Game of Thrones Season 4 Discussion (TV Spoilers Only)

[Elheru Aran]

And yet, not one mention of ravens being transported around. I guess there isn't time for that sort of background stuff in a TV show, and I can tell you that I can't recall any mention of it in the books. They don't give a recipe for a "bowl of brown", either, so I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised that this detail is absent.

There's a lot of background stuff that just gets taken for granted in pretty much any story, for obvious reasons. Belabouring details is fine to some extent, but it's all too easy to abuse, and in a series that's already as long as GoT? It would be Wheel of Time 2x over.

At least GRRM has been pretty generous with supplying detail when asked, and that can be regarded as canon. He's also approved of some stuff like the GoT Recipe Book and an encyclopedia type book that's coming out later this year (I think?).

[Imperial Overlord]

In the TV show, no. But there is at least one big city according to the books.

My memory has it as more of a mid sized town, but I could be wrong and I have no desire to fight you to the death over it.

Unless they manage to develop any of the industrialized storage systems we have today (and note that it took well into the sixties until they were commonplace) it is just a physical impossibility.

If they're limited to mundane methods yes, but this is a civilization that built a giant wall of ice. As I said before, I'm not concerned about how humans manage it because at least humans do possess some methods of storing food and it shipping it in from other regions of the world. Animals are far more vulnerable to an extended winter than humans are and yet the North is not barren of animal life. That's my focus because if deer and mammoths can survive (and mammoths survive north of the Wall where its even worse) then humans are a shoe in. And I really do want to know how deer and mammoths and dire wolves survive five year long winters. They sure as hell don't have cold storage rooms cut into the Wall and food shipments from High Garden.

[Mr Bean]

If they're limited to mundane methods yes, but this is a civilization that built a giant wall of ice. As I said before, I'm not concerned about how humans manage it because at least humans do possess some methods of storing food and it shipping it in from other regions of the world. Animals are far more vulnerable to an extended winter than humans are and yet the North is not barren of animal life. That's my focus because if deer and mammoths can survive (and mammoths survive north of the Wall where its even worse) then humans are a shoe in. And I really do want to know how deer and mammoths and dire wolves survive five year long winters. They sure as hell don't have cold storage rooms cut into the Wall and food shipments from High Garden.

They migrate south just like all the other animals likely will. Winter in Westeros does not mean that Dorne freezes. Dorne is like Florida in that it's always warm enough for some agriculture. When winter hits the North goes from Canada to South Pole cold and the Riverlands become Canada.

[SCRawl]

If they're limited to mundane methods yes, but this is a civilization that built a giant wall of ice. As I said before, I'm not concerned about how humans manage it because at least humans do possess some methods of storing food and it shipping it in from other regions of the world. Animals are far more vulnerable to an extended winter than humans are and yet the North is not barren of animal life. That's my focus because if deer and mammoths can survive (and mammoths survive north of the Wall where its even worse) then humans are a shoe in. And I really do want to know how deer and mammoths and dire wolves survive five year long winters. They sure as hell don't have cold storage rooms cut into the Wall and food shipments from High Garden.

They migrate south just like all the other animals likely will. Winter in Westeros does not mean that Dorne freezes. Dorne is like Florida in that it's always warm enough for some agriculture. When winter hits the North goes from Canada to South Pole cold and the Riverlands become Canada.

And the wildlife just jumps over the Wall during this migration?

[Mr Bean]

And the wildlife just jumps over the Wall during this migration?

Swims around or dies off between winters?

*Edit or congregates around hot springs of which the north is littered.

[Thanas]

In the TV show, no. But there is at least one big city according to the books.

My memory has it as more of a mid sized town, but I could be wrong and I have no desire to fight you to the death over it.

It is described as the fifth-biggest city in Westeros and its ruling House was able to put in the field a levvy of 1500 men to support Robb when he moved south. That seems more than a mid sized town and is in fact more than most medieval towns were able to put on sustained campaigns, something that only the most important Imperial cities of Germany were able to field.

If they're limited to mundane methods yes, but this is a civilization that built a giant wall of ice.

Which was expressively built with magic. There is no way the same is true for food storage available to the population.

[Ralin]

Which was expressively built with magic. There is no way the same is true for food storage available to the population.

Spoiler

Doesn't really prove anything, but it's mentioned that Balon Greyjoy's father/brother/some close relative I can't remember for sure died after losing his fingers playing the ax game because their maester convinced him he could reattach them to his hand. They went gangrenous and he died horribly and Balon decreed the same thing would happen to the maester, but even though it didn't work it does raise some interesting questions about just how advanced maester science is. Even granting that the guy was probably extremely arrogant he has to have had SOME reason to think it was feasible if he was going to stick his neck out like that...

[Imperial Overlord]

It is described as the fifth-biggest city in Westeros and its ruling House was able to put in the field a levvy of 1500 men to support Robb when he moved south. That seems more than a mid sized town and is in fact more than most medieval towns were able to put on sustained campaigns, something that only the most important Imperial cities of Germany were able to field.

That does seem like a respectably sized city.

If they're limited to mundane methods yes, but this is a civilization that built a giant wall of ice.
Which was expressively built with magic. There is no way the same is true for food storage available to the population.

Given the length of their winters and the importance of food storage, I would rate having giant magical cellars as higher priority than making a giant ice wall. There is, of course, no evidence for such in the books.

[Thanas]

And I would expect there to be some reference to them but whenever food storage is discussed it is just normal medieval stuff, not "he went down into the cellar and took out the perfectly fine vegetables from two years ago"). You need vegetables to survive in medieval times, otherwise ahoy scurvy.

[LaCroix]

They say about the Eyrie that its granary is as large as Winterfell's - and can feed the household (which is 500 men + what ever number of servants and whoever) for a year - and that is considered a large one. So we don't see years of storage. A lot of food imports from the southron kingdoms is certain.

[Imperial Overlord]

And I would expect there to be some reference to them but whenever food storage is discussed it is just normal medieval stuff, not "he went down into the cellar and took out the perfectly fine vegetables from two years ago"). You need vegetables to survive in medieval times, otherwise ahoy scurvy.

And again, that's just the humans. What are the pigs, deer, and mammoths going to eat during the third solid year of winter?

[Thanas]

Yeah, which is why the long winters cannot be that devestating to the north. (beyond the wall there seems to be little wildlife except around volcanic springs etc anyway).

[Imperial Overlord]

Yeah, which is why the long winters cannot be that devestating to the north. (beyond the wall there seems to be little wildlife except around volcanic springs etc anyway).

Exactly. Unless Martin has somehow omitted the seasonal mammoth and dire wolf migration.

[Vympel]

I've been rewatching from Season 1 since last week. White Harbor is mentioned by Ros in Season 1 (when Theon sees her off). A member of House Manderly (Wylis, certainly) is at the Twins during the Red Wedding.

There are five cities in Westeros, White Harbor being the smallest, but its still a city. The order is:

1. King's Landing;
2. Oldtown (the Reach);
3. Lannisport (the Westerlands);
4. Gulltown (the Vale); and
5. White Harbor (the North).

Interesting that Dorne doesn't have a city.

[Mr Bean]

I've been rewatching from Season 1 since last week. White Harbor is mentioned by Ros in Season 1 (when Theon sees her off). A member of House Manderly (Wylis, certainly) is at the Twins during the Red Wedding.

There are five cities in Westeros, White Harbor being the smallest, but its still a city. The order is:

1. King's Landing;
2. Oldtown (the Reach);
3. Lannisport (the Westerlands);
4. Gulltown (the Vale); and
5. White Harbor (the North).

Interesting that Dorne doesn't have a city.

Dorne has Sunspear and Lemonwood both of which are large enough to supported forty plus ships at a time so why they are major medieval ports but not considered large city's who knows.

[Thanas]

I think the show goes by the medieval definition of a city, aka one that has civic rights to give to its inhabitants. Many large towns would certainly be called cities by our standards but were not in the medieval times due to legal reasons.

[Vympel]

Shit, I meant Wendel Manderly, not Wylis.

[Coop D'etat]

I've been rewatching from Season 1 since last week. White Harbor is mentioned by Ros in Season 1 (when Theon sees her off). A member of House Manderly (Wylis, certainly) is at the Twins during the Red Wedding.

There are five cities in Westeros, White Harbor being the smallest, but its still a city. The order is:

1. King's Landing;
2. Oldtown (the Reach);
3. Lannisport (the Westerlands);
4. Gulltown (the Vale); and
5. White Harbor (the North).

Interesting that Dorne doesn't have a city.

Keep in mind that Dorne is the lowest or second lowest after the Stormlands of the 7 kingdoms in terms of population. Given the relative paucity of major urban centers in Westeros, it makes sense that none of them are in Dorne.

[jollyreaper]

I think the simple answer concerning the weather patterns of the Thrones world and the ecology within is that GRRM didn't really sweat the details. I don't think there's any way to properly explain things, just outline the problems with the setup as explained to us.

Trees go dormant when winter comes. But even at that, they'll only have a finite energy reserve. Eternal summers can prove just as fatal. It's not beyond reason to imagine trees that could adapt to an environment like this but they would surely look more than a bit alien to us. It's worth noting that even when we're talking a very northern sort of forest as is used to depict north of the wall, a summer growing season is required, no snow on the ground.

Consider the difficulty animals have with forage in winter. Not everything hibernates. Deer can find themselves in very rough shape, looking for scraps, near-starving at the end of a hard winter. And that's Earth winter, not Thrones winter.

I like the idea of saying the legendary numbers are wrong. The Long Night didn't last a generation, it wasn't really 8,000 years ago, a lot of this is just poetic exaggeration. But this still won't explain away living memory with long summers and long winters.

A bit of a monkeywrench is thrown into all of this since the setting isn't SF but fantasy. Magic does play into the crazy-ass seasons, it's not all just orbital mechanics. But the setting seems to be a mix of magic and reality, things work as we know it until superseded by something supernatural. Diseases are caused by germs. The maesters might still believe malaria comes from bad air but we'll know the vector is a mosquito. They likewise might have a four humors theory of medicine but, barring any particular magic in a treatment, it's going to remain quackery.

The alternative would be to say the world is 100% fantasy at all levels. Vitalism could be the correct explanation for what makes living things different from the unliving, phlogiston is what makes fire work, nothing we know of biology for plants and animals is applicable, all scientific learning for that matter.

[Scrib]

Little Robin is the cutest preteen shit in the Seven Kingdoms

[Vympel]

Holy shit this episode was awesome. Jon got to do a great deal of fighting, and the duel between him and Karl at the end was awesome. Dude with two knives was scary as shit. The Pod/Brienne scenes were a delight, and I really liked Tywin and Cersei and the Iron Bank conversation

No Tyrion or Jaime at all this week! Rare.

I really wish Ghost had jumped on Jon and basically pulled a full on happy-dog-throwing-a-cute-fit. But he is Ghost, after all. He's the definition of quiet.

Is it just me or is Robin less creepy and more cute this season?

[Scrib]

Is it just me or is Robin less creepy and more cute this season?

It's the lack of any breastfeeding. Makes all the difference.

[Vympel]

I forgot to mention the Hound and Arya scene. Great stuff. The Hound chortling about how ridiculous it is for someone to be killed by Meryn Trant was great.

[JLTucker]

Holy shit this episode was awesome. Jon got to do a great deal of fighting, and the duel between him and Karl at the end was awesome. Dude with two knives was scary as shit. ?

I thought it was laughable because he used that sword in close quarter combat. He's a buffoon.

[Haminal10]

I forgot to mention the Hound and Arya scene. Great stuff. The Hound chortling about how ridiculous it is for someone to be killed by Meryn Trant was great.

I also enjoy how armor in the show is actually shown to be useful. This is opposed more typical fantasy settings having plate armor having the same protective ability as wet cardboard.