Will all the Dothraki simply starve when they land in Westeros?

[Corvo the Crow]

14 minutes ago, Aldarion said:

For example, yes, there were slave soldiers: Mamluks, Janissaries, and some others. But they were never marched under whips, they were never sold abroad, and had a very high status. In some cases (Janissaries), they even took the government. Unsullied are a combination of worst tropes about Spartans and worst tropes about slave soldiers, a combination that simply doesn't work if given any thought at all. So I'm rather worried about how Martin will balance the mess he made of Essosi armies to relatively well done Westerosi forces.

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

Mameluks also took the government or rather, instead of taking the government they did it one better and took the entire state, there were two Mamluk dynasties, first a Turkic one and then a Circassian one. Also I'm not sure if saying that Jannissaries took the government would be correct because many officials came from the same background, Janissaries was just the ones who were sent to the military part.

Could the Janissaries even be called slaves, I'm not sure. It was a sort of blood tax so it can be called slavery but definitely not in the sense what many people would understand when they hear the word slavers. They weren't sold(Mamluks were bought by their owners), they were able to go back where they came(at least after when they retired, I remember at least one minor greek muslim ethic group that trace their origin to two retired Janissaries returning to their home village), they revolted several times to keep the institution in place when Sultans tried to disestablish it and I recall reading at least one rebellion by not the Janissaries themselves but the non-muslim population that wanted to keep the system going, because the sons that were taken could end up becoming very influential figures, even as soldiers they had better lives than they could otherwise have hoped for.

 

 

[Craving Peaches]

3 hours ago, Moiraine Sedai said:

The Dothraki will have support from The Unsullied and the Free People’s Army.

Who is Daenerys, Chairman Mao? Stalin? A commie?

3 hours ago, Moiraine Sedai said:

Food, weapon, horses, siege machines, and treasures from the masters

What food and weapons will they have that will be enough to support the entire army that Daenerys is bringing? How will she be able to maintain those supply lines properly?

3 hours ago, Moiraine Sedai said:

I look forward to Manderly, Baratheon, Arryn, Stark, and Tully getting further diminished. I want those who were the Usurper’s dogs to look like they’ve been living on rat stew and bird droppings for a year kind of skinny.  

Of course. I look forward to no Targaryen sitting on the Iron Throne ever again.

[Alester Florent]

2 hours ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Could the Janissaries even be called slaves, I'm not sure. It was a sort of blood tax so it can be called slavery but definitely not in the sense what many people would understand when they hear the word slavers. They weren't sold(Mamluks were bought by their owners), they were able to go back where they came(at least after when they retired, I remember at least one minor greek muslim ethic group that trace their origin to two retired Janissaries returning to their home village), they revolted several times to keep the institution in place when Sultans tried to disestablish it and I recall reading at least one rebellion by not the Janissaries themselves but the non-muslim population that wanted to keep the system going, because the sons that were taken could end up becoming very influential figures, even as soldiers they had better lives than they could otherwise have hoped for.

There are different forms and degrees of slavery and what we tend to think of as "standard" chattel slavery as in the US was not universal, nor does absence of the features of that system necessarily mean it isn't slavery. There are also various dIf we think about it the other way round, i.e. were the Janissaries free, I think it's fair to say they weren't.

I do think it's fair to say that by the standards of slaves throughout history the Janissaries were pretty well-off. But that doesn't make them not slaves.

It also changed rather over time, with policies towards the Janissaries (and means of their recruitment) gradually liberalising (not least because the Janissaries themselves gained more power), so that the Janissaries who fought at Kosovo in 1381 would have been rather more obviously slaves than those who fought at Vienna 300 years later.

 

[Corvo the Crow]

2 minutes ago, Alester Florent said:

There are different forms and degrees of slavery and what we tend to think of as "standard" chattel slavery as in the US was not universal, nor does absence of the features of that system necessarily mean it isn't slavery. There are also various dIf we think about it the other way round, i.e. were the Janissaries free, I think it's fair to say they weren't.

I do think it's fair to say that by the standards of slaves throughout history the Janissaries were pretty well-off. But that doesn't make them not slaves.

It also changed rather over time, with policies towards the Janissaries (and means of their recruitment) gradually liberalising (not least because the Janissaries themselves gained more power), so that the Janissaries who fought at Kosovo in 1381 would have been rather more obviously slaves than those who fought at Vienna 300 years later.

 

That brings the question, were serfs slaves? They were after all bound to land so not free and were even sold(not individually but by land changing hands)  

[Alester Florent]

2 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

That brings the question, were serfs slaves? They were after all bound to land so not free and were even sold(not individually but by land changing hands)  

It's a good question and one that occurred to me while I was typing the above post, and I think it depends how you define slavery. Using the widest possible definition, I'd say they probably were - of course, under the same definition, a lot of prisoners are (including in the US).

[Aldarion]

2 hours ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Mameluks also took the government or rather, instead of taking the government they did it one better and took the entire state, there were two Mamluk dynasties, first a Turkic one and then a Circassian one. Also I'm not sure if saying that Jannissaries took the government would be correct because many officials came from the same background, Janissaries was just the ones who were sent to the military part.

Could the Janissaries even be called slaves, I'm not sure. It was a sort of blood tax so it can be called slavery but definitely not in the sense what many people would understand when they hear the word slavers. They weren't sold(Mamluks were bought by their owners), they were able to go back where they came(at least after when they retired, I remember at least one minor greek muslim ethic group that trace their origin to two retired Janissaries returning to their home village), they revolted several times to keep the institution in place when Sultans tried to disestablish it and I recall reading at least one rebellion by not the Janissaries themselves but the non-muslim population that wanted to keep the system going, because the sons that were taken could end up becoming very influential figures, even as soldiers they had better lives than they could otherwise have hoped for.

 

 

Janissaries definitely were slaves. As for people not understanding it as slavery, I blame typical American self-centredness and general ignorance (which is also what I blame or the Slaver's Bay being such a bad carricature and realistically impossible). Slavery took many forms, and while chattel slavery we see in American South was definitely bad, it is very much an extreme example. Slaves in other eras and parts of the world had a very different life. In Rome, for example, slaves were mine workers - but also tutors, teachers, doctors, architects... there were literally only two professions where slaves could not be found, those being Emperor and a soldier. Roman slaves also received wage (peculium), which allowed them to (eventually) buy their freedom. And much like Janissaries, in ancient world parents often gladly sold their children into slavery, because it earned family a compensation, removed one mouth that had to be fed, and in many cases actually improved now-enslaved person's living conditions.

But again, Janissaries were essentially Sultan's personal slaves. They were forcibly taken from their families as children (this was not exclusive to Janissaries - devshirme was used to fill up basically all of Sultan's manpower needs), underwent forced circumcision and conversion, brainwashed, and while they did receive pay they could not quit their job, marry or engage in trade, and had to be completely loyal to Sultan.

In fact, American chattel slavery - which you see replicated in the Slaver's Bay - is basically unique in how bad it was. The reason for this is a complex interplay of factors which began with Christianity. You see, in Christianity, a person is created in the image of God - so while Church often tolerated slavery as a necessary evil (Byzantine Empire had 10% of population as slaves in some periods), it was still evil. But also very profitable. So what happened was that, when European colonial era began and easy access to Americas and Africa was achieved, you got a whole new source of slaves - but exploitation of these new sources of slaves was being blocked by Christian morality. So in order to morally justify this slavery, theory was developed that these were not really children of God, or else were entirely inferior to white man due to evolutionary reasons. And from there, one could go either the route of "White Man's Burden" - which portrayed slavery as a good thing because it helped civilize the inferior races - or the "inferior race" route, which portrayed slavery as morally okay because that was all that inferior races were good for. In short, modern racism originates from attempts to justify slavery in face of Christian teachings.

But this justification and consequential racism had some very bad consequences. Because now whole groups of people were seen as inherently inferior, their perpetual enslavement could be justified. But not just enslavement, but also a much more systematically brutal treatment (while treatment of a slave in antiquity could be brutal, that was on a wholly individual level). And from there, it was a short step until you get systematic genocide and, well... Hitler.

But as should be clear from the above, this 19th century conception of slavery was very much historically unique, and using chattel slavery as a yardstick for determining what slavery is is bound to lead to incorrect conclusions.

59 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

That brings the question, were serfs slaves? They were after all bound to land so not free and were even sold(not individually but by land changing hands)  

I would say no. Serfs were bound to land because it was a source of income as well as taxes. But serfdom was basically an agreement between the serf and the landlord: serf worked the land and paid taxes in exchange for protection, justice and, well, right to survive. Moreover, serf's status was legally determined: and if lord overstepped his bounds, serf could (in theory - practice, as usual, is different) take him to task in a court of law.

Essentially, a slave has his rights wholly negated, and may only access them at his owner's will. A serf has access to his rights monetarily restricted - he needs to pay to access them, no different from anybody in a modern state. If you look at it, fundamentally, your or my status is not really different from that of a serf, except that we have the state as our landlord while serf had a noble.

[GZ Bloodraven]

If the Dothraki coming to Westeros is not a complete logistical shitshow, I will feel cheated. Nothing about it should work: half of them should die on the boats over there. Westeros does not have a 100,000 person tourism food budget, they do not have the resources for it, most people are already starving. 

1 hour ago, Aldarion said:

I would say no. Serfs were bound to land because it was a source of income as well as taxes. But serfdom was basically an agreement between the serf and the landlord: serf worked the land and paid taxes in exchange for protection, justice and, well, right to survive. Moreover, serf's status was legally determined: and if lord overstepped his bounds, serf could (in theory - practice, as usual, is different) take him to task in a court of law.

Serfs and slaves were both forced to work, one because of kidnapping and the other because of familial and generational debts and tyrannical governments. Serfs were legally property: extensions of the land that the wealthy owned. Though the property could also own property: slaves couldn't do that legally. But it was all pretty fucked. 

[Aldarion]

1 hour ago, GZ Bloodraven said:

Serfs and slaves were both forced to work, one because of kidnapping and the other because of familial and generational debts and tyrannical governments. Serfs were legally property: extensions of the land that the wealthy owned. Though the property could also own property: slaves couldn't do that legally. But it was all pretty fucked. 

Serfs were not legally property, though I do grant that in practice they may have been. Origin of serfdom lies in the institution of colonate, a Roman institution which largely supplanted slavery. Coloni were free peasants who worked somebody else's land. To be exact, colonus would take a grant of land from a rich landowner, which he would then work, and give landowner part of produce in exchange.

Originally, coloni were completely free, and could leave land whenever they wanted. But demographic issues led Diocletian to tie colons to the land they worked - and this is how serfdom appeared.

But unlike slaves, coloni had extensive rights - and most of them were retained even after they were tied to the land. In the original colonate, tenants could sell and buy leases, which is not something usually possible even today. They could also sue the landowners who infringed upon their contracts.

Later, coloni were tied to the land - but they still signed a labor contract (conductio instrumentum) with the landowner, which specified their duties. Landowner had extensive rights on colonus' labor, but not on his person, which is significant - a slave could be, for example, raped with no legal or personal consequence for the owner. A colonus could not. Essentially, a slave was legally an animal - but a colonus, even at the worst of times, was still legally recognized to be a human being. That is a massive difference.

And the above paragraph is specifically true for the "unfree" coloni (coloni adscriptici). Free coloni could leave the land whenever they wanted, fully utilize their possessions and were in no way subject to orders of the landowner. They were basically free peasants, but with no land of their own.

Serfs maintained many of these rights as well, though they were closer to "unfree" coloni than to free ones. Serfs were well aware of their rights, and in theory could use the court system to enforce them. And rights and duties were tightly regulated. A slave owed his entire work time to his owner, and had no property of his own. A serf however was required to give a specific portion of produce to the landlord. Specifically, serf owed one-tenth - hence "tithe" - for the lord and the Church each. He also owed a specific amount of time of work for the landowner - if I remember right, it was generally one day a week. In exchange, the landowner provided all the services serfs could not accomplish themselves, e.g. right of using his mills (to produce flour), pack animals, and basically everything serf could not do by himself. Most importantly, lord would allow his serfs to shelter in the castle in case of war (yeah, Catelyn is an idiot - Edmure had to allow peasants to shelter in the castle, or he would have been in the breach of contract). And because serf was working on lord's land, guards which lord employed to protect the land were also obliged to protect the serf as well. One interesting thing is that while serfs were subject to various punishments, physical punishment was an exception, not the rule - nothing like a slave being lashed or beaten for failing to perform.

There were also many exceptions to these rules. Serf had a right to freely choose where to mill the grains - so he'd basically go to the most affordable mill. Lord did not have right to tax e.g. geese feathers as these were used for pillows. Lord was not obliged to provide education to serfs, but many nobles did establish schools on their properties - and serfs had right to send their children to these schools. Of course, lord also profited from this as most talented children could then be given further schooling and positions (e.g. administrative positions) on lord's property.

[GZ Bloodraven]

 

18 minutes ago, Aldarion said:

Serfs were not legally property, though I do grant that in practice they may have been. Origin of serfdom lies in the institution of colonate, a Roman institution which largely supplanted slavery. Coloni were free peasants who worked somebody else's land. To be exact, colonus would take a grant of land from a rich landowner, which he would then work, and give landowner part of produce in exchange.

 

Serfs were legally sold with the land when the land was sold, that's what I meant by property. They were extensions of the land, where slaves were, like you said, basically considered animals. You couldn't "sell" a serf, but you could sell the land the serf worked on, and then serf would have a new lord to pay debt to. Slavery is worse than serfdom, no doubt, but serfs were basically indentured servants and coloni were basically sharecroppers. All of it is icky.

When your system of labor has "emancipation dates," we are basically talking about varying degrees of slavery.

[SeanF]

The fact that slavery was race-based, was the Deep South’s (and West Indies’) unique contribution to the practice.

The notion of slaves being chattels, however, goes way back into antiquity.  Privileged household slaves, who often gained their freedom, were a small minority of the total at all times.  Most slaves were fieldhands, most of whom were kept in prisons, closely guarded, tortured if they stepped out of line, and who had a very low life expectancy.  Slaves in mines, mills, and quarries had it even worse.  Rome, and Greek States, especially Sparta, practised institutionalised terror against their slave populations.  Those slaves had little prospect of freedom.  Death was all they could hope for.

Likewise for slaves taken by the Vikings or Arabs, life was mostly nasty, brutish, and short.

And in every case, ancient or modern, rape of slaves was routine.

What’s unrealistic about SB is slave-trading being so economically important.  SB’s elites would be, more realistically, working their slaves to death growing cash crops, mining for ore, growing food, and constantly replacing them with fresh stock.  Slaves that ceased to be able to work would just be left to starve.  That’s how one gets the maximum return from owning slaves, by working them to maximum capacity and then replacing them.

The overall cruelty of SB’s elites is nothing unusual, compared to real life.

Edit:  I suppose the other unusual feature of Southern slavery was portraying it as a positive force for good.  Every ancient writer was honest enough to admit that being a slave was a bad condition.

[Aldarion]

18 hours ago, GZ Bloodraven said:

Serfs were legally sold with the land when the land was sold, that's what I meant by property. They were extensions of the land, where slaves were, like you said, basically considered animals. You couldn't "sell" a serf, but you could sell the land the serf worked on, and then serf would have a new lord to pay debt to. Slavery is worse than serfdom, no doubt, but serfs were basically indentured servants and coloni were basically sharecroppers. All of it is icky.

When your system of labor has "emancipation dates," we are basically talking about varying degrees of slavery.

True, and I never said serfs were free, but calling them "property" or "slaves" has implications that could easily lead one astray. And I'm not sure the poor would agree that being a sharecropper is "icky".

Also, literally everything you wrote about serfs is true for "free" people today. So I wonder how would you define a free person?

12 hours ago, SeanF said:

The overall cruelty of SB’s elites is nothing unusual, compared to real life.

 

Cruelty isn't, but the scale and implementation are. Even the most slave-ridden areas of Roman world (e.g. Italy) didn't go beyond 40% of population being slaves. In Volantis however, there are five slaves per free man. That is simply not sustainable.

Nor is it sustainable to have economy based around slave trade. Even Venice didn't manage that.

[GZ Bloodraven]

11 minutes ago, Aldarion said:

Also, literally everything you wrote about serfs is true for "free" people today. So I wonder how would you define a free person?

It's all about freedom of choice, of opportunity, hopefully of outcome. I would argue most "free" people today have very limited freedom of choice, and sharecroppers have even more limited freedom of choice (why I called it icky), and serfs have even less, and slaves have even less, and dead people have none.

[Alester Florent]

1 hour ago, Aldarion said:

Cruelty isn't, but the scale and implementation are. Even the most slave-ridden areas of Roman world (e.g. Italy) didn't go beyond 40% of population being slaves. In Volantis however, there are five slaves per free man. That is simply not sustainable.

Nor is it sustainable to have economy based around slave trade. Even Venice didn't manage that.

Ancient Sparta probably did hit something like Volantis proportions of slaves to free men, although the helots were public property rather than private property (still rather worse treated than Roman slaves; how their treatment compares to Essos slaves in general is probably debatable). They kept it going for some time, probably about as long as Volantis has done since the Doom. Sparta was pretty exceptional though.

As to entire economies based around the slave trade, arguably some states on the west African coast achieved this: Dahomey, Whydah, Kongo at times. Maybe this is what GRRM was thinking of with his Slaver's Bay. There are still some important differences from Ghiscari slavery though, and I agree that the model we see is not really sustainable.

[SeanF]

13 hours ago, Alester Florent said:

Ancient Sparta probably did hit something like Volantis proportions of slaves to free men, although the helots were public property rather than private property (still rather worse treated than Roman slaves; how their treatment compares to Essos slaves in general is probably debatable). They kept it going for some time, probably about as long as Volantis has done since the Doom. Sparta was pretty exceptional though.

As to entire economies based around the slave trade, arguably some states on the west African coast achieved this: Dahomey, Whydah, Kongo at times. Maybe this is what GRRM was thinking of with his Slaver's Bay. There are still some important differences from Ghiscari slavery though, and I agree that the model we see is not really sustainable.

Sparta’s social system was crazy.  By the mid 4th century, the number of full Spartan citizens was down to a thousand, ruling over a hundred thousand helots (there were intermediate groups, but the helots were well over half the population.)

[astarkchoice]

On 3/21/2023 at 6:53 PM, Alester Florent said:

Ancient Sparta probably did hit something like Volantis proportions of slaves to free men, although the helots were public property rather than private property (still rather worse treated than Roman slaves; how their treatment compares to Essos slaves in general is probably debatable). They kept it going for some time, probably about as long as Volantis has done since the Doom. Sparta was pretty exceptional though.

As to entire economies based around the slave trade, arguably some states on the west African coast achieved this: Dahomey, Whydah, Kongo at times. Maybe this is what GRRM was thinking of with his Slaver's Bay. There are still some important differences from Ghiscari slavery though, and I agree that the model we see is not really sustainable.

To be fair suistainability wize we havent really seen enough of the world to  judge it , for pro slavery  new ghis being able to commit 6 legions  of able bodied freemen only serving a brief term , small warfleet and elephants it begs the question how big new ghis is

[Aldarion]

22 hours ago, Alester Florent said:

Ancient Sparta probably did hit something like Volantis proportions of slaves to free men, although the helots were public property rather than private property (still rather worse treated than Roman slaves; how their treatment compares to Essos slaves in general is probably debatable). They kept it going for some time, probably about as long as Volantis has done since the Doom. Sparta was pretty exceptional though.

As to entire economies based around the slave trade, arguably some states on the west African coast achieved this: Dahomey, Whydah, Kongo at times. Maybe this is what GRRM was thinking of with his Slaver's Bay. There are still some important differences from Ghiscari slavery though, and I agree that the model we see is not really sustainable.

Regarding Sparta, that is true, but that very fact had significant implications for their culture. Spartans being full-time professional soldiers, the ritual of a young Spartan killing a helot, Spartans nearly never leaving Sparta for long (300 Spartans were basically the most they could spare)... all of that was a consequence of the need to keep helots in line. So for the Slaver's Bay to have so many slaves, they would need to be extremely militarized but also extremely inward-focused - something like the massive expedition Volantis is mounting would be out of the question.

[astarkchoice]

On 3/22/2023 at 8:33 AM, SeanF said:

Sparta’s social system was crazy.  By the mid 4th century, the number of full Spartan citizens was down to a thousand, ruling over a hundred thousand helots (there were intermediate groups, but the helots were well over half the population.)

Whats nuts is their leaders shut down every sensible proposal to allow the population of full spartans to regreow like even minor  loosening economic requirements to have their kids into the agoge or the stupidly strict birth only membership.

[SeanF]

6 minutes ago, astarkchoice said:

Whats nuts is their leaders shut down every sensible proposal to allow the population of full spartans to regreow like even minor  loosening economic requirements to have their kids into the agoge or the stupidly strict birth only membership.

They became very selfish.  As the citizen body declined, so their landholdings expanded enormously.  Every attempt to reform was stymied by the fact that to be a full citizen you had to (a) be of the right birth and (b) pass the agoge (c) be admitted to a mess and (d) be sufficiently well off to afford mess contributions, and afford the panoply.  

Macedon, which also had helotage, basically scrapped the entire system in the fourth century, enrolled adult male ex-helots into the army, and directed aggression outwards, rather than inwards.

[Aldarion]

10 hours ago, astarkchoice said:

Whats nuts is their leaders shut down every sensible proposal to allow the population of full spartans to regreow like even minor  loosening economic requirements to have their kids into the agoge or the stupidly strict birth only membership.

10 hours ago, SeanF said:

They became very selfish.  As the citizen body declined, so their landholdings expanded enormously.  Every attempt to reform was stymied by the fact that to be a full citizen you had to (a) be of the right birth and (b) pass the agoge (c) be admitted to a mess and (d) be sufficiently well off to afford mess contributions, and afford the panoply.  

Macedon, which also had helotage, basically scrapped the entire system in the fourth century, enrolled adult male ex-helots into the army, and directed aggression outwards, rather than inwards.

Basically correct, but Spartiates had many problems which led to decline of the class:

1) Status could be gained only by birth, yet it was extremely easy to lose. You could lose it by "cowardice", by "not fulfilling duties to the state", by simply having a bad year for crops or by being on a bad side of somebody more powerful... It was honestly an outright Communist regime.

2) Spartiates accumulated increasing amount of land in their own hands - and that was the best land. While not all land was in their hands, the non-Spartiate land could only support a small number of armed helots.

3) Spartiates had to serve in the army, but were not obliged to equip anyone else besides them. This means that the above accumulation of land directly led to reduction in available numbers of not just quality heavy infantry, but also troops overall.

4) Spartan women could own land, and did not have to marry. This meant that significant amount of land was always outside the military system.

Decline of Spartiates alone may not have doomed Sparta, as they were not the only element of Spartan armed power. But the fact that they accumulated landholdings of extreme size without providing increased military contribution was a major issue.

[Here's Looking At You, Kid]

On 3/15/2023 at 1:46 PM, Aldarion said:

Where exactly will they find the food to feed both themselves and the Westeros?

And to answer the OP: yes, yes they will. If Martin is familiar with history of Mongol invasions at all, he will be aware of issues faced by any nomadic army campaigning anywhere not steppe. Or even in insufficiently large steppe, as the case may be:

https://historyandwar.org/2021/11/18/why-1241-mongol-invasion-of-hungary-failed-part-1-overview-of-the-invasion/

https://historyandwar.org/2021/11/21/why-1241-mongol-invasion-of-hungary-failed-part-2-reasons-for-mongol-withdrawal/

I have seen a post or two from you before.  You seen intent on marginalizing the Dothraki.  I don't and have never agreed with your opinions on this matter.  For one, the Dothraki will not leave Essos without more than adequate provisions.  They are not stupid like Robb Stark.  They are not going to set themselves up for failure. 

Westeros will be the one with widespread food shortage.  Essos is a land of abundance in comparison.  The Dothraki will be prepared before they go to Westeros.