A Game of Thrones' worldbuilding has problems
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- Опубліковано 26 чер 2024
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Historians being bad at naming things is historically accurate
good worldbuilding is when you name your kingdom like edgy teen Shacialaka'akaraizu thats epic!
Exactly lol. Hundred Years’ War lasted 119 years and was arguably three distinct but related wars. Unoriginal name too, just like the Thirty Years War and the Seven Years War.
@@Emperorofthemoon1 it's like wars got shorter but worse as time went on.
@Ryan Swaggert How was is Global?
@@nadirjofas3140 NA, Europe, India and Asia all saw fighting in the same war. The 'American' War of Independence was ago a big deal. Just about every city state, bishop with an army and kingdom was at war with the British trying to kill their empire.
using the show to contradict the books is like using fan fiction to contradict documented history
he literally said at the beginning of the video-
documented history is like 50% fiction as well....
@@trazyntheinfinite9895 depends on what period and who you're asking
Not all historians are equal
Some and very, very good. More like 10% fiction ;)
Truth!
Just seasons 6-8.
"Lazy names for the first men age".
Yes, "Pre-history", "Ancient Age", "Middle Age", "Modern Age" are so creative and accurate.
Names in ancient times where incredibly diverse.
Take Carthage for example there men had names like: Hanno, hanno the second, hanno the third, hanno the fourth, hanno son of hanno the seventh.
Except the first men are a specific people, whereas the names you chose are for general historical period. Talk about a specific period and more specific names come in, like the Hellenistic, Classical, Mycenean, et cetera for the Greeks.
@@friese95 Mycenean is called by the place the culture was first excavated, its a boring and unimaginative, yet extremely practical convention among archaeologists. They also add boring indices to distinguish them, like Ur III. The practice first began in XIX century, though. For the later Greek history you have Dark Ages, Archaic (= Early) Classic (= High), which is not dissimilar from partition of the Middle Ages or Modern Era, and the names were again mostly given un XVIII-XX centuries.
should have called them the first, second, third, and fourth age like the high fantasy god king did.
@@powerflumi Yea...except later historians gave them apellations like "the first" and "the second" so they wouldn't get confused when talking about them to each other. If you were go read source material from the time period in question, they would all be "Hanno"
GRRM has specifically mentioned that everyone in Westeros speaking the Common Tongue was solely for the sake of ease of storytelling. It would've been exhausting to have such language barriers within the main plot narrative
@Arbethrax Volugosk I think that's a very reductionist way of viewing GRRM's contributions to fantasy and his level of depth in world-building.
Just because he doesn't have a burning desire for philology and linguistics, doesn't mean that he's not a significant crafter of story, detail and giving deep texture to lots different settings.
I could flat out say GRRM is a far more engaging writer and Tolkien's characters are flat and lacking in gravitas, or that his proclivity for unimaginative female characters detracts more from his work than his philologic prowess adds to it, but it's not constructive or called for...
@Arbethrax Volugosk That is a pretty shitty take. Imagine reading the first book and every time Eddard runs into someone, he doesn’t know what the hell they’re saying (Eddard is from the North, Robert from the Stormlands, Baelish from the Vale, Catlyn from the Riverlands, and Cersei from the Westerlands). If each of these areas had their own tongue or dialect, that would get super annoying after a few chapters. Even in Middle Earth, everyone but elves (and that doesn’t include the main elf characters) and orcs (and orc kin like goblins and Uruk-Hai) speak English because how annoying would it have been if Aragorn (from Gondor) couldn’t understand jack shit of what the Hobbits from the Shire said or the what the Riders of Rohan were saying? Having a universal tongue is just better for plot device because most people don’t have time to learn a real language, nonetheless a fake ass language.
@Arbethrax Volugosk Well, Tolkien was a linguist.
@@conor698 I disagree with your statement about characters and engagement.
@Arbethrax Volugosk He’s a writer not a linguist
I'd argue that the inconsistencies in continent sizes are hugely realistic. Europeans of the Middle Ages gave vastly different accounts of the size of different landmasses.
I agree
That's probably due to not always having access to geographical measuements kept by the Church, so they probably were often forced to make educated guesses. I can imagine that since the Church had records of the Earth's exact circumference, they probably might've had accurate measurements of land masses as well; It's just that information might not have always been readily available to every scribe, cartographer, or lord.
It is intentionally ambiguous after a while each culture has a different point of view of things. Some people are heroes some or invader some are liberators some are oppressors. Our history itself is only written from our states POV. Look at the USA's depiction of the revolutionary war and compare it to the French's or England's take on that segment in history.
Right, the maps are intended to be inaccurate representations
the irony here is we kinda had the circumference accurate for a while tho, Ancient Greek's and Egyptians nailed to to a decimal using the sun's horizons
“If I was king, I would take power away from the nobles after a rebellion.” Congratulations, you now have another rebellion, and all of your loyal lords are wondering why they supported you in the first place 😉. I take the point, but there is a reason it took so long for feudalism to transition into absolute monarchies in our own world.
Plus, we have a good in example in Aegon "Egg" V. He tried to restrict the power of the nobility in order to implement his reforms after living among the smallfolk for a good part of his life and it did not go well. Mostly because he had no dragons. As for the dragon riders before him, literally right after the death of the father of the dynasty, the first Aegon, died, they were more busy fighting each other.
Normally you would retract power from the losing side. Westeros has been under the Targaryens about the same time the Low Middle Ages lasted, 300 to 400 years. We could have seen more steps towards centralization in that time.
@@wizardsummoner9124 Holy Roman Empire was in the hands of Habsburgs for 330 years until the formal dissolution of the Empire, after which they were emperors of Austria for a century more. Ever heard of 30 years war?
@@LukeVilent Yes, and the HRE failed. On the other hand you have most other european kingdoms at the time which went from decentralized to centralized in that time. And which were inheritable like Westeros, not elective.
@@wizardsummoner9124 I've brought the example of 30 years war because it is a nice example of a monarch trying to do this *something*. And as to elective kind of their monarchy: if you have people from the same dynasty being in charge for 3 centuries despite of things like 30 years war, something fishy 's going on about those elections, isn't it?
If it weren't for the fact that Tolkien developed his own languages specifically for his books, the names given to the locations are actually really stupid. Translated to English, they sound terrible. Literally names like "The Wide River", "Shiny Lake", "Lonely Mountain", etc. Hell, the character in the movies "Tauriel" literally means "Forest Maiden".
The thing is, ALL CULTURES did this. Most old civilizations (like the First Men) chose names for themselves that basically just meant "the People". Isolated and ancient cultures did this all the time. Their word for their tribe was literally just the word they gave to humans in general. Cultures looking back on their history often referred to ancient cultures with simple terms like "The First Men", and called their deities things like the "Old Gods" as opposed to their current gods. The First Men wouldn't have called themselves "first men". Just "men". They wouldn't have called their tongue "the old tongue". They'd just call it "speech". So it's not really fair to be critical of GRR Martin's use of phrases like that to describe ancient cultures when all of his books were written as though by medieval scholars and not modern ones. Sorta like how Tolkien's Silmarillion is written like a holy book.
Roman Empire
Named after the City of Rome
Which was named after the legendary King Romulus
Which means: Citizen of Rome
Holy hell.
I think GRRM wanted to avoid some of the unpronounceable fantasy names that Tolkien used that can sometimes be off-putting to casual fantasy audiences. Tolkien put a lot of attention into language and names, makes sense as he was a linguist, whereas GRRM put a lot more attention into political systems.
Even in our world, names are dumb XD
Paris is named after the Parisii, the gauls who lived there. And one of the etymology of their name is "border people", because they flee a belgium tribe and were at the border of that tribe.
My town, le Havre, litteraly means "the harbour" because it is.... a harbour XD
@@nerodino5508 King Romulus probably didn't exist. Rome most likely is derived from the Etruscan name for the Tiber river or other such landmarks.
You are correct in people naming geographic things simply. Tolkien was borrowing from a rich English tradition in naming things simply. The bay separating the North Sea (named because it's north of the Frisian Islands where the Angles and Saxons set sail to England) from East Anglia is simply The Wash. The main road through town often became Main Street. The small round lake east of Kensington Palace in Hyde Park is called Round Pond. The first bridge across the Thames was London Bridge and the current London Bridge occupies the same location. The two east-west lines of hills between London and the English Channel are the North Downs and South Downs. Americans have even stolen that tradition from what both countries often refer to as across "The Pond" in slang. The north-central part of CONUS is invariably called the Midwest (though its geographic definition is not precise). The Grand Canyon, the Great Salt Lake, and the Great Plains are as unimaginative as names come. The biggest lake is Lake Superior. Just west of that on the border is the dull-as-dirt name of Lake of the Woods. Americans don't even bother naming highways anymore; what was once the Lincoln Highway is now simply US 30.
It's not just English speakers. The Mediterranean was named by the Romans meaning middle of the earth, as it was the center of their world (and empire). The French name for their south-central highlands is Massif Central or the central massive. Korea's names for the Yellow Sea and Sea of Japan translate to the West Sea and East Sea respectively. Denali (formerly Mt McKinley) is Koyukon meaning the great one or tall one, depending on the source. The main waterway through Venice is la Canal Grande, or the Grand Channel. Ancient Egyptians name for the Nile, H'pi , means the river. I'll end this with my favorite geographical name, the Great Australian Bight.
It's natural that the first characters mentioned when fans talk about incest in Westeros are the Targaryens. But Gilly is one of the few characters on Planetos able to say "My mother was also my sister and my father was also my grandfather and my husband. And then I had his baby."
Not to mention that there's a valid theory among the fans that Craster started his creepy child-sacrificing cult with his MOTHER. So that's two generations of incest between parents and children to produce Gilly, Craster's daughter/granddaughter/niece, and three generations with Gilly's baby.
@@lasttoparty7570 it takes a lot longer than that for the genetic effects of incest to show themselves. but i think its clear GRRM wasnt interested in portraying ANY of the incest he wrote about in a realistic way.
Yes, I realize that incest doesn't have immediate and grave effects, and that it's not really so dramatic.
To GRRM's credit, he does mention that Gilly's child is smaller and less robust than Mance's despite being older. And the makeup of Craster's Keep, with half the wives being old women and only half the wives being on the younger side, suggests that inbreeding depression has taken a toll here, as second generation daughters, like Gilly, are fewer than there should be otherwise.
Yasmine at the end of the day, there are 9 foot people who walk around normally with no deformities. Girls who can withstand fire and emotionally bond with dragons. And cultists who can wear faves. There’s aren’t human beings with the same genetic makeup or laws of physics the way us earth humans are. Who’s to say genetics works the same way for us as it does them?
to be fair in medieval setting all characters are supposed to look ugly and unwashed and live to 30-40, so being inbred doesn't make that much difference to them in appearance, beside most notherners are probably inbred much more than wildlings, cause they live in their small isolated villages and don't have traditions of finding a wife as far from home as possible
The reason for lack of ethnic differences among the nobles in Westeros, is because of maesters. All of the nobles are taught by maesters and all of the maesters learn in the Citadel. They're taught the same language, the same methods, the same customs, etc. If we spent more time with the small folk, we may find that customs have more differences, but most of our time is spent with nobles. In Essos, they don't have a maester system, and there is more variety of culture.
And peasant from North is perfectly capable of communicating with Stormlanders and Dornishmen. GRRM shouldve at least made North, Irom Isles and Dorne different to make sense
@@sangbum60090 well, they have different accents
sangbum60090 yes because the leaders in the north, iron islands, and dorne are all being taught by the maesters, meaning everyone needing to deal with them, would need to speak their language, and it would trickle down to the common folk. The common people have to be able to speak with the merchants, who have to be able to speak with the lords who are buying their products, who have to be able to speak to the higher up lords, who were taught by the maesters.
Josh Oliver That’s really not sustainable. Common folk in history generally didn’t deal with nobles at a personal level all that often. There are countless examples of rulers who didn’t even speak the same language of their subjects. In Medieval Europe Latin was the language of higher learning and what common folk heard everyday at mass, that didn’t stop vulgar latin varieties from developing. The idea that they maintained the same tongue for 6000 years despite being so decentralized is just not very believable, especially considering this is supposed to be a continental landmass.
@@josholiver8833 Not really, Normans spoke French but it didn't trickle down to common folk
Well, this comment section is an amazing case of refuting the BS of the video in a polite and factual way.
Damn right kind sir
crème de la crème
@ Miss Brodie is that you?
A true example that it is still possible to disagree without conflict.
You guys probably didn't look to far then. Also calling this video BS doesn't sound to polite.
I’ve learned more from the comments than the actual video
Yup
This is the perfect comment section.
Video wasn’t bad but I agree
Because the author, while not completely incompetent, is... pretty much so.
What do you mean exactly
“The seven Kingdoms is a stupid name.”
Guess some never heard of the Anglo Saxon “Heptarchy” and the history of England which the Andals are based off.
United Kingdom is such a stupid name for a country smh
For real, our boy isn't doing the best job of catching Martin's inspirations here.
“The United Kindom”
Just because it’s in real life, or inspired from real life history, doesn’t mean he has to like it
Amy Snapp no but it does make it more realistic.
@@dingo1547 Perhaps, but reality is sometimes more fantastical than most people believe. Imagine a story about people fighting over a bucket and hundreds dying lol
bad/poor decisions of characters are not "worldbuilding mistakes".
Do u mean the incest ?
@@Kai555100 incest is not a bad decision... unless you get caught
@@vraska8799 what the fuck
Vraska The world building mistake is that after 300 years of exclusively inbreeding, Danaerys is incredibly beautiful instead of looking like a turbo-Habsburg
@@mintw4241 the purple eyes and white hair is probably a recessive trait, which admittedly is likely the most Mary Sue-y incest-related birth defect there is.
You should do a video on all of the world building issues Earth has.
Exactly.
WHO THE HELL NAMES PLANET "EARTH" I MEAN C'MON THATS LAZY! WE SHOULD NAME OUR PLANET LIKE EDGY TEEN "ASZHAVABNALRDUG" IS MY BET
Thats such a good idea
@@firstone3289 - Imagine naming your planet after literal dirt. Imagine walking into a United Galaxies meeting and saying "Yes, I am the Dirtan representative." Sad.
i mean photographing a black hole and still no mars colonies? pff, get real bitches.
Good worldbuilding includes leaving elements up to the readers imagination. It's also good practice to mislead, in order to build intrigue and mystery. This is Fantasy, not an Encyclopedia Article.
Thank you for pointing this out. ☝️👍👏🙏
Even encyclopedias get updated when we get new information which contradicts historical narratives that were previously accepted. Real world history is chock full of inconsistencies and contradictions, and every nation has recorded its own version of how things happened.
@Diewott1 some universes (like the elder Scrolls for example) have a lot of magic. If you can create fire, water or even food just by using your hand you don't need to create a machine in order to do that.
Tell that to Malazan fans
Oooh gottem
Oh yes. In one of the major events in my world, the collapse of Flebwenia, I’m giving little to no explanation of why it fell in such a mysterious way
"Cleverly called the first men" yeah cause places like desert desert, river river and hill hill in the real world are so creative
My favorite is East-Timor Leste, which means East-East East
11:38 - //Poles sweating right in this moment// Yeah, we definetly don't call ourselfs "People of the Fields" and our ethnicity "People of the Word", yeah... And some of our national regions aren't "After-sea", "Great region of People of the Fields" and "Small region of the People of the Fields"...
true
Małpolska = Little Poland
Wielkopolska = Great Poland
Pomorze - after sea
and so on.
And our Polish names are for from being least creative.
Like we have:
Central country (native name of China)
Rising sun, literally "the east" (Nihon or Japan)
Black land, from color of soil (Kemet - old Egyptian name for Egypt)
Native name for Germany (Deustchland) means after several translation of archaic forms "Land of the people"
Like every name is such basic
Even England
England
Lazy names? Talk about gazillions of “Springfields” and “Eastwoods” of places and people
Yeah, also there are far more "lazy names" in the new world, they just feel lazy to us because they're so modern. At one point every place name seemed lazy to someone.
Alexander The Great founded like 70 Alexandrias. What an unoriginal hack.
@@srnigromante9214 Don't forget the city he named after his horse.
Yeah, I live in Riverside.
Three guesses as to what it's next to.
The United States of America. The United Kingdom. The Seven Kingdoms (Or the Heptarchy as it was called from 16th century onwards).
idk man, i live near market street. its like, a street, with a market on it.
Bro I live on a street called green lanes which itself is a street with lanes coming off of it and situated between two parks
@@spuart3308 Bro, the most important building in America is called the White House, and it’s literally a big white house. The most important wars known to the world were called the World Wars...because they were world wars.
@@6ixlxrd the ingenuity of our species is truly a sight to behold
And most things that have "abstact" names seem to be literal names using words from another language (typically what the people doing the naming spoke) or words that have faded from or had pronunciations changed in a local language
Plenty such places here. In fact almost all names are very literal its just the language they were named was not modern English and over time as language evolved and often new people conquered and settled an area their own linguistic impact was made on place-names. In England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales most if not all places are quite literally descriptions of the thing, just with multiple different languages and thousands of years of history you end up with many weird and wonderful names. However its entirely reasonable in a fantasy setting to have the same quite literal names just in English. Tolkien does the same thing just that he had his own languages to use instead
Most of the problems you outlined can be summed up by one concept: the unreliable narrator. The story is told through the points of view of multiple narrators who may not be objective about their accounts, or even perception of events.
Even George RR Martin says some form of this. I forget what interview but he mentioned that a lot of things were inaccurate because information didn't reach all ends of the country. Which is why Maesters barely know shit about Essos except for the western side of it.
It's a great way to give yourself the ability to have more fun and cut some slack, and honestly is just a good idea
Yeah Martin writting and Prose skills arent the best, at certain points pretty bad and can get messy or confusing, not complicated or hard to understand, just bad presentation which is essential in a literary piece.
@@ahmedbenkhalfallah6502 did you just say grrm isn't a good writer
I think the lack of creative naming in regards to 'first men' and 'old gods' is more telling of a lack of any decent anthropology at the Citadel. For shame, maesters.
*>name one of your counties "York"*
*>emigrate to the American continent*
*>build a new city and call it "New York City"*
Meh, even in the real world people were not that creative when it came to naming things. Black Sea because it's dark, Iceland because it's icy, Greenland because the place where the explorers first landed their ships was green...etc.
If you calling people to migrate to a new area, it easier for the people to keep their name.
Edward Armstrong Isn’t Iceland the Green country and Greenland the icy one?
Idk, i like the simplicity of some parts of it
@@kana22693 I'll see your York and raise you a Portsmouth. I live in Portsmouth, Hampshire. Like York, it's a very historic city, and we have military bases and a naval shipyard. You guys have Portsmouth, New Hampshire, with a military base, and a naval shipyard, and it was named after the city that the founder came from. As you say, people in the real world can be decidedly uncreative.
The first men wouldnt call themselves that, just like Neanderthals didn't call themselves that.
People thought of names for it later.
Also aSoIaF has magic in the story so their genetics don't work exactly like ours
Yeah, considering the huge number of names that George R R Martin came up with for the characters, having the video ding him for using the term "first men" seems unfair.
Yeah and why did we name them Neanderthal?
The name Neanderthal (or Neandertal) derives from the Neander Valley (German Neander Thal or Neander Tal) in Germany, where the fossils were first found.
Man we're sooooo much more creative than GRRM lol. We literally do the same thing in the real world 😂
It's entirely plausible. It's not like the welsh today in the UK go around saying "I'm cymric" instead of "I'm welsh". They'd have their own name for it in their own language. If they stopped speaking their own language and started speaking another language, they'd adopt the name for themselves in that other language.
@@EL-ISSwell the people of Westeros aren't archeologists or whoever gave Neanderthals that name. Folk naming historical figures has always been straightforward and "unimaginative".
"George r.r. Martin isn't great at coming up with names" welcome to earth, you can visit Iceland, Greenland, the red dessert,...
Those are only the uninspired names in English, try to search how stupid some country names sound when you translate them.
The old gods are also referred to as the tree gods by some people. Might not be to inspired but neither is "Christianity" named after their prophet.
Yeah.. Scandinavian geography is extremely formulaic and uncreative in this way at least.
Places are usually named after a first name (usually a norse one) and a defining geographical feature.
Surnames are almost entirely based on geographical origins or family businesses / professions.
I think the same holds true for a lot of cultures with germanic roots.
So you get places like Geiranger (the fjord of geir), Karlstad (karls town. Karl meant farmer), Copenhagen (København: merchants harbor), Jotunheim (where the trolls live), etc.
And you get surnames when translated like: hill, ancient mountain, son of erik, smithtown, remote (as in distant) farm, etc.
Super creative you guys
"Minas gerais" just means general mines. "Mato grosso" = thick forest. People around here don't seen that creative
Great points
I was thinking the same thing. In real life names are pretty unoriginal. There is a town in Spain which name is Alcántara, and in Arabic that means "the bridge". Ante there is a bridge in that town, named "el puente de Alcántara", which literally is "the bridge of The Bridge". Also there is another town named Venta de Baños. Even though the name comes from an inn, in Spanish sounds like "bath sale", which is a pretty stupid name. The name of the country itself, Spain, it's supposed to come from the Phoenicians, who call the country "rabbit land", because there were so many rabbits.
Apaseo el Grande, and Apaseo el chico
I think what you have to remember is that the maps and descriptions of this world are based on the limited understanding and knowledge of the people who inhabit it. If GRRM sat down and mathematically plotted everything out to be geographically perfect, then told us about exactly there was and wasn’t in the world, that would give the reader an unnecessarily omniscient perspective which I really think is completely at odds with some of the major themes of this story. Also, Martin didn’t _want_ to sit down and world build in terms of geography and climate science and prevailing wind directions and how that would effect travel times by boats and what kind of limestone exists in areas and whether a certain level of roadbuilding was achievable in certain areas or build conlangs. What he wanted to do was write a story with compelling and interesting characters and the struggles between them, that’s what he did, and his world serves that function. He’s said himself, the world building is not what he enjoys most, it’s the characters. You should go and look up ‘world-building disease’.
Truth. I'm working on my own fantasy book(for fun for now, but maybe for profit if it ends up being good, I doubt it'll be as well plotted as Martins, I can't kill characters off as easily as him, lol) and I don't want to figure out how the wind sheer changes a place or how long it takes to travel by ship or on foot, I like telling a story thats interesting. Descriptions of places don't need the shape of every rock and why they are that shape, lol.
I'm pretty sure he just gets a kick out of making up all the weird stuff supposedly going on in the far corners of the world.
Thank the gods, someone who remembers that the story is the important part, and not the fanfic fuel.
Except world building is a part of the story
@@fightingmedialounge519 your point being?
My thoughts on the Dothraki food consumption is that they received A LOT of tribute from the free cities and Khalasars often warred with other Khalasars and killed each other and plundered their food. In peace the Dothraki food system is a death sentence but in constant War, plunder, and tribute. It works.
I also don't understand why eating a lot of horses is not sustainable. Maybe the lands are filled with wild horses that they also hunt. And why does the trading and raiding not give them enough additional food? This video makes a lot of claims without explaining why.
This is likely the weakest point in the video honestly.
@@Jack-kx5rf And even if so, the diet of the Steppe people was mostly meat and milk, and they were still able to sustain populations of hundreds of thousands. Pretty thin due to the vastness of the Steppe, but still.
@@LukeVilent My progenitor came to Europe as steppe nomads with hundreds of thousands of people from a territory much smaller, than the Dothraki sea, with technology hundreds of years prior the GoT technology level, so it doesn't make any sense what this idiot says. Also the steppes in Eurasia were home to millions of steppe nomads, and even the arid land of Mongolia was able to sustain a relatively big nomadic population. This guy doesn't even know real world history and limits.
@@fenrirr22 My progenitors were Cumans.
I’d like to disagree with the Dothraki point as from both the books and the show we know they hunt whenever they stop moving and we know from history that ghengis khan supported a nomadic army of over 100,000 so I wouldn’t call it very unlikely
have hoards of horses to eat and use,
dont make cheese at least?
He didn’t command 100,000 for long. Unless you’re considering all of Mongolia. Which isn’t fair. But mostly the great Khan won against uneven odds. Steppe horse archers > Chinese/middle eastern peasants.
Not to mention ghengis khan first conquered China after United the clans. So he immediately gained massive rice farms and a tributary state.
@JoeRingo118 u mean during his life time
They did exactly that 5 seconds after he died
The mongols had herds of sheep, in fact most of the wars between tribes were for the control of this herds. I recommend the book "Wolf of the Plains" by Conn Iggulden, it shows some of the daily life of medieval mongolians.
The Dothraki are a one dimensional society. They just have horses, real world steppe dwellers had many kinds of livestock.
Also you'd think there would be an American Bison equivalent species roaming the grass seas.
It is mentioned that there are some accent differences in Westeros, for exemple, even half a world away, Tyrion was able to find out almost immediately that a lad of the second sons was from fleabottom purely based on speech.
In my headcanon fleabottom people have cockney accents
There shouldn't be "some accent differences" in Westeros, there should at least four language families, dozens of languages and countless dialects, if you're going for realism, at least. Of course that's far too much to ask of George, but there could at least be some acknowledgement somewhere of Westeros having dozens of mutually unintelligible languages spoken by the smallfolk, with the common tongue just being a lingua franca among the nobility, Faith and Maesters.
@@justanotherhumanuser3145 Well I personally think he could have just pulled a sneaky one by just taking real life languages and using them for his world. He could have said that all the "white" people in westeros and western essos are the equivalent of indo-europeans, having the First Men speak celtic, the andals germanic, and the valyrians maybe latin while you're at it. The north, being a mix of andal and first men influence, could speak scots, while the ruling class of the north, being more heavily influenced by intermixing with southerners and being raised by masters, could speak scottish english. Meanwhile, the ironborn would make great danes, the Westerlands dutchmen, the reach germans, while the core territories of the continent speak modern english, which would be heavily influenced by the valyrian/latin languages (the same way about half of modern english' vocabulary is derived from french).
I did history at uni, your take on this is totally wrong
it isn't communications that make a government have control, it's power. the kings on the iron throne don't have enough power to create a central state. you say you would take the armies away from your nobles- how? you don't have an army. All you can do is rely on the loyal nobles to support you with their troops. if you said you were taking all armies away from the nobles, they wouldn't stand with you
the king's rule is limited by his power. Kings in europe in places like france spent hundreds of years trying to get power and control over their countries
Sounds like you did a module which included late medieval kingship like me. Which uni did you go to, out of interest?
But dragons=power. If Aegon wanted to take away his vassals' armies he would just have to melt a few castles and everyone would surrender pretty quickly
Gus Chapman - Because a few melted castles did so much to subjugate the Dornish.
@@Abshir1it1is And I'm sure it would not have been enough to quench the frogmen in the neck, either - nor the Crackclaw men had they not sided with Aegon because he promised them independence - otherwise I'm sure he'd have a bit of trouble with them as well - and the various mountain clans... and anyone who doesn't live in a big bloomin' castle you can spot from the air miles away. The antidote for the dragon menace seems to be to not be a noble lord in the first place, funny enough. Probably one of GRRM's many call-backs to 20th century history - strategic bombing being effective against conventional militaries but not irregular forces.
@@fuzzydunlop7928 - Now that we're listing things, the Faith gave Aegon's sons a great deal of trouble as well. They almost shattered the Targaryen dynasty themselves, and Jahaerys only managed to pacify them with an intricate PR program rather than dragon power as his uncle tried to do.
I think that you vastly overestimate the effects of incest. The biggest problem with incestuous children is the artificial increase in exposure to otherwise rare alleles. Most humans carry at least one allele for some medical anomaly, but its okay because that allele is rare amongst the population so we are unlikely to have children with two copies of that allele. In incestous relationships that's not true, they're very likely to have two copies of that allele. So its very possible that Dani looks like Amelia Clark, its just also very likely that she has some otherwise rare genetic disease.
@LeadFaun her parent are siblings, so shes definitely more inbred than the typical westerosi, who at most marry their cousins (Tywin and Joana, Howland and his wife etc.). That is unless you believe a theory that Dany isnt Aerys' child
@LeadFaun I still think two generations of sibling incest is worse than what your saying. Theres enough genetic variation considering how many houses there are and how many rise and fall, and so when one house marries into another house that they are already be related to it still isnt as bad a sibling incest. The way westerosi marry their vassals and other houses is just like how medieval families in the real world intermarried, in fact id argue there are more prestigious houses to choose from and more genetic variation in westeros than for any king of england or france. The Habsburgs married cousins and second cousins regularly (which westerosi only do occasionally) but were relatively okay and only had a full retard incest baby with Charles II after they married uncle to niece, which is no were near as bad as two generations of sibling incest in terms of inbreeding goes. What im essentially saying is you can get away with the occasional cousin marriage, as the Westerosi do and many real life medieval families do, however, straight-up bonafide sibling incest is gonna fuck up your baby. I dont agree with almost all of the criticisms in this video, but hes right about the Daenerys thing.
LeadFaun it’s mentioned in the books that it’s against the laws of the seven (church) to marry siblings or parents/children. the targaryens were the only ones to break this because they saw themselves as above the gods due to their valerian blood
@@iwillchopyoudown3100 Charles II was far more inbred then any sibling marriages, and it wasnt the result of Uncle-Niece only, it was 8 closed loops of incest. This is far worse than any sibling incest. Historically, the Ptolemys consistently married sibling to sibling, and the results where similar to the Targaryens: Every other generation being mad, and a lot of stillborns. Cleopatra was the result of a long line of incest, and she was basically fine.
@@iwillchopyoudown3100 Clay above already said it, but in short, you are wrong. You should read on the Ptolemaic dynasty, you probably know of Cleopatra VII Philopator *(the* Cleopatra), but you obviously do not know that she is a product of a dynasty that practised brother-sister marriages, and managed to last 3 centuries. Cleopatra herself was noted for both her beauty and her intellect, spoke a dozen languages, was well versed in philosophy and science, and was more than capable of having children. Also, before her marriage to Mark Antony, she was married to two of her own brothers (though not at the same time, and the relations between the three siblings were frosty at best, civil war kind of frosty). And the Ptolemaic dynasty was hardly the only one, many dynasties of ancient Middle East practised brother-sister marriages. As Clay stated, there were plenty of stillborns and varying degrees of mental incapacity here and there, but there were also a great deal of competent rulers and women famed for their beauty.
The original poster was right, the danger of incest is not in the "oh noes, social taboo", but in the fact that both partners share a lot of genes, and if they have some harmful, mostly recessive genes running in the family, there is a high probability they both carry them, and thus their child has a higher than average probability of inheriting the genes from both parents, thus exhibiting a disorder of some sort. But only if the genes are present in the family in the first place. Only if both siblings have them. Only if the child inherits it from both of them. Incest does not magically cause genetic mutations, it just makes statistically more likely that bad genes will pair up between people who have a similar genetic makeup. If they had luck and just lack such harmful genes in their family, there is no danger. Even if they have them in the family, it is still not a given that both of them inherited said genes. And *even* if they *have* both inherited them, it is still not a given *their* child will inherit it. Which is why you can go through centuries of brother-sister marriages and still end up with someone like Cleopatra, the genetics simply does not work like you assume here it does.
1. There were 7 Kingdoms when Aegon conquered them, and that had been so for roughly 300 years.
2. Each kingdom has its own distinct characteristics, but The lower 6 were indeed conquered by Andals, making them less unique.
I believe you should separate show and books: two very different beasts.
Macabre storytelling does great videos about both in his Game of Thrones rewrite series.
@@samlerf I'll check it out, thanks!
the 7 kingdoms is actually quite accurate. When Aegon came over to conquer the place, there were: The Kingdom of the North (Stark), Kingdom of the Mountain and the Vale (Arryn), Kingdom of the Isles and Rivers (Hoare), Kingdom of the Rock (Lannister), Kingdom of the Stormlands (Durrandon), Kingdom of the Reach (Gardner) and Dorne (Martell)(which is not actually a kingdom but alas). The kingdom now has 9 principalities because the kingdom of Harren the Black got divided into the Iron Isles, the Riverlands and the Crownlands. And, of course, Aegon didn't actually conquer Dorne, it was added later.
As a linguist, I'll have to disagree with your assessment of the language diversity (or lack thereof) in Westeros. Not on principle, but mostly for the reason that there's a lot of stuff that is never explicitly addressed in the books.
What you fail to mention is that aside from the centralization of government, another crucial aspect when it comes to the development (and maintenance) of languages is education. Specifically, the degree to which a language is formalized, standardized, and taught. Now, Westeros is peculiar in this instance because (higher) education is pretty much exclusively handled by the Maesters. Their order owns the only quasi-university in the entire land for most of known history and their foundation dates back to the Age of Heroes, from which we can infer that they've held a monopoly on higher education for millennia as of the time of ASoIaF. Since they teach pretty much any academic discipline from history, to reading&writing, medicine, metallurgy, folklore etc. it is pretty safe to say that they've got immense influence on how people in the higher classes of society learn and relay knowledge. Furthermore, since their university has been located at same single location for millennia, it also makes sense to assume that they'd establish a single dialect of the common tongue (possibly the one spoken in the Hightower area) as a uniform, standardized variety which they can use for their academic writing. In a world that has rather reliable means of long distance communication, it appears logical to assume that scholars keep in touch and a vivid scientific community needs a language/dialect that is intelligible for the largest possible audience. Now, Maesters also tutor every member of the aristocracy and given that, according to my argument, they also use a common dialect, it makes sense that they'd teach that to their pupils. If nothing else, then at least to enable them to read most academic writing in Westeros. That means the aristocracy learns their dialect from an early age, and since every noble everywhere is tutored by Maesters who all use a common tongue this leads to the establishment of a variety that is also shared by all members of the nobility. Which in turn makes it a perfect official/governmental language to use between the feudal kingdoms, and towards vassals. Step by step (and according to the trickle down theory) this makes it plausible that a standardized variety, chiefly curated by a single institution, has spread throughout the majority of Westeros. The maesters are pretty much a linguistic society at this point.
Now, of course this does not mean that there's no regional dialects. These pop up anyway. But a somewhat consistent core/command of "standard common" can be assumed, considering that through taxation, market economies and other feudal contact areas people need to be able to communicate with each other. Also note that most characters in the books are aristocrats or deal with aristocrats on a regular basis which would makes it reasonable to assume that they'd share the same dialect/language.
Whether the common language in Dorne and the North should bear traces of Rhoynish or the Old Tongue respectively is a matter of debate, especially considering that the First Men were presumably illiterate, were violently pushed aside, and were a people of the far away past, while the Rhoynar were assimilated to the point of losing their own ethnic identity. All of which are circumstances that in real human history have contributed to the eradication of people's language and traces thereof. In other words, it is not entirely unheard of that people perish/are assimilated without their languages leaving much of an impact on their successors.
Lastly, as for the contact between Essos and Westeros, there's High Valyrian as a more-or-less established lingua franca. There may well be a couple of loan words in Westeros common that etymologically stem from Essos, but in the books we never read their languages - we read English. In that sense, we're getting a retelling which makes it impossible to say how far the influence of either people's language is felt in that of their neighbors.
But maesters are not that widely spread actually. Northerners and ESPECIALLY Ironborns aren't very used to them and their use has been discontinued and only for the most important houses. They also don't share the faith of the seven which could have been another way of forcing a language on the population. An aristocratic language is still very possible but it would probably have taken importance only after the conquest, which makes the idea that every common man in this region has the common language as first language harder to believe, the North being also extremely sparsely populated. I'm no linguist however so I may misunderstand some social mechanics.
That shouldn't affect the lowborn though, I think it very plausible that all aristocracy speaks one language, like Greek in the Roman Empire, but I assume it would be highly unlikely that every lowborn serf and knight, even the mountain clans to some extend, speak the same language.
Both of you make fair points and since they kind of go in the same direction, I'll try to give one answer to both of you.
First of all, I am pretty sure that among all Westerosi the Northerners were arguably the one people who stuck with the Old Tongue the longest. After all, they can trace their lineage back to the First Men (and do so proudly still). Plus they were actually involved in a pretty long military conflict with the Andals which would arguably have made the decision of sticking to the Old Tongue political inasmuch as it represented resistance against the Andals. The mountain tribes of the Vale are another case that lends itself to this argument: Their command of Common is still rather rudimentary at the time of ASoIaF, which makes it seem as if they still use the Old Tongue amongst each other, while only maintaining a "makeshift competence" of Common. So, yeah, I can totally see that point.
That said, there are also a handful of arguments to the contrary that should be considered. One thing that James (and I) failed to mention is that, while their origin isn't confirmed, historians in ASoIaF speculate that the First Men, like the Andals may have originated from Essos. This is interesting because we actually don't know just exactly how different the Old Tongue and Common are from each other. From the books we know that one isn't intelligible for a speaker of the other but that could be said for a lot of very closely related languages in real life, like Dutch and German or French and Italian. They may very well share a common linguistic ancestry. If that were the case, Common and the Old Tongue could very easily have merged to an extent even over the course of the long conflict between Andals and First Men.
So, when the Targaeryens finally conquered the North and established the Common Tongue, the difference may actually have been subtle to the point where - centuries later, people might have a hard time pointing out which words and expressions of their dialect are Old Tongue and which ones are Common. For a real life comparison, try to differentiate the Modern English words that are of Latin descent from the ones that stem from the French/Norman times. Both French and Latin are Roman languages, similar to how both Old Tongue and Common might be from a native Essos language family.
Second thing is once again about the impact that it would have if we agree that all aristocrats conformed to using Common by the time/shortly after Aegon united the Seven Kingdoms and Maesters became the one authority when it came to nation-wide higher education. For one thing, language policy has always been an important aspect of governance - especially for military conquerors. Sharing one writing system and one language is a crucial instrument when it comes to communication, which in a feudal hierarchical system is important if simply for the fact that higher ups want their subordinates to understand orders. In that sense it is also worth mentioning that the Seven Kingdoms are and have always been rather heavily militaristic with a strong emphasis on levy rather than huge professional armies. If you're a lord and you frequently raise armies from your common folk, it kind of goes without saying that you would want them to share a language. Now while the Kings in the North might've gotten by using the Old Tongue is their heyday, Aegon and his successors would've certainly wanted to establish a military chain of command in the North wherein Orders were relayed (and understood) in their language. The many internal conflicts within the Seven Kingdoms also frequently saw kingdoms banding together which sort of would've necessitated a shared lingua franca.
So, based on that, it would've seemed plausible that many people in Westeros, even in remote areas, would've had to learn some Common since it was probably required when they served as levy for their lords.
Lastly, there's something I mentioned previously: Standardization. I cannot stress enough how important it is that the Maesters (and their role in nation wide education) in all likelihood strongly standardized Common across the continent. Thing about non-standardized languages is that they make for fairly insular speech communities. If there's no standardization, there're no grammars, no consistent, reliable way of teaching it etc. Basically, it's hard to learn a non-standardized variety because it's not in a state where it can easily be taught. This in turn leads to situations wherein people only speak what they acquired orally from their parents as a native tongue. This was the status for many primitive societies and many feudal ones too in human history. And it probably would've been the case for the poorly curated Old Tongue. Now, this may be attractive enough for a fairly traditionalist society wherein everyone is content with their current situation. But it also severely inhibits upwards mobility. If you're a rural farmer and speak your "mongrel dialect Old Tongue" you cannot send your kid to set up shop in a nearby town or to your lord's castle to become a serf there, unless the townsfolk or castle staff happen to speak the same dialect. Command of multiple dialects is probably limited to people whose profession necessitates travel, too. So, for better or worse, you and your offspring are kind of stuck and there's no easy way out. This changes drastically when there's a standardized variety that the upper classes speak. If it's standardized, there are grammars. And grammars make it much easier to pick up and teach. Once you've learned it, you're in a much better position to acquire a job or simply move somewhere else. We see this all the time nowadays when young people don't both to pick up the rural dialects of their parents or grandparents and instead opt for a more cosmopolitan standard variety of their native tongue. A similar principle applies here. Simply put, speaking a wide-spread, standardized variety is extremely advantageous from a variety angles - so much so that it's kind of hard to justify why you wouldn't pick it up in the long run.
Conversely, in situations like that, speaking Old Tongue and Old Tongue only becomes increasingly unattractive because it simply limits your communicative reach while granting no real benefit aside from strengthening your local ethnic identity.
Sorry for the wall-of-text and thanks for bothering if you've made it this far :)
@@Muckrackerz There's not even that many different dialects
@Obiwank Keb34 its clear that Westeros is the USA? Is it clear? I think literally everyone disagrees with you on that fella, given that the literal shape of Westeros is Britain.
I disagree with a lot of things said in the video.
Do you have seen old maps of Europe and the world from the medieval era? They look all vastly different. Sizes and proportions arent correct at all. We now have nice structured maps that makes total sense thanks to satellites, but back then adventures were just sailing with there ship along the coast and drew whatever they have seen. And everyone who had done that, had a different map at the end and non of them looked real to todays standards.
Same with population of a city. There was no reliable way to count citizens. Especially when your country is as big as the roman empire. So it makes total sense that everyone counts the population slightly different, which then shows that no number ad exactly up. Also you as Lord of your land can actually LIE about the size of your army and population to scare enemys off. Like the Lannisters did with there gold mines.
Also to measure structure size, back then you had no fancy tools to measure every millimeter. Back then you just walked along the structure and counted your steps. That way, everyone who measured it got a slightly different result. In case of a such enormous building like the Wall in GoT, you will never have a exact size, the numbers are just called out so the reader realizes, IT IS BIG. An exact size would actually make the world unrealistic, because you would ask yourself how the fuck the medieval people can measure that exact.
Also please always take in account, that the books and the show are two different universes. They tell the story of the same concept, but there are so different, that you can not say "it is like that in the show, so it is also like that in the books." Thats just wrong. Sizes are different, characters are different and the world it self is in many places different.
So, what else you talked about...
Oh yeah the Dothraki. So there is actually a real life counter part to the Dothraki, the Mongols. They basically lived from raiding villages and stolen foot instead of building there own plantation to grow foot. There army was enormous, and if it worked in real life, so it isnt that far of by being used in a fantasy world. Obviously the Dothraki are much more fantasy, but in my opinion there are far off by being unrealistic.
The reason why in all of Westeros people speak the same language is, because the normal reader should actually be able to understand everything. GoT would not be that successful, if only 5% of all readers could understand whats happening. Or lets take the TV show as an example, would it really be fun to read subtitles half of the time when a story in a different region starts? Not really. The fact that it is only used in Essos makes it different and distinct, you can not use it all the time. There is NO world explanation that the audience would accept to have such a unfun experience with a entertainment medium.
Yes incest is bad and the Targaryen actually had a number of miscarriages in there family tree. Also for the kings family in a medieval era it shouldnt be that hard to hide your miscarriages from the public. Also GoT is still a fantasy, and in this fantasy world having Valyrien blood is very special. Saying having perfect children through incest with a powerful bloodline in a fantasy world isnt possible, is the same as saying dragons are unrealistic.
Now to the IMPORTANT part. I actually would LOVE to see a fantasy world made by you, with all these things you just criticized on GoT. Because you will see very quickly, that your world will not work as well as GoT does. Many points that were talked in the video about, are essential for a great fantasy world. You can not change them that easily.
Perfect comment!
THANK YOU, the one that bothered me most is when he complained about the incest in the targaryen bloodline when there's zombies, magic and dragons in the world you shouldn't assume that breeding works the same qay with the "humans"
If since the first book you've been saying that dragons can spit fire and then by book five you've got Daenerys trapped inside a building on fire and all of the sudden Drogon conveniently starts spiting water, now thats nonsensical. You don't need that long text to refute this videos argumnts, its a fucking fictional world for fuck sake, a fictional world needs only to resemble itself and its own set of rules, not reality, GRRM only uses real history as a starting point but his wolrd is FICTIONAL. You may not like it but you cannot say that it doesn't make sense just because everyone in Westeros speak the same language.
The ptolemaic rulers of Egypt, practiced incest to keep their bloodline greek
@@JhuanVSales well, grrm adressed the problems of incest very well, heraditery mental conditions, miscarriges, deformed stillbirths . . . Thats pretty much what to expect and while the Habsburgs and Tutenchamun looked fucked up by it, Cleopetra also comes from an incest line and was absolutly brillant and desirable . . . . But it is not all clear how many of the children where from the married siblings or a non related consort . . . . But that could also have saved the Tagaryens . . .
All it is quite a realistic aproach.
Same goes for the not realy working ruleing system, gern die not try to creat perfection, he was reality oriented. The whole story is about the power struggle that exists and that is only possible if the system he uses is realisticly imperfect and open for that
I think GRRM meant that Westeros is the "size" of South America in terms of length rather than area. If you know how long it is, it's relatively easy to judge how wide it is.
To be precise it includes Beyond the Wall, which is apparently the size of Canada according to GRRM. So Seven Kingdoms is probably the size of (Western) Europe. Still kinda unrealistic though.
I think he wants to use huge numbers instead of using realistic ones. I mean, not even a empire has control a land of the size of South America, and even if this was length it would be so unrealistic, since, junst in the Andes, there are hundreds of languages. And, in medieval times, there were far more languages.
Westeros would be the size of France, Ukraine, or turkey, but not much more, in order to have the same plot.
Btw, unrealistic numbers are everywhere. For example, valyria lasted for 5000 years. How the hell the empire was so small! Aegon conquered a continent with 3 dragons, valyria didn't conquered the world with probably thousands of them.
@@adge5182 I imagined Westeros as the size of western Europe.
I'm italian, i live in:
Milan latin for land in the middle
I was born in:
Naples greek for new city
I went on holiday in:
New York english for... well new york
Shall i continue?
me too please! I was born in Hungary, Nyíregyháza, which breaks down as Nyír (the medieval name of the settlement), means birch, after the large birch woods in the area and egyház, meaning church. the later part was added when the town built it's first temple.
now i live in Vasvár, which means Ironcastle, because the place had iron ore and had fortifications. Romans called it Castrum Ferreum which is the same.
I'm kinda late but I want to play too!
I was born in Poland, which means the land of the Poles. And the name for the people comes from the polish word "pole", which translates to "field". So "people of the fields". But we belong to the Slavic people, and that name comes from the word... "word". So Slavs are "people of the word" - meaning they could speak. All others were "niemcy", so mutes 🤭
And the winner is... no one, you all caused me an headache
New york being named from york which is an anglicized version of the norse jorvik, which indicates its good farmland situated in a natural bay. (Jor- -vik)
Lmao these comments have taught me so much linguistic history. Cheers lads 😂
The name of the "Seven Kingdoms" definitely makes sense in universe. It's in line with Aegon's desire to promote a sense of autonomy and authority among the Great Houses so they'd be more cooperative under Aegon's rule. He brought new gods to Westeros, but an outsider can only go so far in changing a society's culture and way of life (I'm looking at you, Invasion of Iraq). So your critique on this point is quite far from ironclad as you imply.
Also, the fact that there's nine great houses in the 7 kingdoms isn't an issue. It would be impractical for the rulers to change the name every time a new house gets added. It's also a vestige of a previous time, kind of like how some people (typically from other countries) will sometimes call the USA the "colonies". Even though the US encompasses much more than the originalcolonies, that original identity will remain
Edit: being contrarian doesn't make you witty. To say that GRRM, the guy who'd named 2,000+ characters to say nothing of locations and objects, sucks at naming things is just absurd. Do better.
He didnt bring new gods to westeros since the seven were already there and he followed the faith or converted by the time of the invasion
JohnNovakovich I agree about the naming, it's so fucking hard to make up unique and memorable titles and the whatnot. Martin has done exceptionally well in keeping names fresh and unique.
What new gods did he bring?
@@miracletortoise6224 Yea, that's how I understood it. But it is solewhat strange since Dorne wans't conquered yet. I get the idea tho, I agree that the Seven Kingdoms isn't such a stupid name
Aegon adopted the pre-dominant religion of Westeros. It was a political move.
He’s wrong about (there) being 9 kingdoms. Notice how he includes the lands north of the Wall (explicitly not a kingdom) and the Crown Lands which isn’t traditionally referred to as as an independent kingdom.
Literally every "worldbuilding problem" stated in this video is a complete stretch and actually can be explained with real world examples.
Even the Incest? pretty sure after three Generations you will look like King tut...aka dead at 18, and club foot so bad im sure at one put it was used as a nine iron.
Most not all
@@maybach5787 I mean, the Targaryens descend from valyrian nobility, so they probably have some magical blood that does not cause deformity. Valyrians married their relatives all the time and still looked almost ''unnaturally beautiful''.
@@pope4510 or Martin didn't remember what Incest actually looks like...
@@maybach5787 its magic their magic
"If it doesn't look normal, then it's stupid."
- this channel
Correction: if it doesn’t look normal to me, then it’s stupid
Correction according to me: If it is different then it is good for me.
9:21 - Operative word "mostly." The other 49% of their calories could have comes from foraged plants, fish, cattle, and wild animals they hunted. Problem solved.
Not to mention raids, tributes, and spoils of war.
Oh! And the market in Vaes Dothrak!
Ghengis had an army larger than 100k at one point and that wasn't even the population of all of Mongolia just his army
Ok.... hahahahah cant believe I’m gonna “defend” incest, but..... incest does not increase the chances and frequencies of deformities in general. It increases the chance offspring will acquire genetic problems that run just on their family. So it is possible, and relatively probable, that the offspring would be perfectly healthy. Given a healthy family that is. And, the Targaryens, look to be a pretty healthy family. Yes, it seems some genetic deficiencies may have densified through the years (the mad king’s, well, madness), but from the beginning of their generations, they all appear to be physically very fit. There is no reason to believe their offspring would be more deficient.
From his logic we shouldnt even exist anymore since the species bottlenecked at one point
Also, let's not forget that the Targaryens are part of a "magical" bloodline, meaning that they might even be more resistant to the effects of inbreeding than most others. Or maybe genetics work a little differently in Planetos. Or maybe, it's both of those things combined.
The thing with Fantasy is that when you add magic to a world, all the rules of how our world work may not apply anymore.
Jeff Boxing well, he forgot to mention any new mutations that are then passed on to offspring and then become a problem. This meaning that it’s unlikely, but not impossible, that the Targaryens don’t receive any obvious physical malformations
Yeah any new Mutations would be very phenotypic but as another commentor has said there is a lot of magic and supernatutal stuff in this world.
Prophecies say that Azor Ahai is born of the targaryan line but it would just be very anticlimatic if he turns out a clubfooted hemophiliac that dies of a genetic heart condition at age 28
@@ScorchipProductions Well some Targaryen still borns did looked a lot like monsters such as Daenerys' son after the blood ritual in AGOT.
When I read your title I thought you had found real problems. But most of the things you point out didn’t really convince me.
if you read the comments, all of these arguments were debunked.
There are strong problems with WB in Westeros.
Languages unified with lack of local dialects
Winters lasting many years which should conduct to massive starvation
It makes no sense a dynasty ruling at like 6 thousands years, but I know the misunderstandment of time argument, but yet it’s weird they last so long
Dothrakis suck, but not for being too many. They are an insult to REAL horse riders nomadic tribes, which strongly relied on armor, were well trained, had excellent organization. The strong point of huns and mughals is that they WERE better soldiers than normal
Technology is stagnated for way too long. Middle ages had a lot of innovation BUT they lacked the institutions to take advantage of that. The maestres argument is dumb, war leads to innovation and the targs have only ruled for 300 years. The kingdoms SHOULD have experienced more advance, also because of valyrian commerce and influence
Medieval realism is trowed a way for a more edgy view on medieval history. Basically martin took the darkest (and unrealistic) view of medieval life because he wanted. Life wasn’t that bad, but I forgive him cause he is trying to make an argument
I really have problems with the slavery model in volantis and slaver’s bay. It’s way too unsustainable to have a minority of very cruel people ruling a giant majority of slaves. It makes little sense cause they don’t have that much superior technology and weapons, they treat them as objects and there is not an outisde slavery zone group to protect them (Aka UK and france with colonies)
Etc etc
@@gamesxx-fc6yo Exactly right? How does the 5 year winter not starve people?
@@gamesxx-fc6yo I agree with several of the things you say. But, the theory that the masters and septons of the religion of the seven do their best to control the flow of information would explain the stagnation of the common language, at least in the nobility. It would also explain the reason why technological advances are only stored and read by masters, with a clear elimination of old information. It is always said that the first men were primitive. How did they make the wall? Storm's end? Casterly Rock? all these constructions were made before the arrival of the andals, in the age of the heroes. Why would such primitive people have made a place to safeguard and cherish knowledge if they were just savages (Antigua)? After the Hightower house in Antigua was almost extinct, the religion of the seven was consolidated and since then the higtower adopted this religion. It took a greater importance in the region, and the supreme septon settled in Antigua, seat of knowledge of all Westeros. Coincidence?
@@walangchahangyelingden8252 If you read the books, you'd know that most lords stack up during the summer, so they have enough food for Winter and in the north, they have plants that grow during winter and glasses that allow them to grow food at winterfell.
george can easily dismantle the arguments in this video if asked directly like in a convention.
hell, the comments already poked so many holes and it just shows that the video was not really well-thought out.
Maggy Frog There is a great meme that compares world building of Harry Potter, GoT, and LoTR. For Games of Thrones it states stole real history and just change the names, and that a more cynical way of saying the world of Game of Thrones is very similar to real world history. Even down to the names of places which is stupid since in real life famous places were names originate from simple words like Big River.
Hell even Lord did the Rings did but just had them be in a fictional language so they sound better
How would he explain the Dothraki though?
FellinuxVI the Mongols and the Pre-Sedentary Turks could be used as real world examples taken to the extreme.
@@steveaguilar7510 The Mongols actually had an empire though, and I'd assume a much more varied diet.
FellinuxVI true that but the amount of tribute given by the Dothraki Tributaries has never been stated so it’s pretty likely they get most of their food from the tribute , with the Dothraki diet mostly consisting of the food tribute, horses related food products, hunting , and natural grains & fruits.
"isn't great with coming up with names."
The 1st men is what they're called by ppl in the era we're reading about. They likely didn't call themselves that. It gets hard to take good points about media like this from ppl that complain about a whole section (ie. name generating) thru a critique of one aspect...most of these names are way better than those of other fantasy I've read or heard about
I think the Ironborn deserve more credit. They have their own customs and probably are even more different to the rest of Westeros than the North.
I think the same tbh, especially after the king's moot chapters where we get to learn a lot more details about their particular mythos and lore.
Not really the true northmen are completely different to the Southerners, ironborn are similar to the Southerners but not the northmen
I mean, they might even be an entirely different race so...
@@Jack-kx5rf what is dead may never die
Honestly, I don't agree with most of your points. Why did Aegon allow his lords so much power? Because those were basically the terms when they bend their knees to him, that they would be kings in all but names, that's how Aegon conquered Westeros so quickly. Respect the lords and their customs, faith etc. And it worked. The worst rebellions happened because the Faith's medling, it has a big influence on the people of Westeros, they really don't like the Targaryens. Westerosi are all about their legacy and power, so I doubt they'd give it all up, even if the Targaryens had dragons. You can only hold a place by force only for so long. But maybe this will change in the future, all of the big houses being in debt and ruins, thanks to creative destruction. That's probably Littlefinger's plan, to weaken everyone so much that they would tolerate big changes and him as their ruler.
Why are the First Men called First Men? Because they were? And because people are lazy.
The dothraki don't only eat horses. They have a city also, with traders, and had more cities in the past. And they fight eachother for resources. Get bribes from wealthy cities to be left alone. And they hunt.
And the population in the north.. Winters can last decades there, so not everyone can survive.
Why does everyone speak the Common Tongue? Communication. Maesters, if not the Faith, have spread out the land and controlled it long before the Targaryens.
Going further, the lore book you cite in the video answers must of the problems you had... Like straight up.... Maybe take another read with a bigger emphasis on the Andal invasions and each individual rule of the Targarian kings
Correct, in addition he also rewarded many who took to his side during the war. He gave his half-brother Orys the Stormlands and let him found his own house, House Baratheon. He made Lord Tully Lord Paramount of the Trident, giving him control of the Riverlands which were formerly a possession of the Iron Islands under House Hoare. He made House Tyrell wardens of the South. Dragons were raw power at Aegon's whim but he was clever enough to reward those who helped him and allow some leeway rather than becoming an absolute tyrant who controlled every single aspect of governance.
Also most of the major rebellion occur because of the Targaryen infighting. The dance of dragons, the five black fire rebellion.and then you have the measters and faith militant. The only lords that thought of doing this was Lyonel Barethon the laughing storm. And that was mainly because of the Targaryen prince Aegon not marring Lyonel daughter.
The common tongue part makes no fucking sense
@Bryce Ellis I know they speak it kn Westeros. Also maesters don't teach peasants.
Someone: worldbuilds
James Tullos: *I have an issue with this*
Commenters: We have issues with each of your issues.
On the question: "Why did the king of Westeros not try to consolidate power/establish absolute monarchy"?
There were feudal society was decentralized, not because they were poor or streched over too much land, but because they represented a new kind of society, where a caste of warriors, not a caste of functionaries, would take over the running of government affairs. Therefore, slicing up the cake to properly incentivize the families within this caste of warriors was necessary.
Absolute monarchy was only made possible through the invention of nascent capitalism in Europe, when once again a class of intellectual functionaries and merchants began to arise within the cities of Europe, especially northern italy, southern Germany, Flanders and Paris.
This new class of functionary-merchants made it possible for the monarchs of Europe to replace the heirarchy of nobles within the state around them with these bourgeouise, who often did not expect their titles or privileges to be inherited by their offspring.
Thus, because of nacent capitalism, the monarchs were able to dismantle feudalism and implement absolute monarchy instead.
Now, Westeros does not show much evidence of having anything resembling such a widespread capitalist class, save for in few cities like Gulltown and King's landing, so quite frankly, absolute monarchy would be a political impossibility in Westeros.
“Nomadic societies can’t sustain high density populations”
*looks at mongols*
Mmmmm i don’t know about that...
Besides the grass sea is friggin enormous, that’s not really a problem.
Also the mongols had horses of all shaped and sizes, from warhorses to racers to mules.
I agree with your point but as far as ethnic mongols and turks in the steppe, they couldn't sustain high populations. THey had to conquer OTHER lands and it fell apart in 100 years.
His maths assumes they are only eating horses too. Im pretty sure they gather good from the worldaness they travel through. Horse only makes up the meat componant os their diat
The mongol population was at it's highest, 2 million people you fucking idiot.
Except there were only about 200.000 mongols in 1200. In an area larger than the dothraki sea.
@@y.r._ It's the size of the Sahara desert, and there are only a few ten thousand dothraki.
Genetics in AGOT don't work like normal human genetics. Magic can do crazy stuff, and somehow a Valyrian woman can birth to a dragon-like deformed child, but in other cases, the only defect is madness. As for not giving the First Men or First tongue, better names, that's a stupid complaint, mostly because the First Tongue and First Men are not real things after 8000 years, they're more of human constructs than actual reality, a lot can happen in 8000 years and expecting history to be accurate is asking too much. Westeros not speaking different languages is a valid cristicism, but as for size of the continent, that doesn't really matter unless there's a race against the clock.
Check out Preston Jacobs' Genetics of Dragons.
Inbreeding is also difficult to quantify because the initial conditions in Westeross aren't known and study of very long-term inbreeding is nigh impossible. It is known that every living human in the world today is descended from a single human female - that's a lot of generations reproducing with people not too distant from themselves. How robust was the initial geneome and how much degradation is now simply considered normal? It's quite possible that (given the status of the family) certain genetic abherations became valuable traits and therefore part of what people found attractive - not to mention the potential introduction of new genetic strains (from by-blows, bastards, even deceptions).
@@LoneEagle2061 I think you may have misinterpreted the significance of Mitochondrial Eve. The fact that all humans share descent from a single female if you go back far enough is not itself a sign of inbreeding - it is inevitable in any species. The number of ancestors we have goes increases exponentially with generations, to the extent that if you go back a few thousand years, it is statistically inevitable that all humans (bar those in areas with absolutely no gene flow, such as Australia and the Americas - although, even them too, probably. All it takes is one adventurous Polynesian) will share a common ancestor.
Humans _do_ show a significant lack of genetic diversity compared to other ape species, but that is because of a population bottleneck.
@@mrRambleGamble Preston understands very little of Planetos genetics.
Yes, this. Clearly genetics/the effects of inbreeding are meant to be different but still harmful, and the inbreeding of the Valyrians in particular isn't really the same as inbreeding among normal people since the indications that the Targaryens were somehow created or genetically engineered through magic is pretty strong. They don't look like normal humans in the slightest, and the whole "blood of the dragon" thing seems to be a lot more literal than something like the Starks having "wolf's blood". The Starks can warg, but they're not birthing half-wolf stillborn children like Daenerys did. There are also a lot of indications that the Valyrians did a lot of unnatural blending of different animals, and after what happened with Drogo and Dany's baby it seems somewhat believable that the Targaryens might not even be able to interbreed with regular people very easily. But things like their silver hair, purple eyes, obsession with their own exceptionalism, and obviously their connection to dragons seem to be very significant hints that the Targaryens are not normal humans by any measure.
The Targs never had a real chance to change to a centralized state because their dragons more or less died out in 100 or so years. Consider all the kings who ruled in that time period.
Aegon the conqueror: Never had much of a reason to change the policies since he was a new king and was trying to keep everyone from rebelling (which he succeeded in.)
Aenys I: This guy was a pretty weak king, and then he died after a few years.
Maegor the Cruel: This guy probably had the best chance to strip power away from the lords, but he had his hands full fighting the faith militant and then got killed by the iron throne after a bit.
Jaeharys the wise: This guy actually did change a lot of policies. He made a centralized law system and then started building roads that connected Westeros. His problem was that he was really bad with kids and the next few generations didn't continue to be good kings.
Viserys I: This guy wasn't too active of a king, he sort of just kept his head down and enjoyed the benefits of kingship. It just wasn't in his personality to take away lordly privileges.
After Viserys the Dance of Dragons happened and then the Targs lost all of their dragons, which robbed them of their law changing powers. A hundred or so years after the Dance Aegon the 5th tried to take away lordly privileges but received heaps of pushback from the lords and even had to fight a rebellion against the Baratheons (okay, to be fair this was also due to a broken marriage promise but still, the stomlords had to be pretty pissed for an entire region to be okay with rebelling.)
The point is, most of the kings who had dragons were pretty bad or were too busy to make trouble by changing too much of the system, and by the time a king who wanted change came up, the dragons were already gone.
(also if anyones still reading this, the Targ incest seems to cause their children mental illness' rather than physical ones, probably due to unexplained dragon magic/blood. Heaps of Targs had touches of madness (Maegor the Cruel, Aerion Brightflame, Aerys the mad, Viserys the beggar king, etc).
They also have a dragon like mutation situation in stillbirth children although we only have 3 examples of this, I think, and in some of them it is implied magic was involved in mutating these children (one of Maegor's wives had one, then Rhaenyra's daughter and lastly, Dany's Rhaego was also born with this mutation). I'll bet you this used to happen to the Valyrians as well from time to time, something to do with the magic they used to be able to bond with dragons, which was then passed down by both bloodline and learned skills.
@@REDinitial The witch Tyranne who Maegor 3rd wife She was one who posion the mothers that why they out that way.
@@sophiawilson8696 We don't know that. Tyanna was accused of it when Maegor wanted to be rid of her, she apparently even confessed to him but to me that seems a confession a la Tyrion telling Jamie he did kill Jofrrey. If we are to entertain the poisoin theory, then my point still stands in the sense that it seems magic was involved as Tyanna was a supposed sorceress. I don't want to give credence to it because I think it is very telling that Maegor never has any children, even before he met Tyanna, and it wasn't for a lack of bedding women.
I think the reason why early Targs didn't push for centralization is because they had the benefit of dragonfire on their side. As long as everyone bows to the Iron Throne and pay their taxes, why change things too much?
The reason the Dothraki haven't conquered everything is they're incompetent. They have no armor, they use weapons that would be useless against armor, and they seem to never use shields. They also seem to have one tactic: charge.
They'd be destroyed by any competent army, easily, especially if said army has archers.
You are aware that they can shoot from their horses? The Sarnori were highly organised and weren't able to defeat the dothrakie
I can imagine what if Dothrakis had the organization and leadership of 300's Leonidas
@@charlespuruncajas9663 Leonidas was not a great commander. It does not take a genius to use a choke point. Beyond that, the Spartans did almost none of the work. They were in the back of the Greek line until the last day, and we have no clue how long they lasted alone since none survived.
@@huntclanhunt9697 I think he's referring specifically to the movie/book 300. Which was basically Sparten propaganda.
gameofthrones.fandom.com/wiki/Godsway
Your argument has more holes than Planetos' worldbuilding
Literally lmao
There are strong problems with WB in Westeros.
Languages unified with lack of local dialects
Winters lasting many years which should conduct to massive starvation
It makes no sense a dynasty ruling at like 6 thousands years, but I know the misunderstandment of time argument, but yet it’s weird they last so long
Dothrakis suck, but not for being too many. They are an insult to REAL horse riders nomadic tribes, which strongly relied on armor, were well trained, had excellent organization. The strong point of huns and mughals is that they WERE better soldiers than normal
Technology is stagnated for way too long. Middle ages had a lot of innovation BUT they lacked the institutions to take advantage of that. The maestres argument is dumb, war leads to innovation and the targs have only ruled for 300 years. The kingdoms SHOULD have experienced more advance, also because of valyrian commerce and influence
Medieval realism is trowed a way for a more edgy view on medieval history. Basically martin took the darkest (and unrealistic) view of medieval life because he wanted. Life wasn’t that bad, but I forgive him cause he is trying to make an argument
I really have problems with the slavery model in volantis and slaver’s bay. It’s way too unsustainable to have a minority of very cruel people ruling a giant majority of slaves. It makes little sense cause they don’t have that much superior technology and weapons, they treat them as objects and there is not an outisde slavery zone group to protect them (Aka UK and france with colonies)
This whole video is a yikes from me my dude. You need to reassess most of your points and the things you disagree with. You can’t use the show against the books and you can’t use character’s choices against the world building. And your issues with the names is poor choice as well. Overall, most if not all of the video can be thrown out.
"a yikes from me" I physically cringed
There is a certain chapter in a Game oh Thrones in which Tyrion admits that the seven kingdoms are no longer seven kingdoms, but mere provinces united under a single kingdom.
I think Martin IS good at coming up with names. His names feel so natural and realistic-for a somewhat grounded fantasy world-and more writers could learn from him.
Calling them Old Gods makes perfect sense. I mean, Christianity has the Old Testament. Using basic, simple worlds to describe what to these people are basic parts of their history and culture, makes total sense.
One thing important to note about the consolidation of power is that those rebellions during the Targaryen reign were mainly infighting within house Targaryen itself, rather than uprisings by the great lords. Or invasions the case of the Blackfyre rebellions, since after the first Blackfyre rebellion they were never subservient to the throne.
When lords did rise up anyway, they usually got shafted hard by the end. Just look at the Reynes and the Darklyns.
And "Seven Kingdoms" is because Aegon I wanted to get the point across that he's not just king of a new, united kingdom, he's the ruler of all the former kingdoms. And at the time of the conquest, there were 7. The Crownlands are just the royal demesne, and the riverlands were liberated from the Iron Isles. I'd say the name makes sense.
I tend to agree but I'm not sure about the symbolism in Aegon' head. After all, he ordered a map of the continent without any frontier to mark the point that he saw it as one new kingdom, so... Yeah, kinda the opposite. Your theory is more like simple speculation imo. But it's possible that he changed his mind after some time.
@@LeDingueDeJeuxVideos The title of Seven Kingdoms doesn't mean he rules each of the seven kingdoms as a title of itself, "Lord of the Seven Kingdoms" is a standalone new title he created. The number seven itself isn't even denoting all of the regions in his new realm, or else it would be 9. It's an homage to his accomplishment of conquering each of the seven kingdoms on his own (even though he failed at Dorne, but he expected it to be incorporated sooner or later.)
So while it is by all means all in one realm, the name serves its own purpose.
Krister Eriksen Seven also has religious significance.
he obviously forgot the scene where the Dothraki are discussing what food to give Daenerys which confirms they have access to many types of food
Not just that, he forgot that during that first scene where the Dothraki are mentioned as eating horses, Danny is mentioned as eating sausage and fruits and other foodstuffs. This might have actually been on the same page as the horse thing.
11:30 "I'm starting to think that George R.R. Martin isnt great at coming up with names."
Bruh.
I mean, to be fair, there are like 30 characters named Jon in the books.
@@Kriosaivak like in real life. I have friend with same name 😂
Aidan Buford GRRM was once asked about why ppl have similar names and he said that that’s the way it is in real life. Why wouldn’t there be a lot of people named Jon? It’s a common name irl too. Also, some names run in the noble families. Like Brandon being a common Stark name. Not to mention Targaryen naming customs.
@@erintoney7137 true, there like 20 Aegons by this point
@@Kriosaivak you know how many people are named Smith in America? A lot more than 30 lmao
For centuries Greek was the common language of the Mediterranean and Middle East. Then, with Roman expansion, the common language was Latin, except that in most of the Middle East it was still Greek. Then the Roman Empire dispersed into smaller units of power, and Romance languages developed. Now English is the common language. Not everyone has always spoken these languages well, but they were used over vast areas for many years for commerce and communication. India, with many different local languages, often uses English for public and private business. This is a different situation from GOT, my point is just that language is complicated and related to historical trends and shifts in power and communication over large areas.
George Martin trying to do as realistic worldbuilding as possible = no first book published until 2053.
It's impossible to create realistic fantasy book. Even Tolkien, with his love to details, was never close. And thats not the point of fantasy book.
James Gravil yes they do
@@firstone3289 What GRRM is trying to do, is more on the Sci-Fi side. Fantasy elements with a semi-realistic explanation and a semi-scientific evolution, inserted in a story that is basically historically accurate medieval politics and history. It works for the most part, but sometimes something doesn't really do, and you have to use your creativity to explain it xD
I feel like we should ignore the incest thing, cus some of the people can also walk through fire and go see through the eyes of animals. So the usual human biology probably doesn't apply.
Also he's overestimating the immediate negative effects (genetically speaking) of incest.
Not only that but incest isn’t that dramatic for how we look. What makes it so horrible to do is most, if not all, humans carry at least one allele that can cause a genetic disease, but most of them are recessive and there are so many out there that it’s unlikely that you’ll have a child with someone that has that same allele. This isn’t true when you have a child with closely related family. It’s incredibly more likely that the child will have a genetic disease if they were born from incest. So as a child from incest, Vanessa can look like a model but she likely has a genetic disease.
Also, there are real world examples of royal dynasties doing this, such as the Habsburgs of Austria.
Yeah it's weird that people used to speak a language called old English I mean why did they call it old when they first started speaking it.
I don't know if they called it old English back then.
I think it was just called ænglisc back then… Æ is such a cool letter I never realized
Apples and oranges. Martin's Old Tongue would be, in its origins and its story role, more akin to Basque (a language with a base that is of a pre-Indoeuropean origin, the oldest form possibly dating back to the Bronze Age or even the late Neolithic), and the languages of the Andals would be akin to Indoeuropean languages, namely Romance languages (French, Spanish, Portuguese, Occitan, Catalan, Italian, Latin, Romanian, etc.), Germanic languages (German, English, Dutch/Flemish, the Scandinavian languages, etc.), Slavic and Baltic languages (west, south, east Slavic languages, Lithuanian, Latvian and their relatives), and smaller Indoeuropean languages like Greek or Albanian.
Comparing the Old Tongue to Old English (Anglo-Saxon) and the Andal languages to Middle English or even modern forms of English makes about as much sense as e.g. claiming the language of the Iroquois (the Haudenosaunee) was the direct ancestor of modern day American English. It makes no logical sense. The Old Tongue and the Andal language(s) are completely unrelated, even accounting for a few loanwords between the two.
@@fightingmedialounge519that’s the point of the joke.
@@jonahulichny9874 didn't really seem like they were joking.
In my country, Costa Rica (The Rich Coast), we have places called "Get Out if You Can", "Starvation", "The Forsaken", "Green Tree", "Death Hill", "Devil's Elbow." And rivers named "Half a Cheese" and "Banishment". A volcano is called "Hag's Corner" because a witch was supposed to live inside. From my home I can see three mountain peaks which are called The Three Marys. I guess some fantasy games master designed my country. Oh. And there is Englishman's Hill and nobody knows where the name came from.
Me: *Sees title*
Me: *Puts on monocle*
Me: *Lights pipe*
Me: "Continue"
*cocks shotgun*
Me: Joins Phileas in the projection room
Me: Puts down tea on the tea table by the chesterfield set.
Me: "Good show"
Me: *turns on rick and morty*
Me: *turns off rick and morty*
@NihilisticEntropy Me: *takes a relishing puff off the pipe*
Me: *looks over at NihilisticEnvoy with a confused frown*
Me: "How does this at all factor into the discussion?"
The books are written from the perspective of modern Westerosi, the first men didn't call themselves that. The maesters call them that because they were the FIRST MEN in Westeros.
And the reason Westerosi all speak the common tongue is because of the Maesters for the rich and the Septons for the poor
Oh, also the Ptolemies were heavily inbred and Cleopatra was still thought to be incredibly attractive. So that argument fails too
If I remember correctly GRR said that most inconsistencies and vague descriptions about the world are intentional to showcase how little in fact Westerosi know.
That bit about the name "7 Kingdoms" seems to be that it is a holdover from a time when there really was 7 kingdoms.
The biggest thing that i hate about the books worldbuilding is the slavery. For example we are told that 80% of volantasis population is slaves. The slaverbay cities being even more extreme. Except for small isolated communities this kind of numbers are completely unrealistic, in the long run. And if you were to look at civilisations with substantial slave population like sparta for example (between 60 to 66% slaves) they are nothing like the men of the free cities. Those civilizations tended to keep their slaves dispersed, tended to have more episodic interactions (if still very cruel like the killing of helots by young spartans) with them and tended to be extremely militaristic. But the free cities keep their slaves extremely concentrated, have cruelty 24/7 and 90% of their military might are slave soldiers, who are treated barely better than the rest of the slaves. The reality is that maybe with dragons and magic you could keep those slaves, but without them the free cities should have long been destroyed under their own weight. Also the way the slaves are treated there is no way that the slaves are breeding a sustainable populations. But the sheer amount of them means that unless you were to mass harvest them from another huge population center like yiti, which they don't, the slave population should be in free fall. The dofraki sea and sotherios are simply not populated enough.
I see some of your issues, but I don't think it's quite as bad as you make it out. For starters, we don't know exactly what the helot population of Sparta was, it might have been a 3:1 ratio of slaves to free citizens, or it might have been as much as 10:1. There are societies where slaves made up a substantial majority of the population, that's not impossible to maintain.
Second, even if the slaves are too mistreated to maintain their own population, the Free Cities do get slaves imported from other regions. The dothraki, for example, raid all over Essos and bring some of their captives to sell. And if Jorah Mormont is any indicator, a few slaves come in from Westeros too.
@@JamesTullos It still is unrealistic that some free cities have that many slaves, considering the sources of those slaves are depopulated lands.
@@JamesTullos Can you have a population of slaves that is between 3-10 times that of your free men? Yeah, depends on what you call a slave though.
If you want to abuse and mistreat these guys all day long and basicly everything but the status quo would be an improvement for them like the slavers in ASoIaF do ... no, I don't think you can. You would need a system were the slaves feel reasonably secure, reasonably well-off and reasonably free to do their thing (like marrying for example, if you want to sustain their numbers). Especially if you are going to draft your military from their middst.
Martin likes himself some cruelty, but it doesn't always make much sense: The slave armies of the 'Clancker Lords' march into battle chained together. It's so that they can't run away. Is that useful?
No. Firstly it is very expensive to use all that metal that way. Get those guys some better equipment for that money. Secondly it will not only prevent them from running away, but also from following any orders, since they are going to be locked down as soon as the first men fall from enemy fire.
My biggest concern is how the hell do you feed such a huge population of slaves. Essos isn't known for its wide agriculture and green luxurious forests...
I'll add another salient point which is that slavery is now a writing shortcut for an "evil, decadent and degenerate society" Most cultures had some form of slave/bondsman/serf/indentured servant/underclass system mostly as a resource of wealth and labour or in the more extreme cases as your reserve of people to be sacrificed so the sun would rise the next day. Violence against slaves is often a practical necessity (get them to work and reduce the chance of rebellion) rather than a display of unnecessary cruelty, and very few people believed in abolishing slavery, including former slaves who gladly owned slaves once they got out of their own state of slavery. We have been raised to believe slavery is abhorrent, but to somebody back then it was an economic and social fact of life and only the gradual democratization process rendered open slavery untenable and forced it underground where it still exists to this day in some form or another.
Lol the majority of these comments disagreed with you
Bryce Ellis that was the most reddit comment you could make
I made some mixes they aren't very good that sums up every political subs
The way characters talk about the day night cycle, and seasons in these books convinced me.
This is the moon of a gas giant planet.
The moon has nothing to do with ASOIAF's seasons. The White Walkers screwed up the seasons when they brought the long night around
I think the orbit of this planet around their sun is an irregular ellipse rather than a circle and that's why the seasons are so weird
On that last point: it's absolutely possible that someone with a horribly inbred family tree can turn out to be intelligent and conventionally attractive. Famous real world example of this is Cleopatra of Egypt.
Cleopatra is one example compared to hundreds of inbred pharaoh's like tutenkhamen and others on the other the entirety of Targaryen family is filled with beutiful and attractive people not a single Targaryen was crippled or anything which just is stupid
+ the targaryens are mentally fucked up, not physically
Not to mention the potentially magical blood.
"When you're pretending that one day you'll get to read The Winds Of Winter"
That caught me off guard and I laughed my ass off
Like the only good part of the video
"The king doesn't have much real power"
Bruh what about the guy who literally burned great lords alive with impunity?
Impunity? lol he literally got overthrown
@@sangbum60090 in the moment, no one had the ability to step forward and stop him. He exiled or executed numerous lords who displeased him. Rickard and Brandon Stark were the breaking point, but it was certainly not the first time he acted in such a way.
@@lordbrain8867 By that logic I can kill any person right next to me
@@sangbum60090 I think you're forgetting that Aerys reigned for years, not just however long it took for the police to arrive. And a massive civil war was fought to defend his spot on the throne.
It's stated that Aegon V couldn't pass lots of reforms because he lacked real power unlike Jaeharys I
I found George’s naming method super refreshing and elegant. If it has an English sounding name it comes from Westeros or the common tongue. If it has an exotic name it comes from a different part of the world. The fantasy genre is dominated by names of meaningless gibberish which is difficult for the reader to remember.
My biggest issue with Song of Ice and Fire is that is will probably never be finished...
It seems to me that you are not very familiar with how medieval people in the real world named their children and how the family names used to be pretty much the same for multiple generations.
Just look at the history of English monarchs and nobles... Everyone is either George, Henry or William, but I guess all those real people were just bad with names, right? :D
That's actually very realistic aspect of the books.
this right here. I belive @JamesTullos
has no idea about history. I mean c'mon. The title augustus used as emperor was after cesars name for fucks sake.
Realism can sometimes hurt a story. Having a bunch of characters named the same thing, especially when introduced in a similar place in the story, will cause a lot more confusion than if you had varied names.
Seems like there's a lot of things he's not familiar with.
This is an excellent point about the language. Languages also evolve much faster than one would think: consider the difference in Old English, Shakespearean English, and today’s English. After 8,000+ years of separation, there is no way that anybody south of The Wall would be able to speak to Wildlings
The more glaringly bizarre worldbuilding from ASoIaF is that the continents are basically two rectangles.
Exactly.
That could just be due to poor cartography. Look up maps from medieval times to get a picture of what I mean.
Edit: though I will say that it does look ugly.
George r.r Martin: nerds shouldn’t overthink it
James tullos: How bout I do anyway
Apparently he didn't do it enough tho
There are lots of real world situations where one monarch rules multiple kingdoms, yo.
ASTRO-Hungary u mean? It different M8....
Or the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily. Heck, Philip II was king of Castille and Aragon, king of Naples and Sicily, and king consort of England and Ireland. That's 3 separate 'combined kingdoms'! Additionally he was king of Portugal, the ruler of the Habsburg Netherlands, and duke of Milan.
jayteegamble also king of the Netherlands
I immediately thought of the United Kingdom at that part.
14:40 really depends on the starting gene pool. Rodents bred for research are usually "Pure lines" made by breeding siblings together for several generations. Some of these have bad traits, but some have very good traits, it all depends on the initial gene pool.
@@adamnesico maybe it's not just luck, and we have had many examples of incest light throughout multiple generations that didn't result in disformed mutants. Also, using other animals as an absolute indicator of what a human, incest byproduct would be is kind of simplistic. For starters there are differences in chrosomes and their count that could play a larger role in recessive genetics.
Those are meant to control for genetic variations as a confound in research, so they're all genetically about as close to identical as possible.
Problem is, if there's something like an lethal illness that affects a specific gene they all have, it easily wipes them all out.
This video is either a big wow or a big oof depending on how many holes you spot.
14:47 so how do you explain The Cleopatra of wide renown? 13 generations incest under the Ptolemy Dynasty and she was able to swoon, manipulate, and utilize Julius Caesar.
Also the incest thing is pretty bs, considering you are talking aboout literally the only magic dynasty left, people who have dragon dreams, who can witch themselves to looking better(Looking at you Shiera), who can (only at very special times, casual fans) be fire resistant and so on...
It's actually kind of explained - any time a new Targaryen is born, the gods flip a coin; not an actual explaination but you have to mention it as the only one, especially when we are talking about dragon inherited valyrian magic
"only magic dynasty left", well... there's house Velaryon too, they're from Valyria as well
KRAPF Yes, however they were never Valyrian dragonlords like the Targaryens. They look Valyrian, but they have never had the same magical connection to dragons as the Targaryens or other Valyrian dragonlords
In the Dunk and Egg series there are multiple mentions of people speaking different dialects and in the ASOIAF series there are characters who can tell the difference of where people are born based on their dialect. Even managing to distinguish between Lannisport and Flee Bottom accents
The only problem here is that the "true" in the books are established by the characters POV, what I imagined to be obvious at this point. So... we couldn't expect accuracy or coherence. Why would a medieval northern teenager or a medieval exiled knight be reliable sources of demographic data?
Anthropologically, it is hardly surprising that languages and people are given fairly generic, unimaginative names. Particularly by themselves.
Interesting video.... and in my view, it has some valid pionts... but there are some glaring errors too...
1st Sam didn’t take 10 days to travel to Braavos... but rather his 2nd POV in AFFCs takes place 10 days after leaving East Watch n he is still straggling past Skagos... which is still pretty far from Braavos, a fact further backed by the fact that Catelyn takes a month to travel from White Harbor to Kingslanding in AGOT...
The 2nd thing... you don’t think that Dorne is Rhoynish enough... Really dude?!🙆🏾♂️ you do realize that there’s no patriarchy there right? N in ASOS TYRION V, Tyrion makes this description... “ there were three sorts of Dornishmen... There were the salty Dornishmen... the sandy Dornishmen... and the stoney Dornishmen... the salty Dornishmen had the most Rhoynish blood, the stony Dornishmen the least.”
3rdly... you also said that the dialect within Westeros isn’t diverse enough... in AGOT JON IV we meet Sam for the 1st time... n Pyp immediately knows he’s from the Reach just by hearing him talk... n Jon follows this up by saying that Pyp, as a murmurs boy who travelled a lot in his days, could tell where anyone’s from just by hearing them speak...
N lastly... n this one takes tge cake... the fruits of Targaryen incest... come on man... how many times have we heard of grotesque and deformed Targaryen babys? How many mad Targaryens do we know of at this point? N you don’t like that some of actually turn out alright.
Anyway that’s my penny on the matter... interesting video, nice production and quality...
I hope that you will respond to this but I know that you probably won’t coz channel hosts hate it when people disagree w/them... ✌🏽
It's probably not so much the disagreeing that makes channel hosts loathe to reply, but more your attitude. I understand you're a fan of the series and that it's difficult to accept criticism (I've been there, too), but as a linguist, I can say that at least James's point on the languages makes sense.
On a continent the size of South America, you would find much greater linguistic diversity than just a few mutually intelligible dialects. Maybe the upper classes might have a common language (such as French in medieval England and the Netherlands in the 1800s, or Swedish in Finland in the late Renaissance), but that common language wouldn't really be separated in geographical dialects, and the languages that the common people used, would probably not be mutually intelligible.
Even in medieval Britain and the Holy Roman Empire, which were significantly smaller than Westeros, lower-class people from different regions couldn't understand each other.
What I'm trying to say is, it's all speculation anyway. You seem to think you know things for a fact, but it's only your interpretation of the information provided by the series.
@@WhiteOwlet mate, most people that live in South America talk in two different languages that are not even THAT different from each other
@@ernestokrapf True. By now I forgot the point of my comment or the video, but in South America it's only been like that for, like, 500 years, and was the result of colonialism. In Westeros it apparently was that way for 6000 years. That's a long-ass time. But really, I don't want to make a discussion out of it; that wasn't the point I was trying to make.
I think you are assuming too much regarding the First Men. First of all, do you they called themselves 'first men' when they arrived, as some in world maester state there were lots of different groups that migrated to Westeros. Same thing goes for their tongue(s) they probably didn't call it Old Tongue, that's clearly a later Differentiation, as with the gods, the tree entitys they worshipped were only called 'old' after the new gods from Andalos arrived. At least I think that we can safely make these extrapolations as they make sense with the way IRL things like these evolved.
Good video. Keep up the good work.
it is similar to how old languages are called old German and old English old Greek and Latin
He is saying that they don't have an actual name people just call them First or Old respectively....
@@vanagandr6425 No, cause Old German and Old English are the ancestor of the modern languages, which is not the case of the Old Tongue. The First men are clearly meant to parallel the Celts in the British isles and you have a lot of different names for each particular languages, also they didn't disapear on small island like the British isles, it's a complete wonder how the Old Tongue didn't survive in at least some isolated parts of the North or on the Iron Islands especially since acording to the story, the Andals never succeeded in taking hold in the huge North and the andals assimilated on the Iron Islands.
@@ryured9064
Why would they have a name? To themselves they were just people and each petty kingdom regarded itself as quite distinct from all the others.
@@alanpennie8013 because people generally name their own gods or their enemies name them. Thor wasn't just the hammer Bro and Odin wasn't just the old guy
"We work at the McDonald's on Elm Street and we're going to wage war on the McDonald's on Smith Street"
A perfect world where the Habsburgs' jaw doesn't exist.
Oh god oh fuck
The Targariens had a bunch of big Problems. The Faith an the Infighting and the dornisch wars. Thats why there was no centralisation despite half assed attempts of some shortlived kings
Honestly after the dragons died, the kingdom should have collapsed in decades.
@@rsync9490 Took about 100 years. And that timespan seems reasonable. Outside Invaders, eg. Blackfires worked as a glue, and killed of illoyal houses, and the Integration of Dorne brought glory and stability
@@rsync9490 I don't see how that would be more realistic tbh, many real kingdoms and empires have outlived turbulent periods of instability. Did Rome fall after Nero or Caligula? No it went on for a few more centuries.
@@admontblanc Nero was a capable administrator and caligula didn't reign that long. Honestly the crisis of the third century was where everything went insane. By "collapsed" I meant something like that.
@@rsync9490 yeah but even in reality it doen't necessarily translate into a collapse. The story does let be known of several threatning crisis such as right after Aegon's death, or with Aegon IV's succession.
the assumption that nomadic pastoralists primarily or exclusively eat their livestock isn’t even accurate, most of them have/currently do trade for a significant portion of their sustenance with sedentary agricultural societies. grrm got pretty much everything wrong about nomadic cultures in writing the dothraki, basically nothing about them is sustainable over a long period of time or to high numbers.
the dothraki get payments from various cities so
For someone who loves to hear himself talk so much, you really haven't put much thought into what you're saying.
Damn you striked hard 🤣🤣
Well struck Dog!
LMFAO
The comments are the best part
You don't mention how square essos is
Even Westeros is square like
The traditional ContinentShapedToFitOnARectangularSheetOfPaper™
Essos is modeled after the long shape of northern asia and europe, and Westeros is England on top of Ireland. And also all of the continents of our world are just squares with tiny peninsulas.
@Gideon Chan rectangularitos
quadrilateromania
I thought incest was supposed to be why the mad king is mad.
Nah. More likely it was just the result of grief from so many children he had die. As well as paranoia arising from having low self esteem and feelings of inadequacy/inferiority.
@@vallraffs As well as having a vision of Bran. That's what drove Hodor mad after all.
@@vallraffs more like PTSD from hus capture at the Defiance of Duskendale. He was normal and sane before then. Because if witnessing so much trauma from lost children would make Aerys mad then Rhaella should've gone mad as well as Jon Arryn.
@@MissSimone02 Oh yeah, that too. Forgot about all that lol
@@MissSimone02 although, it's not as if losing children can't ever bring about insanity. It depends on the person. Jon Arryn may not have gone crazy over his many failed childbirths, but Lysa did.
The mongols had an estimated 1.5-2 million according to wiki.
Can we talk about the fact that like a good %10 of the books are just what everyone was eating for breakfast that day?
I've always found that to be a pretty good way of showing the disparity between the nobles and the smallfolk and just how bad it is. There's like 37 course at joffreys wedding and then in the next few chapters we see the little guys starving.
That's the impression I got anyway, it's been awhile.