#westeros feudalism

[horizon-verizon]

The fact that so many people think the Starks are honorable anticolonial fighters and the pinnacle of morality is absolutely insane, they literally built a massive wall to isolated a bunch of people they considered as “savages”, they hunted and slaughtered the Free Folk, the Children of the Forest, giants, exterminated whole houses and clans and took their daughters as “prizes” while conquering the North, etc. The Blackwoods were originally from the North and ruled most of the wolfswood, before being driven out by the Starks and forced to flee south. The Starks are the OG COLONIZERS in ASOIAF.

Even this did not give Winterfell dominion over all the North. Many other petty kings remained, ruling over realms great and small, and it would require thousands of years and many more wars before the last of them was conquered. Yet one by one, the Starks subdued them all, and during these struggles, many proud houses and ancient lines were extinguished forever. — The World of Ice and Fire – The North: The Kings of Winter.

I recently finished a Tiktok series that will probably just be as lost to the internet if we lose TikTok but I had to get out in response to a particular creator who bashes Rhaenyra while also proclaiming themselves as black stans. I think they are really more black stans because they hate Alicent personally and feels the thrill of the side-taking, but that's neither here nor there. 😏

To quote one of my mutuals here [rhaenin]:

It just rings so familiar to the way so many people view the other in real life. Because the Targaryens are overtly, and intentionally written as the other. It's the reason so many people identify with them, and it's the very same reason that other people vilify them. They're not just the in-universe other to the 'default' culture established in the text, but they're also given characteristics that we, the reader and audience, can recognize as other and even sometimes anathema to Western Christian culture. To paraphrase the annoying people that love to cite Ramsay when they feel like it: If you look at a morally complex family surrounded by other morally complex families in a morally complex world in a story that's famed for seeking to challenge your underlying assumptions, and think that their association with fire and brimstone is meant to signify their singular satanic evilness, rather than say... challenge that very Eurocentric assumption, you haven't been paying attention. This vilification mindset where the Targaryens are the singular evil of Westeros is so common to people who seem to want to consume ASoIaF without engaging with the criticisms of the Eurocentric worldview of history at the heart of it. And they end up using the convenient “others” to project all the wrongs of that world onto so they don't need to examine it any deeper. ........... It comes from the same place with how someone pointed out that the baffling bastardphobia that would have medieval peasants giving the side eye is so often people jumping at the chance to “cosplay” as bigots who base their arguments in misogyny and bio-essentialism. Because it's an acceptable channel to indulge in that mindset in a way that they'd often otherwise question, or at least hold back from expressing out of caution.

[afterthefeast]

i beg of asoiaf fans to learn what feudalism actually means. not every historical oppressive system is feudal. just because they are all vaguely medieval does not mean it is feudal. a feudal system is one based on land ownership and the relationship between lords, their vassals, and their serfs. most of westeros is, broadly speaking, organised into a feudal system. old valyria, however, is not feudal. ancient rome, its obvious parallel, was not feudal. just because it is a historically-themed society governed in a way that we now think is bad does not make it feudal please stop calling everything feudal i am losing my mind here

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

Hi, I was wondering if you could answer a question I had about how much authority a lord has over his extended family members. Like if a lord wants to marry off one of his brother’s daughters, can he do so even if his brother refuses to agree? Who holds the most authority in a situation like that? Does it change depending on the status of the lord in question- like if he was a king, lord paramount or someone from a great house rather than a more typical lord?

Again re feudalism, a lord has as much authority as his vassals allow him, and vassals include family members. (And "allow" includes what they feel they must do per traditions and societal pressures.) Look at how Hoster Tully tried to marry off his brother Brynden to Bethany Redwyne. Brynden refused, and though this pissed off Hoster and strained his relationship with his brother, that's how he left it. A more cruel lord, who loved his brother less and his status more, might use more pressure to get his way. Lords are not bound by any law or custom to support their family members, so in the case you mention, that lord might then tell his brother "fine, then, you and your daughters have to leave". And faced with having to make his own way in the world while supporting his girls, the brother might bow his head and submit. Or maybe he would decide to be a hedge knight after all, or maybe he'd have in-laws he could look to for support, it all depends.

Though again re feudalism (because the feudal contract goes both ways), theoretically this brother could try to go over his lord brother's head and appeal to their overlord. See for example Lord Wyman Webber, who when faced with a daughter, Rohanne, who refused to marry per his command, instead wrote a will that said she had to marry within two years of his death or the lordship and the castle of Coldmoat would go to her cousin instead. It was asked within the story, couldn't Lady Rohanne appeal to her overlord, Lord Rowan, and have him override the will? Well, she tried, but that Webber cousin just happened to be married to Lord Rowan's sister, and so he upheld the will. But maybe in a different situation something could be done -- perhaps the overlord is known to be particularly noble, or perhaps this pressured brother has a connection to the overlord (maybe via his wife, maybe they were companions in battle or as squires). But still, the brother would have to take his daughter with him during this appeal, or he might return to find out she's been married off in his absence.

And as for the girl herself, could she not refuse? Even if she's underage, isn't it true, as Sansa thinks, "Not even the High Septon himself could declare a woman married if she refused to say the vows"? Well, we have Sansa's own example, where when she was faced with marrying Tyrion, Cersei told her she could be dragged to the altar and make a spectacle to be laughed at but they'd still make her do it anyway... and so Sansa submitted and said the vows. See also how Randyll Tarly forced his son Sam to join the Night's Watch. Sam didn't have to submit, there is no law saying he had to obey, but his father threatened to kill him if he didn't, and due to Sam's experience with his father's abuse (and what that abuse did to his personality), he fully believed him. Someone once asked me if an overlord could help there (though weirdly they mentioned Stannis, who wouldn't be able to do anything even if he wanted to), and the point I had to explain was that Sam was so beaten down by the abuse he never would have even considered going over his father's head, even if he could have somehow escaped his father's guards on the way north.

So with these examples, you can see where the status of the lord in question may change things -- a king, for example, has no overlords to appeal to. A lord paramount's brother could only appeal to the king. This status also changes what pressure the lord can bring to bear -- a very small lord may only have a sworn sword to threaten his brother with, a bigger lord could have a whole garrison, and the king would have not just the Kingsguard and the castle guard and the city guard but theoretically every lord and soldier in the country to use as pressure. Again, feudalism works both ways.

And generally none of this is even stated aloud. Everybody just knows the answer to "you and what army?" and so even family members understand what their lord pressuring them means. (Girls particularly innately understand this, along with patriarchal pressure; like Roslin Frey had no real choice at the Red Wedding but to obey her father, brothers, uncles, and cousins.) So, like so many things in ASOIAF's medieval-inspired era, the personal is the political. Only the personalities of the people involved, and their means of pressure or access routes to escape, are what truly defines what can happen in cases like this.

[queenalicentofravka]

[lemonhemlock]

https://twitter.com/Targ_Nation/status/1611158240359759872?t=bfo77HLITj21KBLCUKx6fA&s=19

Seeing all those likes took years off my life

i don't even know where to begin............

"centrist bs" - the concept of left and right doesn't exist in a medieval setting ...................

where was this energy when cersei was committing abuses left and right and placing her bastard children on the throne? why didn't "the modern audience" "almost unanimously stand by the side of the woman being usurped of her throne" back then? 😵

but this isn't even about one side being more wrong than the other or both sides being awful or war being horrible as a rule or the smallfolk always paying with their lives and livelihoods when the high lords play their game of thrones

that entire tweet is predicated on not grasping the basic principles of the polity they are operating within 😫 you cannot define usurpation based on absolute primogeniture when that society relies on male primogeniture for inheritance, in that context it literally means the opposite

words don't somehow gain whatever meaning you want based on what you think is fair, same how laws don't materialize into existence just because you say so. any kind of law is a social construct, doesn't exist outside the confines of society and requires a certain kind of framework in order to be accepted & enforced. if proposed laws are not accepted by the majority and cannot be enforced, they only exist on the astral plane

there aren't even any proper institutions in westeros. literally the only ones i can identify are the crown and the small council, which serves as a kind of proto-government. there's no parliament, there's no proper justice system, no magna charta. the only courts that seem to operate are Faith-based courts and your liege lord's judgment. medieval-style legal systems and law enforcement are headache-inducing as a rule anyway, but feudal monarchies generally involve constant negotiations and power leverages between kings and their vassals

a more apt characterization of the Dance would be what exactly and how much can the targaryens get away with now that they've decided to impose themselves as rulers of a unified westeros. so far, they had to accept the religion of the land (aegon the conqueror was anointed by the high septon) and were forced to renounce polygamy. they got to keep practicing incest as a result of jaehaerys' successful doctrine of exceptionalism. see? negotiation. now the question remains - are they going to respect succession laws like a normal person (i.e. Andal Law) or are they going to resort to this ridiculous circus every time a targaryen monarch dies? because at the point of the dance, there had hardly been a straightforward transition of power since the conquest

for the internal coherence of this fictional world to be maintained, the nobles should be pushing Andal inheritance rights like crazy, because their own succession is decided on the basis of that and they would be directly interested in not fucking it up for themselves or their descendants by having weird precedents set by the royal family. a lot of these lords, if not most, have bastard siblings/children of their own, as well as elder sisters/daughters. it doesn't make sense for them to threaten their own stability for the sake of rhaenyra of all people, who isn't even good at her job and has done absolutely nothing to endear herself to them. what could they possibly gain by supporting her?

the question of the monarch imposing a law is much more believable in a centralized state, which westeros most definitely is not. imposing laws can also be done via force, of course, as long as """the state""" retains the monopoly on violence. the targaryens' v effective military superiority has so far been conferred by dragons. but rhaenyra's side isn't the only one that has dragons anymore. the opposing faction, i.e. the side who'd perpetuate Andal law, also has them now, as it happens. ergo war.

this situation is absolutely not similar in any way to today's democracies where laws are voted by parliament and the rest of the country have no choice but to abide by them or else the police come knocking on your door and hand you over to the our modern justice system, where your punishment is set by objective specialists & not decided by crazy stunts like trial by ordeal or the whims of your liege lord

tldr: there is no incentive for westerosi nobility to break andal succession law for rhaenyra, since it would be legal self-sabotage by setting a precedent that could come to bite those very same people in the a*se. rhaenyra is NOT an only child - by having trueborn brothers, the only way she can ascend is by breaking the laws & customs of the land. ergo disgruntled lords will inevitably flock to alicent's sons to form covert alliances & subversive power centres that, in time, will erupt in open rebellions. real-world historical examples attest to this happening with or without the consent of their respective figureheads (eg. lady jane grey) - i.e. it doesn't matter if aegon/aemond/daeron play happy families or not. in turn, the only way rhaenyra can prevent this is by executing her brothers/their male descendants. the greens don't want to die => the only way of achieving security for them is by claiming the throne.

alternatively, rhaenyra's life is not in danger as long as she bends the knee, as no-one in-universe would take her claim seriously with 3 living brothers. rhaenys also bent the knee to viserys after losing an election and is still alive. i'll say it again: it is not in the lords' best interest to support rhaenyra in the first place. if we are to go by any logic - what would they gain, should they flock to her? they would destabilize the line of succession for themselves for a (pretty terrible) queen, a reviled king consort and a bastard heir. but, as far as advantages and favours are concerned, what would they be, specifically? in order to outweigh the above-mentioned disadvantages?

you should all blame viserys for getting remarried and fathering sons, because had rhaenyra remained an only child or had only sisters, none of this would be happening & she would have become the first ruling queen of westeros

[daenystheedreamer]

house barannister TRULY the most insane extended family no contest. stark family meet the parents AUs "oh theyre so chaotic" theyre normal theyre just a bit repressed and all their fucked up-ness is due to proximity to targaryens. house tyrell is extremely normal just homosexual, house arryn is crazy due to lysa's milf supreme slay, house tully is normal just regular WASPy suburban nonsense, house martell is again only weird due to targaryens and doran + arianne having eldest daughter syndrome. house barannister is organically fucked up.

[synchodai]

I think my inherent incompatibility with the GOT and HOTD fandom come from the fact that I was sold on the ASOIAF series by someone telling me that it was speculative fiction asking "But what if the Roman Empire had dragons?"

[sunny12th]

feels like asoiaf is gonna end with the entire structure of the world being utterly decimated so that something new can grow from the ashes

[warfantasy]

Proof that Westerosi armies are professionals

Note on terminology: by “professional” here I mean “people whose job is fighting”. It does not mean that it is necessarily their only job or that they are under arms 365/y, but rather, that they are trained and organized military force. Example of part-time professionals would be US Army Reserve or US National Guard for modern-day forces, or else Byzantine themata. “Professionals” as “troops…

[swallowtail-ageha]

"Why do most asoiaf fans who live in democracies still fight about who should get the throne of a feudal system" because we can differentiate fiction from reality

[horizon-verizon]

Reasons Why the Westerosi Houses Didn't Overthrow the Targs After they Lost their Dragons

feudal oaths and ideology of loyalty to one's monarch...yes it matters, even though lords have also been known to break oaths or press for their own interests, this is still something considered relatively taboo (remember Ned's hatred for Jaime killing Aerys).....this is still a feudal society, guys.

(if you have in mind that they should have ousted the Targs out of some idea the Targs caused too much havoc or misery to the lords and peasants) #1, the Targs actually provided more years of sustained peace [ozymalek/PheonixAshes] than when the houses were all leaders of kingdoms pre-Conquest [list of a lot of warring across Westerosi relams pre-Conquest], inclu the years AFTER the Dance -- the Targs were "dramatic" but also most of their issues stem from patriarhcal abuses adopted from pre-conquest Westerosi leading into inevitable succession crises...if there ha dbeen no Targs and a Westerosi lord somehow "unifed" the realms through Conquest (even Dorne), you can't tell me there wouldn't be any wars or crises of succession...come on! The War of the Five Kings occurred even without any Targ tomfoolery, bc by then they were long (1 and a half generation away) gone by then.

The Targs were pretty and pragmatically tolerant of nonTarg Westerosi customs and never tried to stop them from practicing MOST (right of first night to be excluded); plus the Widow's Law was pretty beneficial as well.

some houses actually got to become Great Houses or Paramount Houses BECAUSE the Targs made them so: the tullys, the Baratheons, the Tyrells.

Post Dance, Rhaenyra's sons Aegon III and Viserys II were more or less pretty good at keeping things together...Viserys esp so before and during his own reign. And esp by keeping the women of their family out of politics or practicing enough autonomy and authority, since some felt the Dance happened bc they had authoritative and powerful queens (F&B tries to convince use female rulership was a disorderly and dangerous thing) so that the lords or any possible rivals couldn't or had not much to protest, etc.

[saansaas]

sometimes u follow people bc they make great analyses and points abt asoiaf. and then sometimes the DT brain rot has gotten so deep in their head that they contradict themselves in their own otherwise completely coherent and prudent post.

[iphigeniacomplex]

i am still reading a game of thrones, and my mother (who has not read the books, but has seen the show) keeps saying ominous things about tyrion, so the day may come when i regret this post but as it stands currently i am at brunch with tyrion lannister actively enabling him. he tells me about a situation where he is clearly in the wrong and i say no and you know what your actual problem is. you know what your actual fucking issue is tyrion its that youre too real. you are too real and they want to kill you about it. because society—because SOCIETY isn’t ready and im NOT afraid to say that. like just the way i see it it’s like—well first of all you are better than everyone. yeah. yeah. nobody knows dragon facts like you is the thing and i think they fear that. by the way i know you paid last time but my family isnt doing great under feudalism so do you think you can—like just for today swear i’ll pay you back its just like you know. thank you for real. and tyrions internally monologuing like okay hes obviously trying to get something out of me. but what. and im internally monologuing like if im able to successfully activate tyrion lannister’s class guilt i can get free brunch for probably the rest of my life. which due to the circumstances of westeros will not be much longer if the seven will it.

[jozor-johai]

Sometimes I think it's underrated how much of Westeros we see during wartime. Amidst all of the discourse back and forth over whether the brutality of ASOIAF has a "realistic" basis in real-life feudal history, I think the fact that we're seeing Westeros in a very atypical and specific circumstance should not go overlooked, and I think in that regard there are parts that are "realistic" to modern history, let alone feudal.

For instance, in regards to the complaints about how many women are sex workers in ASOIAF—I think that has more to say about the nature of the wartime economy.

War breaks out; as a result, the regular economy halts. This is the result of various blockades, as well as from the workforce being redirected away from production and towards standing armies—fewer farms are being maintained, and fewer still are making it across wartime boundaries. Another side effect, then, is the trouble when this economic situation interacts with the practical existence of a standing army: massive amounts of young men, either single or separated from their families, drawing disproportionately on the limited resources of the farmland around them (which is being worked at a less-efficient rate than usual to begin with).

The army—comprised of young men—creates a demand for sex that interacts with the overflowing supply of young women without stable income (since this is an incredibly patriarchal society and the men in their lives have been taken away from work for military service). Without better jobs available, and with the market right there, these women turn to sex work, which syrockets. But of course they would, and of course it seems like every smallfolk woman we meet in ASOIAF is doing it: because people have to eat and feed their families, and the fields to plow have been burned by war, and the people who would work them have either been taken for military service or killed by war. It's exceedingly likely that sex work wasn't as widespread before the war so the increase in the need for sex workers represents the failing economy—consider the overabundance of sex workers in ACOK King's Landing, which was under a trade blockade from almost all fronts.

Then, the pendulum swings back the other direction: this is an unsustainable economy and an unsustainable way to live, so there is a reactionary religious response demanding a return to the way things were before (pre-war, in effect, but never separating this from the "social ills" that war results in). The women are blamed for their behavior, despite being demanded by the men around them and made necessary by the economy, and so this reactionary response leads to a religious condemnation of the "wanton" behavior of women.

The religious response in particular gains traction because organized religion offers several very meaningful things that otherwise solve these problems. We see from Septon Meribald toting his goods that the Faith offers charity to the starving. We see with the Sparrows, and personally with Lancel how the Faith offers a sense of meaning to those disenchanted by this strife. We see from the Sparrows and the rise of the High Sparrow how the organized religion of the Faith also offers a means of returning power to the disenfranchised.

So GRRM is achieving something unnervingly realistic here, showing what happens to local economies under wartime and the lingering horror that is left behind—a scenario that is still true of modern war, even if Americans don't have to see it personally. GRRM lived through Vietnam, and the influence is obvious in how the invading American military practiced rape and forced dubiously-consensual sex work onto the local economy.

It's also realistic how organized religion gains traction in scenarios where disenfranchised peoples need sources of hope and methods of organizing to regain what little power is available to them, and how organized religion can leverage a desire for better times into moral condemnation that fuels its rise to increasing levels of de jure power. It will be interesting to see in TWOW and beyond where the trajectory of the High Sparrow leads these people (and what that says about GRRM's observations and interpretations about modern historical parallels).

[tweedfrog]

I find it funny when people in this fandom point out that the Targ tradition of incestuous marriage is uniquely bad even within the broader context of the many coerced and abusive marriages we see in Westeros and people start screeching that the Starks also did incestuous uncle/neice marriages and that everyone is unfairly hating on Targaryens and actually what we see within the Targs is just bog-standard feudalism chewing women up and spitting them out.

The Starks *do* have uncle/neice marriages in their family tree but I think its important to note that the 2 examples here of Sansa and Serena Stark marrying their half-uncles Jonnel and Edric were done in the context of a succession crisis where the North was staring down the possibility of its first female ruler in 8,000 years. And they decided that actually incest and allowing half uncles and neices to marry and letting the men's (weaker) claim supersede the women was the best option instead of just. Having a ruling Lady of Winterfell.

I wonder what this could possibly be saying in relation to incest and the oppression of women in patriarchial societies specifically?

[coffeebooksrain18]

The way TB calls TG misogynist just because we point out Feudalism and how Westeros works! Trust me we would love to see a woman sit the throne. but said woman who you worship has 3 bastards, has 'killed' her husband which makes people scared of her for the wring reasons, knows nothing of warfare but acts like she's a genius cause she read up about Visenya, knows nothing about duty and thinks just cause her daddy said so she can do as she pleases.

Our options aren't good either way, but TB doesn't care and throws all of Rhaenyra's flaws in a dark closet and hope no one notices. I'm tired of it, truly, TB calls TG names but if we do were monsters and misogynistic.