What the Targaryens follow known as semi-Salic law (females can’t inherit until all male dynast are dead or excluded from succession for another reason). The lordships on the other hand follow the Andalish custom of male preference primogeniture; if there’s no sons the oldest daughter inherits ahead of any uncles or male cousins. It’s unclear if succession to the Iron Throne still follows semi-Salic law now that it’s a possession of House Baratheon, but in any even Stannis (who’s heir presumptive is his daughter Shireen) is in open rebellion against the crown so his claim is probably forfeit (from the perspective of anyone who considers Tommen & Myrcella as legitimate). Then there’s the Dornish with their absolute primogeniture (eldest child inherits regardless of sex).
That is incorrect. For one thing, Christianity itself faced any number of splinter groups, internal divides (Avignon popes, anyone ?) and heresies ranging from the mundane (“we think the Virgin Mary was black”) to the brutal (“Jesus said charity was good and was poor himself, so we’ll kill anybody who owns private property”)
For another, even in the MA Christianity had to *work *at becoming mainstream throughout, well, Christendom. Cathars in southern France, the Old Gods in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, Islam spreading in Spain and southern Italy… or just old diehard local superstitions or ancient rituals. You might know about those since you still practice some that the Catholic Church basically threw its hands up at : Easter eggs, maypoles, Christmas, Halloween…
… Hanukkah…
I think you may be overstating Dany’s forces. First of all, pre-industrial armies were numbered in the tens of thousands of men, or very, very rarely, the hundreds of thousands (e.g., Napoleon’s Grande Armee). In this very episode, IIRC, Stannis and the Onion Knight were discussing their lack of forces; the possibility of getting ten thousand mercenaries was seen as a game changer. And, considering what we’ve seen on screen, this sounds about right. (Someone with more time on their hands than I could probably determine the exact size of Dany’s army with one of those scenes where they all line up in nice boxes.) In fact, now that I’m thinking about it, I think Dany’s numbers were actually mentioned at some point in the previous seasons, but I’d guess it at somewhere between ten and twenty thousand. While the folks in Westeros are recovering from the recent war, I imagine they can put together this many, give or take a few.
Second, even assuming she has a numerical advantage, numbers alone do not win wars. I don’t think we’ve seen her troops in action yet, so their reputation is for now, only words–it is not solid. (</niska>) We don’t know how they are at tactics or really even strategy. And really, none of that is all that important, because what really wins wars is logistics, and I cannot see that that’s going to be easy for them once they launch the Westerosi D-Day invasion. The dragons are worth a good deal, I admit, but they’re not enough to tip the scales on their own either.
So, I wouldn’t count Westeros out just yet. Dany’s got a lot on her side, but it’s not a done deal.
It’s not just Danny either, there is an army of evil beings that can raise zombies coming and the armies of men are fighting each other. The first two lines of defence (the nightswatch and the northmen) are already in shambles. Which probably means she will not be a conqueror but a savior and those millions of ex slaves might make it there after all.
Some things Dany’s army has going for her are their discipline and fearlessness. I’m not too knowledgeable on the subject of ancient warfare but I was under the impression that more-or-less the army that lost was the one that started running away first which didn’t always align with who had the greater numbers. Her force will basically never retreat and it seems likely that every last Unsullied will fight on, remaining in formation, until killed. But ultimately I don’t think that would matter too much given the numbers all of Westeros could likely raise in response to a foreign invasion.
What really matters are her dragons, which aren’t too impressive in the grand scheme of things for the moment. But fully grown there wouldn’t be a lot that could stop them. Giant creatures with skulls the size of school buses that can just make flyby attacks with fire (see: Harrenhal - Tywin described it as the greatest fortress ever built and even it couldn’t protect its inhabitants from dragonfire). It won the war for the Targaryens the first time around. I imagine the way to beat them is with concentrated fire from a group of large ballistae or something like that. You’d have to pray your crews could fire them pretty accurately because once the dragons notice they’re being attacked with them they’re gonna fly over and roast 'em.
I don’t think Dany really has that many troops. She has two groups of warriors, the remaining Dothraki and the Unsullied. There were 40,000 wariors in Drogo’s khalasar. She bought around 8,000 Unsullied. If 10% of the Dothraki stayed with her, and I think that’s being extremely generous, then she’d have one of the smallest armies in Westeros. I think half of the Lannister army was 30,000 troops. Now, throw in the dragons and it gets more interesting, but I think that at their current sizes a group of archers would be able to take them out.
I gotta say, I just don’t understand this objection. Westeros is familiar, yes, because it has many similarities with medieval Europe. It also has differences. Among the differences are some that are supernatural (dragons, white walkers, shadow babies), and some that are more prosaic (potatoes, less power for the church). Why is that second list being empty something to be strived for?
I think it’s intentional on GRRM’s part that all of the people who are “playing the Game of Thrones” (Littlefinger, Tywin, the Tyrells) who think they are maneuvering to be king of the world are basically fighting to see who gets to be the captain of the Titanic. Doesn’t mean the story can’t be entertaining, and it doesn’t mean that it’s TOTALLY irrelevant who (if anyone) ends up on top.
This is why i love GoT history lessons, when Tywin was talking to Oberyn he mentioned Danny and that the Dornish had managed to resist the initial conquest by the Targaryens. It would be very interesting to learn how they managed that, those were full grown super bad ass dragons with Targaryen riders.
This is definitely a major theme. It reminds me of H. H. Munro’s story The Interlopers about two men, members of opposing families, who find themselves trapped beneath the same fallen tree deep in a forest at night. First they spend a while making threats about how each of their respective families will find them first and deal with the other, but eventually they start talking about how they plan on inviting one another to their homes and showing one another how generous and hospitable they each are. It’s all shown to be a pointless vanity when a pack of wolves arrives before either of their families.
PM sent.
A couple things you guys might not be considering in your assessments of Dany just rolling over Westeros:
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That ancient buried stuff that Sam found, and with which he was easily able to kill the WW. Wasn’t it called Dragon-something? I know there was some tie-in with the word “dragon” mentioned by somebody. For the people wishing Sam and Gilly would just get written out already, I’ve got the feeling this plot-line is why he’ll matter, eventually. It might even be soon that Jon Snow goes looking for more of those relics on his (their?) seemingly impending trip North of the wall. They’ll need some sort of defenses against any more of those baddies they’re likely to run into.
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Mellisandre has got all kinds of tricks up her, uhh, sleeve.
Dragonglass is obsidian.
I’m just going by the show, in which we’ve seen Dany do the *Approach a City-State and Free its Slaves *thing more than once. Many viewers have speculated that the character won’t be allowed to reach Westeros for a couple more seasons. Because…The Books.
So on the theory, mentioned earlier in the thread, that the showrunners have to give these performers SOMETHING to do even though there’s no real story for them, yet…well, it seemed quite possible that Dany would go on freeing slaves and building her army. Thus the “yea-many millions” figure for the presumed seasons-in-the-future confrontation. Twenty more episodes-worth of impassioned calls for Freedom And Justice could result in a pretty large number of loincloth-clad followers.
Of course the story may go elsewhere. Perhaps the army of freed slaves will tire of all that tramping around Essos. Perhaps they’ll go off and form an autonomous collective, leaving Dany on her own to (perforce) join in The Game herself.
Or something very much like it.
Please read the OP again, and say nothing about any books.
Sam: “It must be dragonglass!”
Grenn: “Dragonglass?”
Sam: “The maesters call it osbidian.”
Yeah but is obsidian part dragonglass?
Ah, thanks. I’d forgotten there was an explicit reference to it. Of course, it might be a little different in Westeros.
That was the best one this season.
“Home is where you shoot your snotrocket.”