Instances of Poor World Building

[Daemon of the Blacks]

On 10/28/2022 at 7:53 AM, Minsc said:

Also the Blackwood and Bracken feud comes off poorly written as the Blackwoods are also shown in the right and superior while the Brackens are always in the wrong and awful.  Like how hasn't House Bracken been destroyed yet as they are almost always the loser.  Why not have something like the Blackwoods were strongest supporters of Maegar while the Brackens were some of the first supporters of Jaehaerys.  Why not have the Brute of Bracken support Dunk during his Trial of Seven?  Think how that could have been used to make Egg question some of his preceived notions about the houses that supported the Blackfyres.  Just anything where the Brackens aren't treated as idiotic immoral losers.

Yeah I think the conflict is far too one sided.

Its not just that the Bracken's are always on the wrong side of every conflict. That on itself can work if the Bracken were given more interesting characters. But while the Blackwoods keep getting the most amazing characters on their side of the war the Brackens are almost always side characters or just plainly inferior to their Blackwood counterpart. Their conflict is almost never a contest between equals, which makes me wonder why the Blackwoods haven't won ages ago.

Bittersteel is the first Bracken character that comes off as charismatic and halfway competent, and when house Bracken finally has such a character he's got to compete with a sorcerer spymaster and the one eyed raven in Brynden Rivers.

[Toth]

2 hours ago, Corvo the Crow said:

uh-huh and how does Jory, Heward and Wyl fit into this? You attack a lord's men, be it a household knight or a bannermen, you attack that lord. When Tywin's mad dog attacked the Riverlanders, it was an attack on Lord Hoster. 

I'm not saying Jaime was particularly smart about it, given that he was mostly driven by his rage, but my argument boils down to it that he personally hadn't put a hand on either Stark nor his men and so was still able to tell himself that he didn't personally soiled his cloak. My point is not that it makes sense or is justified in any way (even in-universe), but more about how this might be his personal hypocritical framing of the situation. Note that he's all about symbolic appearance when he decides when to show his golden armor and when to hide it with his white cloak when he's doing a good deed for example.

[Ingelheim]

On 10/28/2022 at 11:16 AM, Corvo the Crow said:

Most of the Westerosi are split into two major groups that share a common ancestry though. I'm talking in the sense of language and to a degree culture, not genetics, if we bring the genetics into it, well, I remember reading a study on Britain showing that it is in fact still mostly Briton in genetic make up with Anglo-Saxon, etc making up between %20-40 at most in places they are highest, so their culture and language have changed but they kept living on, it would be the same with First Men.

Different languages of the Westeros would at most be like what different Germanic, Turkic or Slavic languages are to eachother but even then when we take into consideration that these real world languages of ours all have loanwords from many other languages and Westerosi languages can only loan words from each other(there would be loans from Essos as well but not as much as each other), I can't see a huge inflation of languages in Westeros. Northmen and especially the wildlings should have kept their language but that's about it.

Not matter how homogeneous an ethnic group is, populations that live on a world the size of Westeros will end up developing different languages. Specially when we are talking about thousands and thousands of years of history.

Sure, they will probably come from the same brach, but it would be like here in Europe with the Romance Languages: Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian. They all come from the same branch. But they are distinct different languages. 

The Vale of Arryn is thousands of km away from Dorne, or even the Stormlands, for example. And they still speak the same language even though we are told the Vale is kind of isolated. And they speak it after thousands of years of history.

That's just not logical. But as I said, I understand Martin is not Tolkien.

[frenin]

47 minutes ago, Ingelheim said:

The Vale of Arryn is thousands of km away from Dorne, or even the Stormlands, for example. And they still speak the same language even though we are told the Vale is kind of isolated. And they speak it after thousands of years of history.

There are several dialects in Latin America but the common language is still Spanish.

[Ingelheim]

25 minutes ago, frenin said:

There are several dialects in Latin America but the common language is still Spanish.

Because of a colonization process that lasted for more than 300 years. And the vocabulary and accent for Latin American Spanish dialects are quite different for each one of them, and even more compared to Castillian Spanish. I'm Spanish myself, actually, from Madrid xD.

Westeros isn't the colony of, let's say, Valyria for example. If Valyrians had conquered Westeros, then maybe it would seem more logical that they would have a common language. But they are independent kingdoms and cultures from a fictional Medieval Age (not similar to our XVII, XVIII and XIX centuries). In reality, there would be quite a few different languages. 

On the other hand, Latin America was colonized when the print had been around for decades. So the distribution of books and all of that was far more common and it helped spread the language. In Westeros 99% of people are iliterate, there are no means of production and distribution of literature, and yet a Dornishman and a man for the North speak the same language, only with slightly different accents, while being separated by 3000 km (or even more), and they don't have any problem at all understanding each other.

That wouldn't have happened in our world. Not by any chance.

The accents also should be completely different by regions. In UK, like in Spain, there are dozens of different accents, some of them almost impossible to understand to their own compatriots.

 

[Alden Rothack]

Not only does England have three dialects just for London it was ruled by non english speaking kings for nearly three centuries

the Targs should have spoken High Valyrian exclusively until Egg

[Corvo the Crow]

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[Corvo the Crow]

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[Craving Peaches]

28 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

What we see instead is common speaking Northmen and bilingual wildlings. What? Why the hell are there so many bilingual wildlings?

Unless there's also an influx of common tongue speakers coming North of the Wall (unlikely), how are they learning this? They really have no excuse. They are separated from everyone else by a giant wall. The only reason that would make sense is if by the time they were separated the North was already speaking the Common tongue. But that doesn't work either...

[frenin]

9 hours ago, Ingelheim said:

Because of a colonization process that lasted for more than 300 years. And the vocabulary and accent for Latin American Spanish dialects are quite different for each one of them, and even more compared to Castillian Spanish. I'm Spanish myself, actually, from Madrid xD.

Westeros isn't the colony of, let's say, Valyria for example. If Valyrians had conquered Westeros, then maybe it would seem more logical that they would have a common language. But they are independent kingdoms and cultures from a fictional Medieval Age (not similar to our XVII, XVIII and XIX centuries). In reality, there would be quite a few different languages. 

On the other hand, Latin America was colonized when the print had been around for decades. So the distribution of books and all of that was far more common and it helped spread the language. In Westeros 99% of people are iliterate, there are no means of production and distribution of literature, and yet a Dornishman and a man for the North speak the same language, only with slightly different accents, while being separated by 3000 km (or even more), and they don't have any problem at all understanding each other.

That wouldn't have happened in our world. Not by any chance.

The accents also should be completely different by regions. In UK, like in Spain, there are dozens of different accents, some of them almost impossible to understand to their own compatriots.

 

Westeros is completely static in time, that more languages have not developed is perfectly understandable. The the First Men wo were never subdued and had little contact with the south lost their language is just absurd.

But then again, Martin's complete disregard of law in Westeros is baffling.

[Corvo the Crow]

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[Angel Eyes]

22 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

When Ned and Catelyn discuss about Jon, everything they claim Kingslanding and the court to be, it is the opposite. In fact, many claims we see regarding bastards from Catelyn are totally disregarded later on, many things for families also. Ned can't bring Jon because he is bastard? KL is full of such and no one would bat an eye, in fact bringing Jon to KL would've been much better for Jon because unlike in his family's castle, he wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb. Ned's behaviour towards Jon is unusual? Nope, we see plenty of lords taking in their bastards. Northmen can't have large families because this and that, Northern honor, NW etc but We see Arnolf still living in the castle and even having had a marriage and several sons, Umbers too. Damn Yohn Royce has 3 sons and sends one to NW and the other sets out to be a KG because a second son must make a name for himself but Yohn's vassal, Horton Redfort has all 4 of his sons with him and his son, not even the firstborn but the 4th son marries to, guess who, the daughter of his liege lord Yohn Royce. The guy isn't even a second son that may yet inherit with a brother dying in a tourney or battle or whatever, he is a 4th son with no hope of inheriting unless say an avalanche hits the Falcon Knight tourney and kills his 3 older borthers.

These inconsistencies can't be waved off with "unreliable narrator" effect either.

Well, in Westerosi culture there's a difference between raising a bastard alongside one's legitimate children and treating them like a servant, e.g. Falia Flowers. Walder Frey also falls into the "raising bastard along legitimate children" and given Hoster's frequent criticism of Walder Frey, this might be the root of Catelyn's personal dislike of bastards.

Also I think it illustrates how much Catelyn wants to give Jon the boot.

[Minsc]

4 hours ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Ned's behaviour towards Jon is unusual? Nope, we see plenty of lords taking in their bastards.

Besides Walder Frey do we actually see many lords treating their bastards in almost near equality to their trueborn children?

[Corvo the Crow]

3 hours ago, Minsc said:

Besides Walder Frey do we actually see many lords treating their bastards in almost near equality to their trueborn children?

I'll not count Falia Flowers as she's treated as a servant as @Angel Eyes said but there are others, Garth the Gross' two sons, Garse and Garrett. Aurane waters, Wex Pyke is made a squire to Theon, Ronald Storm of Griffin's Roost and they aren't even a major house after Robert's Rebellion, Joy Hill, among some others. There are also those like Edric Storm and Larence Snow(Hornwood's bastard) that are not brought home are made wards of other lords. I won't even talk about the host of bastards in Dance of the Dragons, many houses have bastards commanding their armies. Ramsay, for example, wasn't even trained in arms since he didn't grow up in the family castle, these bastards partaking in war means they have been trained in arms and since some of them perform more than just a skill at arms but are rather good commanders, not only were they raised at their castle and given training to be knights, but they had also received training on how to conduct war. Jon would've thrived in KL, he would meet a beautiful bastard daughter of a lord or perhaps even a trueborn one from a lower house, his son would found his own house like the Longwaters. 

 

[Minsc]

19 hours ago, Corvo the Crow said:

I'll not count Falia Flowers as she's treated as a servant as @Angel Eyes said but there are others, Garth the Gross' two sons, Garse and Garrett. Aurane waters, Wex Pyke is made a squire to Theon, Ronald Storm of Griffin's Roost and they aren't even a major house after Robert's Rebellion, Joy Hill, among some others. There are also those like Edric Storm and Larence Snow(Hornwood's bastard) that are not brought home are made wards of other lords. I won't even talk about the host of bastards in Dance of the Dragons, many houses have bastards commanding their armies. Ramsay, for example, wasn't even trained in arms since he didn't grow up in the family castle, these bastards partaking in war means they have been trained in arms and since some of them perform more than just a skill at arms but are rather good commanders, not only were they raised at their castle and given training to be knights, but they had also received training on how to conduct war. Jon would've thrived in KL, he would meet a beautiful bastard daughter of a lord or perhaps even a trueborn one from a lower house, his son would found his own house like the Longwaters. 

 

Do we actually know the status of where those bastards were raised and/or their father's marital status?

[Corvo the Crow]

3 hours ago, Minsc said:

Do we actually know the status of where those bastards were raised and/or their father's marital status?

Do you mean dance of the dragons bastards? I'm not sure, but as can be seen they knew how to fight and knew how to lead armies so they were obviously raised in a castle with a master at arms training them and a maester teaching them. Even if this castle wasn't their father's own castle, they weren't treated like Ramsay was, which Catelyn expects. Now, Ramsay's treatment may yet be the more common form that a bastard gets, but there are enough cases that bastards get the Jon treatment from their father that his case shouldn't be shown as so unusual. Ser Rolland Storm and Brandon Snow, brother of Torrhen the king who knelt are two more examples that live with their brothers. Where they grew? We aren't told, but as adults they live with their brothers so they must've had some sort of relationship before growing up. Fire and Blood gives us plenty of bastards like these but I especially mentioned the Dance of the Dragons ones because they even lead armies of their house, which is an important thing.

[Aldarion]

On 10/30/2022 at 1:35 AM, Ingelheim said:

The accents also should be completely different by regions. In UK, like in Spain, there are dozens of different accents, some of them almost impossible to understand to their own compatriots.

 

Hell, in Croatia we have three dialects which... most people don't speak them nowadays because of the press and the education, but the original dialects are nearly mutually unintelligible.

[Craving Peaches]

44 minutes ago, Aldarion said:

Hell, in Croatia we have three dialects which... most people don't speak them nowadays because of the press and the education, but the original dialects are nearly mutually unintelligible

It's not quite as extreme but people from Glasgow and Edinburgh have different accents as well. So if they speak differently people in Westeros should definitely have different accents to one another. Not to mention people from the North of Scotland compared to people from the South of Scotland. 

[Ran]

30 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

It's not quite as extreme but people from Glasgow and Edinburgh have different accents as well. So if they speak differently people in Westeros should definitely have different accents to one another. Not to mention people from the North of Scotland compared to people from the South of Scotland. 

From AGoT:

Quote

"A lordling," Pyp observed to Jon. "Southron, most like near Highgarden." Pyp had traveled the Seven Kingdoms with a mummers' troupe, and bragged that he could tell what you were and where you'd been born just from the sound of your voice.

 

[Craving Peaches]

6 minutes ago, Ran said:

From AGoT:

At least there is some sort of accent, but as other people have pointed out, especially given the vast distance between places and the fact that it takes loads of time to travel anywhere, they should have more than just different accents. Edinburgh and Glasgow are less than 50 miles apart. Highgarden and Winterfell, for example, must be hundreds, if not thousands, of miles apart so they really ought to be speaking different languages, realistically. 

At the very least, the North (and not just beyond the wall) should have a different language than everyone else. You could kind of justify it amongst all the southern nobles by saying that the common tongue spread with the Faith, but as the Faith never spread to the North (Manderlys aside), they should not just all be speaking the common tongue in my opinion.