Well the wiki says the Weeping Lady is dominant in Lys and it does make sense when you consider her portfolio for her to have some significant following even among salves. Also if Free City slavery is more roman than colonial, as you said when be were disusing slave transport ships, slaves should not outnumber free men (not necessarily citizens the larger category).
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Stark Quest 2.0: The Protector of Pentos
- Thread starter Mazrick
- Start date
Well the wiki says the Weeping Lady is dominant in Lys and it does make sense when you consider her portfolio for her to have some significant following even among salves. Also if Free City slavery is more roman than colonial, as you said when be were disusing slave transport ships, slaves should not outnumber free men (not necessarily citizens the larger category).
Sure, we want the throne, but pillage and plunder isn't all that much in this case. The Iron Islands are poor, so probably aren't that great for looting.
Maybe. The context of losing his son and heir makes things somewhat different - more of a personal war than a rebellion. We'll just have to see how it goes.
I doubt anyone would claim he's weak. He did the same thing in Robert's Rebellion, and while people don't like him he's not seen as weak.
What's your evidence that R'hllor is the majority religion in Tyrosh? The wiki doesn't state so, and there's not even noted to be a major temple. (the only temple I see noted is one to Trios, a three-headed god [makes me wonder if this is the god favoring Jon and Dany])
The only Free City where there's any evidence that R'hllor is the majority religion is Volantis, and even there they don't enjoy the support of the government. (evidence for the first point is that someone told Jorah that they thought R'hllor had more worshipers there than all the other gods combined, and the latter is evidenced by the fact that one of the city leaders tried to hire the Golden Company to kill Benerro) Their private army - the Fiery Hand - numbers only 1,000 and never more or less.
R'hllor worship is a large religion, but it's not the majority in most of the Free Cities by all appearances, and very importantly doesn't control the governments of any of them. Any crusade against Pentos would be independent, not backed by governments, likely without Shardbearers giving support, and would mostly be comprised of people who aren't trained. The rumors would diplomatically put us in the right anyways, as we have two high ranking witnesses who can attest to the high priest trying to kill us. We can also probably swing an alliance of some kind with Braavos, which being the most powerful of the Free Cities should be a good deterrent against blatant aggression. The rulers of the Free Cities would probably very much discourage the formation of a private religious army, as well, just because it threatens their own rule.
LOL no. Benerro's abolitionism seems more based on his seeing Dany as being Azor Ahai and her own abolitionism rather than his personal desire for it. And then there's the simple fact that R'hllor's followers believe all other gods are false and are in reality demons. The priest he tried to sent to Dany outright told Victarion Greyjoy that his Drowned God was one, and if that's the representative he chose to send to Azor Ahai you can probably guess he believes the same. The Old Gods to him are demons. Working with him isn't likely to ever happen.
Page 262, AWoIaF, 'bondsmen outnumber freedmen three to one', when discussing Myr, Lys, and Tyrosh. Three quarters of the urban population are slaves.
They're poor, save for eight millennia of plunder, which means they're not poor in loot.
Attacking would still be breaking the King's Peace - any can you see Robert not kicking off?
There's a reason he felt it necessary to sack King's Landing and murder Rhaegar's family.
AWoIaF, page 261, 'Each has its own gods, although the red priesthood of Rh'hllor holds sway in all of them...' discussing Myr, Lys, and Tyrosh.
R'hllor is the dominant god in the four southern free cities. In Volantis, the nobility is well aware that the red priests are more powerful than them.
So? He obviously had zero problem with it, and it was clearly compatible with church doctrine.
R'hllor's faith doesn't actually say that other gods are demons. Just that they aren't gods. The Red Priests have managed to coexist perfectly happily wiht th eother religions in southern Essos for a thousand years, even where they're the largest and have the power to eliminate them.
The Old Gods are almost certainly ascended Greenseers anyway.
Also, the Drowned God is obviously Cthulu. If anything qualifies as a demon, it's him
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Good to know. That contradicts your idea of roman style slavery in the Free Cities though. This many slaves implies an ideological de-humanization of slaves like the colonial states or Sparta, if you prefer. We are definitely not using former slaver ships to move wildlings to Essos.
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PKRudeboy
Gentleman Snarker
Holds sway doesn't necessarily mean majority. It just means that they are quite influential. It could just as easily mean that they hold a plurality out of many religions, or are the best organized.
Not necceassrily. A third of the Italian population was enslaved at some parts of the Rupublican period.
A better model is probably the Ottoman one, which had very high urban slave proportions.
Doesn't really matter as far as we're concerned, which is why the word I used was dominant.
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notmi
Super Koala God Super Koala
I'm totally for doing everything possible to fuck over the Iron Islands. If we can manipulate things to get Robert to declare war on them, that's probably the best possible thing that could happen.
As an aside, can someone explain to me how having a slave population larger than the free population actually works, as in how is it sustainable for more than a handful of years?
As an aside, can someone explain to me how having a slave population larger than the free population actually works, as in how is it sustainable for more than a handful of years?
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"Holds Sway" != "Has Majority". They are a large religion with influence, but that doesn't mean they're the majority religion in those three cities. Hell, you could say that the Jewish faith holds sway politically in the US, but they aren't even close to the majority. I would guess that they have quite a bit of wealth to throw around, but that doesn't mean they're going to be able to rile the Free Cities into war.
Harlon is not Azor Ahai and would not likely ever be viewed as such, and given Dany will become the staunch ally of Harlon, Champion of the Tree Demons, she isn't likely to either. Even if we hatch dragons, he'll probably not like us.
"Your Drowned God is a demon, he is no more than a thrall of the Other, the dark god whose name must not be spoken." - Moqorro, to Victarion Greyjoy
GRRM on what Melisandre thinks: "So all these other gods that people of Westeros are worshiping, the Drowned God in the Iron Islands, the Seven, the Old Gods… they're demons. Therefore, in Melisandre's worldview, they have to be destroyed." from this video, towards the end.
The view of other gods as demons is not an unusual one in this religion. We can't work with these people. They are a cult that actively seeks to expand and see the worship of all other gods put aside in favor of their own. We are the chosen of the Old Gods, and we are working to expand their power and influence. Our goals are at odds with theirs, and they are our enemy regardless of how active the conflict is at at given time.
Having all trained and well armed soldiers probably helps, and most of those are probably free. And in this setting, having all the Shards probably helps too.
Sorry not convinced, there is a vast difference between one third and two thirds of the population being slaves. When slaves have the clear majority caste-like stratification sets in and slaves are considered inherently sub-human, which means the general conditions in which they live (including transportation) degenerate a lot.
You'd be wrong though. Evangelical Christianity holds sway in the US.
Daenerys occasionally worshipped the Seven and the Dothraki Horse gods and married one of the latter's most prominent worshippers, explicitly rejected R'hllor as a god, and her chief advisor was the Green Grace, head of yet another religion.
All that made absolutely no difference to Benerro, or R'hllor.
I don't like Cthulu either. Sue me.
Melisandre is a very unusual Red Priest, given that she's from Asshai By the Shadow and is a Shadowbinder, unlike the priests from Western Essos that had zero problem with coexisting with other religions for over a thousand years without a single hint of any religious conflict. She's also in desperate circumstances, given she's staring the apocalypse in the face. We know that sacrificing the icons of other religions gives your god power. Why do you think she was doing anything different to what we did to Drogo out of what she considered necessary?
Apart from the fact that no Red Priest from the Free Cities ever tried at any point in any circumstance to suppress or initiate conflict with any other Essosi religion, even the smallest and weakest?
What you propose is clearly false.
The major differences I see are common emancipation, skilled craftsmen being slaves, people earning their way out of slavery, and people marrying slaves and their children not being slaves.
There have been societies that are more than 90% slave. The main thing to remember is that slavery is a very wide spectrum of institutions. Chattel slavery of the American style is a pretty extreme case.
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Which is consistent with a smaller proportion of slaves in the general population. I sense GRRM playing mix and match without thinking things through. These things do not match. Still it is what it is. I guess we'll just have to ask the GM what the ships are like if/when get get there.
Remember that the population of the metropole and the population of the rest of the country can be quite different. In the Ottoman Empire, for example, the slave population in Istanbul was usually much higher than everywhere else.
The Ottoman Empire had 9 in 10 people living outside the cities. These are city-states they won't have that kind of disparity. I'd be surprised if there is even rural/urban parity with their relatively small hinterlands.
These are pre-modern societies. They must all have 90% or so of their total population being rural. The fact that the city states are the centre of the political economy doesn't change that they must be able to feed themselves.
Trade centers. Athens did not have to feed itself.
Well. Yes it did, pretty much. Constantinople and Rome didn't, but they had massive empires and could draw on massive amounts of North African grain, for regions they ruled.
You have to get quite a lot later before you get to cities that were dependent on international trade to feed themselves.
In this setting, in particular, it doesn't work. Westeros is obviously not a significant food exporter (as the Free Cities don't starve during the War of Five Kings), and all the Free Cities are pretty much in the same position. If anything, they have to be net food exporters to feed the cities of Slavers Bay, which are even less hospitable.
As a result, we know that the Free Cities are self sufficient in food, at least. It's presumably why the Disputed Lands are disputed.
Athens imported significant quantities of Egyptian grain. Egypt was the bread basket of the Eastern Mediterranean long before it was Rome's. Athens at it's height had 100000 people. Attica certainly did not support 900000 (look at the terrain and climate)
If that does not convince you look at Venice much closer tech-wise. There's no way their holdings on the Tera-firma could have supported the city and counting on food from their neighbors would have been the height of folly. Their Grain came from their over-sees territory.
And the war of the Five Kings did not break the Westrosi economy merely weakened it. The Free Cities likely faced shortages even if they did not starve.
Edit: I was underestimating both populations from wikipetia:
Agriculture was also important, but it did not produce enough to feed the populace, so most food had to be imported (it is estimated that the carrying capacity of Attica's soil was between 84,000 and 150,000,[3] while the population was 300,000 to 350,000 in 431 BC).
Followed the note for carrying capacity and it lead to this paper:
http://www.princeton.edu/~pswpc/pdfs/morris/120509.pdf
It looks legit at a cursory examination (too sleepy to do anything more)
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It imported grain. It didn't import a significant amount, as far as I can tell. Early scholarship suggested it did, but that's been debunked, assuming as it did that 5% of the arable land they controleld was under cultivation.
Where is the food coming from though? We know it doesn't come from Westeros, and the Free Cities own all effectively the arable land in Western Essos. They've no one else to buy it from. Don't forget that the Free Cities control all the land west of the Dothraki Sea. That's a huge amount of arable land.
It broke the economy, and it certainly meant there was no food surplus to export.
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Plot holes galore. Even if Pentos can feed itself Lys certainly cannot, its an island much like Venice.
Lys rules a significant amount of the Disputed Lands. It's why they have the name, because the Free Cities fight over them.
Looking at the map that's nowhere near enough to feed Lys even if they held all of it.
Anyway going to bed now. So we'll have to continue this conversation later.
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notmi
Super Koala God Super Koala
It's been established GRRM left a ton of plot holes in ASoIaF, another one isn't a huge surprise. He wrote the world to conform to his plot instead of doing any actual research, so there's going to be a lot of problems when you compare it to the real world.
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And they make up something like 26% of the population, and as such are mathematically NOT A MAJORITY. You do not have to have a majority to hold sway. Hell, you don't even have to have a lot of followers. Just having money can give you sway.
Irrelevant. You'll note that none of that involved actually declaring R'hllor or his followers her enemy, or marrying a man who did so and giving him support. The likely best case for Dany in regards to Benerro is that he still things Dany is Azor Ahai and needs to be rescued from our foul clutches.
R'hllor isn't someone whose opinion on the matter we've heard, other than it being obvious that Dany isn't actually Azor Ahai so he might just not give a shit, provided the Melisandre's visions are actually from R'hllor at all.
Irrelevant. A priest explicitly sent to Daenerys by Benerro himself holds that this other god he probably knows very little about stated that it was a demon. If you're going to send someone as ambassador to the person you believe is your religion's messiah figure are you going to send someone whose views are radically different than your own or are you going to send someone who is firmly in your ideological camp?
General freedom of religion in the Free Cities has existed for a long time, and trying to go against that would probably not be taken well. The precedent of religious tolerance was established by the dragonlords, since religious diversity kept their subjects divided. (AWoIaF pg 257) The actual rulers of the Free Cities probably maintain a similar policy for the same reason, and would probably crush any religion that would try something so brazen - if one city fell to that, the others would probably crush the cult in their own borders, if they were able, to prevent the same thing from happening to them. Outside of something rare like two religions having a spat due to an incident, they're expected to just leave one another alone. General inertia probably also factors into it. I wouldn't be surprised if R'hllor's priesthood is willing to take the long view on things, slowly gathering more power and followers for the eventual coming of Azor Ahai, and they may not have been nearly as powerful for most of the time since Valryia's fall, if they were even around for that long. (religions do rise and fall in Essos, so they may not have been around for a millennia)
I wouldn't be surprised if the general worshiper of R'hllor isn't generally informed of the view that other gods are demons, as some cults don't give you the "full story" until you're higher in the ranks and fully invested. Alternatively, it might be a relatively new view on things that is spreading amongst the priesthood as their religion has gained greater power and prominence - religions aren't static, after all, and power does corrupt.
The fact they hold sway, i.e. are in charge is enough.
She explicitly rejected R'hllor as someone she didn't want to follow, and consorted with the worshippers and clergy of his avowed enemies (the Horse Gods). She married Drogo, who was much worse than Harlon on the destroying enemy religions scale, given that's part of Dothraki culture, of which he was an exemplar.
If we've any sense whatsoever we're going to clarify that R'hllor isn't our enemy, and only the sadly misguided high priest of Pentos was, and he's died for his crimes, and that everything else was an unfortunate misunderstanding.
Benerro didn't give a single shit about Daenerys allying herself with the clergy of other religions.
It's not obvious that Daenerys isn't Azor Ahai at all (or covered by the prophecy). The Dragon must have three heads, after all. Benerro probably has very good reason to think that she's a strong candidate.
R'hllor is just about the only deity that we know of that is taking active steps against the Others in canon. Let's not make an enemy unless we have to. R'hllor isn't hostile to the Old Gods from the examples we see. Melisandre just misinterprets the visions he sends.
Why would you think that he wouldn't know exactly who the Drowned God is? The Ironborn have been dicking around raiding Essos for years in his name. Worse, there are Cthulu worshippers (and even Deep One hybrids) spread all over the place. The fact that he thinks that the Drowned God is a demon just means that he has basic good sense.
Crush them with what? The majority of the Volantine military are R'hllor worshippers.
You mean, for over a thousand years none of the priests of R'hllor has ever done a single thing to advance this agenda that's noticeable enough to ever be mentioned until Melisandre. That's impossible discipline. The cult line is that the other gods aren't gods. Making them all out to be demons isn't something we see as universal.
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