Modern Nonsense: Game of Thrones has a Scale Problem

Game of Thrones is just too friggin' big. I'm sorry, it is! In this video about Game of Thrones (mostly the show more than the books), I talk about my issues about the Scale of this classic fantasy story. It's just too big! The royal lines are too long, the lands too gigantic, the history too well documented, and the technology too primitive despite having ages to figure it out. I give a bunch of examples of real world situations for why Essos in particular is way too gigantic.
I like Game of Thrones a lot... but man, whenever I think about the worldbuilding it gives me a headache. Lord of the Rings has it pretty bad too, but at least there you can pretty much excuse it with magic and that most of the people aren't human. There, if a royal line is four thousand years old, it's probably Elves, who live to be like, 600 anyway. So I'm ok with that.
Here's another video of mine about some WILD stuff that went down in Norway involving butter: • Modern Nonsense: The N...
And here's one about why the Fermi Paradox doesn't make a lot of sense: • Modern Nonsense: The F...
Music credit:
Monkeys Spinning Monkeys by Kevin MacLeod
Free download: filmmusic.io/song/4071-monkey...
Licensed under CC BY 4.0: filmmusic.io/standard-license
Scheming Weasel (faster version) by Kevin MacLeod
Free download: filmmusic.io/song/4326-schemi...
Licensed under CC BY 4.0: filmmusic.io/standard-license
Also the writers of the Game of Thrones and Civilization VI soundtracks.

[@Augustus_Imperator]

Just like Martin took the british isles and stretched it the size of south america, he took 400 years of british history and stretched it over 8000 years lol

[@kestrelwings]

I assumed that he took North America and squished it horizontally. That would explain the difference in weather between north and south.

[@borakaraca9788]

at least george r.r. martin did not make the aegons conquest 1000 years ago he was reasonable at this topic and made that conquest 300 years ago. it is a good time scale

[@thehayze259]

Yeah, that's good. 300 years ago makes sense, it's still a long time in the grand scheme of things but is completely reasonable.

[@ivagavrilova2726]

Also the Targaryen dynasty ending after 300 years had passed makes way more sense than a 1000 years. They were doomed the second their dragons started dying out, it would have never survived a 1000 years.

[@koalabrownie]

Well it was 400 years from the norman conquest to the war of the roses so- that might be where that figure comes from, roughly

[@DropoutJournal]

This seems to take a lot of things at face value. For instance, we know that Westeros has no recorded history before the Andals arrived, as the First Men did not write anything down. The Andal invasion of Westeros itself is a point of contention within the world, as while legends claim that they arrived 6,000 years before the current day, maesters believe it could be as recent as only 2,000 years prior. Additionally, there is a very real magical element to family lines in A Song of Ice and Fire, to the point that not having a Stark in Winterfell is a plot point that will have serious consequences in later books. However, for most families, they may simply have started out as claiming descent from a certain mythic figure, conquered their way into influence and power, and rewrote history to the point where nobody really questioned them because there are no records maintained that far into the past. The legends of Bran the Builder, Garth Greenhand, etc. are all essentially hearsay, legends passed down to emulate tales of Gilgamesh and Noah according to Martin. If you were to believe Mesopotamian legends, then they traced back their kingdom to 75,000 years ago, which we know, of course, is not true. The only point of contention that remains is about gunpowder, but honestly you're placing a good chunk of the blame on Valyria for not inventing it, but gunpowder only had an initial incendiary use that is just better fulfilled by dragons, so there's no reason for them to have invested in it. If anything, it seems like a liability for other cultures to develop gunpowder if they're in conflict with Valyria, given that dragonfire could blow it up at any moment, so I don't think counting gunpowder out is necessarily a bad thing. Trade brought gunpowder to Europe, but gunpowder didn't see significant military use on the battlefield until the fall of Constantinople, and no naval use until a century after that. The time period represented in the series approximates with the War of the Roses, which dates towards the end of the Late Middle Ages. I do agree that we should have seen other inventions, but a lack of gunpowder and mythologized history is a bad way to point out the lack of realism in Martin's world., given that the Matters of Britain, Rome, and France were taken as fact even until the Renaissance in the real world, and archaeology as a field did not emerge until the 18th century as we know it today. More important things to highlight are how there's only a grand total of five cities on the entire continent of Westeros, which is twice the size of Europe, or how there is no distinct hierarchy of the nobility and the clergy, no real organization of artisans, craftsmen, merchants, etc., no public education, no centers of learning outside of The Citadel, etc.

[@DropoutJournal]

To add onto this, discussing specifically Essos: Rome was claimed in legend to have been founded around 750 BC, and the Romans claimed that Romulus and Remus were descendants of the god Mars. However, even beyond that, the archaeological record shows that the Etruscans had settled in Rome even before that time period, and the Roman civilization endured for at least 2,500 years. More importantly, however, the cultural legacy of Rome descends directly from the cultural legacy of the Greeks, which in turn descends from the cultural legacy of the Mesopotamians. There is a direct link between civilizations that goes back at least 6,000 years in the real world, as it was all centered around the Mediterranean. In the case of China, the Bronze Age civilizations there can legitimately be claimed to be direct predecessors to modern-day China, which means that you have a contiguous civilization dating back 6,000 years there as well. In Valyria's case, they made massive advancements in their technology, but it was all fuelled by magic. They built cities and roads with blackstone that were grander in-universe than what the Romans built in the real world, and it was all supported by magic. There is little incentive for them to develop other technologies if their stonecarving, smithing, industrial techniques are so advanced through magic. But also, we are not taking into account the fact that the Romans didn't have dragons. Not only did the Valyrians have dragons, but they had exclusive control over those dragons. That's like giving the Romans F-35's that could not be reverse-engineered and trying to argue they wouldn't have lasted another 3,000 years with that sort of military power.

[@adamantiiispencespence4012]

I wouldn't say there's no clear hierarchy of nobility in Westeros as the chain of command from The Wardens and Lords Paramounts down to landed knights seems pretty clear to everyone in story and comes off rather intuitive. It's actually one of the most novel non fantastic pieces of worldbuilding in the series and I love it.

[@DropoutJournal]

​@@adamantiiispencespence4012 You have three Lords Paramount (Tully, Baratheon, and Tyrell), and four cardinal Wardens (Stark, Arryn, Lannister, and Tyrell again). The Lords Paramount seem to be the houses granted high status after Aegon's Conquest, while Wardenship is an exclusively military position. The houses in charge of one of the nine "provinces" are called "Great Houses", but there is no formal title for all of them in what is essentially a Duchy. You should have Marquesses and Earls and Counts and Viscounts and Barons, but nopes, you just have minor "lords" vassal to other major "lords". House Forrester is vassal to House Glover, not House Stark, but it's a northern house so you'd think the primary allegiance would be to the Starks. Martin himself regrets that he didn't create a more explicitly differentiating system of peerage in Westeros and ended up just calling everyone lords, so there's that.

[@someguyoutthere110]

One of the interesting parts of ASOIAF's world is that there does seem to have been substantial technological development in the past, but somehow it got lost. There are a lot of things that people just have no idea how they were made, examples being Storm's End which is totally not made of concrete, and glass candles which are basically cell phones. Like others have said, this could possibly be explained by long winters essentially causing periodic mass extinctions

[@Stego1819]

There is literally nothing wrong with that. There were multiple times during human history where society regressed. The Bronze Age collapse for example. The collapse of the Roman Empire. We also for example forgot how to make Pyramids.

[@someguyoutthere110]

@Stego1819 true, though ASOIAF's regression is a tad more exaggerated than our own history. I don't think the Romans ever had long-distance telecommunication or geothermal greenhouses

[@u06jo3vmp]

But this explanation kinda exacerbate the "how the heck did the houses stay in power for 8000 years" problem.

[@tarvoc746]

@@someguyoutthere110 ASoIaF's world also had a global catastrophe weirdly reminiscent of a nuclear winter a few thousand years back.

[@cernunnos8344]

​@@Stego1819bro no one "forgot" how to make pyramids, Egypt declined and no one wanted to build giant glorified tombs anymore

[@JulesLeStrat]

When it comes to gunpowder specifically, even Saruman figured it out But yeah, most fantasy worlds are like "hey let's be stuck in Middle Ages for 10000 years"

[@kudraabdulaziz3096]

Out of this comment, a meme should be made.

[@dakotalange2858]

There is gunpowder in GoT there are fireworks in the city Arya trained at

[@MrJibbajabbawocky]

Dune at least had an excuse as to why everyone was stabbing each other.

[@rickoshay5525]

Magic honestly looks stupid in a modernized age. It's best kept in a medieval setting. I love LOTR and I love ATLA. I hate HP and I hate LOK. 😁

[@Artaxerxes.]

@@rickoshay5525 You can have magic in a modern setting. But then you would have to introduce suitable technology to complement the race. Like Elven tech would be different from what humans come up with. And humans would also invent different tech which resembles nothing like the stuff on earth. It's all about the proper themes

[@dannytheman1313]

You don't really need gunpowder when you have literal magic and a creature that can breathe fire

[@jamesdigloria2469]

Magic seems to be really misunderstood in Westeros though. It doesn't really impact the daily lives of anyone at any point in the social hierarchy. Even in Essos magic doesn't seem that common. And dragons hadn't been around for a very long time. Even as of Dance with Dragons...3 dragons are not going to replace the entire world's need for guns man. Guns would be an absolute game changer everywhere for everyone.

[@DeathMessenger1988]

​@@jamesdigloria2469 Magic has been gone from the world only since the last of the Dragons died. We don't know widespread magic was before then. Also, don't forget stuff like the Doom of Valyria and the Long Night happened. This world has seen some shit we haven't, so who knows how much that affected the development of society? Especially when you have assholes like aristocrats and Maesters deliberately keeping people in the dark and holding society back.

[@gerardsotxoa]

It's a world where magic was fading away. The monks in the citadel already had theories saying magic doesn't exits because it's been 5,000+ years since the magicians were around. They even have a theory that says the seasons used to change yearly and not every few years. The story starts right when a starfire crossed the sky, and sice that moment the magic (including the magic that dragons need) has returned and is stronger and stronger.

[@dannytheman1313]

@@gerardsotxoa Mostly true in Westros but the further east you go the stronger magic is. Once you reach Asshai you've got blood binding the secrets to longevity and basically lovecraftian gods.

[@ertymexx]

Actually that is when you REALLY need gunpowder.

[@corvusimbrifer6525]

I always figured it had to do with time management. The population spends 10% of its time feeding itself, 15% feeding the nobility, and 75% feeding the dragons. Invention requires leisure time.

[@thehayze259]

I didn't think of having to feed the dragons... I think it still doesn't make much sense, but that would require a lot of resources. Thanks, that's really interesting!

[@Abuqital2000]

That's a silly excuse because you have real history to compare it to.

[@Ugly_German_Truths]

only there were no dragons for a LONG time (about 250 years before the first book IIRC) as most had been eliminated when Valyria did it's Krakatoa Impression and the constant infighting of the Targaryens had whittled away at the numbers they had access to. and as big of a beast as they are, 3 dragons aren't that much of a ressource sink either. The thing they really spend 75% of their time on is to somehow story food for a winter nobody knows of how long it will last... as the seasons are irregular in this world and GRRM has never come around to tell us why it is or how it works. (Prepare for some McCaffry levels of exotic scifi mumbo jumbo in the end) So anytime they get to a point where they could progress, they are brutally reduced again by nature's whims. Which does perfectly explain an "empty world" with large stretches of barely populated land for agriculture or similar things around very few towns and castles... and why they still fight over it despite very low population pressures.

[@emanooo813]

the world does feel way too big for such a civilization but at least the mysterious and scary descriptions of sothoryos, the sea and north of the wall remind that in the end their civilization truly is just a fragile ant colony compared to the grandiosity and the dangers of such a magic world/planet and at any moment everything built might just get destroyed forever.

[@mirceazaharia2094]

If you like that kind of thing, then Hunter X Hunter is right up your alley.

[@soffa93]

@@mirceazaharia2094 Togashi is the only man who could rival GRRM for hiatuses, after all

[@IanHollis]

I thought this was going to be about the scale of the land and the distances the characters travelled and the amount of time it DOESN'T take them to travel so far!

[@autje1970]

Ballista's existed before, it was just the show acting as if Qyburn invented them. But then it also made it seem like it's really easy to shoot a dragon out of the sky (until the plot said it wasn't), so there's that. As to whether Valyria ruled over the whole of Essos: that depends on your definition of 'ruling'. The Kingdom of Sarnor existed and was traded with, for instance, and that was in Northerh Essos. It's relatively easy to see what part was really under control of Valyria when you look at the map: when the roads are still straight (Valyrian roads from fused stone, that's actually great technology), it was more or less under full control, although around the edges this gets contestable. That said, I think the main problem is underpopulation. All fantasy has that issue. The Rohirrim can muster 100k in LOTR, but as the protagonists of the story travel through their land there is no village in sight (in the books). ASOIAF has more settlements and certainly cities, but even then the world seems quite sparsely populated. Constantly being at war with each other doesn't help, of course. A nitpick: it's Karstark, not Carstark 😉. Fun video.

[@thehayze259]

I didn't notice that about the roads, that's super interesting! As for control, yeah, that makes sense. I still think it's an issue, since half of Essos is still ludicrously gigantic, and the eastern regions could figure out technologies themselves, but that does complicate the point. Also, I posted the video and then realized I got Karstark wrong, I'm so embarrassed... Thank you!

[@Nethan2000]

"The Rohirrim can muster 100k in LOTR" Where did you get this number? The army in Helm's Deep was 2 thousand strong and the force sent to Gondor was 6 thousand.

[@neatwheat]

Talking about it, Shadiversity's video comes to mind where he recreates Winterfell book-accurate. And it's just ridiculously huge. And I believe there is a couple of fortresses in the books that are just massive in comparison to what our predecessors have built in past times here on earth.

[@1Maklak]

Harenhall is so massive that the current residents only use 2/3rd of 1 out of 5 buildings, with the rest being empty and decaying.

[@rebeccaliar9873]

And honestly, the thing that makes all this stick out so much is the way Game of Thrones traded on realism, the way the characters keep bringing up that real life isn't like the songs and books. There's that one quote where Martin asks "What was Aragorn's tax policy", a question that's truly hilarious when you consider how little the entire financial situation of Westeros makes sense. Most other fantasy worlds don't draw this kind of massive scrutiny about how plausible they are, because most other fantasy worlds aren't constantly talking up how realistic and gritty they are!

[@Transformers217]

It makes sense, since Magic was an all time high during ancient times of Westeros and Old Valyria. That’s why it’s taken so long for humanity to evolve at the same pace that we did.

[@ryangates6576]

This was an awesome video essay. As a non game of thrones fan it still made sense and was very interesting. I'd be interested in more videos that analyze other issues that arise with large scale stories and universes.

[@thehayze259]

Thanks! This one was the biggest offender in my eyes, but it's definitely not unique to Game of Thrones. The other big one that just gets to me is in some Sci-fi stuff with interstellar travel, but in those stories it's often just waved away with, "science magic," which honestly I'm fine with for the sake of fun.

[@e.matthews]

​@@thehayze259True! The alternative is something like House of Suns by Reynolds. Because it involves interstellar travel, the climax alone takes tens of thousands of years. I recommend the book, and the willingness to accept travel time is refreshing, but it must be said that tension is difficult to keep up when your characters go into fugue for millennia. Travel in narrative is good for the "quest" and the transformative beats along the way. Interstellar travel at sub-light speeds does not have that appeal.

[@What_111]

Here's my little unimportant opinion: Dragons, magic and some similar crazy stuff exist, and the seasons doesn't work like our earth. Dragons and magic are way to useful and powerful in wars/battles, so people probably don't feel the urgency to develope better technology. The winter is longer, so there will not be enough food. The people probably don't have the technology to preserve big amount of food, so longer summer doesn't help getting through longer winter. If people are stuggling to survive, they probably won't spend time develope science. Conculsion: Supernatural stuff and lack of rescource stalled the development of science/technology. (I'm still thinking how to explain the great houses stuff.) That just my opinion. Don't be mad if u don't like it plz :3 Also sorry about my poor grammar, english isn't my fist language. :D Nice video btw! It's amazing!

[@thehayze259]

Thanks for you input. I do think that Dragons led to a lack of development in war-related tech, but in terms of everyday stuff... I don't know, not everybody had a dragon. They still needed to print books and light up their houses, and gunpowder was originally just a really good firestarter. Also, most development came from scholars, who tended to work for royalty (or were royalty themselves), and were pretty well off. And don't worry, your English is great :)

[@Themrine2013]

thats what even my explaination is for why science and tech never advanced also. winters being so unpredicatable. hell we even see that in OUR world with the onset of the little ice age. construction on mega churches all but ceased. tech stagnated for a few hundred years. up until the late 1700s early 1800s. sure there were little advancements here and there. but over all westroa has winters that can last YEARS. so when there is not enough food or people people only care about surviving. not thriving. and the only way to thrive is if you know you will survive. and the winters make that impossible. and you point out the gunpowered part. the greeks and romans are an example of this. the greeks had greek fire. and the romans discovered steam power. greek fire was lost to time. and steam power was deemed usless.

[@shawnnbits]

Yeah and we dont know how many entire civilizations were destroyed and stunted technologically by dragons ravaging the East continent

[@jensphiliphohmann1876]

However, conserving food is even more crucial to survival in such conditions. If you have a clever idea to store food, your family will have great advantages. Of course, this also will make you a target because you are richer than others.

[@johncollins3045]

The only problem with the Dragons and magic being more powerful and so there being less urgency argument is that not everyone had dragons and magic. The Valyrians perhaps would have less reason to innovate, but their enemies and potential enemies would have every reason and sense of urgency required to develop better weapons to counter them.

[@helenrose5383]

I think the reason to why gunpowder didn't exist is Dragons I think. In terms of military technology Wildfyre is an invention.

[@108asf]

I haven't read the books yet, but your video made me realize that all of that stuff must be legendary in the asoiaf universe.

[@anarchclown]

It doesn't matter how big it is. You can just teleport whole navies secretly whenever the plot demands it anyway. :)

[@GoranXII]

Ankh Morpork in T. Pratchett's Discworld series is pretty old (some accounts put it at 8,000 years), but it's rulers were never regarded as _continuous_ . Indeed, for quite a while (of the order of at least 1600 years), the 'King' was the man who happened to have the largest army.

[@Duke_of_Lorraine]

I wouldn't extrapolate Rome's population for Valyria. The Valyrian empire is that big because its ruling class has an extremely fast transport option : dragons, enabling control over a wide area (while Rome had the Med Sea). But it looks like they only settled the best areas while many others are entirely empty. Once dragons mainly disappeared, nothing held the Empire in one piece. As for technology, there are examples of tech being suppressed because it could cause instability, especially in big centralised empires like China. Or Valyria. They used dragons, so any tech like gunpowder means that over time peasants could own dragon-killing weapons. Assuming they discovered that, it would be immediately suppressed. One village starts using it, nuke it with dragon fire before they learn using it to an effective level. Hence, tech stagnation. Also the timeline feels very unreliable until a few centuries before GOT. But even assuming that, with the main civilised area being centralised, of course there is stagnation (imperial China). If you want innovation, better look at decentralised places, like if the Seven Kingdoms lost all central authority to make it a permanent darwinist contest between kingdoms, over the centuries, without wars being too devastating to roll progress back to zero. Like Europe since the Middle Ages.

[@paulster185]

The timeline can be and is easily explained by assuming that the in-universe historians are just wrong. Like in Ancient Egypt where people believed that Egypt is nearly twelve thousand years old. Although, scale problem still remains.

[@ScorpHalio]

"And continuing" Now there's a fantasy story!

[@dorderre]

Another big offender in this regard is the Dune book series. Like, the imperial family there has been in charge and in total control of EVERYTHING in an unbroken line since Butler's Jihad abt 10.000 years prior to when the first book starts. Are we to believe there haven't been any revolts/uprisings/dynasty changes over this long of a time? Also (1), the Emperor when the series starts is Shaddam IV, as in, the 4th of his name. In comparison England/GB/UK had 8 Edwards, 8 Henrys and 6 Georges over the course of like 900 years. France had 18 (really just 17) Louis' over a similar time span. And we're to believe they got only to 4 Shaddams in 10.000 years? His father was Elrood the 9th, but that's still WAY too small of a number. Also (2), the technological level seems to be stuck on a similar level over all those millennia, almost twice as long as documented real life human history! In a civilization consisting of like thousands of planets, with trillions of human beings. Also (3), IF we consider the extended story by Frank Herbert's son Brian as canon (and many people rightfully argue that we shouldn't), then the Houses of Atreides, Harkonnen and Corrino ALL existed and held grudges against each other for this entire time. I'm really having a hard time to believe all this, space fantasy or not.

[@silverwriter6739]

As far as names go, not all cultures tend to repeat names as frequently as the English and French.

[@bearholdensharkslux4791]

You're probably right about most of it, but I think back to the exchange of Varys and little finger "a tale we tell ourselves until we forget that it's a lie"

[@rickylavaughn9024]

This actually helps me with writing stories. Great video.

[@Stormheart911]

It's a fantasy, I thought the Ice Zombies were a dead giveaway...

[@thehayze259]

It's made to be a realistic setting, I don't know why you wouldn't apply real world logic to it. You could use this to justify literally anything. "It's a fantasy, so it makes sense that Jon Snow would murder Sansa. I thought the ice zombies were a dead giveaway..."

[@Marinealver]

season 8 had unlocked Fast Travel

[@marianconstantindumitriu6062]

Well, I'd be willing to debate you on several points you bring up. 1) human advancement is not liniat. The Japanese and Chinese ages of stagnation come to mind. So does the Bronze Age collapse which led to 1000 years of stagnation. And let's not mention the 150.000 years we spent in the Stone age, or the thousands of years we spent in the Neolithic. 2) Planetos has irregular seasons, which will play havoc with your crops and ability to feed people. I expect starvation related death and disease to be a lot more common (especially since the shift from warm to cold seems to rather abrupt compared to the length of the seasons themselves). Mortality like that is bound to play havoc with your development. 3) The Valyrians did not really feel a need to invent gunpowder because they had dragons, which are a lot more effective at their tech level than muskets and cannons. Gunpowder is a niche invention (one that was invented accidentally in our world) whose main applications are in warfare. If the Valyrians didn't feel the need to pursue it, why would they fund it? It takes a very specific form of societal structuring to do random validateable research which may result in usefull stuff. A structure that has only been around in our world for 300 years. 4) the Valyrians DID have advanced... Uhm, knowledge. They just call it magic. Fused stone walls, valyrian roads, chimeras, etc.... 5) just like in our world, pockets of advancement are present. Rhoynar water works and magic for instance. They just get whiped out before they become generalised. Just like the Aztecs. 6) Power structures may propagate for longer if the seasons result in there being less people able to revolt. They seem to be food based hydraulic societies. Several more points can come up. Good video, though, got a like.

[@Fridaey13txhOktober]

Yeah, 1000 years.

[@hpsauce1078]

I was under the impression that the history of Westeros and Essos is written as a quasi mythological history from the perspective of the Maesters, a bit like how Catholic priests thought the world was only 5000 or so years. In my head canon i just choose to believe that its a common tradition Within Westrosi society to really over emphasise the passage of time to increase their prestige or something.

[@kestrelwings]

In Star Wars, the Jedi have served the Republic for more than 1000 generations. That is an even longer time period and it feels like things didn't change much.

[@silverwriter6739]

Yep. KOTOR takes place 4,000 years before the original trilogy. And all that's different in the look of the starships.

[@maggyfrog]

you have to remember that seasons in asoiaf do not follow science. for instance, winter can last an entire generation or just a few months. irl seasons on earth are based on the tilt of the axis of the planet and how it changes the amount of sunlight the earth receives also in relation to the distance of the earth to the sun depending on the equinoxes. he point black stated that seasons are based on magic and that it's not at all the same as how earth gets seasons. if you can't calculate the changes from season to season, that's a handicap to the early societies of planetos as it would not have occurred to them to also calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies. so your point about calendars in real life (they were based from calculating the movements of heavenly bodies as observed by proto-astronomers) can't really be applied with the strange magic system that grrm specifically decided for planetos. it's just not the intuitive way of thinking if seasons aren't ever regular. if your race literally bonded with dragons, it's not really that impossible to accept the logic that dragonlords ruled for over 5000 years. their tech is literally the uncomplicated might of dragons and they did not NEED to invent and be creative so long as they have their dragons because nobody can rival their literal power and might which resulted to the lack of competition or any practical need to invent things like gunpowder. at the peak of valyria, something like hundreds of dragons belonged to elite valyrians. no amount of gold can persuade any ambitious faction to challenge them. and it's canon that it was ultimately either nature itself or excess magic that ruined old valyria. no real life empire was so OP that they never had any meaningful challenge to their reign. all irl empires all had the disadvantage of having to rely on actual science and maths, while fantasy doesn't need to be handicapped that way. but the irony with magic systems is that it doesn't scale the way science and maths can scale tech advancements. magic systems are just either mysteriously OP or controlled by the whims of human morality, and it doesn't have to make sense whatsoever. furthermore, comparing irl tech evolution to fantasy tech evolution is kind of silly in that you are expecting fantasy societies to have had the exact same technological needs as irl societies. remember the old adage "necessity is the mother of invention", whether the original necessity birthed the exact tech needed or birthed some other tech by accident or chance, the adage still generally applies to irl tech evolution. if you apply that adage to fantasy society, you simply have to trace which necessities they really required to see if their tech evolution makes sense. overall, i think the existence of dragons in asoiaf and their central importance in the events is what stunted warfare tech advances in the overall planetos history. as far as medicine goes, i think the fact that blood magic is actually real in asoiaf means that most ordinary peasants and just the general majority of people take witches as legit dispensers of cures. again, this points to the stunted development of medicine. an entire city called asshai is pretty much built on dark magic. you can't really expect this world to be as logical as real historical societies because real humans in the past actually could prove that magic is not real, so in time, irl shamans and spiritual leaders increasingly got out of fashion in favor of actual rational scientists. the problem with this video is your almost complete disregard of the magic system in asoiaf and how much it occupied the role of conventional technology. not a diss on your video, just my own critique of your critique.

[@thehayze259]

About Calendars, a lot of societies still used stars to navigate, so it would still make sense. Ruling for 5000 years with dragons makes more sense, but they're not with their dragons 24/7. A lot of real world coups and assassinations were either just poisoning the rulers or ambushing them. As for gunpowder, it was originally created by accident when trying to find the elixir of life, and early on was basically just a really good firestarter, something practical to have in the home. If we're talking necessity being the mother of invention, dragons won't fix everything, and they'll only fix things for a few select people. Warfare tech would probably be a bit stunted, but for stuff like compasses, I don't see how nothing would have come of that. As for magic, I probably should have focused on that more.

[@maggyfrog]

@@thehayze259 as far as firepower, there is pyromancy in this world, and at the time of the valyrians at least, it seems they had the monopoly on it alongside blood magic. i don't believe for one second that the humans in asoiaf are incapable of developing tech. it's just that the status quo of who got to practice and develop the fields of pyromancy, blood magic and metallurgy happened to be dominated by dragonlords. they definitely got to squash anything they deemed as rebellion or they absorbed nascent inventions into the valyrian fold and decided whether to develop it further or not depending on what use cases they thought they needed. the over-reliance on dragons definitely made valyrians think that it's basically the end-all and be-all of power. they didn't even necessarily advance naval tech all that much. there's wildfyre (which was inspired by greekfire) which suggests that humans definitely could invent other warfare tech given the right incentives. i would draw parallels in irl history when the mongols thrived with horsepower, but as soon as other more effective modes of transportation and better warfare tech got invented, the horsepower tech became almost entirely obsolete. the difference with the dragons is that they just happen to be extremely OP and they existed for such a long time that people didn't even think of alternatives. the closest anti-dragon weapon that was invented is the scorpion, but even then, it was effective only by virtue of there being only 3 known dragons in westeros at the time (aegon's conquest). had it been the peak of old valyria, with even just 50 dragons, the probability of scorpions being built in competitive scale is close to zero as the valyrians obviously would have had an easy time squashing any burgeoning rebellion against them. it might have been primitive tech to rely on dragons, but being OP made them sort of like a cheat code in warfare. and whoever is the alpha of warfare generally shapes the tech evolution of their entire empire.

[@maggyfrog]

@@thehayze259 definitely as far as naval tech, it wasn't the dragonlords who made leaps and advances. one could argue that the house velaryon and their peers in their social status had more need to be actually creative, which is why corlys inherited his family's naval legacy and it's pretty much his claim to fame. but being an inferior house in old valyria, they didn't get to be as wildy inventive as they wanted to be because all the lesser houses had to be wary of staying in their lower status lanes lest they face the wrath of the dragonlords. and so what if they dared to be more inventive and more creative? ships are no match to a throng of flying fire-breathers. it was just an extremely unfair advantage in favor of the elites. with calendars, i can imagine the delay in inventing them would have been the completely impracticality of trying to predict the seasons because irl calendars were invented alongside the advancement of agriculture. people started to understand that they can plan for the future by understanding the cycle of seasons, and eventually, they made calendars primarily for agriculture. if asoiaf humans didn't have a reliable way of predicting seasons, their use of calendars would have been far more limited in the days of early agriculture. basically, it was just to mark the passage of time, but at least in those early proto-agriculture days, they relied more on the physical changes in nature to prepare when to plant their crops and so on. they probably didn't have a meaningful reason to care about calendars, at least in the earliest days.

[@arronjerden915]

The author has stated that the in world history is probably wrong, that the long night was likely only half as long ago as stated.

[@thehayze259]

Can you cite that to me? I'm not finding anything...

[@jeangove01]

One thing to consider is that centralised empires are rarely the source of technological innovations - these are often made in the peripheries and then destroy the old empires. It is possible that a very centralised empire, perhaps by use of dragonflight and dragonfire, might have a stultifying effect on technological innovation as a whole. I do think you're right about the longevity of dynastic power.

[@silverwriter6739]

My thoughts exactly. About both topics.

[@ULTIMAFAX]

This was a fun watch! I actually thought this was going to be about how culture in Westeros hadn't changed at all in the 300 years since Aegon's Conquest, because a lot of people bitch about it, but this was far more interesting. As a counterpoint though, Martin has said, and the World of Ice and Fire book implies, that the world's people REALLY don't know anything about their world's history beyond the beginning of Aegon's Conquest. Recorded history pretty much begins there. All of the stories of the Valyrian empire and folk kings of Westeros are essentially myths. Personally I feel this is very intentional and has to do with the White Walkers: regularly occurring apocalyptic events may explain the lack of human progress across the world. I'm sure we'll learn more about the true history through Bran's POV in the next book ... if Martin ever finishes it!

[@sudanemamimikiki1527]

writers dont do math. but they do make some great stories... edit: i would also argue that technology isnt stagnant. places like valyria simply developed their magic more than they developed their other technology.

[@thehayze259]

First of all, some writers do do math. But also, I feel like that isn't really an excuse for the worldbuilding. I mean, it doesn't take great math skills to realize that an 8,000 year dynasty or an empire the size of Africa doesn't make a lot of sense.

[@sudanemamimikiki1527]

@@thehayze259 writers don't do math is an age old trope. Also to defend grrm and fantasy in general the two things I would point out to counter the idea it's bad writing is that its fantasy and operates on a mythic scale (and its not even confirmed if these myths are true or just propaganda the houses made up to connect themselves to the local folklore) And second would be that with the presence of magic it could make sense they didn't follow the same technological path we did since their main development could have been more focused on developing blood magic and other such things.

[@ertymexx]

But what good is magic if it doesn't do anything? If the magic is so weak that it doesn't change the world, then technology will take its place. And if it is so powerful as to change the world, why does it still look the same for thousands of years? And what is really magic, if not just another form of science and technology. So why hasn't it been used to industrialise the world? Because it is too weak? Again, back to my first point, then technology would take its place.

[@sudanemamimikiki1527]

@@ertymexx well. it did change the world. valyrian steel, chimeras, dragon taming, the volcanos of valyria not blowing up, the dragon horns and more., all of these were made with magic, and all of them did stuff that our science cant do (valyrian steel can cut through metal like butter and is pretty much indefinitively sharp, we cant stop volcanoes from erupting while valyrians could and then there is the whole biological tampering that goes into creating chimeras that we haventh even begun to touch) this is just the stuff that survived the doom, mind you. there was bound to be even more impressive stuff in valyria that blows these out of the water or is on par with these inventions at the very least. as for why these advances arent seen elsewhere, its because after valyrias destruction, magic has become weak in the west. even outright suppressed in some parts.... magic coming back is actually a major part of the plot of the series in song of ice and fire.

[@stilleswassermaximalist]

@@thehayze259 an empire the size of africa does make sense. The Valyrians had hundreds of dragons so communicating and waging war over large distances would have been possible. The Stark dynasty probably isn't 8000 years old. Just like the Yamato dynasty isn't actually 2681 years old.

[@jiufu]

On the technology point: It can be argued that since the Targaryans had absolute rule and abundant land/resources that there was never need to innovate into the next era and just got complacent with the status quo. For thousands of years. The reason why Europe headed into the industrial revolution before large, unified, resourse-rich China is because China didn't have a reason to. China was the most powerful nation in the region and had no competitors in trade/military/anything that will challenge it so it never needed to innovate; same as the Targaryans who would just use motherfkin dragons to put any challenge down.

[@aldariontelcontar]

I think issue is magic. It doesn't make much sense in low fantasy worlds, but in the high-fanasy, high magic worlds, magic itself would prevent innovation because you would never develop the scientific process.

[@soko-ban]

Fun video! Definitely deserves some more attention. I would point out though that *most* of this is at least contextually different in the books as compared to the show. (Although some things are still ridiculous, like the height of the wall) It's not that the numbers are different in the books, but we're invited to treat them with a fair bit of scrutiny. I actually kinda like GRRM's worldbuilding for that, because at first you're presented with these outrageous scales of time, size and power as is quite common in fantasy, only to realize most of it is highly exaggerated and can be at least somewhat reasonably explained if you accept that most characters don't know shit about history. The fun thing, in my opinion, is that once you make that step, you'll still find many outrageous fantasy elements in there, just not quite as lightly hidden as you thought!

[@clovispadilha3237]

Hegemony doesn't drive innovation. Inter-state competition does. A fractured Westeros has more innovative potential than a Valyrian-domonated Essos or Targaryen-controlled Westeros

[@MrParedex]

Very good video! A suggestion though: try to keep the soundtrack volume a little lower in relation to your voice, it was a bit too loud sometimes, and it makes a bit difficult to understand you

[@josiah14]

Maybe we're not supposed to trust the timelines. Ancient history often exaggerates numbers.

[@ThomasDonnelly1888]

I do find it weird how family's like the Starks are like a 8000+ year old, and how they have been stuck in that same damn castle, like surely by now theyd be in a manor with a golf course. Same with the Freys who are called a younger house, yet are still like 600 years old, 600 years, at the twins... collecting tolls.

[@edmondantes4338]

1 The speed of technological development is not exactly linear across Earth either, some civilizations built massive cities, irrigation systems, and centuries-spanning empires before discovering metal tools. 2 In Game of Thrones they have frequent and quite severe, though short lasting, ice ages ("Winters") which implies that their climate is more unstable than ours. 3 If Valeria was so powerful and unified for so long then it's realistic that it would have no need for military innovation. Also the central government could have been actively suppressing certain technological innovation like the printing press for fear of social instability. Due to being the only world power at the time it would have had a much easier time of it than the European kingdoms of the Early Modern Era. Also you compare it to the Aztecs which brings up the fact that universal education and literacy is a conscious government policy, not something that just happens in every civilization after a certain length of time. While I don't like the view that you seem to imply here that the development of technology and civilizations is generally linear and predictable I agree with your main point, the world of Game of Thrones is super contrived. That has a very simple explanation, it would take far too long for a single writer to come up with a realistic 8000 years long history of two whole massive continents, plus it's thankless work since less than half of one percent of readers will really care about the worldbuilding issues unless they are truly massive.

[@RubyAPBT]

Yeah I think the ice ages would be problematic enough to stagnate or destroy technology because if he person dies before finish their work and teach others about it, it will be lost to the world. They also have a religious and magic problem too. In Westeros for exemple women barely have any rights to learn outside basics(reading and how help the house) just it leave out 50% of population who could contribute with some inovation. Also it is not most of the men who study, there are just a few who learn something. Oldtown is a stagnated place because of their religion and corrupt lords. They are the doom of inovation because of it and worse they encourage the lords to learn little because they send a Maeter to take care of everything form them, some lords don't even know to read... Esses have a slave problem, they do not want changed it and advance, they are happy to just live like that. Ti ti and Ashay are a mystery. However mage(in general) are also a huge problem because they depend too much on magic and magic in this world go up and down from time to time, so while for some time these people are powerfull and can do many things in other time they are almost useless. Another problem is they do not share their secrets too many people so once they these people day in some accident or because of nature they lost everything. We see it with Targaryens(and Valyria) once a Natural disaster destroyed Valyria some peoble survived however they lost a huge part of their knowledge and Targaryens were no mages so they even lost their magic. 200+- years later they lost their dragons(the dance). Almost 200 years later they even lost all their knowledge about their dragons... Look at Daenerys, she don't even know what to do with them, she barely know High Valyrian, she do not have a good education. The only person who could teach her about something targaryen related died...(Maester Aemon). Her ancestor Baelor the blessed destroyed a lot of books he disliked because the thought it went against the 7 teaching... It shows how easy is to lost even the little knowledge they have.

[@ShadowDogProduction]

My guess is one of the basic components needed to make gunpowder (saltpeter? I dunno) is missing from this planet. That's how I'd handle it as a writer.

[@paullange7052]

Odd choice considering you can produce saltpetre from manure.

[@ShadowDogProduction]

@@paullange7052 like I said, I don't know. If I was writing it I'd do the proper research and figure something out.

[@danielalford228]

Absolutely awesome video man.

[@larqven0192]

Fantasy worlds do tend to be huge and, well, fantastic. Valyria didn't really rule all of Essos as much as they collected their tributes and stomped on various civilizations there, and planted their colonies. It's not like they had harnessed all that land and population in some efficient and harmonious way. They controlled as much as they could handle or care to. A civilization can get limited by a world that is too big, with deserts and wastelands hostile seas in the way. The time and length of lineages? I just don't take them very seriously, and view them much like the Japanese sun goddess origin story. Yes, the Starks have been around for an immense amount of time, and doubtlessly some of the others, but I'm sure that main lineages of certain houses have been wiped out and replaced with side branch cousins. The 'thousand years' of fealty that keeps getting said is so commonly said and such a round number, that I expect that it has no literal numeric value other than a grand number. If it has any value at all, it might suggest the time frame of when the Starks united the North under their rule and became the kings of the north whether than the north being several squabbling petty kingdoms. This likely is an ancient world, but I doubt that it is indeed nearly so ancient as legends would make it out to be. Much like the theory of the legend of Atlantis being a remembrance of the Minoan civilization. Technology and cultural expansion? One might just as easily wonder why the ancient Greeks and Romans, or China, didn't come up with industrial revolutions in their own days. Either separately, or as a culmination as in the case of the Greeks and Romans., or dynasties in the case of China. Or why did we have the Middle Ages at all, for that matter? Or, by rights, China should have become the colonizers and dominant culture of the world, but they didn't. All I can say is that until various branches on a technological tree are filled in, and certain social milestones are met, technological embers might burn but fail to ignite a true fire. The Citadel in Oldtown and the Maester System, would surely have the accumulated knowledge to bring Westeros into an early industrial age, but there is something fundamentally malfunctioning about the system. Likely being too focused on control of information and the Citadel's own protection and importance; and a political system that desires knowledge, but in a tolerant sort of way. It might be that Westeros has achieved a certain equilibrium politically between noble houses, science and faith that keeps society just stable enough to ever continue, while the houses, faith and learning make conservative and self-protective choices?

[@Joybuzzard]

I think one of the sub-contexts of the story is that the society is bound in place, socially and technologically, by magic. Magic like the wall depending on bloodlines, like 'the wall will stand as long as there's a Stark in Winterfell', etc. The Maesters are trying to overcome this, by driving the dragons to extinction and less-than-subtly discouraging magic. But the Maesters also discourage technological innovation, like Sam finds the treatment for Grayscale all written out but the Maesters have just kept it buried in their library and after he does it they just bury it again instead of spreading the cure. There's real world comparisons here, like the guilds in ancient China that made technological advances and then hid them because of a dispute with a tempermental emperor, or the way Roman masonry was forgotten and people in Europe spent about a thousand years living in buildings that nobody knew how to build anymore.

[@pyrrhusofepirus8491]

I’m totally fine with a lack if gunpowder and technology if there’s an explanation for it. For example, my writing, gunpowder does exist but it’s a different kind of gunpowder, far rarer and more expensive, and the way to make cheaper gunpowder hasn’t been discovered yet and it’s a very specific combination of elements. The reason technology has stagnated so much, is basically owing to magic replacing it and stunting it’s growth. But in a world like ASOIAF, it should progress like the normal world because it’s simply too similar. The reason my empire lasted 2,000 years before the slow decline, is because of the conglomeration of factors, but the greatest one is the fact they constantly had to be on their toes owing to not wanting to get massacred by demons, and they were basically pronounced the Kingdom of god on earth. After they lost that key threat, they declined until it collapsed in 500 years.

[@umwha]

I think we have some wiggle room in that it isnt the Word of God that said these years - its what the people in universe think. The Long Night time line specifically doesnt make sense or fit into the Eras that the in-universe people believe. So, Martin could change this.

[@aurelianpepe6233]

The Idea of eunuch Soldiers is what gets me and makes me laugh since they would not make very good fighters

[@Hogscraper]

Why didn't Native Americans ever advance beyond the Stone Age for nearly every single one of them who lived on this continent outside extremely few small groups that used copper for ornamental and ceremonial items, one small tribe that had limited use of iron and the Aztecs who didn't even hit their Bronze Age until right before the conquistadors showed up? Why did all of those groups, the entire continent of Australia and all of Sub-Saharan Africa somehow miss the utility of the wheel? Every single thing we have is dependent upon the last development like how do you even begin to think about space without rockets, which only came because of a single war? Science and industry are where ideas like those begin and most fantasy worlds have little of either. Why would a government that has a weapon like dragons, who fight against enemies who, at best, have sharpened metal implements and sticks, care in the slightest about even beginning those initial steps?

[@thehayze259]

A couple of reasons. The Americas didn't have oxen that could pull plows or haul wagons. They didn't have horses that could carry them long distances. Plus they were much more isolated from the rest of the world, and couldn't easily share technology. And even then, they had empires that over a short period innovated a ton. As for sub saharan Africa... what? They had the wheel. Sub saharan African was the birthplace of the Mali Empire, the richest man to ever live, and the first public university. Zimbabwe had a medieval kingdom going for quite a while. Nigeria made the walls of Benin, Chad an empire, and the Swahili Kilwa and Zanzibar. And as for your final question... how are printing and electricity weapons of war?

[@Hogscraper]

@@thehayze259 The Mali Empire didn't have shit for technological advancement until it was taught to them by Arab traders. Same for the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa. They made it through the copper and bronze age on their own but the wheel had to be taught to them as did everything else. Even the major cities along their coast didn't arise until those traders showed up and quickly died when they left. Things like gunpowder happened a single time in a single place and was only known elsewhere because it spread. Literally everywhere that didn't have contact with that chain of sharing did not magically invent it on their own. I said tech springs from Science and Industry so what the f are you talking about with your final question?

[@shawnnbits]

Why would a place with magical warfare need gunpowder? Maybe east of Asshai theyd need that shit. But yeah i agree about the lack of named inventors and scholars

[@umwha]

Maybe Martin decided on the timeline like this. The last Ice age ended 10,000 Years ago. This was his basis for the Long Night and the Others. The next Ice Age did occur in the middle ages. Thats this coming Long Night. If the 'middle ages' refers to about 1000AD, then that means the Ice Ages are seperated by 8-9,000 years, exactly matching the Game of Thrones world. So. I think he wanted to match the Long Nights with Ice Ages, and thats where he got the '8000' years number from, and then just had his current hosues beleive that their origins stretch back that far. I mean, in 800AD or so, Britain was ruled by Anglo-Saxon kings, who probably did have an unbroken line of rulership from the indiginous tribes of Britain, stretching back many thousands of years.

[@silverwriter6739]

That's a good point. And while almost certainly not true, some of those early lines claimed descent from far more ancient ones, including the Royal House of Troy. According to legend, one of Aeneas's grandsons was named Brutus and traveled to Britain (which, according to the legend, is named for him) and founded a dynasty that somehow made its way all the way to the present. Several mythological figures were supposedly part of this line, such as King Lear. As I said, it's almost certainly not true, but if we pretended for a moment that it WAS, it would give the current royal line a legacy going back over 3,000 years. A powerful propaganda tool if it were to be believed.

[@l-nolazck-rn24]

I love the music change in the beginning lmfao. Essos imo it's the Eurasian steppe, the urals, the ugro finnic north and both hellenized and non hellenized North Africa It haves some references to the levant and Babylonian regions but overall is that region mixed with Gelonia and the European Sarmatia.

[@strategossable1366]

I understand your complaints, and to me the biggest problem has always been how few nationalities and countries there are in the world - in Westeros, something the size of South America, there are 8 major kingdoms (Iron islands don't count as part of the 7), and the odd wild people like the hill people in the vale or the wildlings. This is ridiculously small compared to say Europe in the 1500s, where there were literally hundreds of kingdoms and empires. The lack of variety and number takes away from the world feeling properly full. Also the families lasting 8000 years is stupid I agree. As for tech progression though - I understand where you are coming from, but consider that 1) it took human civlisation ~7000 years to get gunpowder and the printing press, so it's not ridiculous to assume that it takes just as long or longer in the World of Ice and Fire - the Americas didn't invent gunpowder at all, after all. And 2) Europe got developments like the compass and industrial revolution before China despite a smaller population and less centralised states, because the large coastline and competition between states incentivised innovation. It makes sense that if you have a world-dominating empire like Valyria that there isn't much innovation, because why do we need to bother trying to invent a fiery weapon if we have dragons? Why do we need to bother inventing compasses to discover far-off lands, or printing if the average noble has endless amounts of servants and scholars to provide for their every need and to write any book you could want? It makes sense that Valyria doesn't innovate, just like it makes sense that the relatively poor civilisations after Valyria don't because of the opposite reason that they lack the resources to innovate.

[@user-wu8dg7cp1r]

China got compass way before Europe did

[@francoislouw2819]

My biggest problem with scale is mostly in SciFi movies where space or star ships are present. They all seem to use the same technology as the Tardis. Big inside, small outside. And when they zoom out, that is where it is the worst. The scale of people compared to the ship just is not right. Mortal Engines is one of the worst.

[@thehayze259]

Sci-fi has its own problems with scale too, but honestly they usually wave it away with, "science magic," so I don't mind as much. Meanwhile Game of Thrones is explicitly made to be at least mostly realistic.

[@sudanemamimikiki1527]

@@thehayze259 i would recommend you to check out warhammer 40k if you want some awful scale. the greatest and deadliest war in the history of the galaxy had a death toll less than world war 1, while still waging on for about 3 times the length of world war one. and the idea that the writers have for an army big enough to hold an entire planet is about 50 000 men strong.

[@thehayze259]

I've never really gotten into Warhammer, but yeah... that sounds pretty egregious.

[@sudanemamimikiki1527]

@@thehayze259 yeah 40k is quite fun but their idea of numbers is idiotic... another good example would be how one of the largest ships in the whole series had an official weight that it would have made sense for the ship to have been made out of cardboard rather than metal.

[@borakaraca9788]

@@sudanemamimikiki1527 also there are jedi sith laserguns spaceships for thousends of years in star wars but nobody intended to do weapons like death star. technology isnt moving in all fantasy worlds

[@cam1772fsu]

yeah, he has a problem with scale...not just time, but size as well. You mentioned the size of the continents being ridiculously big, but the size of a lot of the buildings are silly too (castles, towers, pyramids, etc). The size of armies and battles are also too big compared to historical counterparts, not to mention the logistics required to maintain them. It's always been one of the few nitpicks I've had with the stories (that, and genetics). I think he just picks big numbers that sound really impressive without thinking through all the implications. I read somewhere that when they showed him The Wall they were using the for the show, he realized he had written it way, way too big. oops! heh

[@u06jo3vmp]

For comparison, in Tolkien's Middle Earth, no kingdom stood over 8000 years, not even the elvish ones

[@nicolasdiazloaiza2688]

Very cool and well explained. But, why would you asume that a fantasy world has the same rules and evolution of the real world. In the wheel of time the past was very advanced, even with flying machines, and the story happens after that and there's and involution, that's because it's fantasy. It has its own rules

[@beersmurff]

David Spade sounds angry. Did someone miscalculate the length of the nap he needed?

[@Proud2bGreek1]

5:20 Because innovation comes mainly from necessity. Curiosity too but mainly from necessity. What need would the masters of dragons have for gunpowder?

[@Tupadre97]

Pretty sure the explanation for the lack of invention was the fact the world was a lot more magical in the past so maybe the reason why they didn't invent anything was because magic filled that role but after the doom of valyria the world became less magical over time so it seems like there's been no progress without it.

[@thaylonD]

They had dragons and actively didn't *want* gunpowder to be a thing because it would have endangered their rule?

[@_volder]

GRRM has said himself that he thinks the numbers he gave for a lot of things are too big. For example, he didn't realize how gigantic he'd made The Wall until he saw it on screen and couldn't believe how big they'd made it. But also, people on Earth in past eras have had a tendency to overstate their own histories. And magic and especially dragons would stifle technological development. They would not only eliminate some of the positive incentive for it but also create strong negative pressure against it, because he who draws attention to himself gets eliminated. Competition stops working under an endless monopoly.

[@Carlton-B]

I am waiting for the Game of Thrones-Middle Earth crossover movie. Then, we'll see some historic accuracy.

[@Krom5072]

Descriptions of characters' physique are also nonsense sometimes. Gregor Clegane is described to be 420 lbs, or 190 kgs of "pure muscle". I don't think such weights are achievable even with modern nutritional science, training equipment, and specialized bodybuilder foods. At the same time, I assume we're not always meant to take these numbers literally. It doesn't really matter exactly how tall or heavy is the Mountain, what matters is that he is ridiculously big and dangerous on the battlefield, and that's what people care about in-universe. Maybe this principle applies to some of the descriptions of time or distance. Who cares if the Night's Watch was founded 8000 years ago, what matters is that it was founded a long fucking time ago.

[@diegonatan6301]

10:00 even before the Shogunate the Emperors had little power since the Fujiwara Clan had the position of Kampaku (Regent for the adult Emperor) and was regularly controling the country from at least the 10th century onwards.

[@Hypernefelos]

Good take. I've never liked the tendency of fantasy settings to appear stuck in perpetual middle ages, and the longevity of the dynasties here is just ridiculous. I do feel like I need to nitpick some things, though. 1) Technological advancement took longer in ASOIAF, but they also had catastrophic winters setting them back every once in a while. Here on Earth, technology has advanced at widely different rates in different parts of the world, depending on environmental conditions and connectivity. Lots of places were still in the Stone Age until a few centuries ago. 2) You can't use the population density of the Roman Empire to derive the population density of the old Valyrian Empire. Roman lands were mostly around the Mediterranean, where food could be easily grown with the technology of the time, particularly in Egypt, and then widely shipped around. If one were to look at Central Asia and Siberia at the same time, their population densities would have been far, far lower. Much of Essos would have been like the latter.

[@Marcus-ki1en]

What do you mean the king has no clothes?! Heresy! Thank you, some one had to say it, finally.

[@Alknix]

I blame the word "thousand". It just sounds so epic and catchy the showrunners (and, to a lesser degree, Martin himself) couldn't resist the urge to use it wherever. Thousands of years, thousands of miles/leagues, that goddamn stupid "thousand ships" everybody kept throwing around.

[@JM-mh1pp]

Your problem is that you treat progress as inevitable, it is not. Look at India, China, Japan, south american empires. More often than not empire reaches certain plateau and just stops. Technological revolution of europe was really quite a unique event

[@capcap2563]

when you have the fire breathing monster, do you even need a gun?

[@paulster185]

The complaint about time it takes for technological development is bogus. Why it should take as much time as irl in Middle Asia. Why not complain that by that time China had paper money, official chosen by written exams, and proto-corporations?

[@Kuani]

While I do feel the video is kinda knit-picky (it’s a fantasy series, not real life), I was shocked to see how few views this has. Great quality and an interesting concept.

[@thehayze259]

Yeah, I know it's a bit knit picky, it just kind of bugs me. Thanks though, I appreciate it :)

[@razinghavoc7419]

​@@thehayze259Don't let anyone tell you your opinion isn't valid. I don't view it as a problem as you do and that's fine. We all are have our likes and dislikes. And that's fine

[@a_fuckin_spacemarine7514]

Easy explanation: The people of GOT never had alien intervention as we did IRL. Duh.....

[@intermaria]

One tenth of this would be a perfect timescale, other than Aegon's Conquest and after

[@Tyler_W]

I think a lot of your conclusions are based around a few important assumptions that simply aren't true and don't make quite as much sense as you think they do. Your questions are absolutely valid, mind you. For example, your questions about how so many societies and individual families supposedly existed for so many thousands of years, but I don't really agree with most of your arguments to conclude that that these questions therefore make the world nonsensical. Culture and geography, for example, are heavy influencers on social and technological advancement. Sure, various parts of this world are inspired by historical counterparts like Great Britain, China, Rome, and Byzantium, but they are not lirerally Great Britain, China, Rome, and Byzantium. They're not dealing with the same factors. You can't just argue that the progression of time makes no sense when lined up to events in the real world because it's not the exact same world under the exact same conditions. Saying it makes no sense for Valyria to control the geographical landmass of three Cbinas because Rome didn't makes no sense. They have different histories, geographies, and cultural, social, and other realities to consider, and it assumes that because there are some parallels between a fictional and real society to give the world a sense of groubdedness that it therefore only makes sense for them to be exactly the same in every way. As far as the length of time these houses have existed, I think you take the history that's presented at face value. You acknowledged that it might not be exactly as it appears with the case of Branden the Builder, but you fail to apply the same logic everywhere else. There may be a lot of reasons unique to that world and its history that explain why so many houses have such longevity, but at the same time, everything recorded about history should be taken with a grain of salt, and even Martin says this. (That's why there are so many channels debating and speculating about the true history of this fictional world.) Sometimes people completely fabricate their mythical histories to bolster their claim to legitimacy. Sometimes one group takes over another group and adopts the names and titles of their predecessors. Often times there's a root of truth to ancient stories, but after so long, you get a game of telephone where stories evolve and change over time. Similar to your assumptions about how long various empires and families existed are your assumptions about societal and technological advancement. As I said before, just because some real world similarities exist does not mean that the existence of dissimilarities makes the world unbelievable. Similarly, it also doesn't mean that just because some real world examples made certain technological and societal advancements within a certain period of time that this fantasy world must therefore have a similar historical trajectory. History is not a straightforward trajectory toward "progress," whatever that actually means. Believe it or not, there exists a hypothetical reality in which humanity could have experienced an industrial revolution almost 2000 years before we actually did. The ancient Greek empire conceptually understood things that could have led to technologies like the steam engine. It just didn't happen because the Greeks believed that astract theorizing was better than practical implementation of one's theoretical ideas (a consequence of the implications of platonic philosophy). Likewise, when powerful societies decline and collapse, often times some or even a lot of their knowledge is lost with them because people forget, the people with that knowledge and skill die off, skills and knowledge aren't effectively passed on or adequately recorded from generation to generation, and or the means to duplicate certain technologies of the past are no longer available for some reason. This is something that is even pointed out in the GOT universe about Valyria, who was said to be capable of doing and creating things that have simply been lost to time since the Doom. Cultures can both advance and decline. IRL, the earliest known example of writing was around 6000 years ago in the Mesopotamian empure of Sumer, and that's just what we have records for. Every example of written material since the earliest known recording of human writing was done by hand for thousands of years until like 400-500 years ago. As far as we know, there could be some catacllysm and surviving humans 10k years from now could be in another iron or bronze age scenario. They may hypothetically know that something called the internet existed, but they have none of the tools, access to respurces, or even the understanding to duplicate it. History simply isn't a linear progression. Culture, historical events, environment and geography, competing tribes, philosophical and spiritual beliefs (which I suppose falls under culture) and a bunch of different factors influence why, how, and how quickly any given society makes some societal or technological advancements (or regressions) and not others, and that logic certainly applies to any semi-coherent fictional world. The questions you raise are valid, but to claim that because they don't exactly line up with real world examples or to argue that because these questions exist means that the world ks nonsensical is itself nonsensical.

[@felixbaranowski5706]

The level of video is surprising for the channel size, amazing job am really excited to what you will create ones you get more reach

[@thehayze259]

Thank you! These last two I've made have been doing really well, which I've been pretty happy about.

[@cyrusol]

Maybe there is no such thing as sulfur or electricity in the GoT world. Maybe "wildfire" is the closest thing they can make to bombs.

[@jkosch]

From what remember during his journey on the Rhoyne with young Griff Tyrion mentions that there is a Maester who proposes there is something very wrong with the chronology in-universe. There is also the in-universe Questions by Maester Denestan who says the coming of the Andals to Westeros (and thus the Westerosi Iron Age) only started about 2000 years ago. Since that migration seems to have happend due to Valyria's expansion (and we can compare the areas of Essos settled by the ancestors of the Andals to those of the Rhoyanar who were pushed to migrate to Westeros later by the Valyrians). There is also no mention of the cyclical nature of the years long seasons with the Collapse of almost all civilization in the Long Night that would influence the possibilities for development in this world. It is highly unlikely that Valeria, a single Freeholt with an oligarchical system of governance more similar to the Roman Republic, did ever manage to control their possessions like the Romans did. Those few of the ruling class could only do so due to Dragons. The estimate you give for the population of the Valerian "Empire" is a gross overestimate. Unlike Rome, which centered around the more or less pretty populous Mediterran Sea much of the territory claimed by Valyria was vast open, barely settled land (areas like the Doththraki Sea, the Red Waste, the much less populous Northern (boreal) parts of Essos (where only the city states of the Sanori along the Sarne where population centers). Only parts of the West of Essos (the Rhoynish Territories and a lot of the Backlands of the the later Free Cities and the South (Valyria herself and parts of Slaver's Bay) might have been comparable to Roman provinces like Gaul, Greece, or even Syria in terms of population density. And the small group of Valyrian families could only hold the territory together due having dragons and Magic. Also to me Lord of the Rings is a much worse offender in this department of long passages of time with not enough dynamic changes and stagnant periods.

[@jkosch]

The supposed time that Valyria (and Old Ghis) existed is also just in-universe lore. It could easily be that they projected dates back in time and invented rulers (or turned mythological figures into historical characters). We see that a lot in old civilzations (you mention yourself the first 900 years of Japanese "Imperial" history and others were much worse; the Sumerian King list has 241,200 years of history before the supposed date of the great flood and then still reigns of kings supposedly lasting a few 100 or even 1200 years before [after the time of Gilgamesh] times plummet to realistic values; Chinese history has a tendency to treat eras before the late Zhou "dynasty" as imperial dynasties like those after Qin Shi Hunagdi when it really is concerned with petty kingdoms and tribal centers and it also puts in mythological figures with absurdly long reigns into the chronology).

[@Artaxerxes.]

We also haven't factored into account, the rest of the world like yiti and asshai. Pretty sure they have some advanced tech. Westeros is like Aztecs and yiti is like Oxford. Oxford was founded before Aztecs. Westeros might just be lagging

[@apstrike]

The unending dynasties thing has bothered me. And the use of ravens drives me apoplectic because if you want to send a raven to castle x then castle x needs to previously have shipped you a raven overland. To support the storyline in the books all the roads in Westeros would need to be covered in ravens. And when Stannis sends the news that Joffrey is a bastard to all the lords of Westeros he'd need a warehouse full of ravens, not a rookery.

[@skoniramont]

Try storing any quantities of gunpowder, when there's a jerk with a firebreathing dragon,... No joke, this is actually a plotpoint in the Elven Saga by Bernhard Hennen: Humans did invent firearms and nearly conquered all the mystical lands, but same as with dragons: Try storing quantities of gunpowder, when you have magicians who learned to cast sparks wherever they want,... And on a different note that was more complicated in the storyline: The humans destroyed a magic network that distributed energy around the worls. Without the network, the energy built up and lead to catastrophies,... So humans learned how to use magic, got rid of Firearms and stayed in the Rennaisance.

[@cypdead]

great video but most of your points could be answered like the answer to the eagles question in lotr, if they had gun powder, it would be a boring story. also we are invited to question the time periods, how evenrs happened or if they happened at all

[@cypdead]

also they did not require gun powder, they had dragons(basically nukes jn their prime) a cool theory would be that hey DID find gunpowder but kept it secret since they would loose their authority over the people

[@thehayze259]

That's the Doylist explanation, I'm worried about the Wattsonian one. It might make for a more boring story, but that still doesn't explain why it didn't happen given the premises Martin set up. I'm not taking issue with the lack itself, but the premises. And the original creators of gunpowder didn't think, "Let's create something that can explode!" They were actually looking for a recipe for the elixir of immortality, and then figured out something that was a really good firestarter, something practical for the average person. Gunpowder existed for 300 years before guns did.

[@MohamedRamadan-qi4hl]

​​@@cypdeadwesteroes only had dragons for the 150 years. And essos didn't have dragons for 300 years by now. Not to mention that even during valryia times they only had a few hundred dragons Also having gunpowder makes for a boring story?..... Seriously? Cannons and guns = boring?

[@idruvak]

All of these things grate on my mind too... Its a bait baffling how such an intelligent and well written story has these glaring & ludicrous faults... I still bloody love it though... as long as they don't end the book series with the same "chicks be crazy" ending that they did in the tv show.

[@LeeCarlson]

The whole issue with scale is that human beings do not recognize just how long (or short) an era will be, nor what (if anything) will accelerate or retard the development of "technology." BTW gunpowder may have been developed (see fireworks) but was not used in combat by the Chinese. A lot has to do with how the people think and how their culture is put together. I would point you at Dr. Joseph Heinrich's book "The WEIRDest People in the World."

[@jeangove01]

There's also the issue that families that are supposedly thousands of years old are almost nuclear families when first introduced. The Starks have no extended family, no cousins, no great-uncles, just a nuclear family, mother, father and children? It's just not how that works.

[@thekrakensdaughter]

the lannisters have a lot of cousins tho

[@cascalavera9388]

The "Aztecs" (MEXICA) were around for 300 years, not just a century.

[@TomCoutfit]

The seasons also make no sense. Having winters that can last for years would be an interesting idea as it would mean civilisation would have to adapt and there would have to be certain differences in vegatation and animals - the flora and fauna of Westros is basically European so he missed a trick there to make it more fantastical.

[@rustyk4645]

Magic crowded out Technology.

[@Ferox2121]

Well, technological stagnation is one of the prime fantasy tropes. You will almost always have fantasy empires that have stayed on their technological baseline for centuries or even millenia without any significant technological or sociological progress. Heck, even LotR is guilty of that. Numenor in the 2nd age was around for almost 3500 and did not progess on any field...

[@thekrakensdaughter]

the whole thousand years people keep saying, is mostly just because they don't actually remember how long they were allies, martin even said that himself a few times, I remember him saying the long night happened somewhere close to 5 thousand ago years but when people talk about it in universe they say it was 8 thousand years ago also there were already ballistas at least 300 years ago, during aegon conquest the dornish used it to try to kill the dragons

[@carloshenriquezimmer7543]

My two cents of uselessness: Valyria was destroyed by the predecessors of the "House of The Black And The white" (they are not the faceless men). Just like historical colapses of ancient civilizations, it is very probable that a lot of theyr knowledge and science was lost and forgotten. The first men are described more like the very early Bronze Age peoples, nomads without an organized society, almost a copper age people. It would take a hell lot longer for them to upgrade to a recognizable kngdom-like structure than if they were a proper civilization. Specially considering that they were in constant battle with the magical natives.

[@eltovli_q1501]

You are forgetting the part where the WOASOIAF is not Earth because it's a literal fiction so GRRM can write what ever he want about the world and it would be the world

[@patrickleighpresents749]

Please use BC and AD. BC and CE sound too similar without audio issues, but with the music added, there were multiple times where I got thrown off listening to you say BC and CE.

[@BaldianOfIbelin]

The progress of technology is not linear many times technology is lost we go backwards or stays at almost the same level as it started But that almost always happens when eras collapse and great empires dissolve so your point stands.

[@theblaquemargin]

....Great, now I have to redo everything in my novel... 😭😭

[@thehayze259]

Haha, don't worry about it

[@jensphiliphohmann1876]

About 06:00 Maybe, such great empires tend to slow down in their technological development in spite of their correspondingly great resources because they don't have the need to innovate so much. The idea that Rome, had it lasted to the present day in shape of Trajan's Rome, would have industrialised way earlier and colonised Moon and Mars already may be completely false. The middle ages and the modern era with their relatively small states struggling and competing with each other had much more pressure to innovate, to not just have some fancy ideas like Heron had but to convert them into technology.

[@adamantiiispencespence4012]

I've always said scale is where George makes it obvious this is a fantasy setting for an otherwise very grounded almost historical fiction approach to the work. But I think George goes a very long way to show how decentralized his world has been and that makes the slow technological advancement make some sense. Even dark ages Europe and Britain were divided into many small kingdoms and if we're taking a similar dynamic and while majorly increasing the landmass and adding the obstacles of years long winters (especially in the North were summers snows can get a foot deep). In real life technological progression was never this inevitable linear path you and alot of people treat it as. The Chinese Alchemists who discovered gunpowder did so by accident and tabled the formula for almost a hundred because it went boom and "singed their beards". If they hadn't recorded it can you imagine how different the world look if gunpowder came much later or not at all? The monks who discovered the effects of coffee beans did so similarly by accident. Also Valyria wasn't a truly centralized empire it was a free hold of dragon lord sorcerers in which the most powerful families of such grew increasingly disinterested in the world outside their city. Their empire mainly existed to acquire slaves for sacrifice and mining beneath the Fourteen Flames. So given that they mostly went around genociding everyone they couldn't enslave I don't think the FreeHold had a Rome esque population.

[@liftedmarco4976]

But they had Dragons, and Blood Magic, and infinite slaves.