No Western Fleet for the North

[Falcon2909]

Lmaooo Brandon the Burner is an idiot for burning the fleet. Just what was he thinking???? Brother, you have Ironborn reavers who regularly pillage the Westerosi mainland coasts, even going as far your Bear Island. Burning the fleet = guaranteeing the Ironborn to lay waste to your Northern coasts

[Angel Eyes]

On 7/24/2021 at 1:36 AM, Falcon2909 said:

Lmaooo Brandon the Burner is an idiot for burning the fleet. Just what was he thinking???? Brother, you have Ironborn reavers who regularly pillage the Westerosi mainland coasts, even going as far your Bear Island. Burning the fleet = guaranteeing the Ironborn to lay waste to your Northern coasts

People do bad things when grieving, to themselves and to others. It's a common occurrence in the books, too many examples to list.

[BlackLightning]

On 7/23/2021 at 9:17 AM, Free Northman Reborn said:

Really didn’t feel like rehashing all of this again.

For one, the Hungry Wolf had a large fleet when he invaded Essos during the Andal invasion.

Two, the Starks clearly had a fleet 2000 years ago when they invaded the Three Sisters. (Which likely was during the Hungry Wolf’s time as well).

Three, this started the War Across the Water, which lasted for the next 1000 years, during which the islands changed hands a dozen times, and the Starks invaded the Vale itself, even burning all the ships in Gulltown’s Harbor. Clearly they had a substantial fleet at this time.

We know Mathos Arryn set sail to liberate the Three Sisters with 100 longships, so we get a sense of the the size of fleets involved during this war.

Clearly Brandon did not end the North’s power at sea while this war raged on.

So that brings us up to 1000 years ago, when the Manderlys arrived in the North.

Leaving only a 700 year gap until Aegon’s Conquest. And conveniently tying in well with Wyman Manderly’s statement that “We have not had any strength at sea since Brandon the Burner burned his father’s fleet”, strongly implying that it happened during the Manderlys time in the North.

Clearly we are in fact talking hundreds of years ago, not “thousands” as Fire and Blood incorrectly claims.

Very true.

People need to also remember that Fire and Blood is not a encyclopedia or gigantic appendix. It's a pseduo-history written by a fictional character based on the understanding that history is often inaccurate and inconsistent for many different reasons. And the historians who take their craft seriously with the best intentions are people too: they make mistakes and they are writing about events, people, locations and circumstances that they learned about second-, third- or even fourth-hand. The maester set to have written Fire and Blood wrote about the reigns of seven monarchs and about the period immediately before the reign of the first king...there's no way he lived through all of them and had accurate, unbiased, complete information about all of them.

[BlackLightning]

On 7/23/2021 at 9:57 PM, The Hoare said:

For medieval standarts they're large enough.

Pebbleton in Great Wyk is smaller than Lordsport and it has 7000 inhabitants.

Good point.

Looks like I need to do another reread.

On 7/23/2021 at 10:30 AM, Lord Lannister said:

I just always figured it was there were no major cities on the west coast of the North. 

That's the thing.

The fact that there is not a port town of decent size on the west coast of the North bothers me.

But what really bothers me is that Lannisport is the only city on the west coast of Westeros. Seagard and Lordsport should be cities.

The south has Oldtown. Sunspear and Planky Town straddle both the south and the east. The east has countless of ports and cities and towns. White Harbor and Eastwatch are enough for the North. But the west? It's Lannisport and nothing else.

2 hours ago, Angel Eyes said:

People do bad things when grieving, to themselves and to others. It's a common occurrence in the books, too many examples to list.

It's a common occurrence in life too.

Not to say that Brandon the Burner wasn't stupid. He was...but what he did is both understandable and not completely illogical.

 

[Angel Eyes]

2 minutes ago, BlackLightning said:

Good point.

Looks like I need to do another reread.

That's the thing.

The fact that there is not a port town of decent size on the west coast of the North bothers me.

But what really bothers me is that Lannisport is the only city on the west coast of Westeros. Seagard and Lordsport should be cities.

The south has Oldtown. Sunspear and Planky Town straddle both the south and the east. The east has countless of ports and cities and towns. White Harbor and Eastwatch are enough for the North. But the west? It's Lannisport and nothing else.

It's a common occurrence in life too.

Not to say that Brandon the Burner wasn't stupid. He was...but what he did is both understandable and not completely illogical.

 

Seagard I can understand, isn't there something in The World of Ice and Fire that says that the River Kings refused a lot of charters?

[The Hoare]

23 minutes ago, BlackLightning said:

But what really bothers me is that Lannisport is the only city on the west coast of Westeros. Seagard and Lordsport should be cities.

Lordsport is more populous than any scandinavian city in the middle ages. 

The weird thing is how so few cities are located along rivers.

[BlackLightning]

On 7/26/2021 at 9:25 PM, The Hoare said:

Lordsport is more populous than any scandinavian city in the middle ages. 

The weird thing is how so few cities are located along rivers.

Cities? Or towns? Because there seems to be plenty of towns situated along rivers in the Reach, the Riverlands and Dorne

On 7/26/2021 at 8:57 PM, Angel Eyes said:

Seagard I can understand, isn't there something in The World of Ice and Fire that says that the River Kings refused a lot of charters?

Yes they did, They denied the charters for Fairmarket, Maidenpool and another place.

But Seagard is different. Seagard is a both a rich port and a natural military powerbase.

[Universal Sword Donor]

23 minutes ago, BlackLightning said:

Cities? Or towns? Because there seems to be plenty of towns situated along rivers in the Reach, the Riverlands and Dorne

Yes they did, They denied the charters for Fairmarket, Maidenpool and another place.

But Seagard is different. Seagard is a both a rich port and a natural military powerbase.

What makes seagard a rich port? It sits in a bay constantly raided by pseudo vikings next to a swamp

[The Hoare]

1 hour ago, BlackLightning said:

Cities? Or towns? Because there seems to be plenty of towns situated along rivers in the Reach, the Riverlands and Dorne

Cities. The largest cities in our world were all built around rivers.

[Rondo]

Expense is the reason.  The Starks are not a wealthy house by any stretch.  

[dsjj251]

On 7/23/2021 at 9:17 AM, Free Northman Reborn said:

Really didn’t feel like rehashing all of this again.

im just going to laugh and keep it moving, LOL

 

 

[dsjj251]

On 7/27/2021 at 11:23 PM, Universal Sword Donor said:

What makes seagard a rich port? It sits in a bay constantly raided by pseudo vikings next to a swamp

The Iron Islands have been tamed for about 300 years. 

 

As for what makes them rich  ? If the WOIAF map is proportionally accurate, Seagard is closer to  most of the east coast than Lannisport and it would be much quicker to sail up to Seagard and  then use wagons via the Kings road, than the Gold Road.

 

but again, thats conditional on Lannispot/The Westerlands and Oldtown/Reach really being bowed out from the rest of westeros as shown in the WOIAF map. 

[Universal Sword Donor]

8 hours ago, dsjj251 said:

The Iron Islands have been tamed for about 300 years.

As for what makes them rich  ? If the WOIAF map is proportionally accurate, Seagard is closer to  most of the east coast than Lannisport and it would be much quicker to sail up to Seagard and  then use wagons via the Kings road, than the Gold Road.

but again, thats conditional on Lannispot/The Westerlands and Oldtown/Reach really being bowed out from the rest of westeros as shown in the WOIAF map. 

Assuming the Iron Islands have been tamed -- which has not always been the case -- there is still little reason why Seagard would be a rich port. The headwaters of the Blue Fork are prone to flooding. The IB had to land 120 miles south of Segard to portage their longships to the rivers to conquer the RL. On top of that, it's not "known" for anything. Lannisport is a huge city known for its gold artisans and honey wine. Lordsport, a shorter trip to the "pacified' Iron Islands than to Seagard, is well know for its steel work and ship building. There's a reason to go to those others, not so much Seagard. Anything north of Seagard is just fishing or wood, which can be had farther south or on the east side of westeros.

When you're already that far north, you'll want products that you can move on the route back, and your options are pretty limited or high volume, low value. The more full your hold is the more value you carry and can trade. Sailing back empty just means less money for the operation overall and a wasted opportunity. So sailing north to Seagard or Bear Island or the stony shore means you'd like be trading in Lordport for metalwork, which fish and wood aren't going to get a ton of, and then you sail onto Lannisport or Oldtown where you can trade your metal work for wine, cloth, goldwork, et al but you're gonna get a poor exchange since fine arms and armor from the IB aren't going to be much of a premium over what you can source locally.

tl;dr: it's not worth the time or effort to go to Seagard for anything we currently know of in its vicinity.

[Mystical]

On 7/27/2021 at 3:52 AM, BlackLightning said:

But what really bothers me is that Lannisport is the only city on the west coast of Westeros. Seagard and Lordsport should be cities.

Considering that both The Westerlands and Reach are on the west coast (arguably the most prosperous Kingdoms), there should be more ports on the west side. And that includes the North. It's important for trade and import/export. Especially the North with it's winters could find themselves in dire need of food so sailing on the west side is the most expedient.

I understand that harsh winters could be a problem but if you have an actual port attached to a city, you have the manpower to deal with ice. Not to mention that it's possible to build ships with ice breakers on the front. If you sail a bit further out into the sea, it won't be frozen ice there.

And if the Greyjoys/Ironborn are making trouble, get rid of them. That they still exist at all makes no sense anyway. Considering what a pain they are to the west coast of the continent, no one would stand for that in the world GRRM presents to us. It's similar to the idiocy of the Boltons still being alive. Hard to suspend one's disbelief for those types of things.

[nyser1]

It fits the plot that the North is vulnerable to the Iron Islands for their role in the main books.