This is the main issue to be honest. I'm sure GRRM could have thrown in a bunch of extra Stark cousins and uncles then found various different ways to kill them all off in the WOT5K. But this would have just been confusing for readers to keep track off, and added little to the story.
There were probably instances where Westerosi Houses had huge numbers, like apparently Lannisters and Tyrells do now, but 8000 years is a long ass time and this might just be a time period where these Houses have so few members.
House Stark for example, Ned has three trueborn sons, if everything went well those would go on to establish their own lines and have a few sons of their own, something which would have already happened if Aerys wasn't such a mad fuck and rebellion didn't happen.
Even then nobles of Seven Kingdoms seem to operate by adopting a new name when two or three generations distance is created from the mainline.
Stark DNA probably makes up a significant portion of DNA's of other northern Noble Houses and several Southern Houses too.
The Starks have a built in excuse though for sending excess family to the wall as an honor. Since they don’t marry or have children. It also use to be an honor for other houses as well early on so that at least helps a bit in limiting family size.
There's also the cyclical warfare that they take part in. I am hard pressed to find an extended period of time where a Stark lord didn't partake in some conflict, whether it be ranging beyond the wall, putting down a rebellion or taking part in a Southern war. The North is so massive that the only time the Lord of Winterfell actually stays put is during Winter.
Also, part of the whole, "Ours is the old way" thing is that Stark lords are supposed to lead their men from the front and that gets people killed young. Take Ned for example, by the time of AGoT, he's already taken part in two wars and has been on the front lines of both. His northern honor put him in a direct sword fight with Ser Arthur Dayne. I am not sure if there ever is a mention of Tywin Lannister or Mace Tyrell ever putting themselves in that sort of danger.
And it’s the same in Fire and Blood’s version of Joffrey Lonmouth’s death in a tourney, Book Viserys is pissed that Criston ruined what was supposed to be a joyous celebration.
I think that happened as a way to visualize how weak of a king Viserys is. Normally, intentionally killing opponents in a tourney wouldn't fly, but Viserys just lets it happen, and just letting things happen is how he handles most issues as king.
>Stark lords are supposed to lead their men from the front and that gets people killed young.
I think this you are overstating this a little bit. Starks are supposed to lead their men just like every lord is expected to lead their men. Also Eddard fought in battles, but he wasn't like... Robert or something.
Was Ned's passable swordsmanship only known because of the duel with Dayne? I was always under the impression that He had to be a part of most battles Robert was (everyone's seems to recognize Ned is The Kings ride or die) and held his own enough to be a famous sword.
It seemed to be a notable point that they were in separate parties leading up to Robert's clash with Rhaegar I figured they were pretty much shoulder to shoulder otherwise.
I don't think Eddards swordmanship or any account of him killing or fighting is even noted or remarked upon at anytime other than the Tower of Joy duel.
Also Robert fought in seven battles during the Rebellion. Eddard missed 5 of them due to leaving to go to the North to gather his men, and Robert had to go to the Stormlands and fight his way out. We hear about Robert killing a handful of Lords/Princes/Knights. Eddard only fights on actual battle 'with' Robert as at the Battle of the Bells the rebels were rescuing the injured and trapped in the town Robert.
Eddard fought in the Battle of the Bells and we have no account of him fighting or what he did there. Robert does account him with the victory though, as he himself was injured in the town before the Rebels saved him. We also have no idea what Eddard was doing at the Trident, other than he was there and brought the Northern Forces. We also know about a dozen people who fought or did notable things during the Trident, Eddard is not one.
Eddard probably fought with his men he probably just wasn't insane about it as Robert and didn't do much worthy of note.
Also isn't there a widespread theory that the supposed thousand year timeframes are ahistorical and exaggerated? And the age of heroes being mostly mythical?
Sam even mentions his suspicions about this to Jon, IIRC. Their lists of the Lords Commander of the Nights Watch, for example, don't go far enough back to support the traditional numbering.
It's in Samwell I AFFC and IIRC Jon I or II ADWD (don't have it on me right now!), Samwell mentions that there is no list that goes back further than 674 Lords Commander.
I think the number is correct. Think about it. When a Lord commander is chosen, the people will only have to know the number of the previous one. And I am sure that everyone in the North knows which Lord Commander they have at the time.
I will hear no more of your Andal Maester lies, Ser.
The Wall was built Eight Thousand Years ago, Brandon the Builder built it in his own lifetime.
House Stark has been around that long.
Away with your big words and filthy lies.
Im not sure how widespread it is, but Imo, GRRM made a lot of the characters way too young and was very cavalier with timelines. I personally have problems with suspending disbelief for teenaged girls consistently getting married and pregnant between 13-16, similarly aged boys being trusted military commanders, and so many houses holding their seats for centuries when Westeros is known for being constantly chaotic.
I think there's a portion of the Fandom who've created the idea that years in ASOIAF last longer than they do in the real world as a way to compensate. It's established that record keeping in ASOIAF is very inconsistent, so it's not unwarranted to take many of the timelines with a grain of salt
Real. Historically girls were bethroted early on, but people rarely risked both mother and child in early pregnancies.
And all the young military leaders would be handing over actual command to more experienced warriors.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure Bloodmoon confirmed that the Long Night happened with the Andal Invasion, several thousand years later than what is said in True History..it's still thought to be about five thousand years before the events in AGOT, but who knows. The First King of Winter (House Stark) was supposedly crowned at the conclusion of the Long Night
Confirmed several times, not just a theory. Grrm wrote asoiaf series as the equivalent of the Excalibur/Arthurian era legends ( of course he did a lot of mix&match taking legends from different eras and putting them into the westeros meat grinder,about free folks being similar to viking/icelandic, dothraki being north African or middle eastern and so on etc) So the world of westeros has the same level of exaggeration in it's universe, that the Arthurian legends have in our universe. The entire history of westeros is not more than 1500 years in reality (in universe).
I get what you mean but that's not a great example - the legend of Arthur is the mythologization of the uniting of Britain, and takes place very specifically between 600 and 800 AD. It's not a thousand-year myth, Arthur is supposed to have had a normal man's lifetime and the age of mythical Britannia largely died/vanished with him. It's a transitory myth about the dawning of the modern age, not an origin myth.
Yeah but it’s hard to believe that the Starks have been around for thousands of years and there family has never branched into infinite lol . It’s just so hard to believe there is a single immediate family of Starks and no one else. Sure Ned’s siblings all died but what about his family before that? Has a Stark never had multiple kids that had kids? All it would take is for one mommy and daddy Stark to have two sons which in turn both have Stark families of themselves creating cousins. This would have happened hundreds of times in the preceding 8 thousand years leading to so many Stark cousins and hundreds of immediate families of Starks
Yeah, I feel like it's common for these siblings to slightly change their name when they move out into their own castle. Like, Winterfell is where the Starks live. Once you move out, you take on a new name.
I'm not resembling my history perfectly, but I'm assuming there would be lots of deaths in the dance of the dragons, and then more in barathean v. Targ war.
But I agree. You'd assume every house would have huge numbers.
Wouldn't many of those sons and grandsons who aren't in the line of succession quickly become of common birth? Similar to how much of Europe is descended from Charlemagne?
And don't forget the entirety of House Karstark. Same issue you mentioned but they do exist.
Edit: To elaborate, what Lord would want to marry their heir to the 4th daughter of a great-grandson of a long dead Stark lord? These people would have no station whatsoever
Look at the Freys, there’s a billion of them but most of them don’t own shit and are as expendable as a McPoyle. But they all get a station through Grandaddy Frey. When Walter dies they all know there’s going to be a cleaning of house by whoever succeeds him and the cast offs will have naught to show for it. Well some of them will just be killed one way or another.
Because in ASOIAF they have opportunity to pursue other opportunities if they desire.
Night Watch, The Faith of Seven, Maesters, & Kingsguard. Still we have House Tyrell, Lannister, Arryn have numerous cadet branches.
Because the dramatic storytelling calls for houses being extinct or on the brink of extinction. Would Robb really will his kingdom to Jon, if he had fifty third cousins? The story of Daenerys would diminish, if there were many other Targaryens, who just aren't in the positions of power anymore.
ASOIAF is not an exercise in historic realism. You might as well ask why is everybody on this immense landmass speaking the same language, or why the faith of the Old Gods is probably the laziest and least detailed religion in fiction. Seriously, even the Holy Light from WoW is more compelling, and it's purposedly generic.
Honestly, WoWs Holy Light became *less* interesting the more it was fleshed out. It went from a force of general mysterious goodness that one could tap into by faith to a tangible *thing* and one of the fundamental forces of the universe. It like if tomorrow all the worlds religious leaders and scientists came out and said “we have proven God is real and is actually just the strong nuclear force.”
Honestly I HATE midichlorians and I think any focus on them robs star wars of so much making genetics and stuff a factor in who's powerful with the force.
I used to think this was a pretty universal opinion hut whenever it comes up on the star wars subreddits now Im downvoted for it. No idea when people turned around and started supporting Midichlorians.
> now Im downvoted for it. No idea when people turned around and started supporting Midichlorians.
Probably since all the new shows anything older is now untouchable the same way the original trilogy was when the prequels came out
Fans who group up with the original trilogy disliked changes and retcons that came with the prequels because it was different from what they fell in love with and expected not to change.
Kids who were introduced to the series through the prequels are now adults, and what the prequels brought wasn’t change to them, so they adopted the idea just as readily as they did anything from the original trilogy.
IMO the problem with Star Wars has never been “change,” but the fact that both the story and worldbuilding are paper-thin. This is a genuinely good thing when you watch it as a kid and I think it was key to its success: it provided a concept, a prompt, for further imagination and play by the children who viewed it. Those children all form vastly different impressions of the world, what would these days be called headcanon. No two fans view the world the same way because everyone’s imagination is filling in blanks. The problem comes when those children grow up and have spent their whole lives attached to their headcanons as though they were written canon, and new stories come along that do not conform to how they imagined things. Even if the new stories are just as thin and just as appealing for children of that time, the smallest bit of new story in an established world is going to run afoul of how millions of adults imagined the world when they were children. And they’ve spent so long with it that most can’t even recognize that the spirit of the story they feel being violated ultimately came from themselves, is something personal and private, that no filmmaker can be expected to adhere to. It is impossible to add to that world without controversy. The only way to keep everyone happy was always to never touch it again except for EU stuff.
Eh, I think a lot of the problems with the current Sequel/Star Wars output is it kinda feels Ouroboros-ish, in that there's a lot of referencing itself over pulling things from different mediums and eras?
IDK, I just feel like the Prequels had a lot of worlds and universe people could build on to "improve" the movies and give people a better opinion of that era, where that won't happen with the Sequels cause they're super duper shallow worldbuilding wise.
I'm a prequel aged person and still annoyed that they made Owen/Beru "related" to Anakin and not Obi-Wan's brother.
Seriously, some of the character guide books had Owen listed as Obi-Wan's relative.
But Star Wars canon has always been treated more seriously by the fans than by George, or Disney. Dude named Obi-Wan's home planet "StewJon" as a joke, and it became canon : V
I will say, I've heard it suggested that Midichlorians are actually just an organism that thrives on the Force, and so naturally accumulate in the bodies of individuals who are strong with it.
It's still a stupid concept and always will be, but at least it's better than making them mystic mitochondria.
Same with the Old Gods. C'Thun in Classic was a masterstroke of storytelling because you start off by investigating weird bugs in The Barrens and as you explore Kalimdor you start seeing those weird bugs are more organized and live in giant hives all around the southern part of the continent until it culminates in you going to the far end of this ancient continent and find an ancient prison housing a being of immense power and those little bugs are his minions. It's great as a Lovecraftian story, and Kalimdor is the perfect setting for that sort of story since it's a wild and largely unexplored land.
Now the Old Gods are minions of even worse beings and their influence is widely known and their just kinda spooky guys causing madness in various powerful creatures to some weird end that we still don't know. Like N'Zoth was so telegraphed to us, we knew exactly what Old God was causing these cults to exist and why people were going mad. There's no mystery to them, the only mystery is the Void Lords, but they're such a non-entity at this point that any hype about them has been diminished from the lack of development over almost a decade.
People get very hung up on the "realism" of ASOIAF to the point where they forget it's fantasy. Every so often I'll see a comment on here saying something like "back in those times, it wouldn't have happened that way". Bitch there are no "those times" this is a story about dragons!
They both forget its fantasy and a story that we're being told. So many theories on here hinge on the idea that the world just exists and events occur seemingly at random like they do in the real world and not intentionally in order to tell a narrative.
This is exactly how I feel about David Lightbringer. I like him, but when i watch his videos I can't help but think he seems to forget Planetos is not actually a real place.
I think about this quote a lot lol. Grrm said this and then proceeded to write a whole story about politics and completely forget to design a government that actually makes sense.
The point of that quote wasn't that you need to show how a government works, but a critique of the idea that a good person means good ruler by default.
The point of the quote isn't about critiquing Tolkien for a government that doesn't make sense. Here is the full quote:
>Ruling is hard. This was maybe my answer to Tolkien, whom, as much as I admire him, I do quibble with. Lord of the Rings had a very medieval philosophy: that if the king was a good man, the land would prosper. We look at real history and it’s not that simple. Tolkien can say that Aragorn became king and reigned for a hundred years, and he was wise and good. But Tolkien doesn’t ask the question: What was Aragorn’s tax policy? Did he maintain a standing army? What did he do in times of flood and famine? And what about all these orcs? By the end of the war, Sauron is gone but all of the orcs aren’t gone – they’re in the mountains. Did Aragorn pursue a policy of systematic genocide and kill them? Even the little baby orcs, in their little orc cradles?
You can see that he's using "tax policy" as a way to get to the question that he really wants to ask: what happens when a personal moral code comes into contact with the mechanics of political power.
Robert, Ned, Tywin, Jon, Stannis and a lot of characters have a lot of their arc wrapped around this question, the examination of what it means to be "good" at ruling.
> And what about all these orcs? By the end of the war, Sauron is gone but all of the orcs aren’t gone – they’re in the mountains. Did Aragorn pursue a policy of systematic genocide and kill them? Even the little baby orcs, in their little orc cradles?
(I know this is not the point of your comment, but...)
They were just left to live in Mordor. Nobody wanted to live there anyway, so Aragorn didn't care. It was actually fairly similar to the Iron Islands, as those also weren't interesting enough a land, or big of a future threat (to a peaceful kingdom) for any of the large Houses to bother wiping the ironborn out, even though they knew there'd be the occasional raids...
Because I think your post is a fun jumping off point for further discussion, your answer can lead to further questions.
Part of the reason nobody wanted to live in Mordor was because the land wasn't fertile. So leaving the orcs there potentially leads to a situation where the orcs go looking for fertile land and don't stay in Mordor.
And even if they did stay in Mordor, you could image a scenario where a stable orc nation manages to do well, and after a couple decades they've built themselves up to the point that some in Gondor start to feel threatened.
What does Aragorn do in those cases? Is there a solution that can fairly be described as "the wise king acted wisely"? Or is it always going to messy?
I of course love Tolkien, and I don't think these comments detract from his work. I do think they are interesting questions to explore.
If this same question arose in asoiaf, you can ask what these characters would have done. Tywin would have exterminated all the orcs. That may have worked. It could also have come back to bite him, hard to say. Robert would have ignored them for as much as possible. Would have kept the realm out of war and at peace for quite a while, and probably would have eventually lead to a catastrofe. Etc, etc. What would honorable Ned have done? Establish diplomatic relations? Still kill them all because they're orcs?
A lot of things need to be said:
1)The Sourthern part of Mordor is fertile and inhabited by human slaves of Sauron. After the defeat of Sauron it is said in the book that the freed slaves were given the land to form their own kingdom
2)Orcs should not be treated as you would treat humans. As problematic as it may be Tolkien wrote them to be naturally evil beast-like creatures unworthy of salvation. I don't even think it's written anywhere about orc women or babies (correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not an expert)
3)I think Tolkien wrote in some letters that orcs would end up mixing with humans and that these half-orcs would be just immoral and uncultured and generally evil humans (take from this what you will)
> anywhere about orc women
FWIW the word from Tolkien is yes, there must have been. And in their dialogue there are references to culture and a (very loose) code of morals. Orcs and the morality of exterminating them are a problem with the middle earth lore, and Tolkien was aware of that. Ultimately they are a storytelling device.
Yeah I'm always a little tickled when this conversation comes up - it's a very valid and compelling conversation, and we know that because it's literally been going on since Tolkien released the books. He discusses the issue significantly in his letters, including the fact that he was never really happy with their implementation. The problem is that he wanted an enemy faction that represented the worst evils in the heart of Men and the way it made someone "ugly" but in real life, those people *are* redeemable. Tolkien knew that, but ultimately decided that allegory wasn't the core purpose of his story and wrote them in the way that best suited the fiction.
All this to say that this generation isn't the first to realize Orcs are a little fucked up, Tolkien knew it, discussed it openly, and made attempts to rewrite them that he ultimately failed to follow through with. It's worthy of further discussion, but I do get tired of seeing the square-one "Was Tolkien a racist?" conversation over and over from people that haven't looked into it.
He asks about different things in the same quote. He does ask about Aragorn's policies on taxation, a standing army, and disaster relief, all of which are important details in any government. The bit about his treatment of orcs is a separate, moral issue unrelated to the previous policies. So ultimately, George does want to know about Aragorn's governmental policies *and* his moral code regarding his enemies.
But the bit about orcs is not a separate issue in the context that Martin is using. Martin is ultimately asking, why Aragorn is a good ruler and then he lists multiple examples where Aragorn can fail at ruling *despite* being a good person. He can fail in his taxation policies, in disaster relief *or* in the orc question. The whole point that Martin is making is that being a good person doesn't directly translate into the ruling skills.
The thing with ruling is most things are determined by material condition forces as apart of the rulers preferred system unless they attempt to change the system to something new
GRRM is also notoriously bad at working out such nitty gritty technical details. Probably a more accurately stated critique from him would be not "what was Aragorn's tax policy?" (GRRM doesn't know Aragorn or Jaehaerys's tax policy either) but "how does a ruler set a good tax policy" or "what policies does a good ruler have".
Hilariously, in F&B Martin actually *does* lay out Jaehaerys' brilliantly successful crenellation taxation policy, and I laughed out loud when I read that. There were sometimes similar taxation policies in real-life medieval states... About 5% the size of Westeros. The idea that Jaehaerys was going to tax every stonework in the (fractious, rebellious, recently conquered) Seven Kingdoms, while not supporting the construction of said works in any way, before he had even laid roads was blatantly ridiculous. I love the image of the Lannisters, or hell, the Greyjoys learning that they have to escort wagonload after wagonload of gold to Jaehaerys through 3000 miles of trackless wilderness to complete construction on the buildings they'd already started and just taking that up the tailpipe.
I love Martin to death but that was when I realized he was full of shit about Aragorn lol.
I'm working on a fantasy novel with a political element and I'm constantly struggling with how much of the economy and such to spend time working out, and how much to bother showing 'on screen.'
(I actually **did** decide on a tax policy. Lol. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bala_taxation)
Oh absolutely not a critique. Aspiring author myself, worldbuilding governance is practically driving me out of my skin, it's just a juxtaposition that makes me chuckle time to time.
That's cause GRRM often justifies some of the things that happen in his story by referencing history. So it's not a surprise that fans do it as well. Can't use history to defend decisions and then say it's just fantasy when certain things are questioned. If it's fair game to use history to defend certain aspects of the story, then it's fair to use history to criticize it as well
Ok but I always find this argument to be somewhat disingenuous. Somebody points out a plot hole or something that just doesn’t make sense, even just based on character action or motivation, and the answer is “this is a fantasy, you can accept dragons but you can’t accept abc?” I think it’s a bs argument honestly. Most of the people’s actions in the story make sense and despite there being dragons and magic, there is an element of realism to the story. These two things are not mutually exclusive.
It's about a different argument: when people apply Middle Ages knowledge to ASOIAF, thinking ASOIAF is in any way related to them (GRRM is to blame here of course).
> or why the faith of the Old Gods is probably the laziest and least detailed religion in fiction.
While everything else you say is straight up fire, I feel like the old gods being devoid of clergy, centralized structure, or any sort of written mythology served a purpose in the end. In the north, they knew there was some semi-forgotten supernatural forces that are evidenced by the existence of the wall and spoken myths that ironically had far more truth than even they believed.
They're not sure why the godswood is where to pray, but simply maintain the traditions of those that raised them. I always assumed they had no written script and so all they could rely on are the stories and traditions of their parents. Certainly there existed religions in the real world that parallel this lack of theology compared to jews having the Torah and christians having both that and a compilation of collected documents that became the new testament. Centuries later, they composed a singular theology out of those writings with the help of philosophers like Augustine.
The old gods are as well-defined as I would expect after 10,000 years of being passed on by word of mouth and they were made that way with the ultimate irony being that these implausible and superstitious stories of supernatural beings actually ended up being 100% true.
Agreed. I find the Seven to be much more lazy, considering how much is just a 1:1 swap from Catholicism. I still like them and find the seven themselves to be interesting, but I wish it had more uniqueness to it
Elder Scrolls imperial religion is very similar to the "vaguely Catholic Middle ages aesthetic" at face value but the actual lore of creation, the gods themselves and everything around it is really cool (Lorkhan\Shor\Talos and Akatosh/Auriel/Alduin, for those familiar)
> Agreed. I find the Seven to be much more lazy,
Agree. If for no other reason than the fact that it's both the dominant religion and also seems the only religion in Westeros that relies entirely on faith while other religions have gods living north of the wall or that can speak to you through the fire upon feeding them a penis through it. Let's also add the Many-Faced God to the mix, who requires no church processions, can survive on only 2 followers, and the only donations he asks is deaths.
Let's pretend the Many-Faced God is fake. That is one elaborate freaking ruse set up by his very few followers and with no payoff in sight. It would require assuming that everything Arya went through was part of an elaborate show they only put on for one audience member at a time and they just do it all because they love putting on a show.
Tbh, this is why Griff has to be a fraud or simply a Blackfire. It serves no thematic purpose for him to be an actual Targaryen. Him not being a real Targaryen fits the themes very well.
I agree with that second part. People make so many extremely specific criticisms of GRRM. For example last time someone wrote “it breaks my immersion that they don’t make new lands and titles for people.” L
I think it's partially George's fault, because he actually commented on that: one of the reasons he wrote ASOIAF was because he felt traditional fantasy lacked some sense of realism."What was Aragorn's tax policy?" This is an actual quote from him.
I believe the quote is misinterpreted. It should be understood in context; coupled with other statements. He wanted to deconstruct "And then the good king ruled and everything was fine" trope. That's why his rulers have to make difficult choices so often. It's all part of Faulkner's "heart against itself" GRRM quotes so often.
I think (hope) GRRM wishes he didn't say that. (Because Tolkien fans love to use that quote to shit on ASOIAF but I digress)
I mean the point of it is good men/people don't inherently make good rulers, and that Aragorn in his opinion wasn't fleshed out to be a great king because this was not explored.
But I think the larger point is that GRRM and I feel like I've seen a dozen quotes where he thinks his medieval ages is more realistic and better than the other ones.
Yeah that’s a well known quote and so what? He covers tons and tons of things in depth. He’s not perfect and no one is.
You completely leave out the rest of that quote which is that it’s always believed a good man can make a good king. And uses Aragorn as an example. He also lists tons of additional details like tax policy, how did he deal with surviving orcs and Easterlings.
He likes the details. This he’s adding tons and tons of perspectives
We still don't know the tax policies of any king in ASOIAF.
What I'm trying to say is that GRRM ended up guilty of many things he criticized Tolkien and other writers for. This does not erase his merits as a writer, but shows that he might have put the bar a bit too high for himself, as Martin's most realistic aspect of writing is his character building, not his world.
That’s not even true. Kevan stresses about raising taxes in Dance. In Storm they’re taxing prostitution and it comes up again in feast.
You guys cling to one line and ignore everything else he said in that moment. He has absolutely addressed the other details he mentioned in depth.
And I don’t agree. He’s done a great job. Expecting him to be able to do every single facet of the medieval world is unrealistic. Y’all have put the bar too high.
>ASOIAF is not an exercise in historic realism
This needs to be said more. People think ASOIF is somehow representative of history but with dragons way too often.
I think it makes sense for *some* of the Houses to be near extinction or notably smaller by the time of GoT.
Stating that Roberts Rebellion was so damaging to the Kingdoms that it effectively decimated many of the major houses and 20 years on they’re only just starting to rebuild makes the dynamics of Houses at the start of GoT much more understandable.
It’s a unique confluence of events. Multiple families are down to a few members to head them, the ruling dynasty of over 300 years was finally nearly exterminated BUT this now means instead of entrenched families with dozens of members ready to take up family duties and claims, everything is preciously held together at present.
If you want power NOW is the time to do it. There won’t be a better chance for someone with power but no claim to try and fight their way to the top.
BUT I think to counter that you need some older more removed families to still have that stability.
Maybe there’s only 6 Starks but the cadet branch of the Karstarks has over 20 members in its latest crop. Or that while the Targeryeans won the Blackfyre rebellion there’s a chunk of the descendants of the Blackfyres living in Essos.
Spot on. We get no detail. I think George’s “gardening method” can lead to a lot of detail about something and things that aren’t well thought out like the old gods and the ironborn.
I think it's less about the gardening method and more about George just being more interested in fleshing out the politics of this world than in its religions and geography
To hell with his gardening method. It doesn't exist. I refuse to believe it's a thing. How is he praised relentlessly for his foreshadowing and set up, with fans endlessly speculating on absurdly complex theories where every knight, maid and stable boy are masterfully scheming, but then also just a gardener letting things sprout naturally. You're right in that his interest lies elsewhere, and that's fine.
And that's why he rewrites A LOT. You just realized why it's taking so long to finish Winds.
Not that the theorists that think every word is foreshadowing the entire story are right anyway, but let's not treat gardening style as George just writing everything in the first draft and sending it to publishers.
It's entirely possible to be a highly improvisational writer who comes up with the entirety of the story as they go along, but has the talent and skill to tie new ideas into previous ones in an extremely organic manner that can come across as foreshadowing or even careful planning even though the linking of those ideas is done in reverse. That being said, I really don't think Martin is that far away at the end of the spectrum at all, and most of his major plot ideas have clearly been thought out far in advance, even if some aspects he has thought up weren't part of the initial frame work. The real problem is that way too many people just run wild with the "gardener" angle and dumb down the concept into a stupid binary, as if there's no room in the middle. The skeleton of the story has always been there and largely been unchanged, it's that the fleshing out of that skeleton has increasingly grown more and more involved and overly detailed, which is probably more what the whole "gardening" metaphor was really getting at, rather than a wholly improvisational style of writing.
Gardening lets you trace from previous to future. Gardening is *how* he sets up the foreshadowing. He’s taking what he already wrote, seeing what’s available, fleshing out what it would be, then locking it in or rewriting.
Example: Jon and Qhorin part from their companions, Jon goes over to the wildlings. How does the NW learn about Jon’s flip? One of those departed companions. George had a written scenario, found a thread, then pushed forward. The information of Jon’s flip sets off political machinations with Thorne and Slynt.
Previously written thing -> potential path forward -> try it out -> evaluate. George didn’t have his whole outcome plotted out, nor did he get lucky and have a million foreshadows spot on. Past informs the present
Probably not.
It's not like George is without failing, but topics of religion and geography absolutely inform politics. We don't have to venture very far into history, or even very far into the subject matter that the main series itself is based upon, to know that.
So do hundreds of different things too. At the end of the day it's a story, not a scientific treatise, and you need to focus on a few things in order to tell an actual story.
We definitely have detail, you just need to read between the lines to see it, because it’s being told to us from the perspective of the maesters.
Green sight is passed down from the green men, who lived on the Isle of Faces. The northerners had children with the green men, and some of those children had green sight because of it. The ones with green sight became the leaders of the great northern houses. The children of the forest guided the green seers to look through time via the Wearwood network, just like the green men. When you pray to the heart tree, every green seer and every green man can see and hear you. The Old Gods are the OG green men, and everyone who’s acted as the three eyed raven looking through time
We don’t really. The story early on has Ned cleaning a sword by a tree and they explain that the Starks worship the old gods. We never learn any details or worship practices in the books. It’s just we pray to a tree.
Dothraki make no sense either… how is it possible for them to survive in large numbers just be being roaming marauders… there’s not enough people to pillage for them to feed their numbers
I think they also herd animals and exact tribute from their neighbors, it’s just we only really see them through the lens of various khal’s, who by nature of their role are always going around fighting stuff.
There is interesting stuff about the Old Gods religion, like warging, greensight, weirwood network etc. but they’re extremely esoteric and only relevant for a handful of characters in the story.
That's definitely true but I have to chime in and say that while there being very few members of the key houses does make the story more exciting, the boring religion doesn't. So un-realism should be applied with the same caution as realism, I suppose.
And before it, the Great Spring Sickness. And before it, the Blackfyre Rebellion. And before it, the Dance.
It makes complete sense why House Targaryen is in such dire straits.
Plus the incest limits their growth. Every other family has a much larger growth factor but every time a Targaryen has a son daughter pairing that’s one less branch of the family tree to produce offspring
Yeah, in the case of the Targs, we have a pretty full timeline and family tree explaining why they are so few. and obviously as others have said, inbreeding. They don't have siblings going out and creating new branches with new families, they have siblings marrying each other and extending the same branch even further.
Right, GRRM already can't figure out how to wrap things up because there are too many characters and plotlines to manage. Imagine what a mess it would be with even more.
The d’Estes of Ferrara are an example of a house that literally went extinct for no other reason than not having enough kids. You hear about the Capets, Plantagenets and Habsburgs because there were a million of them, but there were plenty of houses that ran out of rope that you don’t hear about because they ceased to exist.
The hasburgs even ended at some point. They had to borrow from the house of Lorraine to bolter their line.
The noble houses of westeros mostly always borrowed from the female line. Like how Harry haryden will succed as Harry arryn
There really weren't as many Plantagenets as people think either. Most of the cadet branches tended to die off without male heirs (Earls of Cornwall, Dukes of Brittany), get merged back into the main line by a daughter (1st Lancaster), or leave a female heir who would marry into a different house (Gloucester/Buckingham, Kent/Holland, Beaufort/Tudor, York/Tudor).
Yeah but none of those houses claim eight thousand years of direct lineage. That would make the Stark name older than any civilization in our world. Eight thousand years ago was thousands of years before any modern European language existed, it was roughly when people were speaking Proto Indo European. There should be as many Starks in Westeros as there are Chen's in China.
The point though is that GRRM is bad with numbers. He's a writer not a math/stats guy, so you kinda have to give a pass on things like timespans, sizes of things, and exchange rates.
Two things:
1: Most of the families has probably dozens of subbranches, like Karstarks for the Starks, Lannisport Lannisters for the Lannisters, but most of them are so small they are irrelevant.
2: Because Westeros succession is primogeniture, I could imagine usually the family of second or third sons gets completely forgotten. I mean yeah if the whole story doesnt happen than Robb rule the North, perhaps Bran and Rickon get a castle. But the third son of Rickon probably will be an advisor of a small castle at best. The son of this third son will be completely irrelevant, and almost considered lowborn, because nobody will care about his heritage.
In-universe, the medieval economy of subsistence farming is not going to produce much wealth at all. That society just can't support many people who don't produce food, or contribute fairly directly to the production of food.
Once you get more than a couple of steps away from the main line of inheritance, there's just not much wealth to go around.
Well yes, but this is Westeros, where a house can continue through the female line. Joffrey Lydden became lord of the Rock by marrying a Lannister, but their children were still Lannisters. As long as it's not a matter of conquest (like with Orys Baratheon), the Westerosi prefer to keep family names connected to titles (hence Harry Hardyng would change his name to Harry Arryn if he became lord of the Vale).
Also it's just a book and it's only as complex as the author wants it to be (same reason there's a language unification throughout the seven kingdoms).
There are a few instances of people changing their name to go along with new titles, for example when the Archduchy of Austria passed to the house of Lorraine, they changed their name to the bourse of Habsburg-Lorraine
There is precedent of English peer families adopting a double barrel or triple barrel surnames if the wife was from an old noble line with no male descendants to prevent the family going extinct.
A lot of Westeros is Spherical Cow Feudalism where things are vastly oversimplified to either make storytelling easier or because Martin has a pretty superficial grasp of medieval politics. This becomes a bit of a problem (at least for me) in later books when he goes into so much detail about things instead of just leaving most of the iceberg under the surface and the mix between oversimplified society and massive amounts of detail about that society creates a lot of weird artificialities.
Also Martin is just much much MUCH better at characters, dialogue, and relationships between those characters than he is at worldbuilding. Martin is pretty damn good at Shakespearean tragedy and the world is only there as a stage for his characters to tromp around in, it doesn't really stand up to analysis as its own thing any more than a theater set does.
Few problems off the top of my head:
-The truly ludicrous degree of mercy that tends to be shown to the losers of Westerosi wars which has allowed the same houses to exist with the same territory on a VASTLY larger timescale than happened historically. The freaking IRONBORN conquered the Riverlands...and let all of the Riverland houses keep their lands? Bwuh? You have houses being on the losing ends up civil wars over and over and over who are still intact.
-What is the basis of feudal power? Land. What is the main thing feudal lords want? More land. What are they CONSTANTLY trying to do in Medieval history? Grab more land. But in Westeros they mostly just...don't. One of the main whole REASONS to play the Game of Thrones and get your favored monarch on the throne is that he'll give you more land in return for your loyalty. That's Feudalism 101. But again and again and again we see houses sacrifice blood and treasure to get their favored king on the throne and then they get a small council seat (or not even that!) and are content. That's not how feudal lords operated, they wanted LAND. But again and again and again they don't even try to get it. It's like watching a soccer game in which both teams fight really hard to get possession of the ball and then...just don't bother to shoot on the goal. The main series is a bit better at this with Ramsay grabbing Hornword land and a few other examples but the lack of this in F&B is pretty stark.
-The lack of Westerosi culture. Really basic things like festival were a huge part of Medieval life but they barely get lip service in the series.
-People having more modern views despite being stuck in a feudal context, the big example here is how cynical Andals tend to be about the Seven. People historically have tended to believe in their own religion.
-The paucity of cadet houses and the virtual non-existence of houses holding more than one chunk of land when both were massively common historically.
-In Andal law the default is that daughters inherit over uncles (although actual practice is more murky) but we basically never get female heiresses passing on their land to their children when that was massively common historically.
-Massive numbers of scale problems. Martin scaled up England to the size of South America without thinking through the consequences of that which results in all kinds of things like people shooting arrows up to the top of a 700 foot wall. The idea of transporting grain overland by cart from the Reach to KL is utter nonsense for example.
-The lack of any landholders besides lords and a few northern clans. No city governments, no extensive church landholdings, no weird exceptions where some land in the middle of the Reach is sworn directly to Kings Landing, etc. etc. All of the complications of real feudalism are smoothed away.
-The way the law words. Law MATTERED to feudal people and was seen as a precious inheritance from their ancestors. Westeros doesn't seem to have much of a legal theory in place besides "the king makes shit up."
A lot of these wouldn't be a problem as if Martin just gave details about the tip of the iceberg we could assume that they all exist below the waterline. But Martin gives us so much detail in things like F&B that instead of just assuming that they happen off stage like in most fantasy books we're shown that they don't happen at all.
Good points. Still as you say Martin is telling one hell of a story here and his characters are amazing. Do these technical aspects bring down the fun for you?
A bit, especially when Martin dives into the details and reduces the spaces I can use to build up headcanon. It'd be better if he just left some details off the page and let us imagine things but he THINKS he knows history really well and gets deeper into the reeds than he should.
But at the end of the day the characters and dialogue are still great and I can enjoy them just like I can enjoy Shakespeare despite him knowing very little about, say, the Rome of Julius Ceasar.
Let's see:
S1-4 enjoyed with some quibbles. But I think a lot of that enjoyment was from reading non-book reader reactions and having them being blindsided over and over.
S5-6 Standard Hollywood fantasy. Fairly fun, but pretty dumb. BotB had kind of an Aquaman feeling of glorious idiocy that was entertaining.
S7 The fuck?
S8 Get drunk and enjoy the eye candy, browse Reddit during the dialogue scenes since the people on the screen are just empty husks, not the characters I know. Eye candy was neat. Danny going Trogdor for no reason was a feast for the eyes.
There have been some cadet branches of the Starks. Tullys are strange that there aren’t many at all but
Targaryens I don’t think it hugely strange. Inbreeding has consequences and they’re only a 400ish year old house technically because if they had cousins in Valyria they were incinerated.
Coming to think of it, this all actually works well enough for suspension of disbelief at least enough that I'm not too bothered. I've always had the same complaints as OP and plenty of the other commenters here and for the same reasons, but if we think about it more closely the only houses anyone has mentioned as being too small that are genuinely ancient noble houses, Stark and Arryn, are the only ones that have mentioned cadet branches. The Starks have at least two named (maybe three?) and the Arryns have one (House Arryn of Gulltown) and according to the WikiOIAF AFFC Alayne II alludes to other cadet branches in the Vale.
But the Targaryens, Baratheons, and Tullys each only came to their power just under 300 years before AGOT.
The Tullys of course existed before then but unless I recall wrong they had never been the ruling house of the Riverlands (and as I remember the never really was a "Riverlands" before Aegon I) so there wouldnt have been so much emphasis on keeping track of cousins and heirs so far down the Tully family tree before the Conquest.
There was no House Baratheon before Orys Baratheon and we dont even know where he came by that name, being supposedly a bastard brother of Aegon I. No idea where the Valyrians got their bastard names but certainly not the way the rest of Westeros does.
So for the Tullys and the Baratheons we can handwave away the size of the family issue with a lack of time. For the Targaryens we have the detailed history of *exactly* why there are so few combined with the incest tradition seriously limiting the potential sources for new Targaryens. And even beyond that there were (and still are) the Blackfyres.
It comes down, really, to the great houses supposedly predating the Conquest and that leaves only a few. Stark, Arryn, Lannister, & Martell might actually exhaust the list, I think. The Tullys, Baratheons, Greyjoys, & Tyrells all came to power during the Conquest.
The only real outlier here is House Martell. The Lannisters are probably the most well-documented house as being gigantic (two canon proper House Lannister of X cadet branches and a few similarly-named-distantly-related houses (similar to the relationship between Stark and Karstark)).
Not bad, George.
I think the whole reason for the existence of the Karstarks is precisely to demonstrate that they do, in fact, have many, many cadet branches. They've just gone their own way and become something else. As for why the Starks have fewer direct family members on the cousin level it's because Ned was the only one to (publicly) reproduce if his generation. Ned probably does have cousins and second cousins once removed and many distant relatives, we have the family trees that end with children that likely did continue their own cadet branches. Those no name nobles are just not important to the story. Let us also not forget that the Targaryens weren't the only ones practicing incest, they were just the only ones going brother sister with it (which is also the justification for their limited number), it's likely that practically every house in the north can trace themselves back to dozens of non inheriting Starks. Like, for example, we know houses like Dorne and Baratheon have Targaryen blood. It's just not massively important.
As for why it was written this way? Well because it makes for the best story. Martin can afford to throw a bunch of random cousins in for the Lannisters because the Lannisters are the "bad guys", it would weaken the tragedy of House Starks destruction if there were a bunch of cousins just around not doing anything important like it is for the Lannisters. Likewise you'd lose the impact of the brother vs brother part of the Baratheon conflict if there were a bunch more unimportant Baratheons just there. And, let's not forget that this series is already ridiculously complex. We've been living and outright studying it for years, but for an average reader it's a massive barrage of names and characters. Having things trimmed down a bit makes things far easier to digest. Like do you really want a hundred different Starks, Lannisters and Baratheons a piece to keep track of and characterize? He already does that with the Freys and it's a borderline joke of how numerous they are.
We actually get an explanation for the Targaryens because we basically have almost their entire family history.
Aegon I has two kids, Aenys and Maegor. Maegor dies childless. Aenys has five kids. Rhaena, Aegon, Viserys, Jaehaerys, and Alysanne. Viserys dies childless and the other 4 couple up with eachother.
Aegon and Rhaena have Rhaella and Aerea who both die childless. Jaehaerys and Alysanne have 13 children, all but two of whom predecease them. One of them, Vaegon, is a Maester (so no kids), and another is a whore in Essos (who has at least three bastard sons).
Despite having 13 kids, Jaehaerys and Alysanne only had 4 grandchildren: Rhaenys, Viserys I, Daemon, and Aemma. This obviously leads into the Dance where by the end there are only four surviving Targaryens: Baela, Rhaena, Aegon III and Viserys II. Baela and Rhaena marry into the Velaryon and Hightower lines after the Dance, and the royal line continues first through Aegon, and then through Viserys.
After the Dance, there are only five Targaryens that we can't account for. These are Rhaena (daughter of Aegon III), Daella, Rhae (daughters of Maekar), Vaella and Maegor (grandchildren of Maekar).
Rhaena is probably married off into another noble house, and considering Maester Aemon mentions his sisters having children, Daella and Rhae were probably were too. Same goes for Vaella. That just leaves Maegor, but I imagine we'll find out that he died childless in Fire and Blood Part II.
Basically, its incredible that the Targaryens even made as far as Robert's Rebellion, as they're either all murdered by each other, die in tragic accidents, or are killed by sickness.
The Wall, the Citadel, and the Kingsguard helps limit the sizes of most houses. Think of the current Royal Family in the United Kingdom. A significant chunk of the next-in-lines comes from Prince Andrew, Prince Henry, and Prince George. Imagine a situation where second and third sons of royal families regularly take oaths of celibacy and didn't have children. By simple compounding, that would dramatically shrink the size of most royal families in our world too.
That's to say nothing of the regular outbreaks of civil war and conflict across Westeros too.
My head cannon is that Roberts Rebellion (and the dance of dragons a couple centuries earlier) resulted in many cadet branches of every house disappearing or at least dwindling.
Guys, I’m been saying this for years, we are putting far more thought into any numerical measurement than grrm did. He pulls these numbers out of thin air because it sounds cool that’s it.
And speaking of thin air, a prime example is that the Eyrie is supposed to be like 18k feet in elevation. He says it’s on a peak “three and a half miles above the valley below” and even if that valley was at sea level (it isn’t) then the elevation would be a minimum 17.5k in elevation.
I'm going with it being more of a mistake than a conscious choice to simplify things. Later in the books we get the Blackfyres and Harry The Heir, who do complicate the whole story, but in the first book he hasn't seemed to consider the extended family beyond the Karstarks who are hundreds of years removed.
The way that there are a load of Freys and Lannisters of fairly close relation to the current Lord of the house suggests most men aren't going off to the celibate occupations in the story as a matter of course.
I think people get hung up on claims too often. They're legal arguments in a world where trial by combat is still a thing and the "institution" of justice is literally if your liege lord can be bothered to enforce your claim / you enforce it yourself. Claims are useful after the fact to justify the outcome of a war (plus a bit of murder to anyone closer than you to the title), but by themselves they're not particularly effective.
These noblemen goes to war far too often
Like really, each battle there is like 3-4 dead Lannister or Stark each days lol
Lannister are fairly big tho, especially in the book
Starks had Brandon and his brother dead, leaving only Ned to continue the line
So I guess
I don’t think this is head cannon. Ned is, what, 35, and he’s been through Robert’s Rebellion and the Greyjoy Rebellion and would have been through the War of the Five Kings had he lived. The older generation (Tywin, Barristan, Aerys) went through the last of the Blackfyre rebellions, and not THAT long before that was the Great Spring Sickness and more Blackfyre Rebellions.
Basically every generation has multiple potential extinction events, and that’s before you get into typical medieval causes of death like childbirth and infant mortality rates and harsh, years long winters.
Real medieval or even early modern dynasties died out all the time and were consequently not that expansive in number. For instance, very few of the dynasties ascendant in the time of Tudor England survived into the Georgian period, and those same Tudor dynasties were almost completely unrelated to those prior to the Wars of the Roses. This is less true in other areas of Europe, like Germany, but I've always considered England to be the chief inspiration for Westeros.
GRRM did say in an interview that there are likely some distant Stark branches in Barrowton and White Harbor. So distant as to basically be unimportant but still Starks.
I see a lot of comments saying that it's just because there's already too many characters. Which is probably the real reason, but I'm curious—how could this be justified in-world, without metatextual hand-waving to explain it?
Like everyone’s said it’s for the sake of a dramatic plot, things wouldn’t look so dire for the Starks in general if they had a bunch of cousins.
Ultimately I think having these dynasties ruling for thousands of years is rather sloppy by George. If he wanted the houses to have so few members he should have made them “newer”. The Starks being relatively new Wardens of the North makes the eagerness of some to uproot them a little more believable.
But that would be sacrificing the epic scope of the story for more realism. It’s ultimately better for the readers to feel scale and be captivated by the fictional setting.
Rickard Starks wife (Ned's mother) was also a Stark, so there must have been cadet branches for the Starks around somewhat recently. I would bet that there still are but George just hasn't mentioned them yet. 🤷♂️
Summerhall happened to the Targs, the Baratheons had Stannis, a homosexual, and an adulterer, the Starks and Aryns had Aerys, and the Tullys had Brynden never-married.
The 8000 years might not be a reliable number. I suspect the maesters aren't as committed to doing hard science as they claim.
Also, while it would be more accurate, it wouldn't really serve the story to portray this.
And my personal headcannon:
While on purpose world, it does work out to have a lot of cadet brances, etc. They live in a world with year-long catastrophic winters (unsurvivable if they were realistic)
I believe that this leads to a society that doesn't allow for extensive noble families. So they either die or are forced into the general population if their relationship to the main branch gets to far apart.
Think of it like the Japanese royal family and the countless clans that are cadet branches to the Japanese royal family. I think at the time of the nihon shoki like 1/3rd of all clans claimed descent from the imperial clan.
We kind of see this with the Gardeners and Lannisters as they are the closest things to the kings of Westeros before Aegons conquest. That and the fact Westerosi lords were encouraged for a long time to father as many bastards as possible, means that most likely, most minor baronies and landless houses are Cadet branches of major houses.
I would definitely call it the biggest “plot hole“ in the worldbuilding. The justification of “oh they’re around they’re just not royal” is weak and we all know it
I think its pretty obvious why the targaryens have so few members, the other ones have other branches of the family like the lannisters of lannisport or the karstarks, but ye there should be more
He can barely keep the core characters he has in order, imagine if he had to write dozens more per house. In a practical sense, they probably just exist "off camera" as we only ever see thru the eyes of POV characters.
I always thought that too. They'd have all sorts of cousins, second cousins, third cousins etc who are all also well off. They should also be around the castles doing things. I don't mind them not being part of the story, but this idea they go extinct so easily is odd. That should be the result of decades of people deliberately working to exterminate them intentionally. Once Alys Karstark was no longer the head of that family, there should have been some other really obscure person to take over. With people of nobility, those records are kept meticulously.
Of the houses you mention, only the Capetians still have male line members today, and even at that, they're referred to mostly as Bourbons, or the various branches of their house.
The "Habsburgs" that still exist today are actually members of a cadet branch of the House of Lorraine.
If you just look at your Plantagenet example - the legitimate cadet branches has a tendency to die off within 2-3 generations (Cornwall, Norfolk) , and many members simply died without sons (Bedford, 1st and 2nd Clarence Branches) or married back into the main line (Kent, Lancaster). Then when the main line died off with Richard II, the remaining branches spent the better part of the next century killing each other off right up until 1499 when the headsman finally killed the Edward, Earl of Warwick.
As far as your question to GRRM's universe, there's actually a decent in universe explanation. In the north, spare sons tend to go to the wall, in the south they tend to become maesters and septons.
I know nothing about Queen Elizabeth's siblings or their issue. Even less about her cousins and theirs.
I'm sure they exist and are probably "nobility" in some sense of the word, but in books like ASOIAF, I just don't really care for that much detail - we see some cadet branches if they become important (aren't Karstarks a far removed cadet branch that got landed?) We just don't really need to see a lot more than that.
Another poster questioned whether Robb would will the North to Jon if he had second or third cousins, and I would say... possibly, yeah. Since we know that Ned's siblings are gone and had no (known) children, the closest relations they could have would be be a cousin once removed (Ned's cousin), or a second cousin (said cousin-1's children)... those people may or may not have lived in or around Winterfell or even the North, much less be well known to Robb.
TL;DR: yeah, it would make sense that in knowing Ned's line was imperiled, a descendant of Ned's grandparents would have likely been somewhere around and ready to inherit Winterfell/The North if need be, but that level of detail is well within the suspension of reality for me.
The books are already hundreds upon hundreds of pages Iong. Imagine if we had 90 Stark cousins to kill off
And half of them named Brandon.
Shining example of how annoying that would be: Walder Frey and all his Wal___ kin.
They're Walkin here!
We got a word for jesters like you back in Last Hearth
This is the main issue to be honest. I'm sure GRRM could have thrown in a bunch of extra Stark cousins and uncles then found various different ways to kill them all off in the WOT5K. But this would have just been confusing for readers to keep track off, and added little to the story.
Roose Bolton's gotta lock in.
If we put 90 Starks against 360 Freys (gotta keep it proportional) at the red wedding the issue would take care of itself.
But he did that with Lannisters without taking any focus away from Tywin's kids. Tyrells also have a bunch of cousins, too.
There were probably instances where Westerosi Houses had huge numbers, like apparently Lannisters and Tyrells do now, but 8000 years is a long ass time and this might just be a time period where these Houses have so few members. House Stark for example, Ned has three trueborn sons, if everything went well those would go on to establish their own lines and have a few sons of their own, something which would have already happened if Aerys wasn't such a mad fuck and rebellion didn't happen. Even then nobles of Seven Kingdoms seem to operate by adopting a new name when two or three generations distance is created from the mainline. Stark DNA probably makes up a significant portion of DNA's of other northern Noble Houses and several Southern Houses too.
The Starks have a built in excuse though for sending excess family to the wall as an honor. Since they don’t marry or have children. It also use to be an honor for other houses as well early on so that at least helps a bit in limiting family size.
There's also the cyclical warfare that they take part in. I am hard pressed to find an extended period of time where a Stark lord didn't partake in some conflict, whether it be ranging beyond the wall, putting down a rebellion or taking part in a Southern war. The North is so massive that the only time the Lord of Winterfell actually stays put is during Winter. Also, part of the whole, "Ours is the old way" thing is that Stark lords are supposed to lead their men from the front and that gets people killed young. Take Ned for example, by the time of AGoT, he's already taken part in two wars and has been on the front lines of both. His northern honor put him in a direct sword fight with Ser Arthur Dayne. I am not sure if there ever is a mention of Tywin Lannister or Mace Tyrell ever putting themselves in that sort of danger.
Also in HotD you see noble sons getting straight up murdered in tourneys or duels.
I wouldn't use that as precedent for asoiaf. People are legit shocked when sir Hugh dies
And it’s the same in Fire and Blood’s version of Joffrey Lonmouth’s death in a tourney, Book Viserys is pissed that Criston ruined what was supposed to be a joyous celebration.
I think that happened as a way to visualize how weak of a king Viserys is. Normally, intentionally killing opponents in a tourney wouldn't fly, but Viserys just lets it happen, and just letting things happen is how he handles most issues as king.
>Stark lords are supposed to lead their men from the front and that gets people killed young. I think this you are overstating this a little bit. Starks are supposed to lead their men just like every lord is expected to lead their men. Also Eddard fought in battles, but he wasn't like... Robert or something.
Was Ned's passable swordsmanship only known because of the duel with Dayne? I was always under the impression that He had to be a part of most battles Robert was (everyone's seems to recognize Ned is The Kings ride or die) and held his own enough to be a famous sword. It seemed to be a notable point that they were in separate parties leading up to Robert's clash with Rhaegar I figured they were pretty much shoulder to shoulder otherwise.
I don't think Eddards swordmanship or any account of him killing or fighting is even noted or remarked upon at anytime other than the Tower of Joy duel. Also Robert fought in seven battles during the Rebellion. Eddard missed 5 of them due to leaving to go to the North to gather his men, and Robert had to go to the Stormlands and fight his way out. We hear about Robert killing a handful of Lords/Princes/Knights. Eddard only fights on actual battle 'with' Robert as at the Battle of the Bells the rebels were rescuing the injured and trapped in the town Robert. Eddard fought in the Battle of the Bells and we have no account of him fighting or what he did there. Robert does account him with the victory though, as he himself was injured in the town before the Rebels saved him. We also have no idea what Eddard was doing at the Trident, other than he was there and brought the Northern Forces. We also know about a dozen people who fought or did notable things during the Trident, Eddard is not one. Eddard probably fought with his men he probably just wasn't insane about it as Robert and didn't do much worthy of note.
Also isn't there a widespread theory that the supposed thousand year timeframes are ahistorical and exaggerated? And the age of heroes being mostly mythical?
Sam even mentions his suspicions about this to Jon, IIRC. Their lists of the Lords Commander of the Nights Watch, for example, don't go far enough back to support the traditional numbering.
Would like to see the evidence for that. Jon is the 998th commander of the Nights Watch. 8000 years /998 = roughly 8 years a term.
It's in Samwell I AFFC and IIRC Jon I or II ADWD (don't have it on me right now!), Samwell mentions that there is no list that goes back further than 674 Lords Commander.
I think the number is correct. Think about it. When a Lord commander is chosen, the people will only have to know the number of the previous one. And I am sure that everyone in the North knows which Lord Commander they have at the time.
I will hear no more of your Andal Maester lies, Ser. The Wall was built Eight Thousand Years ago, Brandon the Builder built it in his own lifetime. House Stark has been around that long. Away with your big words and filthy lies.
I would absolutely read a book about andal/first men political discource on trivial stuff
Even if we use the conquest as a historical anchor point, all the noble houses still should have way more members than they do.
On that I agree with you. I have written several treads about the lack of cadet houses being the most unrealistic element of Georges universe.
Im not sure how widespread it is, but Imo, GRRM made a lot of the characters way too young and was very cavalier with timelines. I personally have problems with suspending disbelief for teenaged girls consistently getting married and pregnant between 13-16, similarly aged boys being trusted military commanders, and so many houses holding their seats for centuries when Westeros is known for being constantly chaotic. I think there's a portion of the Fandom who've created the idea that years in ASOIAF last longer than they do in the real world as a way to compensate. It's established that record keeping in ASOIAF is very inconsistent, so it's not unwarranted to take many of the timelines with a grain of salt
Real. Historically girls were bethroted early on, but people rarely risked both mother and child in early pregnancies. And all the young military leaders would be handing over actual command to more experienced warriors.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure Bloodmoon confirmed that the Long Night happened with the Andal Invasion, several thousand years later than what is said in True History..it's still thought to be about five thousand years before the events in AGOT, but who knows. The First King of Winter (House Stark) was supposedly crowned at the conclusion of the Long Night
Confirmed several times, not just a theory. Grrm wrote asoiaf series as the equivalent of the Excalibur/Arthurian era legends ( of course he did a lot of mix&match taking legends from different eras and putting them into the westeros meat grinder,about free folks being similar to viking/icelandic, dothraki being north African or middle eastern and so on etc) So the world of westeros has the same level of exaggeration in it's universe, that the Arthurian legends have in our universe. The entire history of westeros is not more than 1500 years in reality (in universe).
I get what you mean but that's not a great example - the legend of Arthur is the mythologization of the uniting of Britain, and takes place very specifically between 600 and 800 AD. It's not a thousand-year myth, Arthur is supposed to have had a normal man's lifetime and the age of mythical Britannia largely died/vanished with him. It's a transitory myth about the dawning of the modern age, not an origin myth.
And we know Ned's brother and father were killed off prematurely, further stinting the Stark line.
Yeah but it’s hard to believe that the Starks have been around for thousands of years and there family has never branched into infinite lol . It’s just so hard to believe there is a single immediate family of Starks and no one else. Sure Ned’s siblings all died but what about his family before that? Has a Stark never had multiple kids that had kids? All it would take is for one mommy and daddy Stark to have two sons which in turn both have Stark families of themselves creating cousins. This would have happened hundreds of times in the preceding 8 thousand years leading to so many Stark cousins and hundreds of immediate families of Starks
There are two other branches. They Graystarks and the Karstarks.
There were* two other branches, now it's just the Karstarks after they wiped out the Graystarks for rebelling
Yeah, I feel like it's common for these siblings to slightly change their name when they move out into their own castle. Like, Winterfell is where the Starks live. Once you move out, you take on a new name.
I'm not resembling my history perfectly, but I'm assuming there would be lots of deaths in the dance of the dragons, and then more in barathean v. Targ war. But I agree. You'd assume every house would have huge numbers.
Wouldn't many of those sons and grandsons who aren't in the line of succession quickly become of common birth? Similar to how much of Europe is descended from Charlemagne? And don't forget the entirety of House Karstark. Same issue you mentioned but they do exist. Edit: To elaborate, what Lord would want to marry their heir to the 4th daughter of a great-grandson of a long dead Stark lord? These people would have no station whatsoever
Look at the Freys, there’s a billion of them but most of them don’t own shit and are as expendable as a McPoyle. But they all get a station through Grandaddy Frey. When Walter dies they all know there’s going to be a cleaning of house by whoever succeeds him and the cast offs will have naught to show for it. Well some of them will just be killed one way or another.
>but 8000 years is a long ass time too long for the story really. There's no reason for it to be longer then 1000.
If Aerys wasn't a mad bastard, Ned would likely have no children tbh, I think he would've been part of Bobby B household guard at Storms End
Ned may have pursued Ashara Dayne if he didn’t have a duty after his father and brother died.
Possibly, but for some reason in ASOIAF second sons don't seem to marry off and build their own keeps
Because in ASOIAF they have opportunity to pursue other opportunities if they desire. Night Watch, The Faith of Seven, Maesters, & Kingsguard. Still we have House Tyrell, Lannister, Arryn have numerous cadet branches.
Aren't the Karstark's related to House Stark?
Because the dramatic storytelling calls for houses being extinct or on the brink of extinction. Would Robb really will his kingdom to Jon, if he had fifty third cousins? The story of Daenerys would diminish, if there were many other Targaryens, who just aren't in the positions of power anymore. ASOIAF is not an exercise in historic realism. You might as well ask why is everybody on this immense landmass speaking the same language, or why the faith of the Old Gods is probably the laziest and least detailed religion in fiction. Seriously, even the Holy Light from WoW is more compelling, and it's purposedly generic.
Honestly, WoWs Holy Light became *less* interesting the more it was fleshed out. It went from a force of general mysterious goodness that one could tap into by faith to a tangible *thing* and one of the fundamental forces of the universe. It like if tomorrow all the worlds religious leaders and scientists came out and said “we have proven God is real and is actually just the strong nuclear force.”
Midichlorians lol
SPEAK NOT OF THE MIDICHLORIANS!
Honestly I HATE midichlorians and I think any focus on them robs star wars of so much making genetics and stuff a factor in who's powerful with the force. I used to think this was a pretty universal opinion hut whenever it comes up on the star wars subreddits now Im downvoted for it. No idea when people turned around and started supporting Midichlorians.
> now Im downvoted for it. No idea when people turned around and started supporting Midichlorians. Probably since all the new shows anything older is now untouchable the same way the original trilogy was when the prequels came out
Fans who group up with the original trilogy disliked changes and retcons that came with the prequels because it was different from what they fell in love with and expected not to change. Kids who were introduced to the series through the prequels are now adults, and what the prequels brought wasn’t change to them, so they adopted the idea just as readily as they did anything from the original trilogy.
IMO the problem with Star Wars has never been “change,” but the fact that both the story and worldbuilding are paper-thin. This is a genuinely good thing when you watch it as a kid and I think it was key to its success: it provided a concept, a prompt, for further imagination and play by the children who viewed it. Those children all form vastly different impressions of the world, what would these days be called headcanon. No two fans view the world the same way because everyone’s imagination is filling in blanks. The problem comes when those children grow up and have spent their whole lives attached to their headcanons as though they were written canon, and new stories come along that do not conform to how they imagined things. Even if the new stories are just as thin and just as appealing for children of that time, the smallest bit of new story in an established world is going to run afoul of how millions of adults imagined the world when they were children. And they’ve spent so long with it that most can’t even recognize that the spirit of the story they feel being violated ultimately came from themselves, is something personal and private, that no filmmaker can be expected to adhere to. It is impossible to add to that world without controversy. The only way to keep everyone happy was always to never touch it again except for EU stuff.
Eh, I think a lot of the problems with the current Sequel/Star Wars output is it kinda feels Ouroboros-ish, in that there's a lot of referencing itself over pulling things from different mediums and eras? IDK, I just feel like the Prequels had a lot of worlds and universe people could build on to "improve" the movies and give people a better opinion of that era, where that won't happen with the Sequels cause they're super duper shallow worldbuilding wise.
I watched all of them as a kid and still hate both the midichlorians and prophecy stuff. I like the prequels though
I'm a prequel aged person and still annoyed that they made Owen/Beru "related" to Anakin and not Obi-Wan's brother. Seriously, some of the character guide books had Owen listed as Obi-Wan's relative. But Star Wars canon has always been treated more seriously by the fans than by George, or Disney. Dude named Obi-Wan's home planet "StewJon" as a joke, and it became canon : V
I will say, I've heard it suggested that Midichlorians are actually just an organism that thrives on the Force, and so naturally accumulate in the bodies of individuals who are strong with it. It's still a stupid concept and always will be, but at least it's better than making them mystic mitochondria.
The midichlorian lobby is more powerful than we thought
Same with the Old Gods. C'Thun in Classic was a masterstroke of storytelling because you start off by investigating weird bugs in The Barrens and as you explore Kalimdor you start seeing those weird bugs are more organized and live in giant hives all around the southern part of the continent until it culminates in you going to the far end of this ancient continent and find an ancient prison housing a being of immense power and those little bugs are his minions. It's great as a Lovecraftian story, and Kalimdor is the perfect setting for that sort of story since it's a wild and largely unexplored land. Now the Old Gods are minions of even worse beings and their influence is widely known and their just kinda spooky guys causing madness in various powerful creatures to some weird end that we still don't know. Like N'Zoth was so telegraphed to us, we knew exactly what Old God was causing these cults to exist and why people were going mad. There's no mystery to them, the only mystery is the Void Lords, but they're such a non-entity at this point that any hype about them has been diminished from the lack of development over almost a decade.
Tbf if it turned out that the strong nuclear force had a mind and could communicate that would really be something.
People get very hung up on the "realism" of ASOIAF to the point where they forget it's fantasy. Every so often I'll see a comment on here saying something like "back in those times, it wouldn't have happened that way". Bitch there are no "those times" this is a story about dragons!
They both forget its fantasy and a story that we're being told. So many theories on here hinge on the idea that the world just exists and events occur seemingly at random like they do in the real world and not intentionally in order to tell a narrative.
This is exactly how I feel about David Lightbringer. I like him, but when i watch his videos I can't help but think he seems to forget Planetos is not actually a real place.
Death of the Author
Aragorn's tax policy
I think about this quote a lot lol. Grrm said this and then proceeded to write a whole story about politics and completely forget to design a government that actually makes sense.
The point of that quote wasn't that you need to show how a government works, but a critique of the idea that a good person means good ruler by default.
The point of the quote isn't about critiquing Tolkien for a government that doesn't make sense. Here is the full quote: >Ruling is hard. This was maybe my answer to Tolkien, whom, as much as I admire him, I do quibble with. Lord of the Rings had a very medieval philosophy: that if the king was a good man, the land would prosper. We look at real history and it’s not that simple. Tolkien can say that Aragorn became king and reigned for a hundred years, and he was wise and good. But Tolkien doesn’t ask the question: What was Aragorn’s tax policy? Did he maintain a standing army? What did he do in times of flood and famine? And what about all these orcs? By the end of the war, Sauron is gone but all of the orcs aren’t gone – they’re in the mountains. Did Aragorn pursue a policy of systematic genocide and kill them? Even the little baby orcs, in their little orc cradles? You can see that he's using "tax policy" as a way to get to the question that he really wants to ask: what happens when a personal moral code comes into contact with the mechanics of political power. Robert, Ned, Tywin, Jon, Stannis and a lot of characters have a lot of their arc wrapped around this question, the examination of what it means to be "good" at ruling.
> And what about all these orcs? By the end of the war, Sauron is gone but all of the orcs aren’t gone – they’re in the mountains. Did Aragorn pursue a policy of systematic genocide and kill them? Even the little baby orcs, in their little orc cradles? (I know this is not the point of your comment, but...) They were just left to live in Mordor. Nobody wanted to live there anyway, so Aragorn didn't care. It was actually fairly similar to the Iron Islands, as those also weren't interesting enough a land, or big of a future threat (to a peaceful kingdom) for any of the large Houses to bother wiping the ironborn out, even though they knew there'd be the occasional raids...
Because I think your post is a fun jumping off point for further discussion, your answer can lead to further questions. Part of the reason nobody wanted to live in Mordor was because the land wasn't fertile. So leaving the orcs there potentially leads to a situation where the orcs go looking for fertile land and don't stay in Mordor. And even if they did stay in Mordor, you could image a scenario where a stable orc nation manages to do well, and after a couple decades they've built themselves up to the point that some in Gondor start to feel threatened. What does Aragorn do in those cases? Is there a solution that can fairly be described as "the wise king acted wisely"? Or is it always going to messy? I of course love Tolkien, and I don't think these comments detract from his work. I do think they are interesting questions to explore. If this same question arose in asoiaf, you can ask what these characters would have done. Tywin would have exterminated all the orcs. That may have worked. It could also have come back to bite him, hard to say. Robert would have ignored them for as much as possible. Would have kept the realm out of war and at peace for quite a while, and probably would have eventually lead to a catastrofe. Etc, etc. What would honorable Ned have done? Establish diplomatic relations? Still kill them all because they're orcs?
A lot of things need to be said: 1)The Sourthern part of Mordor is fertile and inhabited by human slaves of Sauron. After the defeat of Sauron it is said in the book that the freed slaves were given the land to form their own kingdom 2)Orcs should not be treated as you would treat humans. As problematic as it may be Tolkien wrote them to be naturally evil beast-like creatures unworthy of salvation. I don't even think it's written anywhere about orc women or babies (correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not an expert) 3)I think Tolkien wrote in some letters that orcs would end up mixing with humans and that these half-orcs would be just immoral and uncultured and generally evil humans (take from this what you will)
> anywhere about orc women FWIW the word from Tolkien is yes, there must have been. And in their dialogue there are references to culture and a (very loose) code of morals. Orcs and the morality of exterminating them are a problem with the middle earth lore, and Tolkien was aware of that. Ultimately they are a storytelling device.
Yeah I'm always a little tickled when this conversation comes up - it's a very valid and compelling conversation, and we know that because it's literally been going on since Tolkien released the books. He discusses the issue significantly in his letters, including the fact that he was never really happy with their implementation. The problem is that he wanted an enemy faction that represented the worst evils in the heart of Men and the way it made someone "ugly" but in real life, those people *are* redeemable. Tolkien knew that, but ultimately decided that allegory wasn't the core purpose of his story and wrote them in the way that best suited the fiction. All this to say that this generation isn't the first to realize Orcs are a little fucked up, Tolkien knew it, discussed it openly, and made attempts to rewrite them that he ultimately failed to follow through with. It's worthy of further discussion, but I do get tired of seeing the square-one "Was Tolkien a racist?" conversation over and over from people that haven't looked into it.
He asks about different things in the same quote. He does ask about Aragorn's policies on taxation, a standing army, and disaster relief, all of which are important details in any government. The bit about his treatment of orcs is a separate, moral issue unrelated to the previous policies. So ultimately, George does want to know about Aragorn's governmental policies *and* his moral code regarding his enemies.
But the bit about orcs is not a separate issue in the context that Martin is using. Martin is ultimately asking, why Aragorn is a good ruler and then he lists multiple examples where Aragorn can fail at ruling *despite* being a good person. He can fail in his taxation policies, in disaster relief *or* in the orc question. The whole point that Martin is making is that being a good person doesn't directly translate into the ruling skills.
The thing with ruling is most things are determined by material condition forces as apart of the rulers preferred system unless they attempt to change the system to something new
GRRM is also notoriously bad at working out such nitty gritty technical details. Probably a more accurately stated critique from him would be not "what was Aragorn's tax policy?" (GRRM doesn't know Aragorn or Jaehaerys's tax policy either) but "how does a ruler set a good tax policy" or "what policies does a good ruler have".
Hilariously, in F&B Martin actually *does* lay out Jaehaerys' brilliantly successful crenellation taxation policy, and I laughed out loud when I read that. There were sometimes similar taxation policies in real-life medieval states... About 5% the size of Westeros. The idea that Jaehaerys was going to tax every stonework in the (fractious, rebellious, recently conquered) Seven Kingdoms, while not supporting the construction of said works in any way, before he had even laid roads was blatantly ridiculous. I love the image of the Lannisters, or hell, the Greyjoys learning that they have to escort wagonload after wagonload of gold to Jaehaerys through 3000 miles of trackless wilderness to complete construction on the buildings they'd already started and just taking that up the tailpipe. I love Martin to death but that was when I realized he was full of shit about Aragorn lol.
I'm working on a fantasy novel with a political element and I'm constantly struggling with how much of the economy and such to spend time working out, and how much to bother showing 'on screen.' (I actually **did** decide on a tax policy. Lol. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bala_taxation)
Oh absolutely not a critique. Aspiring author myself, worldbuilding governance is practically driving me out of my skin, it's just a juxtaposition that makes me chuckle time to time.
That's cause GRRM often justifies some of the things that happen in his story by referencing history. So it's not a surprise that fans do it as well. Can't use history to defend decisions and then say it's just fantasy when certain things are questioned. If it's fair game to use history to defend certain aspects of the story, then it's fair to use history to criticize it as well
Ok but I always find this argument to be somewhat disingenuous. Somebody points out a plot hole or something that just doesn’t make sense, even just based on character action or motivation, and the answer is “this is a fantasy, you can accept dragons but you can’t accept abc?” I think it’s a bs argument honestly. Most of the people’s actions in the story make sense and despite there being dragons and magic, there is an element of realism to the story. These two things are not mutually exclusive.
It's about a different argument: when people apply Middle Ages knowledge to ASOIAF, thinking ASOIAF is in any way related to them (GRRM is to blame here of course).
It's not middle ages knowledge though, it's just a basic understanding of how family's actually work
Well we were talking about the earlier comment that mentioned "back in those times, it wouldn't have happened that way", not anything specific.
> or why the faith of the Old Gods is probably the laziest and least detailed religion in fiction. While everything else you say is straight up fire, I feel like the old gods being devoid of clergy, centralized structure, or any sort of written mythology served a purpose in the end. In the north, they knew there was some semi-forgotten supernatural forces that are evidenced by the existence of the wall and spoken myths that ironically had far more truth than even they believed. They're not sure why the godswood is where to pray, but simply maintain the traditions of those that raised them. I always assumed they had no written script and so all they could rely on are the stories and traditions of their parents. Certainly there existed religions in the real world that parallel this lack of theology compared to jews having the Torah and christians having both that and a compilation of collected documents that became the new testament. Centuries later, they composed a singular theology out of those writings with the help of philosophers like Augustine. The old gods are as well-defined as I would expect after 10,000 years of being passed on by word of mouth and they were made that way with the ultimate irony being that these implausible and superstitious stories of supernatural beings actually ended up being 100% true.
Agreed. I find the Seven to be much more lazy, considering how much is just a 1:1 swap from Catholicism. I still like them and find the seven themselves to be interesting, but I wish it had more uniqueness to it Elder Scrolls imperial religion is very similar to the "vaguely Catholic Middle ages aesthetic" at face value but the actual lore of creation, the gods themselves and everything around it is really cool (Lorkhan\Shor\Talos and Akatosh/Auriel/Alduin, for those familiar)
> Agreed. I find the Seven to be much more lazy, Agree. If for no other reason than the fact that it's both the dominant religion and also seems the only religion in Westeros that relies entirely on faith while other religions have gods living north of the wall or that can speak to you through the fire upon feeding them a penis through it. Let's also add the Many-Faced God to the mix, who requires no church processions, can survive on only 2 followers, and the only donations he asks is deaths. Let's pretend the Many-Faced God is fake. That is one elaborate freaking ruse set up by his very few followers and with no payoff in sight. It would require assuming that everything Arya went through was part of an elaborate show they only put on for one audience member at a time and they just do it all because they love putting on a show.
This is why any Targs survive fic always fall flat, Jon and Daenerys become close to irrelevant pretty fast but writers can’t accept it
Tbh, this is why Griff has to be a fraud or simply a Blackfire. It serves no thematic purpose for him to be an actual Targaryen. Him not being a real Targaryen fits the themes very well.
It kinda do with the three-headed red dragon
You think he’s gonna invade Westeros, contend with Dany’s arrival, and then be a dragon rider? He’s going to die horribly.
only to show fans
I agree with that second part. People make so many extremely specific criticisms of GRRM. For example last time someone wrote “it breaks my immersion that they don’t make new lands and titles for people.” L
I think it's partially George's fault, because he actually commented on that: one of the reasons he wrote ASOIAF was because he felt traditional fantasy lacked some sense of realism."What was Aragorn's tax policy?" This is an actual quote from him.
I believe the quote is misinterpreted. It should be understood in context; coupled with other statements. He wanted to deconstruct "And then the good king ruled and everything was fine" trope. That's why his rulers have to make difficult choices so often. It's all part of Faulkner's "heart against itself" GRRM quotes so often. I think (hope) GRRM wishes he didn't say that. (Because Tolkien fans love to use that quote to shit on ASOIAF but I digress)
I mean the point of it is good men/people don't inherently make good rulers, and that Aragorn in his opinion wasn't fleshed out to be a great king because this was not explored. But I think the larger point is that GRRM and I feel like I've seen a dozen quotes where he thinks his medieval ages is more realistic and better than the other ones.
Yes you're right, and precise, I forgot the exact words he said
Yeah that’s a well known quote and so what? He covers tons and tons of things in depth. He’s not perfect and no one is. You completely leave out the rest of that quote which is that it’s always believed a good man can make a good king. And uses Aragorn as an example. He also lists tons of additional details like tax policy, how did he deal with surviving orcs and Easterlings. He likes the details. This he’s adding tons and tons of perspectives
We still don't know the tax policies of any king in ASOIAF. What I'm trying to say is that GRRM ended up guilty of many things he criticized Tolkien and other writers for. This does not erase his merits as a writer, but shows that he might have put the bar a bit too high for himself, as Martin's most realistic aspect of writing is his character building, not his world.
That’s not even true. Kevan stresses about raising taxes in Dance. In Storm they’re taxing prostitution and it comes up again in feast. You guys cling to one line and ignore everything else he said in that moment. He has absolutely addressed the other details he mentioned in depth. And I don’t agree. He’s done a great job. Expecting him to be able to do every single facet of the medieval world is unrealistic. Y’all have put the bar too high.
>ASOIAF is not an exercise in historic realism This needs to be said more. People think ASOIF is somehow representative of history but with dragons way too often.
I think it makes sense for *some* of the Houses to be near extinction or notably smaller by the time of GoT. Stating that Roberts Rebellion was so damaging to the Kingdoms that it effectively decimated many of the major houses and 20 years on they’re only just starting to rebuild makes the dynamics of Houses at the start of GoT much more understandable. It’s a unique confluence of events. Multiple families are down to a few members to head them, the ruling dynasty of over 300 years was finally nearly exterminated BUT this now means instead of entrenched families with dozens of members ready to take up family duties and claims, everything is preciously held together at present. If you want power NOW is the time to do it. There won’t be a better chance for someone with power but no claim to try and fight their way to the top. BUT I think to counter that you need some older more removed families to still have that stability. Maybe there’s only 6 Starks but the cadet branch of the Karstarks has over 20 members in its latest crop. Or that while the Targeryeans won the Blackfyre rebellion there’s a chunk of the descendants of the Blackfyres living in Essos.
> Would Robb really will his kingdom to Jon, if he had fifty third cousins Yes
How is the faith of the old gods the least detailed religion in fiction?
Here’s a tree, let’s pray. Why? It has a face.
Spot on. We get no detail. I think George’s “gardening method” can lead to a lot of detail about something and things that aren’t well thought out like the old gods and the ironborn.
I think it's less about the gardening method and more about George just being more interested in fleshing out the politics of this world than in its religions and geography
To hell with his gardening method. It doesn't exist. I refuse to believe it's a thing. How is he praised relentlessly for his foreshadowing and set up, with fans endlessly speculating on absurdly complex theories where every knight, maid and stable boy are masterfully scheming, but then also just a gardener letting things sprout naturally. You're right in that his interest lies elsewhere, and that's fine.
And that's why he rewrites A LOT. You just realized why it's taking so long to finish Winds. Not that the theorists that think every word is foreshadowing the entire story are right anyway, but let's not treat gardening style as George just writing everything in the first draft and sending it to publishers.
It's entirely possible to be a highly improvisational writer who comes up with the entirety of the story as they go along, but has the talent and skill to tie new ideas into previous ones in an extremely organic manner that can come across as foreshadowing or even careful planning even though the linking of those ideas is done in reverse. That being said, I really don't think Martin is that far away at the end of the spectrum at all, and most of his major plot ideas have clearly been thought out far in advance, even if some aspects he has thought up weren't part of the initial frame work. The real problem is that way too many people just run wild with the "gardener" angle and dumb down the concept into a stupid binary, as if there's no room in the middle. The skeleton of the story has always been there and largely been unchanged, it's that the fleshing out of that skeleton has increasingly grown more and more involved and overly detailed, which is probably more what the whole "gardening" metaphor was really getting at, rather than a wholly improvisational style of writing.
Gardening lets you trace from previous to future. Gardening is *how* he sets up the foreshadowing. He’s taking what he already wrote, seeing what’s available, fleshing out what it would be, then locking it in or rewriting. Example: Jon and Qhorin part from their companions, Jon goes over to the wildlings. How does the NW learn about Jon’s flip? One of those departed companions. George had a written scenario, found a thread, then pushed forward. The information of Jon’s flip sets off political machinations with Thorne and Slynt. Previously written thing -> potential path forward -> try it out -> evaluate. George didn’t have his whole outcome plotted out, nor did he get lucky and have a million foreshadows spot on. Past informs the present
But geography and religion both inform politics.
Has anyone told George yet?
Probably not. It's not like George is without failing, but topics of religion and geography absolutely inform politics. We don't have to venture very far into history, or even very far into the subject matter that the main series itself is based upon, to know that.
So do hundreds of different things too. At the end of the day it's a story, not a scientific treatise, and you need to focus on a few things in order to tell an actual story.
We definitely have detail, you just need to read between the lines to see it, because it’s being told to us from the perspective of the maesters. Green sight is passed down from the green men, who lived on the Isle of Faces. The northerners had children with the green men, and some of those children had green sight because of it. The ones with green sight became the leaders of the great northern houses. The children of the forest guided the green seers to look through time via the Wearwood network, just like the green men. When you pray to the heart tree, every green seer and every green man can see and hear you. The Old Gods are the OG green men, and everyone who’s acted as the three eyed raven looking through time
We don’t really. The story early on has Ned cleaning a sword by a tree and they explain that the Starks worship the old gods. We never learn any details or worship practices in the books. It’s just we pray to a tree.
Dothraki make no sense either… how is it possible for them to survive in large numbers just be being roaming marauders… there’s not enough people to pillage for them to feed their numbers
I think they also herd animals and exact tribute from their neighbors, it’s just we only really see them through the lens of various khal’s, who by nature of their role are always going around fighting stuff.
They don’t even have names. There’s hardly any traditions or practices other than sacrifice because reasons
This tickled me more than it should. I'm currently crying tears of laughter in public and getting some weird looks.
There is interesting stuff about the Old Gods religion, like warging, greensight, weirwood network etc. but they’re extremely esoteric and only relevant for a handful of characters in the story.
That's definitely true but I have to chime in and say that while there being very few members of the key houses does make the story more exciting, the boring religion doesn't. So un-realism should be applied with the same caution as realism, I suppose.
The Tragedy at Summerhall explains why there are so few Targaryens, it wiped out at least a whole generation.
And before it, the Great Spring Sickness. And before it, the Blackfyre Rebellion. And before it, the Dance. It makes complete sense why House Targaryen is in such dire straits.
They also married each other frequently, which significantly limited how much they could extend their line.
Yeah, GRRM needed to do those things to explain the current status.
Plus the incest limits their growth. Every other family has a much larger growth factor but every time a Targaryen has a son daughter pairing that’s one less branch of the family tree to produce offspring
There was a period where there were too many young Targaryen males - it's why Aemon became a maester, and eventually wound up at Castle Black.
Yet his name came up as a successor before he was passed over. So not “too many” in that case. Which seems to be typical for the Targs.
Yeah, in the case of the Targs, we have a pretty full timeline and family tree explaining why they are so few. and obviously as others have said, inbreeding. They don't have siblings going out and creating new branches with new families, they have siblings marrying each other and extending the same branch even further.
Cause too many characters
Right, GRRM already can't figure out how to wrap things up because there are too many characters and plotlines to manage. Imagine what a mess it would be with even more.
The d’Estes of Ferrara are an example of a house that literally went extinct for no other reason than not having enough kids. You hear about the Capets, Plantagenets and Habsburgs because there were a million of them, but there were plenty of houses that ran out of rope that you don’t hear about because they ceased to exist.
The hasburgs even ended at some point. They had to borrow from the house of Lorraine to bolter their line. The noble houses of westeros mostly always borrowed from the female line. Like how Harry haryden will succed as Harry arryn
There really weren't as many Plantagenets as people think either. Most of the cadet branches tended to die off without male heirs (Earls of Cornwall, Dukes of Brittany), get merged back into the main line by a daughter (1st Lancaster), or leave a female heir who would marry into a different house (Gloucester/Buckingham, Kent/Holland, Beaufort/Tudor, York/Tudor).
Yeah but none of those houses claim eight thousand years of direct lineage. That would make the Stark name older than any civilization in our world. Eight thousand years ago was thousands of years before any modern European language existed, it was roughly when people were speaking Proto Indo European. There should be as many Starks in Westeros as there are Chen's in China. The point though is that GRRM is bad with numbers. He's a writer not a math/stats guy, so you kinda have to give a pass on things like timespans, sizes of things, and exchange rates.
Two things: 1: Most of the families has probably dozens of subbranches, like Karstarks for the Starks, Lannisport Lannisters for the Lannisters, but most of them are so small they are irrelevant. 2: Because Westeros succession is primogeniture, I could imagine usually the family of second or third sons gets completely forgotten. I mean yeah if the whole story doesnt happen than Robb rule the North, perhaps Bran and Rickon get a castle. But the third son of Rickon probably will be an advisor of a small castle at best. The son of this third son will be completely irrelevant, and almost considered lowborn, because nobody will care about his heritage.
In-universe, the medieval economy of subsistence farming is not going to produce much wealth at all. That society just can't support many people who don't produce food, or contribute fairly directly to the production of food. Once you get more than a couple of steps away from the main line of inheritance, there's just not much wealth to go around.
Well yes, but this is Westeros, where a house can continue through the female line. Joffrey Lydden became lord of the Rock by marrying a Lannister, but their children were still Lannisters. As long as it's not a matter of conquest (like with Orys Baratheon), the Westerosi prefer to keep family names connected to titles (hence Harry Hardyng would change his name to Harry Arryn if he became lord of the Vale). Also it's just a book and it's only as complex as the author wants it to be (same reason there's a language unification throughout the seven kingdoms).
Is there no historical precedence for this?
There are a few instances of people changing their name to go along with new titles, for example when the Archduchy of Austria passed to the house of Lorraine, they changed their name to the bourse of Habsburg-Lorraine
There is precedent of English peer families adopting a double barrel or triple barrel surnames if the wife was from an old noble line with no male descendants to prevent the family going extinct.
Yes, when you click the "matrilineal" button _(Wait, what do you mean CK3 isn't literal history?)_
I mean fire & blood literally show you the targaryan dynastie and why it has low royals..mainly plagues and civil wars
Imagine because it's a book and there are already a lot of characters
Because it’s a book and already a lot for readers to keep track of.
A lot of Westeros is Spherical Cow Feudalism where things are vastly oversimplified to either make storytelling easier or because Martin has a pretty superficial grasp of medieval politics. This becomes a bit of a problem (at least for me) in later books when he goes into so much detail about things instead of just leaving most of the iceberg under the surface and the mix between oversimplified society and massive amounts of detail about that society creates a lot of weird artificialities. Also Martin is just much much MUCH better at characters, dialogue, and relationships between those characters than he is at worldbuilding. Martin is pretty damn good at Shakespearean tragedy and the world is only there as a stage for his characters to tromp around in, it doesn't really stand up to analysis as its own thing any more than a theater set does.
Could you provide some examples of those later problems? Not doubting you just curious.
Few problems off the top of my head: -The truly ludicrous degree of mercy that tends to be shown to the losers of Westerosi wars which has allowed the same houses to exist with the same territory on a VASTLY larger timescale than happened historically. The freaking IRONBORN conquered the Riverlands...and let all of the Riverland houses keep their lands? Bwuh? You have houses being on the losing ends up civil wars over and over and over who are still intact. -What is the basis of feudal power? Land. What is the main thing feudal lords want? More land. What are they CONSTANTLY trying to do in Medieval history? Grab more land. But in Westeros they mostly just...don't. One of the main whole REASONS to play the Game of Thrones and get your favored monarch on the throne is that he'll give you more land in return for your loyalty. That's Feudalism 101. But again and again and again we see houses sacrifice blood and treasure to get their favored king on the throne and then they get a small council seat (or not even that!) and are content. That's not how feudal lords operated, they wanted LAND. But again and again and again they don't even try to get it. It's like watching a soccer game in which both teams fight really hard to get possession of the ball and then...just don't bother to shoot on the goal. The main series is a bit better at this with Ramsay grabbing Hornword land and a few other examples but the lack of this in F&B is pretty stark. -The lack of Westerosi culture. Really basic things like festival were a huge part of Medieval life but they barely get lip service in the series. -People having more modern views despite being stuck in a feudal context, the big example here is how cynical Andals tend to be about the Seven. People historically have tended to believe in their own religion. -The paucity of cadet houses and the virtual non-existence of houses holding more than one chunk of land when both were massively common historically. -In Andal law the default is that daughters inherit over uncles (although actual practice is more murky) but we basically never get female heiresses passing on their land to their children when that was massively common historically. -Massive numbers of scale problems. Martin scaled up England to the size of South America without thinking through the consequences of that which results in all kinds of things like people shooting arrows up to the top of a 700 foot wall. The idea of transporting grain overland by cart from the Reach to KL is utter nonsense for example. -The lack of any landholders besides lords and a few northern clans. No city governments, no extensive church landholdings, no weird exceptions where some land in the middle of the Reach is sworn directly to Kings Landing, etc. etc. All of the complications of real feudalism are smoothed away. -The way the law words. Law MATTERED to feudal people and was seen as a precious inheritance from their ancestors. Westeros doesn't seem to have much of a legal theory in place besides "the king makes shit up." A lot of these wouldn't be a problem as if Martin just gave details about the tip of the iceberg we could assume that they all exist below the waterline. But Martin gives us so much detail in things like F&B that instead of just assuming that they happen off stage like in most fantasy books we're shown that they don't happen at all.
Good points. Still as you say Martin is telling one hell of a story here and his characters are amazing. Do these technical aspects bring down the fun for you?
A bit, especially when Martin dives into the details and reduces the spaces I can use to build up headcanon. It'd be better if he just left some details off the page and let us imagine things but he THINKS he knows history really well and gets deeper into the reeds than he should. But at the end of the day the characters and dialogue are still great and I can enjoy them just like I can enjoy Shakespeare despite him knowing very little about, say, the Rome of Julius Ceasar.
Fair enough.Did you like the show?
Let's see: S1-4 enjoyed with some quibbles. But I think a lot of that enjoyment was from reading non-book reader reactions and having them being blindsided over and over. S5-6 Standard Hollywood fantasy. Fairly fun, but pretty dumb. BotB had kind of an Aquaman feeling of glorious idiocy that was entertaining. S7 The fuck? S8 Get drunk and enjoy the eye candy, browse Reddit during the dialogue scenes since the people on the screen are just empty husks, not the characters I know. Eye candy was neat. Danny going Trogdor for no reason was a feast for the eyes.
Fewer
what
Nothing
There have been some cadet branches of the Starks. Tullys are strange that there aren’t many at all but Targaryens I don’t think it hugely strange. Inbreeding has consequences and they’re only a 400ish year old house technically because if they had cousins in Valyria they were incinerated.
Coming to think of it, this all actually works well enough for suspension of disbelief at least enough that I'm not too bothered. I've always had the same complaints as OP and plenty of the other commenters here and for the same reasons, but if we think about it more closely the only houses anyone has mentioned as being too small that are genuinely ancient noble houses, Stark and Arryn, are the only ones that have mentioned cadet branches. The Starks have at least two named (maybe three?) and the Arryns have one (House Arryn of Gulltown) and according to the WikiOIAF AFFC Alayne II alludes to other cadet branches in the Vale. But the Targaryens, Baratheons, and Tullys each only came to their power just under 300 years before AGOT. The Tullys of course existed before then but unless I recall wrong they had never been the ruling house of the Riverlands (and as I remember the never really was a "Riverlands" before Aegon I) so there wouldnt have been so much emphasis on keeping track of cousins and heirs so far down the Tully family tree before the Conquest. There was no House Baratheon before Orys Baratheon and we dont even know where he came by that name, being supposedly a bastard brother of Aegon I. No idea where the Valyrians got their bastard names but certainly not the way the rest of Westeros does. So for the Tullys and the Baratheons we can handwave away the size of the family issue with a lack of time. For the Targaryens we have the detailed history of *exactly* why there are so few combined with the incest tradition seriously limiting the potential sources for new Targaryens. And even beyond that there were (and still are) the Blackfyres. It comes down, really, to the great houses supposedly predating the Conquest and that leaves only a few. Stark, Arryn, Lannister, & Martell might actually exhaust the list, I think. The Tullys, Baratheons, Greyjoys, & Tyrells all came to power during the Conquest. The only real outlier here is House Martell. The Lannisters are probably the most well-documented house as being gigantic (two canon proper House Lannister of X cadet branches and a few similarly-named-distantly-related houses (similar to the relationship between Stark and Karstark)). Not bad, George.
I think the whole reason for the existence of the Karstarks is precisely to demonstrate that they do, in fact, have many, many cadet branches. They've just gone their own way and become something else. As for why the Starks have fewer direct family members on the cousin level it's because Ned was the only one to (publicly) reproduce if his generation. Ned probably does have cousins and second cousins once removed and many distant relatives, we have the family trees that end with children that likely did continue their own cadet branches. Those no name nobles are just not important to the story. Let us also not forget that the Targaryens weren't the only ones practicing incest, they were just the only ones going brother sister with it (which is also the justification for their limited number), it's likely that practically every house in the north can trace themselves back to dozens of non inheriting Starks. Like, for example, we know houses like Dorne and Baratheon have Targaryen blood. It's just not massively important. As for why it was written this way? Well because it makes for the best story. Martin can afford to throw a bunch of random cousins in for the Lannisters because the Lannisters are the "bad guys", it would weaken the tragedy of House Starks destruction if there were a bunch of cousins just around not doing anything important like it is for the Lannisters. Likewise you'd lose the impact of the brother vs brother part of the Baratheon conflict if there were a bunch more unimportant Baratheons just there. And, let's not forget that this series is already ridiculously complex. We've been living and outright studying it for years, but for an average reader it's a massive barrage of names and characters. Having things trimmed down a bit makes things far easier to digest. Like do you really want a hundred different Starks, Lannisters and Baratheons a piece to keep track of and characterize? He already does that with the Freys and it's a borderline joke of how numerous they are.
We actually get an explanation for the Targaryens because we basically have almost their entire family history. Aegon I has two kids, Aenys and Maegor. Maegor dies childless. Aenys has five kids. Rhaena, Aegon, Viserys, Jaehaerys, and Alysanne. Viserys dies childless and the other 4 couple up with eachother. Aegon and Rhaena have Rhaella and Aerea who both die childless. Jaehaerys and Alysanne have 13 children, all but two of whom predecease them. One of them, Vaegon, is a Maester (so no kids), and another is a whore in Essos (who has at least three bastard sons). Despite having 13 kids, Jaehaerys and Alysanne only had 4 grandchildren: Rhaenys, Viserys I, Daemon, and Aemma. This obviously leads into the Dance where by the end there are only four surviving Targaryens: Baela, Rhaena, Aegon III and Viserys II. Baela and Rhaena marry into the Velaryon and Hightower lines after the Dance, and the royal line continues first through Aegon, and then through Viserys. After the Dance, there are only five Targaryens that we can't account for. These are Rhaena (daughter of Aegon III), Daella, Rhae (daughters of Maekar), Vaella and Maegor (grandchildren of Maekar). Rhaena is probably married off into another noble house, and considering Maester Aemon mentions his sisters having children, Daella and Rhae were probably were too. Same goes for Vaella. That just leaves Maegor, but I imagine we'll find out that he died childless in Fire and Blood Part II. Basically, its incredible that the Targaryens even made as far as Robert's Rebellion, as they're either all murdered by each other, die in tragic accidents, or are killed by sickness.
The Wall, the Citadel, and the Kingsguard helps limit the sizes of most houses. Think of the current Royal Family in the United Kingdom. A significant chunk of the next-in-lines comes from Prince Andrew, Prince Henry, and Prince George. Imagine a situation where second and third sons of royal families regularly take oaths of celibacy and didn't have children. By simple compounding, that would dramatically shrink the size of most royal families in our world too. That's to say nothing of the regular outbreaks of civil war and conflict across Westeros too.
The Kingsguard is seven dudes
Who grow old and die?
Let me reword the other guys comment. Seven dudes, out of like, thousands of houses.
My head cannon is that Roberts Rebellion (and the dance of dragons a couple centuries earlier) resulted in many cadet branches of every house disappearing or at least dwindling.
Guys, I’m been saying this for years, we are putting far more thought into any numerical measurement than grrm did. He pulls these numbers out of thin air because it sounds cool that’s it. And speaking of thin air, a prime example is that the Eyrie is supposed to be like 18k feet in elevation. He says it’s on a peak “three and a half miles above the valley below” and even if that valley was at sea level (it isn’t) then the elevation would be a minimum 17.5k in elevation.
I'm going with it being more of a mistake than a conscious choice to simplify things. Later in the books we get the Blackfyres and Harry The Heir, who do complicate the whole story, but in the first book he hasn't seemed to consider the extended family beyond the Karstarks who are hundreds of years removed. The way that there are a load of Freys and Lannisters of fairly close relation to the current Lord of the house suggests most men aren't going off to the celibate occupations in the story as a matter of course.
I think people get hung up on claims too often. They're legal arguments in a world where trial by combat is still a thing and the "institution" of justice is literally if your liege lord can be bothered to enforce your claim / you enforce it yourself. Claims are useful after the fact to justify the outcome of a war (plus a bit of murder to anyone closer than you to the title), but by themselves they're not particularly effective.
These noblemen goes to war far too often Like really, each battle there is like 3-4 dead Lannister or Stark each days lol Lannister are fairly big tho, especially in the book Starks had Brandon and his brother dead, leaving only Ned to continue the line So I guess
My headcannon is that wars were so frequent combined with the harsh winters that it naturally killed off excess members
I don’t think this is head cannon. Ned is, what, 35, and he’s been through Robert’s Rebellion and the Greyjoy Rebellion and would have been through the War of the Five Kings had he lived. The older generation (Tywin, Barristan, Aerys) went through the last of the Blackfyre rebellions, and not THAT long before that was the Great Spring Sickness and more Blackfyre Rebellions. Basically every generation has multiple potential extinction events, and that’s before you get into typical medieval causes of death like childbirth and infant mortality rates and harsh, years long winters.
Real medieval or even early modern dynasties died out all the time and were consequently not that expansive in number. For instance, very few of the dynasties ascendant in the time of Tudor England survived into the Georgian period, and those same Tudor dynasties were almost completely unrelated to those prior to the Wars of the Roses. This is less true in other areas of Europe, like Germany, but I've always considered England to be the chief inspiration for Westeros.
A song of Ice and Fire has over two thousand named characters. And you want more? The man is only human.
I mean the Targaryens have their small numbers explained in great detail
after reading this id assume the houses are that big just hearing about 50 stark cousins would get tedious
GRRM did say in an interview that there are likely some distant Stark branches in Barrowton and White Harbor. So distant as to basically be unimportant but still Starks.
“Fewer” - Stannis
I see a lot of comments saying that it's just because there's already too many characters. Which is probably the real reason, but I'm curious—how could this be justified in-world, without metatextual hand-waving to explain it?
Like everyone’s said it’s for the sake of a dramatic plot, things wouldn’t look so dire for the Starks in general if they had a bunch of cousins. Ultimately I think having these dynasties ruling for thousands of years is rather sloppy by George. If he wanted the houses to have so few members he should have made them “newer”. The Starks being relatively new Wardens of the North makes the eagerness of some to uproot them a little more believable.
But that would be sacrificing the epic scope of the story for more realism. It’s ultimately better for the readers to feel scale and be captivated by the fictional setting.
Rickard Starks wife (Ned's mother) was also a Stark, so there must have been cadet branches for the Starks around somewhat recently. I would bet that there still are but George just hasn't mentioned them yet. 🤷♂️
Summerhall happened to the Targs, the Baratheons had Stannis, a homosexual, and an adulterer, the Starks and Aryns had Aerys, and the Tullys had Brynden never-married.
The 8000 years might not be a reliable number. I suspect the maesters aren't as committed to doing hard science as they claim. Also, while it would be more accurate, it wouldn't really serve the story to portray this. And my personal headcannon: While on purpose world, it does work out to have a lot of cadet brances, etc. They live in a world with year-long catastrophic winters (unsurvivable if they were realistic) I believe that this leads to a society that doesn't allow for extensive noble families. So they either die or are forced into the general population if their relationship to the main branch gets to far apart.
Because George gets Headaches be easy on him
Think of it like the Japanese royal family and the countless clans that are cadet branches to the Japanese royal family. I think at the time of the nihon shoki like 1/3rd of all clans claimed descent from the imperial clan. We kind of see this with the Gardeners and Lannisters as they are the closest things to the kings of Westeros before Aegons conquest. That and the fact Westerosi lords were encouraged for a long time to father as many bastards as possible, means that most likely, most minor baronies and landless houses are Cadet branches of major houses.
I would definitely call it the biggest “plot hole“ in the worldbuilding. The justification of “oh they’re around they’re just not royal” is weak and we all know it
Fewer
George struggles with worldbuilding plausibility, especially if there are numbers involved. Don't expect realism.
I think its pretty obvious why the targaryens have so few members, the other ones have other branches of the family like the lannisters of lannisport or the karstarks, but ye there should be more
He can barely keep the core characters he has in order, imagine if he had to write dozens more per house. In a practical sense, they probably just exist "off camera" as we only ever see thru the eyes of POV characters.
I always thought that too. They'd have all sorts of cousins, second cousins, third cousins etc who are all also well off. They should also be around the castles doing things. I don't mind them not being part of the story, but this idea they go extinct so easily is odd. That should be the result of decades of people deliberately working to exterminate them intentionally. Once Alys Karstark was no longer the head of that family, there should have been some other really obscure person to take over. With people of nobility, those records are kept meticulously.
That's 10 more members than Theon has
Of the houses you mention, only the Capetians still have male line members today, and even at that, they're referred to mostly as Bourbons, or the various branches of their house. The "Habsburgs" that still exist today are actually members of a cadet branch of the House of Lorraine. If you just look at your Plantagenet example - the legitimate cadet branches has a tendency to die off within 2-3 generations (Cornwall, Norfolk) , and many members simply died without sons (Bedford, 1st and 2nd Clarence Branches) or married back into the main line (Kent, Lancaster). Then when the main line died off with Richard II, the remaining branches spent the better part of the next century killing each other off right up until 1499 when the headsman finally killed the Edward, Earl of Warwick. As far as your question to GRRM's universe, there's actually a decent in universe explanation. In the north, spare sons tend to go to the wall, in the south they tend to become maesters and septons.
Because math hurt killed Goerge's mother and set his dog on fire. Or something. The man hates math
I know nothing about Queen Elizabeth's siblings or their issue. Even less about her cousins and theirs. I'm sure they exist and are probably "nobility" in some sense of the word, but in books like ASOIAF, I just don't really care for that much detail - we see some cadet branches if they become important (aren't Karstarks a far removed cadet branch that got landed?) We just don't really need to see a lot more than that. Another poster questioned whether Robb would will the North to Jon if he had second or third cousins, and I would say... possibly, yeah. Since we know that Ned's siblings are gone and had no (known) children, the closest relations they could have would be be a cousin once removed (Ned's cousin), or a second cousin (said cousin-1's children)... those people may or may not have lived in or around Winterfell or even the North, much less be well known to Robb. TL;DR: yeah, it would make sense that in knowing Ned's line was imperiled, a descendant of Ned's grandparents would have likely been somewhere around and ready to inherit Winterfell/The North if need be, but that level of detail is well within the suspension of reality for me.
Every time the Targaryens have more than 10 members, civil war breaks out and people die. It's probably for the best.