Solving Cersei’s Financial Woes

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

10 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

They mention they are already in debt to several Tyroshi companies, I think. But also, I assume that smaller banks may not be able to loan all at once the larger sums the Crown wants.

Speaking of which, why doesn't Westeros have its' own central bank? All of the seven kingdoms seem to use the same currency, at least.

[Craving Peaches]

Just now, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

Speaking of which, why doesn't Westeros have its' own central bank? All of the seven kingdoms seem to use the same currency, at least.

No idea. I also wonder why Westeros doesn't have a more developed or centralised legal system.

[Alester Florent]

47 minutes ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

Speaking of which, why doesn't Westeros have its' own central bank? All of the seven kingdoms seem to use the same currency, at least.

National central banks are a rather modern phenomenon in northern/western Europe, which seems to provide the primary inspiration for Westeros. The Bank of England wasn't established until 1694; the Bank of Scotland 1695; the Bank of France in 1716. Sweden was a little earlier, in 1664. Denmark and Prussia didn't really get one until the 19th century.

Central banks appeared a bit earlier in the Mediterranean, but only really starting in the 15th century; this is presumably why they're present in Essos.

The decentralisation of the Westerosi legal system isn't entirely surprising, given historical parallels, I think, but what is remarkable is its underdevelopment. The legal profession seems completely nonexistent, which in turn suggests that the legal corpus is small, not requiring specialist knowledge. All the judges seem to be what we in England would call JPs, i.e. local worthies handing down whatever they see as justice, but, unlike JPs, without the benefit of a specialist clerk to advise them on the law. Even maesters, who seem to provide the majority of advice to lord-judges, don't seem to treat law as a particular priority of study: it's not clear whether there is even an archmaester of law.

In England, by contrast, the assize circuits with dedicated courts were set up in the 13th century, with some specialist courts having been around longer, and the legal profession was beginning to formalise around the same time (succeeding an older array of legal specialists without professional status in the same way).

I suspect that this is because GRRM just doesn't find law particularly interesting as a subject. Which is at once both an utter outrage that I can't help but take personally, and entirely understandable.

Edited September 11, 2023 by Alester Florent

[Craving Peaches]

1 minute ago, Alester Florent said:

I suspect that this is because GRRM just doesn't find law particularly interesting as a subject. Which is at once both an utter outrage that I can't help but take personally, and entirely understandable.

Cannot believe we are getting a Yi-Ti cartoon but no release of Jaehaerys' Books of Law 

[Craving Peaches]

9 minutes ago, Alester Florent said:

I suspect that this is because GRRM just doesn't find law particularly interesting as a subject.

I would jump at the chance to create my own legal system and laws, even if they weren't real. I wonder what would happen if you gave minor crimes the harshest punishments but gave major crimes less severe punishments. What would happen in a society where littering got the death penalty but you were only fined for murder? Would more people murder, or is it not just the threat of punishment, but morality that stops this?

Edited September 11, 2023 by Craving Peaches

[SeanF]

14 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

Cannot believe we are getting a Yi-Ti cartoon but no release of Jaehaerys' Books of Law 

Jaehaerys’ books of law make no sense, without a class of judges to implement them.

What you might expect to find is several different forms of customary law, in each one of the Seven Kingdoms (and perhaps within Great lordships, in those kingdoms).  Such laws could only be amended with the consent of the lord paramount and a Diet of local magnates).  Local courts would handle them.

Over and above that would be royal laws, dealing with treason, other serious criminal matters, commerce and shipping, taxation, and all matters pertaining to clashes between different customary law codes.  They should be handled by royal judges.

Eg The inheritance customs of Dorne will differ with those of the Vale.  What happens if a Dornish brother and sister clash over inheriting property in the Vale.  You need a court that can rule on that point.

[Alester Florent]

4 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

I would jump at the chance to create my own legal system and laws, even if they weren't real. I wonder what would happen if you gave minor crimes the harshest punishments but gave major crimes less severe punishments. What would happen in a society where littering got the death penalty but you were only fined for murder? Would more people murder, or is it not just the threat of punishment, but morality that stops this?

It's been a while since I looked into it, but from what I recall the evidence suggests that severity of punishment has a pretty negligible effect on rates of commission of a given crime. The deterrent effect cited for the death penalty (and extreme versions thereof) is largely bunk.

This is largely because the majority of serious crimes are committed by people who either don't think they'll be caught, or at the point they commit the crime they don't care if they are (whether because it's a crime of desperation, passion, judicial suicide, etc.)

I think there is a universal taboo against homicide up to a point, but I also think almost all societies draw a line between lawful killing and unlawful killing, and that line is set pretty much wherever society thinks it should be. If the law is out of step with that, then it becomes unenforceable. I've just finished reading a history of duelling, and one of the things that's remarkable is that even during the "golden age" of duelling it was illegal pretty much everywhere, and usually punishable by death. Kings kept issuing proclamations and increasingly harsh new laws against duelling and they kept being ignored. Convictions for homicide-by-duelling were rare and executions even rarer because although the authorities thought that duelling was insane and a menace to society, society itself disagreed. Juries would routinely acquit duellists who were murderers in the eyes of the law, and even when convictions were secured, the political pressure on the king was often so great he ended up pardoning them. It took the massive social upheavals of the Industrial Revolution (in England) and the World Wars (in France and Germany) to actually bring the practice to an end.

So I think that whatever the law said about crimes like homicide, society would pretty quickly find its level.

It would make a difference I think to what extent the relevant legal system was founded in common law. Common law judges can be quite imaginative at finding ways to do what they think is good for society even if the law is out of date. The crime of "manslaughter" seems to have been developed during the 14th century by judges who were reluctant (at a time when human life had become much less cheap) to commit men to the gallows for justifiable homicide but were trammelled by the mandatory death sentence for murder.

More recently, one of the most famous derogations from the rule of law in England came in 1991 when for the first time in decades a marital rape case was prosecuted. One of the principles of the rule of law is that you shouldn't be held criminally liable for doing something which wasn't a criminal offence at the time you did it. The relevant precedents in English law all said that marital rape was an impossibility because marriage formed implied consent. When the case eventually got to the House of Lords, they ruled unanimously that whatever the precedents said, in modern society nobody believed that marriage constituted implied consent, and that the act itself was so morally repugnant that any lawyer worthy of practice would have advised the perpetrator against doing it had they been consulted in advance. Legally, the judgment was seriously questionable, but it was still unquestionably right: to have made any other ruling would have been socially, never mind morally, unacceptable.

That kind of thing doesn't happen very often, and of course, that relies on having good judges (where "good" in this context generally means "agreeing with me about the important things"). I do think that partisan politicisation of the judiciary and the legal system in general is a mistake (he says, giving America the side-eye) largely for that reason.

[Craving Peaches]

9 minutes ago, Alester Florent said:

More recently, one of the most famous derogations from the rule of law in England came in 1991 when for the first time in decades a marital rape case was prosecuted

We studied a similar Scottish case from 1989. The ruling I believe was the same as the English one for similar reasons.

9 minutes ago, Alester Florent said:

It would make a difference I think to what extent the relevant legal system was founded in common law.

I am not a great fan of common law... I prefer the civil law system and the approach the judge takes in inquisitorial systems as opposed to adversarial, because it seems like they are more about finding the truth as opposed to rewarding who can argue the best, though that's just my opinion (I know they both have their ups and downs)... So if I ever made a legal system it would probably look more like that. Also juries only for more serious crimes (i.e. where someone is injured), with seven people on the jury.

Edited September 11, 2023 by Craving Peaches

[csuszka1948]

On 9/10/2023 at 10:40 PM, Alester Florent said:

Thinking about it, what is it about women in ASoIaF going weak at the knees over guys who might as well have "BAD NEWS" tattooed across their foreheads? Cersei with Aurane, Dany with Daario and even Drogo, Sansa with Joffrey... they're all seriously questionable and result in some pretty dodgy decisions.

While the men aren't immune from mistakes due to desire (Robb/Jeyne, Tyrion/Shae) I don't think any of them are quite so susceptible to making bad decisions for the sake of sexy or quite so blind to their failings in that regard.

Has anyone done an analysis of this in the books?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't think that's really true. 

Robb's marriage to Jeyne is the precursor to the Red Wedding, while Tyrion's affair with Shae leads him to do extremely questionable things (like threatening Tommen's rape) and leads to her testifying against him in his trial. These love affairs actually played a large part in the male character's downfall.

In contrast, Daario seems to be completely loyal to Dany - he made peace with the Lamb Men and even after her marriage to Hizdahr he was willing to give up himself as a hostage when she asked. There was no serious downside to their affair aside from a few rumors.

She is aware of the moral failings of Drogo and Daario, but she tries to address the first to the extent she can (using her authority to save women) and keeps Daario in check. Wanting to invade Westeros with a horde of Dothraki is pretty horrible, but it's something she tries to convince Drogo to do, not the other way around. 

Aurane abandoned Cersei once she was imprisoned, but her downfall had little to do with him. 

Sansa is the only one who is really naive about Joffrey's nature in AGOT.

Edited September 14, 2023 by csuszka1948

[csuszka1948]

Cersei's idea to rearm the Faith in exchange for canceling the debt wasn't necessarily a horrible idea.

It has serious downsides but the Faith Militant is pretty much compelled to support the Baratheon-Lannister regime since the edict of Cersei and Tommen allowed their re-arming - if Aegon or Dany (future threats) took over, the decree becomes illegitimate and the Faith Militant has to disband.

[Craving Peaches]

20 minutes ago, csuszka1948 said:

decree becomes illegitimate and the Faith Militant has to disband.

I doubt they would disband just because the degree was not 'legitimate'. They could probably argue that their disbanding in the first place was illegitimate.

[astarkchoice]

On 9/11/2023 at 10:10 PM, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

Speaking of which, why doesn't Westeros have its' own central bank? All of the seven kingdoms seem to use the same currency, at least.

Kevan talked of it to increase lannister power but tywin wouldnt hear of it.

Trade/commerce is seen as grubby and beneath lords plus theres already plentiful ones so setting a nee one up is way beyond the meams of anyone not named.lannister