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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   994 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for June 26, 2026

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One thing bugging me about the dragon show and perhaps the biggest thing in the whole series that makes no sense is how did the Targaryen’s remain in charge for 129 years between the last dragon and Robert’s Rebellion. They didn’t heavily intermarry or have a lot of people related to them. They were basically aliens who lost their special ability. I would expect them to last like 6 months without dragons.

Are there any historical parallels? The Europeans to the new world were few for a time but maintained better technology and most likely 10-15 IQ points higher intelligence. The show gives no indication targs were smarter.

Did the common people know the dragons were extinct in Game of Thrones until long after it happened?

They had been ruling for 130 years prior to the Dance of Dragons, the civil war that killed off most of the dragons. That creates a lot of institutional inertia. Also the seven kingdoms were called that for a reason - they weren't exactly inclined to cooperate to kick a Targaryen off the throne, if it meant elevating their rival next door.

After the Dance of Dragons there was a pretty long period of regencies and conflicts, where it sounds like the different kingdoms were effectively fighting over who would rule by proxy. It really was a downward trend from there, until Robert's Rebellion ended the dynasty.

Well they have a good shot at 'divine right to rule', as good as any theocracy or real monarchy at least? Institutional legitimacy?

They seem to have won a series of rebellions and only got overthrown because of exceptional madness in their ranks.

https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/First_Blackfyre_Rebellion

Just because everyone hates the current regime doesn’t mean they’re going to agree on a replacement, especially since Westeros wasn’t even one country when the Targaryens arrived. Robert getting personally slighted by Aegon and going on a suicidal revenge spree finally created a scheming point for everyone to rally around. Many such cases in real history.

a scheming point

I assume you meant Schelling Point, but Scheming Point works just as well!

The Ptolemids seem like the closest parallel. They managed about 300 years before the Romans knocked them over and IIRC kept it, ah, in the family, so to speak.

It seems to me that for all Martin's talk about what is Aragon's tax policy, he really didn't think very hard about the details of his world building. See the size of the kingdom, the height of the wall (the show halfed the book's described size and he thought it was too tall upon seeing it) and many others.

I suspect he liked William the Conqueror so stuck him in without including all the details that allowed William to actually secure authority.

It wasn't even a lot of talk, it was a cheap throwaway line. I don't see any reason to think Martin was ever any deeper on setting stuff. AP Euro hammered the acronym PERSIA into my brain. Politics, Economics, Religion, Social, Intellectual, Artistic. How deep did he go into any of that for Westeros? He basically just did neat, fun crap at comic book depth, while having pretty solid characterization and a couple centuries of ancestries.

Tolkein at least was explicitly doing Mythos. What's Martin's excuse?

I haven't read the relevant books but I get the distinct impression that Tolkien definitely took the time to hammer out a lot of the PERSIA stuff, too.

I think he did think a lot about world building but there were either areas he forgot to tie up or couldn’t think of a way to tie things up. It’s not uncommon to have sci-fi to have holes that can not be completed.

Best I can come up with is the Targs without dragons would need to be rather poor. Where all the other houses would fight for the targs if another house tried to be king because the funds siphoned off by the royals was small and a new King would likely try and find ways to boost his income.

But overall 30 maybe 100 Targaryen blood people aren’t ruling a land without dragons. The British could rule India I assume because trade was very profitable for elites. The US ruled Afghanistan mostly with bribes (pre-invasion per capita income was $500/post invasion $1k). Not entirely sure how Britain was in with the Chinese but I’ve heard Heroin is a lot of fun. The Spanish actually fucked a lot the Aztec ruling class creating an elite and I assume had better weapons, money, and there was some religious prophecy. US, Argentina, and Australia didn’t have population centers. Ukraine is in this endless war because Poland got rich and is like 12x Ukrainian per capita income. Assad still had like 15% of the population his ethnicity pre-war and richer backers. The Jews who some say rule the world probably have average IQ a standard deviation above average and invented nukes and AI. Non of these seem to apply to what the Targs had when dragons died.

It seems to me that for all Martin's talk about what is Aragon's tax policy, he really didn't think very hard about the details of his world building.

If JRRT was economics nerd instead of linguistic one, the trilogy would definitely have 50 page appendix about Sauron's tax policy and full org chart of Mordor internal revenue service. Be careful what you wish for.

I'd find that pretty interesting, because I am an economics nerd.

Are there any novels with economics appendices?

ACKS (the Adventurer Conqueror King System) has a 12-page economics appendix, but it's a tabletop RPG, not a novel.

Not originally, but classical regency romances now need massive appendices explaining the social and economic structure of vanished world of early 19th century Britain, world as strange and foreign to 21st century as Shire or Gondor.

Reading the Regency

How accurate is that guide? I'm surprised that the author doesn't try to build up their own cred in the foreword, unless I missed it, although she does seem to cite her sources in the comments.

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