Expanding Westeros

[KingoftheRiversandtheHills]

One thing that bothers me a lot is how Martin uses religion in the books. GRRM being an ex-catholic and an atheist/agnostic is not surprising considering how both religions are depicted, but as someone who took so much inspiration from history, he should know just how important the role of religion has been throughout the majority of history, especially medieval civilizations. The Catholic church basically created western Europe as we know it and at it's strongest someone like the Pope was the kingmaker that you had to grovel to to make sure you stayed in power, yet a medieval inspired civilization treats the faith like it's a complete joke. Also, the Church was a place of both community and learning and the arts, it's where you go to learn to read and write and of mathematics and the sciences.

The old gods religion is less coherent than late 1900s paganism. There are no holy texts, no clergy, no rituals  Like the old gods are barely a faith at all. There are no priests, no holidays, no afterlife, no myths, no rituals, no anything beyond a few cautionary stories (like the rat king), pray to a weirwood sometimes, and that they used to commit human sacrifice. There's mention made that the old gods punish kinslayers and those that break guest right and marriages done in front of a weirwood but like, how does anyone know that? They don't have any holy text of gods doing that or saying to or priests to say that the gods do that, it seems to be more just popular opinion the gods are against it. There are some mentions in the story about the Green Men, a sacred order entrusted with the guardianship of the Isle of Face, but we don't know if they even exist. Frankly, if the Green Men do exist, they, and the greenseers, should work as a priestly class of sorts instead of being just there and the skinchangers/wargs could be people "blessed by the gods."

The only thing that hints against this is Jojen saying “'A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies,' said Jojen. 'The man who never reads lives only one. The singers of the forest had no books. No ink, no parchment, no written language. Instead they had the trees, and the weirwoods above all. When they died, they went into the wood, into leaf and limb and root, and the trees remembered. All their songs and spells, their histories and prayers, everything they knew about this world. Maesters will tell you that the weirwoods are sacred to the old gods. The singers believe they are the old gods. When singers die they become part of that godhood,' in a Dance of Dragons.

Unfortunately, this is a symptom of GRRM's writing. Create a cool concept, except barely flesh it out resulting in it not only not making sense in the real world, but not making sense in terms of his own created world. While it's clear that the old gods are treated with more nuance and care than the gods of the seven because it's more decentralized or "In your Heart" as opposed to the 'hierarchical' seven gods. Ned even says "It's your gods with all the rules". Given that George grew up Catholic it's easy to see the commentary. GRRM essentially created an agnostic society but pays lip service to it by having all this talk of the Old and New Gods but they're no real pillar to Westeros.

So what are things that bother you about a.s.o.i.a.f. and how would you see them resolved? How would you change the religious aspect of Westeros? And  what else doesn't make sense to you?

[astarkchoice]

Ok issues that bother me

-decline of the nights watch despite it directly affecting 2-3 -powerful northern houses before we even talk starks! Theres no reason they'd allow  the watch to fall when raiders directly affect their lands..theyd be in regular contact with the lord commander for anything he needs. This includes the western sea having no ships too

-the  ripe islands close to ironborn and somehow they miss  them.

-the lannisters gold not slowly gaining them all of westeros once dragons died off

-dorne, the north and the vale all being touted as impregnable yet easily acessible by sea...no in all those 100s of years thought to bypass the insane land blocks by just going by sea? 

 

-new ghis vast forces to face.....? 

[Aldarion]

What bothers me is precisely the problem that what you have described is a symptom of. Martin's worldbuilding is extremely expansive yet at the same time incredibly shallow.

Issues that particularly bother me:

* Religion. You wrote basically everything for me, so I won't expand on it.

* Politics. Westerosi' political system is incredibly simple and shallow. You have kings, major lords, minor lords... and that's it. About the only thing existing in Westeros beyond those are the fundamentally wildling tribes existing outside the basic feudal structure. But when it comes to the feudal structure itself, you have nothing. Church technically exists but has been completely politically neutered. There are no free cities, royal or otherwise - in fact, the only free cities we see are basically states existing outside Westeros. It is even in their name! There are no guilds, no republics, nothing. Frankly, Tolkien gives more interesting political worldbuilding in few pages than Martin in several books.

* Military. You probably know what I will say here... there is a fundamental disconnect between what Martin says Westerosi military is based around (peasant levies), what Martin actually describes (part-time professionals) and what feudal armies historically were (complex system).

[astarkchoice]

3 hours ago, Aldarion said:

What bothers me is precisely the problem that what you have described is a symptom of. Martin's worldbuilding is extremely expansive yet at the same time incredibly shallow.

Issues that particularly bother me:

* Religion. You wrote basically everything for me, so I won't expand on it.

* Politics. Westerosi' political system is incredibly simple and shallow. You have kings, major lords, minor lords... and that's it. About the only thing existing in Westeros beyond those are the fundamentally wildling tribes existing outside the basic feudal structure. But when it comes to the feudal structure itself, you have nothing. Church technically exists but has been completely politically neutered. There are no free cities, royal or otherwise - in fact, the only free cities we see are basically states existing outside Westeros. It is even in their name! There are no guilds, no republics, nothing. Frankly, Tolkien gives more interesting political worldbuilding in few pages than Martin in several books.

* Military. You probably know what I will say here... there is a fundamental disconnect between what Martin says Westerosi military is based around (peasant levies), what Martin actually describes (part-time professionals) and what feudal armies historically were (complex system).

Agreed  i think the issue there is the fact feudal/peasant  levies are largely confused with poorly trained  consripts. We know the phrase itself means to literaly raise troops from the peasant class (anyone who isnt nobility or 99.999% of westeros) and sometimes this was mixed with what we would call consription but not always...medieval era covers a vast timeframe and a giant area.

Now westerosi forces do seem to be very well trained based on thier performance in combat , stafford literaly keeps his fresh recruits 100s of miles from the from any frontline in a camp to be trained up alongside remnants of jamies 2 losses, even the northerners dont expect to see these forces for some time!  That and almsit  to a man they are helmeted, chainmailed and well armed..not the sort of stuff given to fodder.

George doesnt detail any sort of society where 'conscripts ' as we know them that non professional  levies could even come.from either!!!  ....theres no talk of serf mandatory training, no archer/crossbow guilds in every small town or  nationwide forced sunday training. We dont hear of farmers getting together to drill pike and sword and wrestling or boxing  etc. Large towns doing mock battles followed by food and drink etc   Instead we are told to the lowest feudal level george will go into (landed knight)  that  landed knights must arm,train and provide men at arms or other mounted forces....this all hints at professional to semi professional  forces! Forces raised by vassals and vassals of vassals and so on etc but all pro or semi pro! Backed as we see in tywins force by limited numbers of wandering sellswords, hedge knights and even light armoured horse archers...but thats a few hundred vs the 45k he can raise in total!!

 

What annoying with george here is he literaly creates another side of the world that DOES do conscript fodder, the slavers we are told can raise you a quick  army of slaves ' not worth the swords they hold' or unsullied..or of course anything in between those 2 extremes!!!

 

The church we are told fustratingly liytle about to..just that they are rich enough to lend the crown a fortune and thats it!

Edited April 14 by astarkchoice

[Aldarion]

43 minutes ago, astarkchoice said:

Agreed  i think the issue there is the fact feudal/peasant  levies are largely confused with poorly trained  consripts. We know the phrase itself means to literaly raise troops from the peasant class (anyone who isnt nobility or 99.999% of westeros) and sometimes this was mixed with what we would call consription but not always...medieval era covers a vast timeframe and a giant area.

Now westerosi forces do seem to be very well trained based on thier performance in combat , stafford literaly keeps his fresh recruits 100s of miles from the from any frontline in a camp to be trained up alongside remnants of jamies 2 losses, even the northerners dont expect to see these forces for some time!  That and almsit  to a man they are helmeted, chainmailed and well armed..not the sort of stuff given to fodder.

George doesnt detail any sort of society where 'conscripts ' as we know them that non professional  levies could even come.from either!!!  ....theres no talk of serf mandatory training, no archer/crossbow guilds in every small town or  nationwide forced sunday training. We dont hear of farmers getting together to drill pike and sword and wrestling or boxing  etc. Large towns doing mock battles followed by food and drink etc   Instead we are told to the lowest feudal level george will go into (landed knight)  that  landed knights must arm,train and provide men at arms or other mounted forces....this all hints at professional to semi professional  forces! Forces raised by vassals and vassals of vassals and so on etc but all pro or semi pro! Backed as we see in tywins force by limited numbers of wandering sellswords, hedge knights and even light armoured horse archers...but thats a few hundred vs the 45k he can raise in total!!

Agreed. Levy could indeed vary widely in quality... but that is because levy covered basically anything not noble or mercenary.

1 hour ago, astarkchoice said:

What annoying with george here is he literaly creates another side of the world that DOES do conscript fodder, the slavers we are told can raise you a quick  army of slaves ' not worth the swords they hold' or unsullied..or of course anything in between those 2 extremes!!!

 

Ugh, Essos is another ball of problems alltogether...

1 hour ago, astarkchoice said:

The church we are told fustratingly liytle about to..just that they are rich enough to lend the crown a fortune and thats it!

Yeah... that is why I sometimes say that Westeros is modern world with medieval aesthetics. Religion there doesn't matter anywhere as much as it did in the actual Middle Ages.

[astarkchoice]

31 minutes ago, Aldarion said:

Agreed. Levy could indeed vary widely in quality... but that is because levy covered basically anything not noble or mercenary.

Ugh, Essos is another ball of problems alltogether...

Yeah... that is why I sometimes say that Westeros is modern world with medieval aesthetics. Religion there doesn't matter anywhere as much as it did in the actual Middle Ages.

Yeah 

 

Essos has a lot of issues but the main one for me is we seem to be stuck in the less developed half...far eastern essos sounds far more interesting ...shit its even got proper horse nomads!

 

Which is odd in a world where gods might actualy sorta exist! 

[Aldarion]

1 hour ago, astarkchoice said:

Essos has a lot of issues but the main one for me is we seem to be stuck in the less developed half...far eastern essos sounds far more interesting ...shit its even got proper horse nomads!

Yep! Jogos Nhai and Yi Ti sound far more interesting than anything we have seen so far from Daenerys storyline (that being Dothraki and the Slaver's Bay).

1 hour ago, astarkchoice said:

Which is odd in a world where gods might actualy sorta exist! 

Agreed. I think it has to do with Martin himself being an agnostic or atheist, so he doesn't really understand how to write actual religion.

[KingoftheRiversandtheHills]

On 4/14/2024 at 2:21 AM, astarkchoice said:

Ok issues that bother me

-decline of the nights watch despite it directly affecting 2-3 -powerful northern houses before we even talk starks! Theres no reason they'd allow  the watch to fall when raiders directly affect their lands..theyd be in regular contact with the lord commander for anything he needs. This includes the western sea having no ships too

-the  ripe islands close to ironborn and somehow they miss  them.

-the lannisters gold not slowly gaining them all of westeros once dragons died off

-dorne, the north and the vale all being touted as impregnable yet easily acessible by sea...no in all those 100s of years thought to bypass the insane land blocks by just going by sea? 

 

-new ghis vast forces to face.....? 

The ripe islands?

[House Cambodia]

We've already got a thread on religions. Why do you keep starting new threads and expect people to read them when you don't bother to read and post in other people's threads?

[astarkchoice]

3 hours ago, KingoftheRiversandtheHills said:

The ripe islands?

https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Aegon,_Rhaenys,_and_Visenya_(islands)

[KingoftheRiversandtheHills]

16 minutes ago, House Cambodia said:

We've already got a thread on religions. Why do you keep starting new threads and expect people to read them when you don't bother to read and post in other people's threads?

Because I didn't see one. I'm sorry I'm not all knowing. Also, this isn't supposed to be a thread just on the different faiths but all the things people think could improved on in the books.

[KingoftheRiversandtheHills]

3 minutes ago, astarkchoice said:

https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Aegon,_Rhaenys,_and_Visenya_(islands)

"The islands are located several weeks' travel away from Oldtown, slightly farther south than the latitude of the Summer Isles, and at a longitude farther west than even Lonely Light. The islands are very small, with a combined land area no larger than Dragonstone; the largest of the islands is no more than a third the size of Dragonstone itself. Alys Westhill described them as "a mountain attended by two hills".^[1]

The islands are pleasant and bountiful. Springs and streams provide plentiful fresh water. The islands are uninhabited but for the wildlife, including wild pigs and huge, sluggish grey lizards as big as deer, whose bites can cause severe infections. The trees are heavy with edible nuts and fruits unknown in other lands.^[1]"

It's hard to see why the iron born would be interested in these islands, considering their "We do not Sow" aspect. Also, they are too far away to control.

[astarkchoice]

33 minutes ago, KingoftheRiversandtheHills said:

"The islands are located several weeks' travel away from Oldtown, slightly farther south than the latitude of the Summer Isles, and at a longitude farther west than even Lonely Light. The islands are very small, with a combined land area no larger than Dragonstone; the largest of the islands is no more than a third the size of Dragonstone itself. Alys Westhill described them as "a mountain attended by two hills".^[1]

The islands are pleasant and bountiful. Springs and streams provide plentiful fresh water. The islands are uninhabited but for the wildlife, including wild pigs and huge, sluggish grey lizards as big as deer, whose bites can cause severe infections. The trees are heavy with edible nuts and fruits unknown in other lands.^[1]"

It's hard to see why the iron born would be interested in these islands, considering their "We do not Sow" aspect. Also, they are too far away to control.

They travel much much further to raid essos and so on, its got fresh water and food and trees and probably space and rich soft soil for those things to exist on (all things they are short on) , sounds bigger than most of the other ironislands and yes they most certinly do sow...in fact they do better when they 'sow' and only raid essos , its only the arrogant priviligend greyjoys who can afford to  not 'sow'! 

 

Besides no one else is there..the north has no western fleet,  so theres no one to contest them adding this new ripe large island to the bleak stoney iron islands!! 

Edited April 16 by astarkchoice