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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   994 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for June 26, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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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.

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.

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