Westeros Technology

[Drofdar]

Whilst reading the series I wondered why the technology in Westeros is still that of the middle ages. Some of the book talks about matters that are 100s or even 1000s of years old. And the technology seems to be the same... castles, courses, carts, etc... Surely by now they would have discovered and harnessed electricity or even invested the steam engine!

[Don Roberto]

Different civilizations develop at different rates, and in different directions.

Anything said to be thousands of years old in this series must be taken with a grain of salt.

They also have magic, and still had it until fairly recently, and that changes a lot the dynamics of the world.

[joluoto]

A wizard did it! (his name is George)

[Peasant Rebel Leader]

You looked at the data, saw the problem and made the wrong conclusion. It's quite simple, the chronology is wrong :) It wasn't 1000 years, much less.

We also have medieval and renaissance (to keep it quite open ;)) illustrations depicting say 'Alexander at Gaugamela' in at that time contemporary gear. Which explains why the maesters of the books think that it was like this in the past. (though you can bring up Bran's visions, but those are quite hard to date...)

That said, if this universe doesn't work like ours because George wants it to be so - and he has the dragons, direwolfs and giant krakens, not to speak of the snarks and grumpkins, to back it all up -, it can be anything, as 'a wizard did it'.

In the end, it's a bit of a mix of both: The chronology of the maesters is a bit wonky (as someone tells Jaime quite directly in ADWD), there's the magic of old valyria that may have influenced technological growth, and then last of all there's the erratic seasons which could have quite a dramatic effect on population and the following effects (see: period after the plague in Europe),

[joluoto]

I'm pretty sure the First Men were still tech. wise in the Stone Age when they first migrated to Westeros. Maybe they had just started to use iron when the Long Night came. I think the Age of Heroes could very well be the "Bronze Age".

[The hairy bear]

From wikipedia:

The standard ancient Sumerian King List (WB 444) lists various mythical antediluvian kings and gives them reigns of several tens of thousands of years. The first Sumerian king Alulim, at Eridu, is described as reigning for 28,800 years, followed by several later kings of similar periods. In total these antediluvian kings ruled for 241,200 years from the time when "the kingship was lowered from heaven" to the time when "the flood" swept over the land.

If a single king ruled for 28k years, why can't the Stark dinasty have ruled for 8k? :P We should give the dates that oral Westerosi tradition and maesters give for the Pact, the early kings of the First men or the arrival of the Andals, the same value that we give to those Sumerian chronologies.

[Ser Tommen]

Also, remember that the industrial revolution in our world was entirely driven by the exploitation fossil fuels. If those don't exist in Martinworld (or in lesser quantities), then it's not surprising at all that technologies would remain rather medieval. If our world didn't have several billion years' worth of solar energy stored up in the form of oil and coal, we'd all still likely be somewhere between barbarism and feudalism as well.

[Dire Rabbit]

There are several good explanations above; the nature and inherent inaccuracies of oral histories; the then-as-now view of the past by antiquarians; the erratic and wild seasons having an impact on economic development and population size.

Plus, it's a story, a work of fiction. Immerse yourself as much as you like, it's still a fictional yarn for people to enjoy, not a historical work. If you want steam engines in your fantasy-medieval world, check out Robert Jordan.

[Robinvanpersie]

there are records of nearly one thousand commanders of the Night’s Watch, and didn’t half of those records still survive in the basement? So assuming an average of 10 years per commander, that’s about 5,000 years of history accounted for.

[Duckfield]

Here's another explanation

This is a story. A fantasy story. It works better without electricity or steam engines.

[Gneisenau]

Well GRRM wants it to be medieval fantasy, so he keeps everyone in Planetos stuck like that.

[Ser Lepus]

The Olmecs were a stone age (didn't know how to make metal tools) agricultural, pyramid-building people who lived at Mexico since 1600-1200 before the Christian Era, and and when the spaniards arrived to Mexico at the beginning of the XVI century they found...stone age, agricultural, pyramid-building people.

Many places in North Africa, Middle East and Persia started to practice farming, cattle breeding, metalworking and even writing while Europe still had Stone Age Technology, but some groups from there kept medieval level technology until the XX century.

The Egyptians started farming and/or cattle breeding 10,000 years before the Christian era, started using Neolithic level tech around 6,000 years BC, created an unified kingdom and started using bronze around 3,150 BC, and built pyramids since 2,700 BC. Iron was present in small quantities since 3,000 BC but didn't become common until almost two thousand years later. That almost so slow a rate of development as in Westeros.

What I mean is, all civilizations don't develop at the same rate and don't always follow the same steps. The fact that a culture developes medieval level tech doesn't mean that they are going to reach modern age level after a few centuries...they can get stuck there for longer.

Also, as it has already been said, medieval people weren't good archeologists: They think about the First Men before the arrival of the Andals as if they had their same level of tech and a similar culture, but for all we know they didn't know the wheel, didn´t have a writing, didn't have plows or spinning wheels or looms, or even sails.

[joluoto]

I think there has been references to the First Men using weapons of bronze, so I guess there was a Bronze Age around the age of heroes (which would correspond with the real world Greek Bronze Age when most of the myths seem to originate as well as probably the real Trojan war, i.e. heroes connected to the Bronze Age). I imagine there was an Iron Age equivalent when Iron became more and more usual too. I don't think there has been no technological process for thousands of years, just a much slower one than our history.

[Pearlblue5]

I don't think they are stuck in the middle ages. Especially with the way they talk about the past and how the maesters refer to things, there has been change from the past (now writings are used to record history instead of oral stories and other such things).

Also keep in mind the middle ages was a long period in human history and ranges over various stages of development in terms of social structures and cities. And before the middles ages there is also thousands and thousand of years of history that is just as development and complex. The speed at which growth is occurring now, is actually very rare in human history.

Also if something akin to the industrial revolution starts, we may have to say goodbye to the magic once and for all. And for the sake of Dany and the Dragons, I'd rather keep the magic.

[Lion of the West]

I don't think they are stuck in the middle ages. Especially with the way they talk about the past and how the maesters refer to things, there has been change from the past (now writings are used to record history instead of oral stories and other such things).

Also keep in mind the middle ages was a long period in human history and ranges over various stages of development in terms of social structures and cities. And before the middles ages there is also thousands and thousand of years of history that is just as development and complex. The speed at which growth is occurring now, is actually very rare in human history.

Also if something akin to the industrial revolution starts, we may have to say goodbye to the magic once and for all. And for the sake of Dany and the Dragons, I'd rather keep the magic.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

[Lord Stark]

The First Men only used bronze, so for 6,000 years Westeros was in a Bronze Age, at the same time as settling the whole of Westeros, waging wars with the CotF, Surviving the Long Night, and such. It stated that the First Men came across with Bronze, but that could have been a small group, and most were likely still in a Stone Age life as they were settlin new lands with no support from home, as the Arm of Dorne was broken.

The Andals came 6,000 years before the current events, and they brought with them Iron. So roughly 6,000 years ago became the Iron Age of Westeros. From this point on things get hazy as we do not have much information on this time. What ages followed we do not know.

Tech has clearly advanced in Westeros, be it at a slow pace in some areas, it hasn't been a medieval tech world for 12,000 years.

I think a good example are the Thenns. They are as pure blood First Men as you can get. Their culture is First Men, and they their lands were on the wrong side of the Wall when it went up. This meant their contact with the south was limited, and as such the Thenns work Bronze in their lands, but nothing is ever said about Iron.

Westeros much, like the Americas seems to advance much slower as trade is rare. The East coast has Essos, still a long way to travel, and dangerous seas, and it has nothing like the Mediterranean Sea/Black Sea/Baltic Sea/ English Channel, etc, which really fosters trade.

[Chatty Duelist]

Inaccurate history coupled with close minded Maesters and MAGIC!

[DominusNovus]

Also, remember that the industrial revolution in our world was entirely driven by the exploitation fossil fuels. If those don't exist in Martinworld (or in lesser quantities), then it's not surprising at all that technologies would remain rather medieval. If our world didn't have several billion years' worth of solar energy stored up in the form of oil and coal, we'd all still likely be somewhere between barbarism and feudalism as well.

Not at all. The Industrial Revolution was initially driven by waterpower, an excess of manpower as agricultural processes became more efficient, and increasingly sophisticated application of the two. There's a reason why the milltowns were originally all near fast-flowing streams.

[DominusNovus]

Also if something akin to the industrial revolution starts, we may have to say goodbye to the magic once and for all. And for the sake of Dany and the Dragons, I'd rather keep the magic.

Put a Dragon on end of a Stirling Engine and a White Walker on the other end. Perpetual motion machine, so long as they don't kill each other.

[Blugenes]

It's about equal to late 14th/early 15th century in most areas. No printing presses yet, but there is Greek/Wyld Fire and possibly distillation along with advanced metalworking techniques inclusive of steel alloys. Gunpowder might be around - Melisandre refers to special powders and we've seen reference to fire tricks with the Red Priests that may or may not include some sort of crude fireworks. Roads are primitive and land travel is very restrictive save for Valyrian roads, which no one seems able to replicate. Trebuchets and Caravel-type vessels are around and the Citadel might be the equivalent of the first University. A new type of crossbow was recently developed at King's Landing while spices and glass are worth more than gold in many cases. And so on.