Explain how a country the size of South America could exist as a cohesive unit if it has medieval-level technology and...

speaking of south america, the inca empire was a pretty good chunk of it, so not so unrealistic

the area south of the neck is probably no larger than china. the area north of the neck is basically a seperate nation kept on the targaryens side first by dragons and later by stark autism.

wasn't Persia about the size of South America? Or the Mongol empire?

So having a tall but thin empire accessible from the sea at any point and with traversable waterways running through its entirety doesn't count, I take it?

If we totally ignore the difference between waterways, changes in climate and how it affects sea travel and shit like raiders who want to attack what is basically a floating pile of money on a river.

yes, then it counts.
martin is a hack

GRR said it's the size of South America.

>If we totally ignore the difference between waterways, changes in climate and how it affects sea travel
Which would kind of explain why the northern bit was a basically autonomous country only conquered through the use of giant-ass fire breathing dragons.

>shit like raiders who want to attack what is basically a floating pile of money on a river
Right, nobody ever used rivers to transport their shit, that would be silly and definitely not the staple of almost every major civilization in history.

Everyone lives in fear of Quetzalcoatl

>Entire continent that's remained economically and culturally stagnant for 8000 years
>Single dynasties ruling specific kingdoms of thousands of years
>No different languages or even local dialects in a continent the size of south america

wow its almost like grrm is a shit worldbuilder

While this is true, I'm not sure what the true god of this world has to do with a discussion about SoIaF.

Its almost like you take everything literally. The starks claim an 8000 year reign. The Dutch count of Holland claimed direct descent from the trojans.

Plus there's Sam with "This guy says we had knights 2000 years before that was even a thing"

Irregular, highly destructive winters kind of really ruin histories. No one really knows when shit happened.

...

Is this loss?

They didn't.

Then an incestuous threesome with dragons united them by force.

Then the dragons started dying out (mostly because they couldn't stop killing each other) and ever since, the "country the size of South America" has been wracked with one civil war after another, though many of them have been rather small.

Isn't that The British isles?

>ASOIAF
>No magic

I guess you missed the vagina demon, the dragons, the bitch who is immune to fire, the prophetic visions, the mind control spells...

The Mongol "empire" lasted less than four generations before falling apart.

No magic? How many times did they teleport last season?

Very similar. But there's nothing wrong with taking cartographic inspiration from real life.

>GRR said it's the size of South America.

westeros, yes. that's the whole continent. "south of the neck" is less than half of that.

rate my map

Lower part of westeros is literally an upside down ireland

Fast Travel.

>vagina demon

???

The shadow that killed renly

There's a shady-ass priestess of a god of fire and shadow who was implied to do magic fairly regularly, and eventually it's shown to the reader/viewer. It starts off with what implausibly might just be slight-of-hand, and escalates like mad from there. At one point she births a shade that kills a claimant to the throne, and it tears clean through his gorget and throat like the gorget was thin cloth.

...

It's not nearly as big as South America. South America's total area is some 18000 square kilometers. The Roman Empire, at its biggest, was some 5000 square kilometers. But you're right in that it's not impossible for a huge country to exist in ancient times.

The author has explicitly stated that it is about as big as South America.

Caesar didn't even know South America existed you idiot.

With the level of decentralization shown, yes. I will admit that its unlikely that EVERYONE would speak the same language but within the courts, yeah. The 7 kingdoms aren't imperial. There's almost if not literally no real central authority.

I'm explicitly stating that you must've skipped the lesson on context clues in Grade 4.

Well, it doesn't for starters.
Also the have a pretty good communication system and a centralised school for the training of bureaucrats, which would help too.

Heaven is high and the Emperor is far away.

this is a retard level post. There have been several empires in the past with somewhat comparable sizes. You have to also consider that basically no one lives in the North, so half of it doesn't even matter.

Same way China could

FPBP.

The Westerosi empire lasted less than three centuries before fracturing, and for half of that its rulers had access to the fantasy equivalent of ICBMs that could hit any rebellious part of that continent in a neglible amount of time.

There was an exhibit on the Hapsburgs at a local museum a few years ago and it really helped me A LOT to understand just how easily timelines about royal families can be bullshitted. They had a 'family tree' commissioned at some point during the Renaissance that actually showed them as having direct descent from first the Roman emperors, then the Egyptian pharoahs before that, then the Sumerians before that, and then various biblical patriarchs going back to Genesis before that. It was wild.

The lack of language diversity is probably the one major criticism of Martin's worldbuilding that is actually fair. Even then, it's not as unbelievable as it initially appears when you consider the fact that the entire continent was culturally conquered by a single ethnic group relatively recently in its history. Sort of like how in five hundred years the bulk of two continents here on Earth went from speaking hundreds of indigenous languages to speaking primarily Spanish.

>Sort of like how in five hundred years the bulk of two continents here on Earth went from speaking hundreds of indigenous languages to speaking primarily Spanish.
But there are still zillions of people in "Latin" America who have non-Romance languages as their native tongues. Literally half of Paraguay speaks ONLY Guarani.

>Literally half of Paraguay speaks ONLY Guarani.
Whoops--literally half of rural Paraguay, I meant to say.

but that's demonstratably an exception to the rule

t. paraguayan

What projection does this map use? If it's Mercator then Dorne must be gigantic across its width to be appear as wide as the North

Think about it, how long did the kingdom last after the last dragon in Westeros died?
How long did the Mongol Empire last after the Great Khan died?
Both were formed by bloody conquest, held together by an iron fisted central army and good communication (pony riders or ravens), and eventually fell apart into squabbling sub-kingdoms all trying to be top dog.

Blood and marriage ties, economic ties, and some sense of "normality" amongst the nobility.

I hate that fat retard so much

I know, it could've been your shitty worldbuilding that ended up making millions of dollars and redefining popular fantasy, if only you had both writing ability and the motivation to make use of it.

>start of with 100000 little Thanedomes and fucking children of the forest running around

>ice zombies barge in (+loooooong ass winter)

All the time estimates we get about the Dawn Age + the Age of Heroes are essentially bible tier stuff. Mythology that might contain little shreds of truth. And keep in mind that the tech- level around that point seems to be around our bronze age + magic.

> Andal Invasion

In a long process that probably destroyed most of the (already very unreliable) historical knowledge of the first men the Andals created 6 feudal states while the Starks in the North subjugated all the other petty kings.

>Rhoynar come in steel spreads etc.

The legends about Nymeria are myths. All of this happened in ancient times. The whole Rhoynar saga seems to be a Trojan war equivalent. So no reliable time estimates at this point.

>at some point Aegon started his conquest probably burning tons of valuable knowledge

Somewhat reliable historical records probably start around Aegons conquest 300 years ago.

So we have a continent that progressed from Bronze Age to the late middle ages in a time span of 2000-5000 years (accounting for mythological exaggerations). Factoring in the crazy ass seasons and at least one apocalyptic event (the Long Night) that seems to be actually somewhat reasonable.

And the continent never was politically unified. Negro please. Read the damn history. The Targs were able to conquer six of the seven kingdoms with motherfucking dragons. They had direct control over the Crownlands+ Dragonstone and a reasonable degree of control in the Riverlands, the Stormlands, the Westerlands and the Reach. The North basically did its own thing and occasionally swore an oath. Dorne was loosely integrated via a marriage.

Once the Targs killed their Dragons in the Dance (that nearly tore apart the Realm) the whole thing started fracturing.

1/2

2/2

The Blackfyre Rebellions essentially were a symbol of that. Sure most people believed that a Targaryen king should be on the Iron Throne but that is a cultural thing. OTL there were people in the 18th Century running around claiming to be the legitimate heir to the Roman Empires.

A victorious Blackfyre Rebellion would have lead to a weakened Crown with even less central power than the Targ Kings had.

Instead there was Bloodraven, a fucking magic user + Odin equivalent that stabilized the Targaryen dynasty.

After Bloodraven the Targs held the Throne for 64 more years.

So the Targs essentially had united the 6 Kingomds for 281 years. The Seven Kingdoms (Dorne included) were united for 96 years under Targ rule. That seems doable with Dragons and a fucking blood sorcerer.

Then we had Robert B who ruled for 14 (?) years via personal charisma and fame (oh and most regions had to recover from the Rebellion). After his death shit hits the fan immediately and without Mary Sue Dany and her Dragons there would be no hope to unite the 7 Kingdoms again.

China.

Is Westeros truly One Kingdom, as Stannis envisions? Or is it 7 separate and unequal kingdoms only bound by conquest?

Sure

I think the implication that GRRM went for is "the seven kingdoms weren't really administratevely unified, cause distance and shit, but the dragons were a nice peacemaker against inter-kingdom wars". I kinda like it, but the culture of Targaryen period is pretty much the same in the whole of Westeros execpt for the iron islands, the north and Dorne so I dunno, they probably had some snazzy propaganda as well. One could think that for all the talk about knights Aegon had what we could define as a superior military-technological package aside from dragons, a là Norman Conquest.

Anyway it's his style. Sarnor, the whole of the Valyrian colonial empire, Yi Ti, even the Dothraki. Big, long-lived empires with a common culture are very standard in that world. If anything Westeros appear more fractured and less static.

I still like Ibben the most, tough. Fucking neanderthal Ahabs.

>there is the religious aspect too, but septons in GRRM tend to be dumbasses so I don't expect they did much, perhaps they kinda "standardized" peasants tough

>there is the religious aspect too, but septons in GRRM tend to be dumbasses so I don't expect they did much, perhaps they kinda "standardized" peasants tough

Getting raped by Dragons tends to have that effect...

The Targs crushed the faith as a political power.

It became one kingdom once Aegon showed up with his dragons. It's all but stated the threat of immolation kept the lords in line.

Once the dragons were gone though, the kingdom only persevered through the fact everyone alive at that point only knew that system. And it was still plagued by numerous rebellions and civil wars. Such as the one which prefaced the story, and the even bigger one making up the content of the story itself.

Stark autism held the realm together. Stark autism tore the realm apart. And Stark autism will join it all back together again.

I tend to think GRRM there is having his fedora moments, honestly. If there is one thing that it's pretty bad in ASOIAF it's his portrayal of organized religion vs organized proto-science, where one is always if not right smart and the other laughable.

>Stark autism will join it all back together again.
I'll bet even money that the Starks won't survive the series.

And I'll match that bet that Jon will be the Aragorn analogue.

Targaryen blood or not, he's a Stark in every other sense of the word.

If only, user.

Seriously, the Stark are too backwards for their (and their subjects') own good.

I want Tywin to leave.

Wut? The maesters were clearly behind the end of the dragons and near-death of magic in the world, and now claim it never existed. Maybe their reasons weren't evil, we don't know, but it would take a lot to justify that. Meanwhile, almost literally every religion has some kind of power that the Citadel refuses to acknowledge even though we see proof of it over and over again, Rh'llor and the Old Gods especially. It's just the Seven that get shafted

>Half of it is a frozen wasteland with jackshit
>The Vale, Westerlands and Stormlands are all very mountainous
>Dorne is partially desert
Most of Westeros isn't even really capable of causing much trouble if the Great Houses don't start problems.

Magic being gone is a relatively new development in titty land.

You'd think Veeky Forums would be all over the Seven, since half the books deal with the faithful turning into violent moralists brutalizing corrupt unfaithful and prostitutes.

In seriousness though, I think every organized religion in the books gets some kind of baggage. The Seven have corrupt clergy and the aforementioned militia. The Drowned God religion is a straight up death cult. And we all know what's going on with R'hllor stuff. The only religion which gets off easy is Old Gods, but that's basically just nature worship. No one's launching a crusade on behalf of a tree.

However I think saying Gurm is tipping his fedora is wrong. He's just telling it like it is: religions will always have corruption and zealots.

>In seriousness though, I think every organized religion in the books gets some kind of baggage. The Seven have corrupt clergy and the aforementioned militia. The Drowned God religion is a straight up death cult. And we all know what's going on with R'hllor stuff. The only religion which gets off easy is Old Gods, but that's basically just nature worship. No one's launching a crusade on behalf of a tree.

The Iron Men are on the route to extinction. Whoever wins the War of the Kings will obliterate these crazy motherfuckers. Euron literally is leading them towards their extinction.

R'hollor is probably just as "evil" as the Others.

The Seven are actually ok imho. The whole faith militant stuff is actually understandable due to the dire situation of the Kings Landing and during Roberts Reign the faith seems to be a somewhat corrupt (the higher echelons at least) force of good.

The Old Goods on the other hand are actually very limited. I think its telling how Bran prays for Robb's safety in the first book and Osha just tells him that the Gods don't have eyes in the South because the Andals cut down all the weirwood trees.

>a good chunk
Not really, the vast majority of the continent was on the other side of the andes and unconquered.

Mongols had the steppe

What made Latin America speak mainly spanish is modernization and urbanization. Spanish was always the language of the cities, but missionaries had to learn languages like aymara or quechua to preach in the rural world.

>Jon will be the Aragorn analogue
This from the man who is explicitly writing the anti-Tolkien?

And the absolute majority of Brazil with 210 million people speaks portuguese.
Argentina, Uruguay, same deal but for spanish.
Paraguay is also a tiny nation that got kicked in it's but by the three mentioned previously.

FIRST: Dragons, leading to the same sort of mobility of power, or at-least the threat of mobile power, that the Mediterranean gaveTHEN: Social momentum, because change is scary, and humans are creatures of habbit

FINALLY: It does indeed fall apart after enough time has passed that the social momentum of hegemony and the memory of dragon power fade.

No, he's writing his fan letter to Tolkien and makes this clear constantly. Only memelords and D&D think this work is deconstructing anything.

Nah. I mean, EVERY house is better than them. Even the fucking Baratheon.

>le happy merchant maester face

Actually, that... kinda makes sense. Still, I think that GRRM is fedorin' too much, basically if it's organized it's evulz.

He's almost cute when he talks about JRRT, believe it or not. In that aspect he's still honestly the 14 yo weeping the first time he read the book.

It's really daunting seeing just how little effort George has seemingly put into the presiding religion of Westeros. The whole religion just comes off as fucking dull and borderline inconsequential.

They have a very good tax policy

ummm no sweetie ;)

Hmmmm

Depends a lot on the geography. The reason why Russia is so big while European countries are so tiny is because from Russia's far West all the way to the Pacific there are very few natural barriers save the Ural mountains (which was more or less the Eastern border of medieval Russia). Europe is filled with mountains, valleys, gorges, bays and rivers that make for natural borders that are easily defendable. Think of stuff like Louis XIV actively avoiding conquest of anything south of the Pyrenees because it would be hard to defend.

With that in mind, a country the size of South America could easily work if it's mostly plains with very isolated forests and mountains you can easily walk around. It must be pretty shitty in terms of easily defendable terrain.