but not only still going on, but still lords of the IB.

There is also seems to have almost no evololution on technology.

I don’t get why the Greyjoy’s and IB aren’t extinct...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • More Maester Citadels other than the single Citadel in the south that everyone uses. It's a pain to travel to if you're not in the west of central Westeros, and before the unification of Westeros I doubt any king would 100% trust whatever random Maester they receive.
  • More than one Maester in large households like the Lord Paramounts'. It is a lot of work to be a doctor, tutor, administrator, historian, and councilor with not even an understudy.
  • More Andal influence in the Vale since it was the place the Andals landed. The location of the Most Holy should be moved there as well, that way Oldtown doesn't have a monopoly on cultural influence.
  • More diversity in titles. "Ser", "Master", "Lord" are just not enough. Stannis should have been named a Duke when he was gifted Dragonstone as the King's heir. It could also be used to underscore regional differences as well.
  • More languages in Westeros. It makes sense that mid-Westeros would have Andal as a common language, but they would evolve over time. Sort of like how in Scandinavia you can speak Norwegian but still understand Swedish and vice versa. Dorne should have a mostly Old Tongue language that is only influenced by Andal since they didn't actually conquer it. Iron Islands and The North should speak their own brands of Old Tongue. And because High Valyrian is a language learned exclusively by the high born, it could be the language of the King's court.
  • The North should have its own fleet, jesus christ.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote

How can any empire /kingdom /civilization last 8-10,000 years without significant technological advances while it encourages academia via the Citadel and its Masters? - Bronze to Iron to Steel is negligible as we in the real world have performed quantum leaps in science and technology in 2000 years itself. 

 

How can any empire/civilization /kingdom last 8-10,000 years at all? It's against the chaos theory. It's utopian. 

 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://people.howstuffworks.com/culture-traditions/world-history/10-long-lived-empires.htm&ved=2ahUKEwiBr_jjjMDqAhUJzzgGHeiHCd0QFjAEegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw33-l_DDuHau20ArJ5zfOyA

 

How come Casterly rock hasn't run out of gold for 10000years with all the lavish spending by the Lannisters . They are as wealthy as they are greedy. Surely they'd have dug out the last nugget long ago. How? 

 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Currency&ved=2ahUKEwjthf2-jMDqAhWVwjgGHbE3C5sQFjACegQIAhAC&usg=AOvVaw0S7Osm0l3YMi5a5r9HSflj

 

The economy is also confusing. Would not the value of the golden dragon go down due to inflation if the Lannisters put a lot of it in circulation? Why and How are they allowed to do that first? Lord's allowed to mint the royal currency on their own (Manderly and Lannisters are just examples known) while there are royal mints means less power for the Iron throne. 

 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/modeledbehavior/2015/04/18/game-of-thrones-economics-why-doesnt-westeros-have-a-central-bank/amp/&ved=2ahUKEwjthf2-jMDqAhWVwjgGHbE3C5sQFjABegQIDBAH&usg=AOvVaw1Y4IcjBpC3Rk3yUM9gsM5A&ampcf=1

 

The Iron throne needs an Iron bank (Braavos got there first) to solve its ironic problems. Puns intended 

 

 

Quote

 On 7/7/2020 at 12:06 AM, Khaleesi did nothing wrong said:

Yeah, and I don't know if any ancient state did either. Some Caribbean islands in the 1700's had such ratios of slaves to free people, but they weren't independent countries. 

 

I think it makes sense in-universe that the Free Cities (except Braavos) developed these kinds of societies originally. They were tied to the Valyrian empire after all, and since they through that had access to dragons they probably weren't afraid of slave revolts regardless of how many of them there were. As we can see later, three dragons and a few thousand men was enough to conquer the entire continent of Westeros. 

 

However, by the time of the books the Valyrian Freehold has been gone for centuries. Sure, now with Dany we are seeing serious slave revolts brewing in many of these cities, but you'd think they would have started suffering serious instabilities because of their extremely high proportions of slaves long before the present. 

 

I don't think it would be possible to have such a high ratio of slave to free, without frequent slave revolts, and massive repression on the part of the slave owners (as was the case in the Caribbean). We certainly see the massive repression in the books

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, GoldenGail3 said:

I don’t get why the Greyjoy’s and IB aren’t extinct...

Because of opportunism. The IT couldn't punish Dagon Greyjoy because the Blackfyre threat was very much alive, and during Dalton's rule the court was busy with the Daughter's War and scheming agains't other(see Unwin Peake). The ironborn never rebelled agains't a strong king.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/15/2020 at 8:29 AM, The Hoare said:

Because of opportunism. The IT couldn't punish Dagon Greyjoy because the Blackfyre threat was very much alive, and during Dalton's rule the court was busy with the Daughter's War and scheming agains't other(see Unwin Peake). The ironborn never rebelled agains't a strong king.

strong or not - every time greyjoys ended up on their back, with westerosi troops on the iron islands. it is not question of opportunism but plot imo. in the real world not only the ruling family but the whole population would have been dealt with. where are old prussians today? were are sudovians? only in books XD 

IB are enemies of the faith of 7 (old gods too), they enslave the faithfull, murder them as a sacrifice to some demon from abyss. How come this's been tolerated for so long by the Faith and IT? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, broken one said:

in the real world not only the ruling family but the whole population would have been dealt with. where are old prussians today? were are sudovians? only in books XD 

In real life ethnic genocides were very uncommon in feudal societies, after all the ironborn still pay taxes to the crown. I don't think that's even remotely related to what happened to old prussians and sudovians.

8 hours ago, broken one said:

IB are enemies of the faith of 7 (old gods too), they enslave the faithfull, murder them as a sacrifice to some demon from abyss. How come this's been tolerated for so long by the Faith and IT? 

Because of Goren Greyjoy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would add more cadet branches and estates for each lord. Every major lord seems to hold only one named castle, while real-world nobles typically switched between a handful of castles while maintaining a caput, a fortified ancestral seat. Meanwhile the Peakes seem to be the odd ones out with three castles at one point and a title for each of them. It seems odd to me that only the Peakes are the exception here. We have mention of the Starks holding lesser holdfasts, but nothing particularly prominent. Each lord should hold a main castle and a handful of lesser castles.

Additionally, Ser Kevan Lannister and most close relatives would never be landless in the real-world. Even when real-world succession laws started shifting to the eldest son inheriting all estates, younger sons, nephews, and cousins would still typically have some small estate of their own to earn an income.

For a real-world example, Ralph Stafford, Earl of Stafford, held vast estates across England, and his younger brother, Sir Richard Stafford, also held substantial land in his own right. Even their fourth cousins, the brothers Sir John and Sir James Stafford, held their own estates and land. All of the senior Tyrell cousins should hold their own lands, as should Tywin's brothers and cousins.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • The number of members of the major houses & cadet branches. aside from the Lannisters and Tyrells. Popping out one to three children of which often 0-1 have children would not lead to multigenerational dynasties, let alone ones lasting for centuries to thousands of years.
  • Ironborn Power - Makes zero sense.
  • Dornish population - also makes no sense. Based upon what we are told, its geography is designed to have virtually no inhabitants outside of two small river basins.
  • Raven reliability.
  • I would remove the white walkers and the rest of the magic but that's just me. I prefer realistic.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, The Hoare said:

In real life ethnic genocides were very uncommon in feudal societies, after all the ironborn still pay taxes to the crown. I don't think that's even remotely related to what happened to old prussians and sudovians.

The balts were desolating christian masovia & other christian lands, taking slaves and cattle, burning vilages and towns. Prussians were hard to reach because of rivers and dense forests (kinda like sea protecting the IB) and polish dukes could not stop them. but teutonic order could. I am not talking about genocide but utter, enforced assimilation. The obedient were integrated into german culture at once, the rest resettled onto sandy soil and socialy degraded, their culture swept away. Do you think it was so uncommon? I am sure their genetic material lives on but it's all that left.

The only difference are the taxes. I think after a pacification the flow of taxes would go on, not interruprted by rebelions (I assume they stop paying when they uprise).

Goren Greyjoy lived in times of Aenys and Maegor, some things changed since then. And GG was allowed to remove priests of 7 from islands, not to rebel or raid Westeros. Never heard of IB having special license to keep slaves or make bloody sacrifices either.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, broken one said:

The balts were desolating christian masovia & other christian lands, taking slaves and cattle, burning vilages and towns. Prussians were hard to reach because of rivers and dense forests (kinda like sea protecting the IB) and polish dukes could not stop them. but teutonic order could. I am not talking about genocide but utter, enforced assimilation. The obedient were integrated into german culture at once, the rest resettled onto sandy soil and socialy degraded, their culture swept away. Do you think it was so uncommon? I am sure their genetic material lives on but it's all that left.

The only difference are the taxes. I think after a pacification the flow of taxes would go on, not interruprted by rebelions (I assume they stop paying when they uprise).

Goren Greyjoy lived in times of Aenys and Maegor, some things changed since then. And GG was allowed to remove priests of 7 from islands, not to rebel or raid Westeros. Never heard of IB having special license to keep slaves or make bloody sacrifices either.

First of all, we have no reason to believe that the ironborn raided Westeros in times of peace. We know that lord Quellon Greyjoy raided the Westerlands, but this seems to be a unique case.

Second, if the ironborn were forcely assimilated, don't you think that the ironborn lords would rebel at any chance? Even mainland lords could use the opportunity.

Third, we have no reason to believe that IT forbidded thralldom(which the ironborn do not consider to be the same as slavery) or sacrifices. They have been doing that for centuries and the IT never punished them for it.

The greyjoys are not a special case in Westeros, there are greater threats and worse traitors than them.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Westeros (even Essos) needs to be multilingual. And even inside one Kingdom there should be varying dialects. Even today there are multitudes of dialects in every country, to the point that some have very little to do with the language spoken in the country.

How has nothing developed in terms of technology? Considering how far we have come in the 500 years since the middle ages ended, it makes no sense that Planetos has been stuck for thousands of years. And even we made advances with huge impact before and during the middle ages.

How are the Ironborn still a thing? There is no way the Reach, Westerlands and North would not have wiped them out by now. It makes no freaking sense considering the trouble they cause compared to what they could possibly offer (which is what exactly? puny taxes because they are small and have no resources?).

There should have been more cadet branches of the big Houses. There is no way any of these Houses make it for thousands of years with only one House.

How does the North have no war fleet? And on both coasts. The Manderlys made White Harbor big but they also have no war fleet to defend that huge trading post? What if the Skagosi come knocking again? Even if there is nothing west of Westeros, a port on the west side that doubles as defense against those stupid IB no one seems to want to wipe out and giant fishing post seems necessary.

In the same vein, why are the Boltons still kicking? They constantly violate the law (First Night, flaying etc.) and are always opportunistic. The Wildings are also a head scratcher. A big region of The North has over time become entirely depopulated due to constant Wildling raids. Why was there no amassing of an army, march them past the Wall and wipe out the Wildlings?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree that some of the proposed changes would make for a more interesting and realistic setting. The absence of linguistic diversity particularly bothers me: at the very least the North should speak the Old Tongue and Dorne have a very distinct Rhoynish dialect.

Some other changes that I'd introduce:

  • Make Westeros smaller. Like, reduce its size by half. You could reduce the size of the armies by the same amount, if you wish. This reduced size would work better with the idea of a culturally homogeneous Westeros, and would make it easier to swallow that the Targaryens could keep the realm together without dragons for more than a century.
  • Make the Wall lower. Again, reducing its height by half would put some sense to the idea of killing someone at the top with arrows, or scaling it with primitive equipment.
  • Reverse the coasts. Put the Stormlands and the Vale (isolationist, with more remaining influence of the First Men) on the western coast. Put the Reach and the Kingdom of the Rock (most Andalish kingdoms, with coastal cities) in the eastern coast, with KL and the Blackwater Bay between them. The Iron Islands would switch to the eastern coast too, allowing them to keep their pillaging culture on other nations of the Narrow Sea. It wouldn't hurt to make them a little bit bigger, too.
  • Reduce the time spans. The Rhoynar should have come like 600 years ago (300 before the Targs). The Andals should have come at most a thousand years ago.
  • Introduce some major changes across history. The most prominent houses now shouldn't be the same ones that were prominent centuries ago. A couple of the Seven Kingdoms could have formed a dynastic union at some time. One of them could have invaded another for a few decades. Dynasties could have changed. Great houses could have disappeared (not only in the Wars of conquest). Etc.
  • Fix the rivers. Put the sources of the rivers on mountains and vales, instead of marshes and plains. Make some of them flow north instead of south.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...