Quote from: estar;891239What about the situation with the Border Reivers (sp?) between Scotland and England. Granted it was just an out and out feud between clans and families. But the animosity that the Night's Watch and the people of the Gift have for the Wildlings and vice versa is very similar.

Then there was the March Wardens who were both kingdoms attempt at controlling the situation (sort of).

If anything, it has more to do with Hadrian's Wall and idea of legions watching over Picts than Marcher Lords.

Quote from: Rincewind1;891435If anything, it has more to do with Hadrian's Wall and idea of legions watching over Picts than Marcher Lords.

This is the connection I have read about GRRM acknowledging. He said seeing Hadrian's wall was an inspiration, and that he didn't realize quite how high he was talking about when he wrote the description of his The Wall.

(Of course, the TV version decided to at least double the apparent size of it, AND make it scalable by random men with no particular training or experience scaling sheer ice walls of ridiculous height (LOL). Of course, the TV show also likes to show impossible castle/tower/city heights of crazy exaggerated height. "The throne room is a day's climb up...")

Quote from: Skarg;891477(Of course, the TV version decided to at least double the apparent size of it, AND make it scalable by random men with no particular training or experience scaling sheer ice walls of ridiculous height (LOL). Of course, the TV show also likes to show impossible castle/tower/city heights of crazy exaggerated height. "The throne room is a day's climb up...")

Well, but think about it.  If you follow GoT, you just have to take suspension of disbelief and kick it into the holler.  Railroad very obviously didn't give a damn about logistics, distances, common sense or a lot of things.  

They march gigantic armies across continental distances without giving the slightest thought to how long that actually takes or the logistics train one needs.  They have twenty guys actually capture and HOLD Winterfell, even when that force could be rolled by local peasants with hunting bows and grain flails and Northerners aren't described as being cowardly bunnies.  Why the North needs to conquer King's Landing (thousands of miles from their center of supply) is never adequately explained, when they just need to hold the Neck.  There's not enough game in all that ice and snow to feed Mance Rayder's army, not by a factor of 50.  100 grain wagons a day to alleviate the hunger in King's Landing?  Never mind the distance from Dorne to KL (which makes the notion absurd on the face), a city that size polishes off five hundred tons of food per day.

And OMG, the Wall.  I would cheerfully undertake to defend the Wall with 200 guys against the massed armies of all the world.  They can starve below while we drink tea and play pinochle, because that's a formidable technical climb for expert mountaineers (and where in the merry hell did the wildlings get that expertise?), and with the level of exhaustion that would involve, one ten-year-old with a good head for heights and a baseball bat could deal with everyone who made it in a quarter-mile's worth of wall.

Quote from: Ravenswing;891491Well, but think about it.  If you follow GoT, you just have to take suspension of disbelief and kick it into the holler.  Railroad very obviously didn't give a damn about logistics, distances, common sense or a lot of things.  

They march gigantic armies across continental distances without giving the slightest thought to how long that actually takes or the logistics train one needs.  They have twenty guys actually capture and HOLD Winterfell, even when that force could be rolled by local peasants with hunting bows and grain flails and Northerners aren't described as being cowardly bunnies.  Why the North needs to conquer King's Landing (thousands of miles from their center of supply) is never adequately explained, when they just need to hold the Neck.  There's not enough game in all that ice and snow to feed Mance Rayder's army, not by a factor of 50.  100 grain wagons a day to alleviate the hunger in King's Landing?  Never mind the distance from Dorne to KL (which makes the notion absurd on the face), a city that size polishes off five hundred tons of food per day.

And OMG, the Wall.  I would cheerfully undertake to defend the Wall with 200 guys against the massed armies of all the world.  They can starve below while we drink tea and play pinochle, because that's a formidable technical climb for expert mountaineers (and where in the merry hell did the wildlings get that expertise?), and with the level of exhaustion that would involve, one ten-year-old with a good head for heights and a baseball bat could deal with everyone who made it in a quarter-mile's worth of wall.

I agree about the logistics - not to mention that in general, any notion of lords returning to collect their harvests are mentioned mostly only in passing, while it'd be normal for fighting to cease for two months as everyone just returned to collect their grains. Disagree, or rather, have a polemic however, on the rest.

Capture of Winterfell has a lot of casuses in ancient history - read if only, how Aratus of Sicyon captured Sicyon, and if memory serves me right, something similar happened when Cassander besieged Olympias at Pydna - often a small group of people we'd nowadays call "commando" managed to break through a small gap in the defenses. Of course, usually they relied on local support. However, Winterfell is very specifically described as lacking any soldiers, and while we could argue the actual quality of training an average peasant had in medieval ages until the end of time, they were most of the times no match for trained warriors, and we can safely assume given the descriptions, that Theon was in command of not the most disciplined, but definitely veteran band.

With the Wall, it is mentioned that Wildlings generally train climbing in harsh terrains of the North. Remember that also - again, the ones actually doing the climbing are the elite. The original plan was to attack after all from behind, and storm the gate downstairs with the rest, or even have it opened by the first strike unit.

All in all, I don't think it suspends the disbelief that much.

I do think about it, and agree on some points though not all. I'd add other points as well. I just couldn't mention The Wall without pointing out the parts I find silliest about it (huge size, yet scalable by wildlings with ropes anyway - as shown on the TV show, it's crazy). And as you say, it wouldn't even really need a garrison in reality, because no one would be able to get over it. Only if there were ways through or around somewhere.

The TV version is far less sensible than the books, and the books do have many issues, though GRRM seems to be trying, and I think he does a fairly good job more often than not.

The Winterfell thing makes enough sense to me, given that the garrison mustered all they could and marched away to retake the other castle. A few good armed men taking temporary control in those conditions seems plausible.

Seems to me that there are discussions in the books where the North's leaders discuss that they'd prefer to not go to King's Landing, but Robb & Catelyn want Sansa & Arya back. Though, their alliance & family connections include the Riverlands, who would also have to be abandoned if withdrawing to the North.

The supply and population issues, yes, unless the agriculture/nutrition situation is very different from Earth humans. The Lannister scorched earth policy, too.

Quote from: Ravenswing;891491Well, but think about it.  If you follow GoT, you just have to take suspension of disbelief and kick it into the holler.  Railroad very obviously didn't give a damn about logistics, distances, common sense or a lot of things.  

They march gigantic armies across continental distances without giving the slightest thought to how long that actually takes or the logistics train one needs.  They have twenty guys actually capture and HOLD Winterfell, even when that force could be rolled by local peasants with hunting bows and grain flails and Northerners aren't described as being cowardly bunnies.  Why the North needs to conquer King's Landing (thousands of miles from their center of supply) is never adequately explained, when they just need to hold the Neck.  There's not enough game in all that ice and snow to feed Mance Rayder's army, not by a factor of 50.  100 grain wagons a day to alleviate the hunger in King's Landing?  Never mind the distance from Dorne to KL (which makes the notion absurd on the face), a city that size polishes off five hundred tons of food per day.

And OMG, the Wall.  I would cheerfully undertake to defend the Wall with 200 guys against the massed armies of all the world.  They can starve below while we drink tea and play pinochle, because that's a formidable technical climb for expert mountaineers (and where in the merry hell did the wildlings get that expertise?), and with the level of exhaustion that would involve, one ten-year-old with a good head for heights and a baseball bat could deal with everyone who made it in a quarter-mile's worth of wall.

One of the things that changes how war is fought in Westeros are, of course, the seasons.  They are currently living in an extremely long summer, combined with the spring in front of it means many of the children and even some of the adolescents have never even seen a Winter.  In a year-round growing cycle, there probably wouldn't be a "we have to drop everything now and harvest all our crops at once or we all starve" planting cycle that was the necessity in northern medieval europe and limited campaigns accordingly.

Now, I'm not saying that Martin didn't vastly underestimate the food requirements of a city, but the Tyrell's and Hightowers could be sitting on an immense storehouse of food, not to mention what could be bought from the Free Cities.

Quote from: Ravenswing;891491Well, but think about it.  If you follow GoT, you just have to take suspension of disbelief and kick it into the holler.  Railroad very obviously didn't give a damn about logistics, distances, common sense or a lot of things.  

In interviews, Martin makes clear that these figures (for the number of troops) are deliberately inconsistent and are meant to seem like pure ass-pull. Why? Because stats for numbers of troops during the Medieval period are almost always pure horseshit as well. For example, Towton was supposedly the worst battle ever fought in England, yet no one has any kind of estimate for the size of the forces on either side, nor casualties. The 28,000 figure bandied about the number of men killed is fabricated out of whole cloth. Ditto for Agincourt, Hastings, or any number of other battles in the Middle Ages.

QuoteThey march gigantic armies across continental distances without giving the slightest thought to how long that actually takes or the logistics train one needs.

It is stated over and over that armies in motion pillage for supplies. If Napoleon could do it successfully with his vast armies, it's not that much of a stretch that armies in a world with summers that last years at a time could do likewise.

QuoteThey have twenty guys actually capture and HOLD Winterfell, even when that force could be rolled by local peasants with hunting bows and grain flails and Northerners aren't described as being cowardly bunnies.

Holy fuck you're stupid.

Courage means < Jack Shit when fully trained, armed and equipped soldiers massacre peasants, the obvious outcome of any attempt by peasants to take on an invading force.

QuoteWhy the North needs to conquer King's Landing (thousands of miles from their center of supply) is never adequately explained, when they just need to hold the Neck.

King's Landing is a port, which means ships, which means a land obstacle is no obstacle at all when the King launches a sea attack well behind the Neck.

QuoteThere's not enough game in all that ice and snow to feed Mance Rayder's army, not by a factor of 50.

You think maybe that's one reason Wildlings keep trying to sneak past the Wall to go south? In the real world, a wasteland can become jam-packed with refugees and armed bands fleeing their homes and trying to migrate by force to better surroundings.

Quote100 grain wagons a day to alleviate the hunger in King's Landing?  Never mind the distance from Dorne to KL (which makes the notion absurd on the face), a city that size polishes off five hundred tons of food per day.

I would assume those wagons are in addition to whatever other sources of food there are for the city. Rome and Baghdad were larger and were kept fed by constant influx of food from far away.

QuoteAnd OMG, the Wall.  I would cheerfully undertake to defend the Wall with 200 guys against the massed armies of all the world.  They can starve below while we drink tea and play pinochle, because that's a formidable technical climb for expert mountaineers (and where in the merry hell did the wildlings get that expertise?), and with the level of exhaustion that would involve, one ten-year-old with a good head for heights and a baseball bat could deal with everyone who made it in a quarter-mile's worth of wall.

You are so dumb.

Quote from: CRKrueger;891751One of the things that changes how war is fought in Westeros are, of course, the seasons.  They are currently living in an extremely long summer, combined with the spring in front of it means many of the children and even some of the adolescents have never even seen a Winter.  In a year-round growing cycle, there probably wouldn't be a "we have to drop everything now and harvest all our crops at once or we all starve" planting cycle that was the necessity in northern medieval europe and limited campaigns accordingly.

Now, I'm not saying that Martin didn't vastly underestimate the food requirements of a city, but the Tyrell's and Hightowers could be sitting on an immense storehouse of food, not to mention what could be bought from the Free Cities.

You're right, I forgot about the different summer cycle. But on the other hand, there is a mention that during those summers, the crops are harvested a few times, to prepare for few years long winters.

The problem about food isn't even lack of ubiquity, but the problems of transportation in pre -freezer and pre-macadamised roads/railroads societies.

Quote from: estar;891239What about the situation with the Border Reivers (sp?) between Scotland and England. Granted it was just an out and out feud between clans and families. But the animosity that the Night's Watch and the people of the Gift have for the Wildlings and vice versa is very similar.

Then there was the March Wardens who were both kingdoms attempt at controlling the situation (sort of).

Well yes, there was the border conflict (and even a wall, though in the real-life England it wasn't a real wall anymore; in Dark Albion I made Hadrian's Wall still intact).  But what I meant is that there wasn't an actual order of knights or soldiers or whatever dedicated to a lifetime commitment of holding back the Scots or something like that.

There's a TON of material on the Border Reivers and the wild fiefdoms of northern Albion (and the crazy locals of southern Scots Land just beyond the wall) in the Dark Albion book.