Alternative histories

[Corvo the Crow]

3 hours ago, Alden Rothack said:

there were about a hundred thousand remaining after years of white walker attacks

Quote please.

[Alden Rothack]

1 hour ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Quote please.

 

I cannot find one

the book says there are thirty to forty thousand attacking Castle Black, Stannis killed or captured thousands, some went to Hardhome, some scattered back into their clans, thousands passed through the wall on Jons command

However there are still enough for over three thousand to pass through in one day

there may be thirty thousand or fewer currently but that is because they have been almost wiped out

[astarkchoice]

14 hours ago, James Fenimore Cooper XXII said:

Bolton rule is not different to the Stark's reign. The family had sons like Domeric.  Ramsay is not the usual lord.  Lady Walda's son (of the future) will grow up like Domeric. 

Their sigil and house words  would.suggest otherwise

[Alden Rothack]

42 minutes ago, astarkchoice said:

Their sigil and house words  would.suggest otherwise

And the fact they are still around suggests they were historically feared and respect not uniformly reviled as they are now

[Corvo the Crow]

2 hours ago, Alden Rothack said:

 

I cannot find one

the book says there are thirty to forty thousand attacking Castle Black, Stannis killed or captured thousands, some went to Hardhome, some scattered back into their clans, thousands passed through the wall on Jons command

However there are still enough for over three thousand to pass through in one day

there may be thirty thousand or fewer currently but that is because they have been almost wiped out

Thirty thousand or some more is the number Mance has gathered, we get that number repeatedly from several reliable sources(NW scouts and Jon) and before Stannis is even involved. They have not been wiped out, threat of Others is yet to materialize at this point, Mance's Horde faces no severe attacks like the one NW got in the Fist, it is only after the crushing defeat at the wall that the remnant groups (namely Tormund's) face "attacks" and that attacks is again not comparable to NW and Fist, it's dead raising, not an army of them attacking.

Quote

 

Chett raised his eyes and there it was. The river's stony banks were bearded by ice, its pale milky waters flowing endlessly down out of the Frostfangs. And now Mance Rayder and his wildlings were flowing down the same way. Thoren Smallwood had returned in a lather three days past. While he was telling the Old Bear what his scouts had seen, his man Kedge Whiteye told the rest of them. "They're still well up the foothills, but they're coming," Kedge said, warming his hands over the fire. "Harma the Dogshead has the van, the poxy bitch. Goady crept up on her camp and saw her plain by the fire. That fool Tumberjon wanted to pick her off with an arrow, but Smallwood had better sense."

Chett spat. "How many were there, could you tell?"

"Many and more. Twenty, thirty thousand, we didn't stay to count. Harma had five hundred in the van, every one ahorse."

 

This comes from rangers, who didn't stay and count.

 

Quote

"What if we refuse the offer?" Jon had no doubt that they would. The Old Bear might at least have listened, though he would have balked at the notion of letting thirty or forty thousand wildlings loose on the Seven Kingdoms. But Alliser Thorne and Janos Slynt would dismiss the notion out of hand.

This is Jon, who did stay and count. 

Wildlings are some 30.000, perhaps 40.000 before Stannis breaks them.

[astarkchoice]

1 hour ago, Alden Rothack said:

And the fact they are still around suggests they were historically feared and respect not uniformly reviled as they are now

True I think they have always been feared and respected due to their houses strength

As for reviled until they betrayed robb  its hard to say, obviously no word of ramsays 'games' reached ned or hed have had  his head! As for 1st night etc roose may be correct that other houses practice it.......in the vast barren areas of north itd be hard for word to filter down of any crimes

[Phylum of Alexandria]

1 hour ago, Alden Rothack said:

And the fact they are still around suggests they were historically feared and respect not uniformly reviled as they are now

Being feared and respected is one thing...their rule as Lords of the North being no different from that of the Starks is quite another.

[Alden Rothack]

4 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Thirty thousand or some more is the number Mance has gathered, we get that number repeatedly from several reliable sources(NW scouts and Jon) and before Stannis is even involved. They have not been wiped out, threat of Others is yet to materialize at this point, Mance's Horde faces no severe attacks like the one NW got in the Fist, it is only after the crushing defeat at the wall that the remnant groups (namely Tormund's) face "attacks" and that attacks is again not comparable to NW and Fist, it's dead raising, not an army of them attacking.

This comes from rangers, who didn't stay and count.

 

This is Jon, who did stay and count. 

Wildlings are some 30.000, perhaps 40.000 before Stannis breaks them.

Mance would have lost some before that point, they must have had more before Mance regardless of what happened to them or when because 40,000 people is not enough

[Corvo the Crow]

Just now, Alden Rothack said:

Mance would have lost some before that point, they must have had more before Mance regardless of what happened to them or when because 40,000 people is not enough

 

Just add it to the pile

 

[Alden Rothack]

1 minute ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

Being feared and respected is one thing...their rule as Lords of the North being no different from that of the Starks is quite another.

For starters no Manderleys, I doubt even the most conventional Boltons would have allowed them in the north unless they converted

[Phylum of Alexandria]

4 minutes ago, Alden Rothack said:

For starters no Manderleys, I doubt even the most conventional Boltons would have allowed them in the north unless they converted

That alone is a huge difference. Who holds White Harbor would potentially have great consequences in many future avenues.

[Alden Rothack]

2 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

 

Just add it to the pile

 

lol

I have many thoughts on how Westeros should be such as more people, repeopled gift and western coast, stark western fleet, stark conquest of the ironborn, fewer ironborn, many more large and medium sized towns, breaking up the reach, placing the marches in the crownlands, a lord of the mountains of the moon, the sisters as northern, the stepstones as Targ, the maesters and septons/septas as one organisation etc

[Alden Rothack]

6 minutes ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

That alone is a huge difference. Who holds White Harbor would potentially have great consequences in many future avenues.

It was the Manderleys who built it into a true city, otherwise its probably 'just' an eastern barrowton, strong but not more powerful than the next two lords put together

[Alden Rothack]

the kingslayer is expelled from the kingsgard before roberts coronation after he tells his father that Aerys and Rossart planned to destroy kingslanding, Varys is executed as an accessory, stark loyalist Lord Morcant Blackstone becomes Master of Whispers

[Phylum of Alexandria]

1 hour ago, Alden Rothack said:

It was the Manderleys who built it into a true city, otherwise its probably 'just' an eastern barrowton, strong but not more powerful than the next two lords put together

Even if that's true, it's a consequential difference. I feel like the commenter minimizing the Bolton/Stark differences hasn't really thought it through.

[Alden Rothack]

9 hours ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

Even if that's true, it's a consequential difference. I feel like the commenter minimizing the Bolton/Stark differences hasn't really thought it through.

Honestly I can't see the Boltons doing it in the first place, they can't hold the north by cruelty alone and if they were otherwise they'd be Redstarks not Boltons

[astarkchoice]

5 hours ago, Alden Rothack said:

Honestly I can't see the Boltons doing it in the first place, they can't hold the north by cruelty alone and if they were otherwise they'd be Redstarks not Boltons

Maybe they could .....the north would be like a sort of medieval north korea with the threat of torture or informants hanging over everyone! With centuries ruling over the north wed assume by then there would be another related house spun off from then to help solidify their rule like the karstarks.

[Alden Rothack]

1 hour ago, astarkchoice said:

Maybe they could .....the north would be like a sort of medieval north korea with the threat of torture or informants hanging over everyone! With centuries ruling over the north wed assume by then there would be another related house spun off from then to help solidify their rule like the karstarks.

the greystarks might be a better comparison.

ultra oppressive police states can't exist without modern centralisation of military power, north korea can do it because they have a huge standing army with 20th century surveilance infrastructure.

the first effective police state was Revoluntionary France and they collapsed in less than a generation from brain drain and mass starvation.

The Boltons would need more gold than the Lannisters, a police force of ten thousand skinchangers and uninterceptable communications to keep the North under their rule for even a generation

[Craving Peaches]

1 minute ago, Alden Rothack said:

ultra oppressive police states can't exist without modern centralisation of military power, north korea can do it because they have a huge standing army with 20th century surveilance infrastructure.

What about the Tokugawa Shogunate?

[Alden Rothack]

1 minute ago, Craving Peaches said:

What about the Tokugawa Shogunate?

While I wouldn't want to live there either, it wasn't exactly ultra oppressive for the nobility