Okay, how many cousins, on average, do you think is reasonable to expect a person to have in a medieval setting?
Because on average, the lords of all the great houses at the beginning of Season 1 appear to have zero cousins. Even if half the cousins were killed at the Battle of the Trident, that seems rather low.
No, the Blackfish is definitely presumed dead. We didn’t actually see the body, so he’s in the Syrio Forel/Stannis category, but, it’s almost certain that he’s dead.
Right. What beggars belief is the fact that these families have existed in an unbroken line for 8000 years or so before this point in the story.
I have no idea how to answer that question.
But even if I did, do you understand the difference between “extremely unlikely” and “unbelievable”?
Actually, I agree with this. It takes much more suspension of disbelief to accept that House Stark, for example, has had an unbroken line of male descent for thousands of years. At more than one point, male descent would have failed.
We don’t actually know that some Baratheon cousin isn’t Lord of Storm’s end, do we? Presumably Cersei could’ve put some weak and loyal Baratheon in the position, and he just didn’t play a significant role in the story and we’re never shown that. Gendry would only be installed in the event that Danerys wins the iron throne.
Well, yes, that is significantly less believable than the simultaneous paucity of heirs among Westerosi nobility, I quite agree. I always took it to be part of the package of a land frozen at a medieval level of technology for those same 8000 years, myself.
That is seriously infuriating.
Well, if you can accept that, then what’s the problem? Given that noble families go extinct routinely, it’s not unbelievable that the top level of nobility in Westeros is short of heirs during a tumultuous period. Again, there’s a difference between extremely unlikely and unbelievable. Extremely unlikely things happen all the time.
Ah, right sorry. I was getting my mediums mixed up.
In the case of House Baratheon, it’s perfectly understandable why there are no legitimate male heirs. Two of them died trying to win the throne for themselves and Cersei made sure no male with even a whiff of Robert’s dna was around to challenge Joffrey. Even if there is a Baratheon heir in hiding somewhere, hiding is exactly where he’ll stay as long as the Genocide of the Stags is sitting on the throne.
Aside from that, the land holdings don’t stay in the family if the family rebels against the throne. As long as the monarch has actual control of the territory, the monarch names allies to hold the castle. To the victor goes the spoils.
But I think that completely misses the point of Dany’s elevation of Gendry as Lord of Storm’s End, beyond Dany’s awkward attempt to play her politician cards.
It’s a reminder that Gendry has king’s blood. That seemed to be an important plot point once upon a time.
Which doesn’t explain why there isn’t a single remote cousin or whatever…Applies apparently to the Lannisters, the Starks, the Tyrells, the Baratheons, the Boltons…
It bugs me because it’s inconsistent storytelling. Typical family size in noble families where we’re given enough information to tell is around 3-4. 5 Stark kids, 3 Starks in Ned’s generation, 3 Lannisters, 3 Tully’s, 4 Greyjoys, etc. Only 1 Arryn, but that’s remarkable. If that’s typical, then most of them should have a half dozen cousins, and a dozen or two second cousins. So when all the direct heirs are killed, someone should mention previously unknown cousin Pete must be next in line.
For some families to not fit this mold is fine. For all of them to have apparently no extended family doesn’t fit with what we know about Westerosi culture.
The weird 8 millennium continuity of families is a different story. It does bother me, but only in the same way that the frozen technology situation does. It makes no sense when you think about it, but it’s easy enough to just ignore as it has little impact on the events of the story.
You’re still confusing likelihood with unbelievability. As I said above, unlikely things happen all the time. Expectations or averages aren’t a measure of plausibility.
By the end of the Tudor era, all the royal dukedoms were extinct. In a general sense that was very unlikely if you measured everything by averages. But actual history has produced a result that was unlikely in the abstract sense. That is is a perfectly plausible outcome in Westeros.
Actually, didn’t they say the Karstarks were a cadet branch of the Starks? So they could switch to that line of the family tree. (Assuming any survived the Winterfell battle.)
And also recall that noble families tend to be highly endogamous, that is, nobles are strongly pressured to marry other nobles. That means it’s very likely that the highest-status families will have very narrow family trees, because various lines of cousins will converge through intermarriage.
That means if your direct heirs are all eliminated, it’s very likely that the most closely related cousins are also members of one of the small number of top families.
That means that there aren’t necessarily a lot of lines of this and fourth and fifth cousins that aren’t already accounted for among first and second cousins.
Add several period of civil war in and it becomes very easy to put most of the country’s top families in risk of extinction.
Again this may be highly unlikely in the abstract but perfectly plausible in the specific.
Dunno if it helps you or not but here is a Game of Thrones family tree of the major families. This is a TV version (nearly certain) but if you worry there may be extra info in it then do not click on the link. 99% sure though this is TV only.
If you count bastards then that expands a lot.
That’s certainly TV only, because a cursory glance shows it missing [REDACTED]. All it does, however, is illustrate what bugs me about all this - the family trees do not extend back at all. The parents of the characters we start the show with apparently had no family except for their offspring. Even if all the noble houses are heavily intermarried and everyone’s cousins are the same as everyone else’s cousins, they should still have cousins. But seemingly the only people who have cousins are Walder Frey’s grandchildren.
Is the main problem that in the early seasons the writers were adapting material from the source, actively aided by the author? And now they’re on their own and not nearly as talented storytellers as Martin? I don’t know the whole history of the show but that’s what it feels like.
Anyway, the climax really feels like an inevitable replay of history, with the Lannister Hand stabbing the Mad Queen in the back after she tries to burn them all. I hope it’s something far less predictable.
Part of it, another is that they are seriously rushing to finish the show so they can go do something else.
