How realistic is the Kingdom/Society of Westeros from Games of Thrones...

>moving the goalposts

What do you think are our equivalents of the Westeros religions?

Faith of the Seven - Catholicism/Orthodoxy
R'hllor - Zoroastrianism
Many-Faced God - Hinduism?
Others - Pagans

To add, also nowhere before the Napoleonic Wars and Gunboat Diplomacy, slavery or serfdom were abolished by an external intervention. If anything, it happened due to internal factors, usually because the whole institution was already anachronistic.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline#Early_timeline

>Be Muslim Merchant with Slaves.
>Can beat slaves
>Can rape slaves
>Slaves can't do anything about it.

>Be Tenant Farmers in Imperial China
>Be beaten
>Be abused
>This is bullshit.
>Complain to Magistrate.
>Landowner suddenly in hot shit.

>Only europe graciously freed da isleybs out of the kindness of their hearts!
>No one else did!

>>Complain to Magistrate.

On paper, yes. In reality, the magistrate would be the landowner's pal or, even better, his cousin and peasants would be in hot shit instead.

Reading ability 0/10

>be a white god
>abolish slavery
>third worlders go back to it a short while later

at least we tried

is it just me or are the boltons way too edgelordy for a medieval clan

>the magistrate would be the landowner's pal or, even better, his cousin and peasants
The magistrate is often from another province.

Every house there is pretty edgelord.

>The magistrate is often from another province.

And he would certainly go lengths to become the landowners' pal, for his own good.

Imperial China was far from the beaurocratic centralistic beast it's often assumed. It was completely dependent on the landed gentry's support to stay afloat.

>landed gentry's
No such thing. The Feudal Aristocracy fucking died shortly after the Three Kingdoms period

Landowners were usually just merchants, and more encomendiero than feudal duke or some shit.

They'd have to contend with the powers of military officers and the bureaucrat-upper class.

Anyway the point remains: there were premodern societies have abolished slavery.

The books are a bit better, but they're not strictly accurate... But it's a fantasy novel, it's not supposed to be strictly accurate.

The book has some discussion on precedents/the right of lords (the wanton execution of a couple Lords by King Aerys), the duties of lords (e.g. Tywin sends The Mountain raiding in the Riverlands as "bandits" before the war even begins, Edmure [acting Lord] wants to invade the Westerlands but his father overrules him and sends the surviving peasants to the King to secure Royal support).

There's a lot of shit added to it to pad out the history but it's not the worst.

>No such thing.

John K. Fairbank writes otherwise. In fact, according to him, the whole Imperial structure held together with the aid of gentry. Each dynasty lasted as long as the gentry supported it.

>Anyway the point remains: there were premodern societies have abolished slavery.

But this does not contradict what I wrote. Read it. Again.

rich merchants, bureaucrats and large land owners all made up one general class, since people tended to invest their fortunes into land

If anything, A Song of Ice and Fire nicely depicts a feudal kingdom with houses forming much of the political organization of the realm.

Other fantasies treat medieval style kingdoms as meme nation-states with clearly defined borders and national flags and everyone having a sense of belonging to said kingdom. Meannwhile in ASOIF there's shitloads of regionalism.

The 7 Roman Paganism
R'hllor Arianism
Many Faced Nizari assassins

As fantasy goes it's pretty realistic, but it's really a few different time periods. The further north, the earlier medieval it is. The south is the renaissance without gunpowder.

It's just you, medieval people were completely bonkers.

This. The dunk and egg stories do a good job of showing the division between people that were even in the same kingdom.

Nah. It operates on the idea of the Middle Ages someone with a wide but pretty much diletante knowledge of the era might have, so it doesn't really resemble the actual workings of a medieval society. The elements are all there, like there's lords, armours, peasants, and some stuff directly inspired by real history, but that's where it ends. Once you start looking into actual workings of the society, it becomes clear that it's just a themepark version of it.
So for instance you have a continent the size of South America, inhabited by like 30 million people that has only two major cities. Or the Mongol-lookalike being a major threat while lacking basically everything the real Mongols had, aside from horses and bows.

GRRM's poorly written rapefic has little to do with real Medieval history or societies.

Where could he improve?

The Mongol-look alike is mostly just a plot device.

care to elaborate?

It's a mixed bag of medieval, renaissance and modern stuff.

Aside from the supernatural there are a few things that bother me.

Mostly the a linear technology used by various people living in close proximity. One entire land is outfitted in plate armor while the other only has mail or CoP, one land uses 8th century viking longships while the other uses 16th century galleys or 15th century carracks. etc etc.

Also: Why are the houses not intermarried to a high fucking degree?

>Also: Why are the houses not intermarried to a high fucking degree?
There's quite a bit of cousin-marrying in the books (Tywin Lannister was married to his own cousin)

>The Mongol-look alike is mostly just a plot device.
We're not discussing the narrative value of various plot elements, but their historical believability. And the Dothraki are entirely unbelievable as a culture that thrives and threatens a large part of the continent, rather than being just hillbillies in some backwater.

It's way to neat though, in real life quite a bunch of people might hold allegiance to like four different guys and their realms were scattered across the realm rather than being magically in one place.

>not being realistic
>cringeworthy

I've always had difficulty with this. Say a novelist or production co. or whatever wants to make a realistic and well-researched piece of fantasy/science fiction that would impress guys like you, but at the same time have the pleb audiences (the bigger target dem, and therefore more money to be had) still be enganged and entertained and never bored.

Is there a work of fiction in existence that you think balances these competing urges, if not ASOI&F?

I mean Stark-Lannister or Tyrell-Baratheon marriages. Or appanages being created for siblings of the king. If one of the 7 houses manages to produce only daughters and marries said daughter to the leader of another house you essentially got two of those regions i.e. Reach and Stormlands now joined together.

Not really. Even the 7 main great lords have subdivisions between them. The whole Bolton-Stark Butthurt is evident of this.

There was some marriages like that - the Martells in Dorne tried marrying their heirs to the Lannisters in the Westerlands, Renly Baratheon (Stormlands) married Marg Tyrell.

Hell, the Tully (Riverlands) were married into both the Vale and the North (there's also a couple Tully married into the Lannisters, I think).

There are quite a few political marriages tbf, the show just does a really shitty job of portraying it.

Well it's more what I meant here That short of shit caused a buttload of wars in Europe for a very long time. Especially if countries decided females couldn't inherit duchy's or kingdoms.

How come none of the great houses suffer from lack of male heir? In Medieval Europe it happened quite a lot.

I am not sure how long that seven houses thing has been around but if it has been around for more than 200 years it's almost a given at least one would have merged with another due to inheritances.

>How come none of the great houses suffer from lack of male heir? In Medieval Europe it happened quite a lot.
Plot armour, probably, and there was always a cousin or an uncle who would inherit instead.

There were some instances of having only females with houses dying off (Orys Baratheon married the only daughter of some Stormking, they've been Baratheons ever since).

>and there was always a cousin or an uncle who would inherit instead
They tried that in France once...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Years'_War

Sometimes the claim could not be inherited by say a sister of the last king but it could be passed along to her husband, not that cousins and uncles accepted this of course. A reason for war as always.

>I am not sure how long that seven houses thing has been around.

About 10,000 years. Brandon Stark built the Wall 8,000 years ago and there's been an unbroken line of descendants from him. Also, technology has not progressed in that time.

>the shitty worldbuilding of George RR fucking Martin

Holy fuck.

8000.

No way he's descendant from him though, his heirs have been cucked at least ten times during those 8000 years.

The book plays with ideas from different eras.

The feudal system, dynastic ties and loyalties are partly realistic. The intrigue part is a bit romanticized and is more common to the courts of later era absolutist rulers when the role of aristocrats had diminished.

The hedonistic and openly sexual and vulgar part might be partly true, open homosexuality less likely so, at least during the middle ages. If looking back at the secular music of the middle ages, then it was quite "simplistic" and mostly about knights (like Roland or Cid), dancing, love and human virtues. The "body related" themes were uncommon before Rabelais and his Gargantua. So culture wise Westeros is a mixture of middle-ages, renaissance and perhaps even a few modern ideas (like those of nation, class or state).

There is one important but missing parts: cities, merchants and handcraft guilds. Some cities in middle ages had special rights, their own independent councils, laws and even armies. Rich merchants could have had a lot of influence and control some important trade routes etc.

Religion-wise it seems a bit too tolerant. The Old Gods is a probable hint to paganism which coexisted in some forms with the official Christian churches. Still, it never came to openly abandoning Christianity - this could lead to severe persecutions. A more realistic Westeros would end up in bloody religious wars - after all, a large part of European history is influenced by religious wars. On the other hand, the rising importance of Church of the Seven and their autonomy, pious knights etc seem realistic to some extent.

Linguistically the continent(!) of Westeros should be more diverse. For instance it took a few centuries to form the modern French from all the different regional dialects and languages. A unified and standardized language is a thing of the modern age (17th century and onward).

>Also, technology has not progressed in that time.

Nah, there's references to iron and bronze age transitions. The Wall was built in the stone age.

He skims over it in the books by saying that timeline is mixed at best, some believing it to be 2000.

Literally a Victorian wet dream about the Middle Ages

I always thought the 8000 years thing was more of a way of expressing, "Long ago" than a literal timeframe.

He doesn't give a fuck about any numbers. When he saw the Wall for the first during the production of the TV show, he asked angrily the producers why they made it so tall. When they replied he'd written in the books that it was 700 feet tall, he just went "oh" and claimed he'd never realized how tall it would be in real life.

>It is often said that Westeros is a realistic representation of middle age

I don't know about that. It's common knowledge George RR Martin based his series on the War of the Roses, despite the whole setting being Europe at 90 degree angle.

The English war of the roses is the tale end of the middle-ages though the sderies imagery is certainly medieval fantasy.

Just like real life Westeros. Especially the dragons.

It's not, and it's not supposed to be. It's a mostly realistic depiction of how history in a fantasy world would unfold, as in: people have humane motivations and failings, societies work in a somewhat realistic manner, geopolitics and economy is taken into account, unlike in most fantasy stories.

But it's only inspired by medieval society and history, not a direct copy of it.

Also, Westeros' history in a long term is completely unplausable. It covers ten thousand years, yet there is basically no technological progress, and even societal structures stay pretty much the same (feudal monarchies).

How did the Lancasters even lose that war?

By being led by an utter incompetent and his corrupt lickspittles.

Showfag detected. In the books, that's the point of that whole story arc: she takes over three cities, puts the slaves in charge in all of them. in one city, the masters regain power in a few months, in another city, the slaves can't set up a stable government, one coup follows another, civil war breaks out and most of the city starves to death. eventually, masters from other cities re-enslave the survivors. The third city is also on the verge of a civil war, the only reason it doesn't fall into complete chaos is because her entire army is stationed there.

Seemed more Renaissance age than middle age

I'm guessing the Targaryian reign was the "middle ages" of that world

>How did the Lancasters even lose that war?
The king died in a pitched battle he didn't even have to engage in.

>mfw Veeky Forums has better GoT discussion than /tv/

>Lancastrians
>King died in battle

Lol wut?

Everywhere has better everything than /tv/

Every board has better discussion about anything than /tv/

It's remarkable given that /b/, /v/, /a/ and /pol/ all exist but /tv/ really is the worst board of all and it's not even close

I was referring to Edward III of York, since they actually lost the war.

I was on /sp/ during the height of the shitposting and /tv/ is worse

At least we're funny and original

/tv/ just forces memes like the redditors they are

What the fuck. Slavery was illegal in Scandinavia by the 14th century and serfdom never existed.

>I was referring to Edward III of York, since they actually lost the war.
2nd "war"*

Eh, to a point.
There's no way in hell that Ramsey would've been able to get away with half the shit he's pulled, at least in the show.

I do have a soft spot for baneposting but in general everything out of /tv/ is utter shit

>Edward III
>died in battle
>in the Wars of the Roses

Again, lol wut?

>not enjoying sopranos posting

The only reason to go on /tv/

Fuck... Richard*

That one was just dumb.

He faked his own death after Crecy and had a doppelganger play a mentally challenged version of himself, in real life he was actually a vampire.

He wasn't a Lancastrian though.

>Deanerys' arc.

Essos isn't Europe though. Its an analogy of the Middle-East and Asia. I thought the faux-mongols and the brown skinned people made that clear.

You don't understand what that means. The Chinese did not abolish slavery for moral reasons.

This is pretty much what's happening in the show as well

Do they even have those?

> Why are the houses not intermarried to a high fucking degree?

They are, but genetics doesnt work the same way in GoT that it does in real life

Dany's abolition got her an army and the fanatic support of the lower classes of an entire region of the world

>There is one important but missing parts: cities, merchants and handcraft guilds.

This is the most unrealist part. Westeros only having five cities, and then Essos being ultra-urbanized is just shitty geography.

No, termites do not have morals.

That wasn't why she did it though. Her opposition to slavery is entirely moral, everything else is just icing on the cake for her. If you remember from earlier on in the story, she never originally intended to go to Slaver's Bay at all.

Her opposition to it was moral, she probably wouldnt have done anything about it if she didnt gain from it

>Also, Westeros' history in a long term is completely unplausable. It covers ten thousand years, yet there is basically no technological progress, and even societal structures stay pretty much the same (feudal monarchies).

You must remember that the history of Westeros as presented in the books is the history as recorded by the maesters.

They see the past carrying the same technology and the same societal structures, but unless Bran warps into the weirwood net and see the First Men in plate armour and having kings and lords, there is no reason to believe that this is any different from people in our own Middle Ages giving contemporary clothing and architectural styles to their biblical and classical painting.

>and handcraft guilds
What sort of handcraft guilds were prominent? Like looms?

I was wondering, where did merchants come from in High Medieval society? (900-1300) Like were they peasants who got cut a break to travel the world for profit? Were they nobles? Solely Jews? Did nobles or cities patronize them or were they independent?

If her motivations were more strategic, she would have continued marching West with her giant freed slave army. Instead she's sitting around in some desert shithole trying to nation build because her motivations are not strategic at all. Her entire campaign is based on 'muh feels'.

She's sitting in Meereen because she has no particular attachment to westeros and wants to prove herself capable of governance. And she cares about the people

Usually from non-inheriting nobles or successful member of the middle class. There has always been a merchant class in societies

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livery_company#List_of_companies_in_order_of_precedence

Her entire life's goal has been to retake her birthright in Westeros, it's the entire reason she went so far East in the first place. Your second sentence is spot on though and it's basically what I've been saying the whole time. She's not motivated by strategic self-interest, she's motivated by her morals and ethics. That's why she abolished slavery, because she cares about the people and she sees slavery as grossly criminal towards the slaves. This isn't something that ever really happened on any large scale in our real history. The Chinese example that I was originally responding too was not driven by moral or ethical reasons, but by strategic and economic reasons.

>There is one important but missing parts: cities, merchants and handcraft guilds. Some cities in middle ages had special rights, their own independent councils, laws and even armies. Rich merchants could have had a lot of influence and control some important trade routes etc.
This. Fantasy writers have no concept of economics and it always bugs me. At the very least, the Free Cities could've formed something like the Hanseatic League to safeguard commerce or even the Lombard League for mutual defense.

Take the Westerlands and its gold mines. You can't have an economy solely sustained on mining precious metals. The Kingdom of Hungary was Europe's primary source of gold and it didn't always benefit since Western merchants would bring in manufactured goods while Hungary merely produced cattle, wine, and gold. Do the Lannisters mint currency for all of Westeros or is that solely the crown's privilege? Does the crown maintain a ban on exporting gold and silver so that they can carefully recycle their currency via taxes back into the market so that lords, merchants, and smallfolk can use it for domestic consumption, invest in profitable ventures, and then remit it back to the government?

>Linguistically the continent(!) of Westeros should be more diverse. For instance it took a few centuries to form the modern French from all the different regional dialects and languages. A unified and standardized language is a thing of the modern age (17th century and onward).
This especially.

The North should speak the Old Tongue like the Wildlings do since it was the language of the First Men. Dorne's First Men and Andal tongues should be heavily salted with Rhonyish since they're a completely alien culture to the First Men and Andals. The Stormlands should have a different dialect of the Common Tongue compared to the Vale or the Reach or the Westerlands.

The moment she tries, it fails almost instantly. Now had the abolition been completely succesful with no downsides, now that would have been "unhistoric" and not authentic.

Who protects that Great Bank that Stannis took a loan out to pay for his mercenaries?

If it was a kingdom, then there is the question of why they'd allow so much money to go to a usurper for Joffery and then Tommen's throne.

The bank is in a free city in Essos that I can't remember the name of that's basically filled with freed-slave crypto-Jews who lend money to everyone. They have the big not-Colossus of Rhodes.