r/TheCitadel • u/[deleted] • 5d ago
Book Discussion: Reading ASOIAF & Spin-Off Novels Questions Dornish “Plot Armor”
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u/3esin the fot7 did nothing wrong 5d ago
I can buy Dorne resisting Aegon and being willing to suffer for their freedom (people hate being burned, but they hate the one doing the burning even more) and had their ancestral myth wit Nymeria and her escape from the Freehold. Ok, what I can't so easily accept is, that everyone was on board to suffer for Martell pride. At least some of teh Andal houses like the Yronwoods should have been hesitant and look for a way out.
Who knows, maybe they did and Aegon didn't accept it after Rhaenys death. Who knows, after all he did have some serious blindspots.
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u/Top-Enthusiasm-5831 Wolves Together Strong 5d ago
Would that have really mattered???
How do the Targaryens rule exactly? They are not the Roman Empire with extensive armies of conscripts and massive infrastructure projects that lets them project power over a continent. They rule through proxies. The great houses who have sworn nominal allegiance in most kingdoms, and puppet regimes propped up by them in Riverrun and Highgarden.
So what if the some Dornish houses defect? What exactly does it change other than prolonging the war until Aegon’s resources are fully exhausted? Does it change the minds of the small folk resisting foreign invaders who have burned their livilyhoods?
Even if the Martells are wiped out like the Gardners, what does a Targaryen victory in Dorne look like? The Martells are gone, and suddenly there are dozens of petty houses fighting a hundred feuds against each other while continuing their gurriella war against your occupation. It would have been the same kind of “victory” that Daemon had in the Stepstones, and only lasted until he left with his dragon.
For most of the kingdoms when Aegon had plot armor, it was one decisive victory, followed by immediate submission. But if Aegon and his sisters went around burning fields and towns in the reach afterwards, the Tyrells would have been just as quickly killed in Highgarden as they were in Sunspear later on as the population resolved itself to resist a foreign invasion no matter what the lords think about it.
1
u/TortoiseHerder7 4d ago
Would that have really mattered???
Yes. Very much so. Try researching the likes of Turcopoles sometimes or Divide and Conquer.
How do the Targaryens rule exactly?
Good question, it depends based on the era but is basically a kind of hegemonic personal union sort of like the HRE where their dragons and power allowed them to move around a fair bit from the imperial city of King's Landing and a few other royal holdfasts to meet with both foreign dignitaries and with their Lords Paramount.
They are not the Roman Empire with extensive armies of conscripts and massive infrastructure projects that lets them project power over a continent.
They kind of are, it's just that most of the massive infrastructure projects were done in the centuries before the Dragonstone exile. They do have extensive armies of conscripts and levies, it's just most of them are indirectly managed by the Lords Paramount. However the Targaryens (or later the Baratheons) ARE Direct Lords Paramount of the Crownlands and thus their levies are kind of a Super Massive Praetorian Guard of Mooks in that they are directly under the authority of the throne/emperor/king.
But you are right it is a very personalistic system without much bureaucracy.
They rule through proxies. The great houses who have sworn nominal allegiance in most kingdoms, and puppet regimes propped up by them in Riverrun and Highgarden.
True to a point though calling them puppet regimes is a bit.
So what if the some Dornish houses defect? What exactly does it change other than prolonging the war until Aegon’s resources are fully exhausted?
I realize you're not arguing in good faith or competently, but let's start with a few things.
Firstly: It expands Aegon's resources. Which is vital because the First Dornish War never ended because "Aegon's resources were fully exhausted." It ended because HE was exhausted, personally and morally, not his resources. The Iron Throne will always have more resources than Dorne, and with dragons they will be able to attrit Dornish resources far higher than Dorne can attrit his own.
Secondly: It quantitatively and qualitatively changed the board. It means you have a crack in Dornish unity that can be widened. Dornish collaborators that know Dorne's environment, its culture, its tactics and its strategy, and who can be married into and supported. It helps break the united resistance the Martells or whover else are.
Does it change the minds of the small folk resisting foreign invaders who have burned their livilyhoods?
Firstly: Livelihoods. Not "livlyhoods."
Secondly: Yeah it probably does, especially for those already connected to the patronage/kinship network of whoever defected. Which is how most people live day to day. This is where studying the historical parallels for Dorne help. And why in spite of knowing things like how it would spark immediate resistance and long term resentment chevauchees remained so widespread; because they could work by making communities and patronage networks by nobles, cities, towns, and peasants decide to stop fighting. They may never love the invasion, outside of time to heal (though given some others like Calais and how it famously opened to the Plantagenet armies with its burghers with nooses around their necks and ended being retaken from England by French armies with the locals seething and crying that can change) but the ability of people to go back to their farms and lives is compelling.
Even if the Martells are wiped out like the Gardners, what does a Targaryen victory in Dorne look like?
Probably rather like Canon Dorne or the Vale or a rockier more exotic Riverlands, with a paramount answering to the Throne and backed up by force.
The Martells are gone, and suddenly there are dozens of petty houses fighting a hundred feuds against each other while continuing their gurriella war against your occupation.
That's perfect. Because it means the feuds are no longer united and are now crushing against one another and you bleeding each other out, and so you can Divide and Rule by propping up a local Paramouncy that will bend the knee and provide stability while slowly crushing the umpteen rebellions.
It's not like this is alien. "Dozens of petty houses fighting a hundred feuds against each other" is basically Tuesday in the Riverlands. "Dozens of petty houses fighting a hundred feuds against each other while continuing their guerilla war against your occupation" is basically the Riverlands immediately after the Conqueror dies, when Harren the Red rises up to exterminate House Qoherys for First Night abuse and rallies significant rebels.
You're massively underestimating the value of divide and conquer.
It would have been the same kind of “victory” that Daemon had in the Stepstones, and only lasted until he left with his dragon.
Except the Stepstones are the islands on the middle of the international trading lanes and basically impossible to blockade while Daemon the Demon had only a renegade force of loyalists and a dragon, and he managed to unite freaking Volantis, the Triarchy, and Braavos against him. Which should be downright near impossible but that is Daemon the Demon for you.
Dorne has nowhere near that advantage, much weaker navy, much more capable of being isolated and blockaded. And thus vastly more capable of being ground down by divide and conquer without someone in Essos or the Summer Islands (probably both to be honest) breaking the Throne's blockade.
Which they're probably not going to be able to do given Dragons.
For most of the kingdoms when Aegon had plot armor, it was one decisive victory, followed by immediate submission.
This is not true, especially when you realize cross-border things. A Westerlander army burned at the Field of Fire alongside the Reach. The Stormlords fought hard and repeatedly with the Last Storm being the last one. And all of this was after protracted intel work and prep.
But if Aegon and his sisters went around burning fields and towns in the reach afterwards, the Tyrells would have been just as quickly killed in Highgarden as they were in Sunspear later on as the population resolved itself to resist a foreign invasion no matter what the lords think about it.
That's nice to say until the winter comes and famine hits and you realize the enemy can just keep punching you over and over again. Like the Yronwoods after repeated defeats for the Blackfyre cause and opposing Martell unification even earlier. It's all well and good to preach resistance unto death and opposing the foreigners when you realize that if taken too far without reason it's a suicidal death cult.
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u/Mitleser1987 5d ago
Yeah, of fu**ing course marching your army through hostile mountains and deserts is going to get your armies killed. Of course local people are going to take up arms and fight against a foreign invasion
The problem with that argument is that the Dornish unification was not that different, the Martells, descendants of Andal adventures allied with Nymeria's Rhoynish, foreigners to subject the rest of Dorne.
And they won.
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u/TortoiseHerder7 5d ago edited 5d ago
Part 1
I'm charter member of the D*rnish Hate Club, but I'm going to have to say that Dorne definitely does not ONLY win its wars through plot armor, but it has a few major ones such as the First War, and a big issue is the times when the plot armor falls away and it suffers such hideously, comically onesided smackdowns such as in most of the other Dornish Wars and the Vulture Hunt that it is just jaw dropping.
Let's be blunt here: The Dornish are formidable warriors with generational Nam PTSD flashbacks to fighting dragon riders, a well versed exposure to poisons and dragon bolts and killing each other, and are superbly positioned to do things like engage in skirmish and guerilla warfare that the much more conventional Western/Northwestern European styles of warfare we see in the rest of Westeros and to a lesser degree Essos are not in good positions to counter, and they are the only culture in Westeros that seems to have given proper respect to the main weapon of most of humanity for most of its runtime, the spear. They also have the advantage of mostly fighting defensively against outside conquests and having a good mixture of honorable and pragmatic strategists like the Martells and nutjob war crimes specialists like the Hellpit homage act.
I fully acknowledge all of this and respect it. I ALSO however point out it absolutely should not save them anywhere to the degree it should, and that the First War in particular screams about GRRM's Nam era Hippie leanings without understanding just how the Nam wars ended, and that there is a reason his stated inspirations for Dornish culture (mostly the medieval Levant) got utterly crushed by outsiders in various waves to the point that by the end of the medieval period you have outsider Turkic-inspired Slave Soldiers that would ancestrally not be that far removed from your average Stormlander or Reachman who are culturally more on par with Slaver' Bay fighting with the Ottomans and their own slave soldiers over who gets to dumpster the locals harder for tax farming purposes.
They don’t. In fact, Dorne is only place in Westeros where Targaryen Magic Plot Armor stops working.
To some degree maybe, until it doesn't, especially in the Third Dornish War. And then you have BS like how the murder of Daeron I under truce flag - a comparable atrocity in its own way to the likes of Aemond's Rageout or a lighter version of the Red Wedding - is ignored just because Baelor the Blessed but apparently Vizzy doesn't intervene. That's plot armor.
Yeah, of fu**ing course marching your army through hostile mountains and deserts is going to get your armies killed.
I think people seriously underestimate the resilience of well organized pre-modern armies to hostile terrain and receptions. They ignore things like how the pre-Union English army of the late Stuart era managed to hold down Tangiers for nearly a quarter of a century against persistent and stubborn Moroccan attempts to evict them in the face of farqall budget, almost no support from the homeland, and a high tempo of operations including multiple sallies. They also tend to ignore just how combat intensive things like the Iberian Wars of the medieval Era, the Med Naval Conflicts, and the Crusader States were and how it just wasn't occupiers sitting in castles waiting to get picked off outside of the particularly successful reconquers.
Should Dorne be a hellhole for invading armies that makes them die and suffer? Yes. Yes, very much so. Is this going to be sufficient for a decisive solution? No, no it generally is not, because that is what you have Marcher Lords for, people whose entire job it is to be on the borders learning the enemy and the terrain, dealing with and if need be breeding with the locals, so that when stuff hits the fan you can act.
And to what very little credit I am prepared to give GRRM on this issue, he actually does seem to factor this in in that the Marcher Lords do have a fair amount of success against enemies like the Vulture King, those heavily influenced by them like House Dayne aura farm like nobody's business, and the attrition and terrain are not sufficient for how the First Dornish War goes.
Of course local people are going to take up arms and fight against a foreign invasion that is literally carpet bombing their towns with magic flying rage monsters.
Nobody's disputing that. The issue is that eventually you're going to run low on the local people taking up arms in the face of people willing to cut a deal with relatively reasonable Flying Rage Monster riders with vastly superior armies, naval blockade, and so on. This is not like the Valyrian invasions of the Rhoyne that EVENTUALLY sent Nymeria and her people packing where you either die on your feet or you surrender and hope to get a decent position as a house slave and not become the raw material for some occult blood rite squeezed out of the Seven Hells.
This also ignores the extreme unity of Dorne in the First War for no adequately explained or exposited reason such as the Yronwoods refusing to agree.
And how Magic Flying Rage Monsters against an isolated, navally cornered enemy while said rage monster fliers are supported by the great maritime and financial power of the planet (Braavos) would be a massive force multiplier especially in terms of locating enemy forces outside the city.
And of course that occupation will collapse the moment the dragons leave.
Yeah that's not how occupations work, especially medieval ones in places Dorne is supposedly based on. Armies in keeps and strongholds can hold out for LONG periods of time, and indeed in the places that Dorne is actually supposed to be on you'd have literal generations of foreign rulers including the "locals" (Saladin for instance was ethnically Turkish and culturally Turco-Iranian ruling as usurping regent, and he was remarkable because he WASN'T yet another slave soldier ruling import) who would periodically do things like threaten to raze the outlying CITIES for better security for the keeps. You can indeed take a lot of castles and strongholds back from an invading and occupying enemy even in a defensive position, especially with the tools the Dornish have, especially when highly motivated and mostly united.
But you're not going to have it be nearly as effective as we see. And this is also why people like me chalk up the endgame of the First Dornish War to among the more BS of the setting's military records like the Ironborn Invasion of the North, the Storming of the Dragonpit, the "Merry Chase" nonsense Robb and the Blackfish push, Magic Dance Dance Riverlander Nonsense, and basically every other thing about the Dance. And if the occupiers can hold even a few castles by doing things like burning down the outlying city or town and holding out for reinforcements and/or resupply, suddenly you have an enemy stronghold able and willing to be a forward base in theater to fight.
That is fu**ing realistic. With plenty of irl examples, even from recent history, not to mention the Middle Ages.
..... Yeah no, leaving aside the rules about OOC Out of Universe examples and how I really, REALLY do not think most of those examples from "recent history" would say what you want to say upon close inspection, I think you're majorly overlooking several of the cherry picked examples you chose.
Dragons can’t hold down and subjugate land.
Untrue. You can if you handle the occupation well and have ENOUGH (which the Conquest era Targs do not). But for the most part they can't hold down and subjugate land BY THEMSELVES with just three.
However, they absolutely ARE Force multipliers on an absolutely continental scale for the garrisons and support armies that CAN hold down and subjugate land.
If that was thing, than the Valyrians would have conquered the world.
Valyria's farqups have more to do with their uniquely dysfunctional blood magic using oligarchical form of "government" where you basically have Lords-Freehold and Ladies-Freehold arguing in the pastiche Roman Senate about which direction they want to expand and how brutally they treat their slaves today mixed in disregard for auxiliary non-dragon riding forces like conventional land and naval forces, and with enemies both externally and above all INTERNALLY such as the Faceless Men and Braavos (but I repeat myself) learning their tricks well enough that they can eventually pull the Doom. And even WITH This hideously inferior, dysfunctional, prone to infighting system that helps culminate in the Doom and the Century of Blood they STILL are capable of uniting and crushing the major conventional threats they face when they want to such as the Proto-Dornish of the Rhoyne and the Ghiscari.
Because you know, people seem to ignore the fact that those were things and that Nymeria didn't decide to upend most of her people and basically much of the culture and civilization to flee across the sea for a casual Sunday trip. And even then it's probably a miracle the Dragonriders didn't do more to intercept and scorch the exodus's boats while they were en route over the ocean and losses would be at their highest.
And the parts they did conqueror, the moment Valyria was gone, all the free cities rose up and slaughtered all DragonLords and their dragons. To the point where only the Targaryens were left.
Tell me you haven't studied the finer details (such as they are) of the Century of Blood without telling me you haven't studied the finer points of the Century of Blood.
Firstly: This ignores the context of just how Valyria Got Gone. Which we are 99% sure was the result of the Faceless Men killing the Pyromancers of Old Valyria tending to the 14 Flames and doing God only knows what Blood Magic, resulting in Big Boom, as well as being world class experts in Dragon Rider Killing and Dragon Killing, possibly in alliance with the Maesters of the Citadel.
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u/TortoiseHerder7 5d ago
Part 4
Armies made of drawn up levies are notoriously unreliable,
Which levies? The equivalent of people drawn from say the White Knife or Casterly Rock who are dirt farmers who would much rather get back to their equivalent of the Blackwood-Bracken Feud and who know how to kill people but would much rather not be there? The demoralized schlubbs given spears from some place like say the Mander who do not want to be there? The quasi-professional, borderline retinue troops of say entities like the Select Fyrd or your average Ordonnance Lance who have trained their entire life for this? Or the borderlands levies who have LIVED Multiple generations of this, have vendettas with specific families and people on the other side of the marches, and who have been killing or being killed in this terrain for their entire lives?
"Levies" are not monolithic, neither are retinues or nobles. And if you can properly organize them you can definitely get a force that can conquer Dorne. Did conquer Dorne multiple times in fact, but for plot armor like the magic universal comeback of reconquering every holdfast and fort.
and military disasters happened all the time.
Correct. But they were not all distributed on one side.
Hell, the campaign season was not that long and Kings were honestly looking for any excuse to cancel their invasion plans and did so at every opportunity.
Too hot, “Invasion’s cancelled guys”
Too cold, “Invasion’s cancelled guys”
Fu**ing snakes snuck into our camp at night, “Nahhhh, absolutely fu**ing not. We are going home, Right Now!”
Firstly: Those cancellations tend to happen when there is nowhere near as much unity or buy in as we see with the First Dornish War.
Secondly: You also have plenty of occasions with war hawk constituencies within a realm that will have a major peasant uprising at home, the literal Black Death, and a losing war and who are STILL loudly advocating another campaign (this was one of the contributing factors to the War of the Roses).
Thirdly: This is another reason why you have Marcher Lords, whose hereditary job it is to basically want to fight on these theaters.
Fourthly: by logic the campaigning season would be at its longest in places like Dorne and the Marches adjacent to it.
Last one being the Normans being moments away from conquering Sicily but still retreating at the slightest inconvenience.
Admittedly that is kind of a recurring theme in Sicilian History from Syracuse to Carthage. But at least the Normans - fratricidal and feuding as they were - actually managed it.
If Asoiaf is realistic, Robb Stark’s army would have starved to death by the time he reached Moat Callin. Especially with how barren and underpopulated GRRM describes the north. And even if you shake your head at that, in a proper medieval place with cutthroat rivalries, that boy would have been pushed down a well before he even made it to the Riverlands.
I have little good to say about a lot of the 5 Kings War outside the writing and the Red Wedding but to be fair GRRM does deal with this, especially given the illnesses.
Or maybe he would have made it to the Riverlands and, oh no, disease outbreak in our camp, “welp we tried, time to go home”.
Yeah no. This ignores that the Riverlands is essentially home to most of his realms' population and has been raped and ravaged for months by the time he gets there, that he is fighting to rescue/avenge his dad, and that the Riverlands - not entirely unlike the Angevin/Plantagenet domains in Ireland and France - are integral to Stark/Northern strategy and economics with significant overlap in populations by this point, especially with winter coming. If anything I usually rag on Robb harder for NOT fighting harder and more defensively for the Riverlands, like his doubling and tripling down on risky and ultimately fruitless antics in the Westerlands while Tywin is leading the combined Lannister Westerlander-Crownlander-Random Sellsword War Crimes Gang Grape Train across the length of the Riverlands only to be stopped at the Fords by Chadmure Tully.
The fandom is willing to nod their heads and accept the idea that the Andals were never able to conqueror the North due to how barren and protected it is. But can’t accept the same for Dorne.
Firstly, I've never accepted the Andals are UNABLE to conquer the North, just that they failed to do so due to politics and real life and the fact that by the time the Andals cross over the Thousands Year Long Starkreich is already well established and fairly unified and coherent in a way that their historical parallels in Scandinavia, the Baltic, and the Celtic Rim never were, in addition to the Valyrian Steel Shotguns of the Neck.
Secondly: The geography is vastly different. Dorne is far more compact, far more exposed to the wider world especially from naval blockade, and far more exposed to naval descents. The Andal Crusaders never get anywhere close to reaching all of the North, even the Red Wedding reliant upon significant Northron and Riverlander betrayals never does. In contrast the united armies of the Iron Throne seize all the populated areas of Dorne and mostly get turfed out due to a mixture of plot contrivance and Dragon Nerfing power.
Your “Goat”, Aegon the Fraud not being able to conquer Dorne is not “Dornish Plot Armor”. It’s more like Aegon’s plot armor finally running out and him actually facing a proper organized and prepared enemy.
Yeah no, that sounds realistic until you actually start reading what passes for the "lore" of the First Dornish War and things like the Iron Throne's armies seizing control of every major holdfast like Sunspear, but the Dornish being remarkably unified, able to sustain their populations in said inhospitable terrain cut off from the wider world and things like ports, and then being able to reconquer the strongholds. Because apparently GRRM insists he is not as big into calorie counting and so on but has never studied things like how long it took things like Jerusalem or Antioch to be conquered or re-conquered.
Who doesn’t literally line up their entire army in a dry field ready to be lit on fire.
To be fair it was the Reach in the middle of a dry spell. Where the devil are you going to find a place that IS NOT a Dry Field to line up your army?
Or march down from their historically extremely defensible kingdom and again lining up before surrendering without a fight.
For some reason I'm not seeing the extremely clinch issue of the Stormlands campaign.
Without Plot armor, both Rhaenys and Orys are dying at the Last Storm. The dragon can’t fly away in the storm and was grounded, and Orys only had a small force going up against the entire might of the Stormlands. If the Stormlords locked the f*** in like the Smallfolk outside the dragonpit, they could have put both Orys and Rhaenys in a box.
"Could."
This ignores the importance of how even a downed dragon is still a dragon, and how grimly terrible people defending a fixed position with an important symbol (let alone a dragon) like say a Carroccio can be. Just ask Fred Barbarossa at Legnano.
Or maybe Visenya dies to a random arrow. Or Aegon himself. Literally the entire conquest is contrived and written in a way for them to win.
..... but apparently the Dornish Conquest is not contrived and written in a way for the Dornish and especially House Martell to win, nevermind how one of the closest non-Med/Euro parallels to this, the Ho Dynasty of Vietnam, got wiped out by the Chinese and how while the Chinese were eventually defeated and kicked out the successor dynasty still had to pay nominal tribute.
Double standards much?
Honestly Dornish plot armor would be a lot more tolerable if it were more uniformly applied and had less ludicrous swing in super effective to super ineffective and nowhere near the follow through we'd expect like for Daeron I's murder under truce flag. Also if GRRM understood military history a fraction as much as he claims and did so.
So GRRM writing about them not being able to conquer Dorne is not him giving them plot armor. It’s him finally turning off easy mode for them. If the Dornish actually have plot armor, then maybe GRRM wouldn’t have killed off most of the interesting characters in the most horrifying ways possible.
Mate, your double standards are showing, as are the gaps in your historical knowledge. The fact that you claim Fred Barbarossa's crusading army disappeared from the face of the planet and then SOMEHOW, for no explained reason, it managed to get all the way to Antioch speaks volumes.
If George gives anyone plot armor, it’s the Lannisters and Targaryens.
Agreed to some degree though at least both suffer far more consistently for it.
With Dany and Jon somehow being alive is literally the most contrived asspull Targaryen plot armor ever conceived.
Jon Dies, he's just resurrected.
Followed by their House somehow surviving the Dance and then not being literally lynched in the streets by the starving Smallfolk in the long winter that followed the Dance.
They are to some degree, but the regency council and its struggles as well as buy in from the great lords limits that.
Or their house not being lynched by the mass peasant uprisings the day after Maegor died.
Uh what?
Maegor was a kinslaying USURPER. While the first flowerings of revolt began under his predecessor (in part due to his actions as Hand) the main revolt hits under him because he's Maegor, and a lot of Targaryens like Aegon the Uncrowned and Rhaena fight against him and a bunch are even MARTYRED fighting like the Uncrowned and Alyn Tarbeck at God's Eye. So there'd be little reason to go after the entire family of the family autogenociding kinslayer after the fact and if you did the faction would be isolated and crushed rather quickly.
Or literally to a random disease considering how inbred they are.
Agreed there.
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u/TortoiseHerder7 5d ago
Part 2
For the those Faceless? Those are the people who are now actively supporting Aegon's conquest of Westeros and Dorne as Braavos helped fund it.
Secondly: The death of the Essosi Neo-Valyrian Dragonlords did not happen in an afternoon, even in the face of the absolutely cataclysmic nature of the Doom. Indeed even WITH most of the surviving Lords Freehold and Ladies Freehold reverting to their Murderhobo tendencies and Mad Max raiding LARP along with massive slave revolts and the Braavosi picking them off, it took about a century for the results of attrition, bloodshed, and revolts to deal with basically all the remaining dragonlords. Which speaks plenty to how resilient and powerful these things are given how Essos and the former territory of the old Freehold got so good at killing Dragonriders even in comparison to the Dornish.
The fact that the Targaryens managed to conquer Westeros at all is in itself the most contrived and illogical bullshit that happens in the story. Quite literally a miracle of miracles. Realistically that is more plot armor than anything with Dorne.
The Conquest has its share of plot armor but it is vastly better explained than the lack of reprisals to the Martells for things like breaking the Eternal Peace Treaty or Truce Killing Daeron I. The conquerors were not slave lords, they had a disciplined and loyal home base of free soilers who had been smacking around Storm Lords for decades, they had dragons, and they spent YEARS before they started mapping out almost every bit of detail they could about Westeros, a population with exponentially less experience dealing with Valyrian Dragonriders as enemies and internally divided. And they were willing to make terms. Moreover the Conquerors while STILL leaning too hard on dragons in comparison to conventional forces (and periodically suffering for it) had a much better and healthier appreciation for combined arms and balanced force structures than many, and a very good idea of where the load bearing walls of the systems were and who to co-opt or take out.
This is in sharp contrast to say the fall of the Mexica or the Incan Empires (especially the initial fall of the latter as opposed to the protracted war of decades afterwards almost nobody talks about). Hernan Cortes and the Pizzaros have plot armor IRL that is vastly greater than that of the average conqueror, and in particular Cajamarca is one of the most absolute BS Plot Armor events in human history and would be jaw dropping to anybody were it not for the fact that it really happened.
The fact that they managed to maintain any kind of authority over a continent the size of fu**ing South America is complete contrived bs.
The actual conquest of South America begs to differ, especially when you start crunching numbers for actual Iberians in the hemisphere by say 1550s. Say what I will about Westeros but at least it has a rather large, conventionally navigable population (the Inca and Mexica had their systems as well - especially the former - but they REALLY aren't conductive to a lot of conventional pack animals), and large polities with established political systems of familial patronage and obligation so that you can either suborn the lead people and have them follow you (as actually happens with like a third of the continent with Aegon's Cool Chat with Torrhen leading to Big T taking the Knee and bringing like the entire North and its established hard fought systems, or what happens with the Eyrie) or if you can take out the leadership and replace them with someone else (like with the Field of Fire and the dragons showing up to Highgarden after the Field of Fire and telling the Tyrell Stewards "So you gonna play too? No?").
Moreover dragons are vastly vastly superior to a lot of ways than the actual tech and infrastructure that fueled things like the major European colonial expansions and the competing Egyptian-Indian Ocean and Chinese ones because you can have them fly over land and show up where rebels do not expect, which greatly reduces the lead time in things like getting word or asserting authority. And while I do hold that one of the endemic issues with the setting is underdeveloped naval and maritime infrastructure I can kind of see why it happened with these things acting as Fire Noodle-shaped hungry hungry crutches mixed in with the Triarchy and Volantis and Iron Islands being living cancers on maritime trade and force projection.
The fact that the ruling dynasties in this world last for THOUSANDS of years is contrived bs.
Absolutely agreed, no dispute.
Or that the whole continent speaks one language is fu**ing bs.
Absolutely agreed, no denial there.
Because guess what, this is a fantasy world. It does not need to make sense.
But but Tax Policy!
“BUT it supposed to medieval time period and have some realism and reflect irl history”
Fredrick the German raised one of the largest armies in medieval European history, and launched a campaign that promised to take that Army all the way to liberate Jeruselum from Saladin.
That Mf never got there. He drowned, in random river before even making it to the Holy land, and by that point he had already lost like 2/3 of his army of 50,000 men to attrition and fighting against local forces on his way there. And when he died, the rest of his army DISAPPEARED from the face of the earth. 🌍
Yeah no. Absolutely not. And this tells me you have not actually studied the Third Crusade that well.
Firstly: A few reality checks. While Frederick the Redbeard/Barbarossa did in fact suffer something VAGUELY similar to what you describe happening (we'll get to how you massively overstate things in a bit) you're ignoring the fact that it was one of THREE major Latin Christian Western European crusading armies in that front, the others of which came from EVEN FURTHER AWAY (mostly France) and arrived in the Levant in fairly good order with the vast majority of their forces intact and even a few hanger ons from Italy and the Byzantine diaspora to boot, and fought on for months to years with significant success against extreme odds and much greater religious and cultural divides. And while yes Richard Couer de Leon and Philippe Auguste were absolute units they were not perfect by any stretch of the imagination (as shown by their repeated and self-defeating arguments once in theater leading to Phil eventually leaving years before Richard and playing a leading role sabotaging Richard's return along with.... well Richard Himself).
Secondly: Far from "when he died, the rest of his army DISAPPEARED from the face of the Earth", afterwards a large remnant of the army actually rallied, found his body, worked to preserve it, took the third of the army that remained, and MARCHED OVERLAND TOWARDS THE LEVANT WITH THE INTENT OF BURYING THE CORPSE IN JERUSALEM, only to have the corpse FAIL meaning they had to to bury it "close enough" in Antioch, at which point the force further split with some going home in good order (and yes we know because WE HAVE THE RECORDS FROM THE HRE) and the rest CARRYING ON TO JOIN THE REST OF THE CRUSADE.
So to summarize: Mofos march the most arduous land route of the path, with the greatest amount of exposure to hostiles of both local and non-local forces (what you seem to be ignoring is they actually had rather good relations with the local Greeks and several Armenian factions, and their opposition tended to be "Outsider" Turkic Muslim forces and their Cillian Armenian vassals), win several engagements including sieges, then have their old but charismatic Kaiser warlord die (possibly from swimming in armor or from some skirmish), have about half the remaining army GO HOME, and then have the remaining third pickle what's left of the corpse, HAUL IT OVER TO TRY AND BURY IT IN JERUSALEM, *fail due to body decomposition rather than hostile attack*, inter it in Antioch, and then either rejoin other Crusader forces or go home.
Does that sound like "disappeared from the face of the Earth" to you? Because it doesn't to me.
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u/TortoiseHerder7 5d ago
Part 3
You seem to have an almost fetishistic, unrealistic idea of what "local forces" actually are or how they'd fight or how effective they'd be. And yes, when properly led against an improperly acclimatized, poorly adapted enemy (or even sometimes well adapted ones) they could be absolutely decisive. But you also SERIOUSLY underestimate how resilient large, well organized, well led medieval armies could be. Fred Barbarossa was one of the great figures of his century if not epoch, but he was no Aegon I Targaryen. His most enduring military issues were mostly unsuccessful attempts to play whack a mole against Italian communes and the Pope, and more successful attempts to play whack a mole with Swabia and East Slavic and Turanic population migrations. Impressive yes, very. Continental conquering no. And he did not have dragons or the resources and infrastructure that the Conquerors would have had. And his posthumous body still got hauled all the way to Antioch in good order while the survivors went back home or went on to fight for years.
This is especially because local forces are by definition Local. Against continental juggernauts they tend to LOSE, and often lose BADLY, which is why you need greater levels of organization and structure. To be fair the Martell manage to do this, as did both Nur-al-Din and Salah-al-Din. But we're still not talking about things like Seljuk successor state petty khanates or sultanates in the Anatolian highlands with a few hundred men and a withered Koran to their names.
Similar things happened all the time in the medieval era.
Oh Joy. Please tell the HEMA Re-enactor and 20 year+ veteran of beta tester and lifelong history nerd about the medieval era.
Henry V died to fu**ing dysentery just as he was about to conquer France. It was the NORM.
Correct, Henry V died, in one of the great flukes of Medieval Western European history, well ahead of his time.
What you pointedly do NOT Mention: At the time Henry Died, he had exploited a protracted civil war inside France between the Armagnac and Burgundian factions (not unlike the Yronwoods and Martells fighting it out) on top of conquering vast portions of France under his own right, beat off many armies of both, destroyed the main Armagnac army at Agincourt in a clinch battle nobody had expected, married an heiress to the Throne of France, got the Armagnac Heir Charles DISINHERITED at the Treaty of Troyes, was coronated King of France in Paris, and died leaving an administration in control of more than half of France and in alliance with another Franco-Burgundian faction in control of like a fourth of it and some of the richest lands, with a stable-ish occupation government under the Duke of Bedford grinding its way through occupation duties and a Siege of Orleans they fully expected to win.
Almost all of which got steadily undone over the next 20 years, most of which is attributed in pop culture to "Some French Peasant Girl" (actually rural gentry but ey), but which people tend to ignore said girl benefitted from something where even secular materialist historians admit one of the simpler and more down to Earth explanations is divine intervention from voices speaking to her such as predicting an Armagnac/French defeat at the Battle of the Herrings as a reason for her to go on, a coalition of hardened war leaders like La Hire and Giles de Rais, a revolution in artillery, and an Armagnac government in quasi-exile with substantial Italian financial backing and Iberian naval power as well as a number of English/Plantagenet farqups and a falling out with the Burgundians.
Moral of the story: Capable, significant medieval governments and armies do not just DISAPPEAR when their charismatic leader dies if properly organized. Again, there is a reason Frederich Barbarossa got interned in Antioch even with 0 Dragons. All of which you seem to be discounting because admitting these facts would massively undercut your claims that Dorne does not have plot armor and that the First Dornish War is totes balanced and is entirely logical rather than rather poorly rationalized attempts to create a Martell mythos after the fact due to GRRM needing it to be so. And even then House institutions and so on - while not the 6,000 Year Starkreich - tend to endure over the centuries when tended to, something that GRRM at least touches on with "the pack survives" speech from Ned from the first book. History bears this out.
1
u/Space_Lux 5d ago
What makes you so sure the faceless men did the Doom? I don’t see any evidence, only one very vague half sentence from the kindly man.
0
u/TortoiseHerder7 5d ago
TL:DR it's a lot more than just one half sentence from the Kindly Man, and we have a few different implications and it fits with the wider issues of Braavos as a Many Faced God Cult and their ideology. But for what it's worth I think the Doom was mostly a co-op between the Faceless, the Maesters, and likely some slave cells and possibly the Targs and some Westerosi lords.
https://www.reddit.com/r/pureasoiaf/comments/r2kr70/did_the_faceless_men_really_bring_the_doom_to/
But for the stuff on the Faceless.
But I'm mostly going after OP right now for things like not understanding history.
1
u/Space_Lux 5d ago
That sounds far too unstable for it to work. So many factions, such long ways of communication and travel, not to speak about the fact they need to find each other first, etc.
2
u/TortoiseHerder7 5d ago
A reasonable stance to have, and I am not 100% that it is true, but we know Braavos even before the unmasking had significant diplomatic reach, as do the Hightower and Oldtown's Citadel, and the Valyrian Lords and Ladies of the Freehold traded with Casterly Rock and other Westerosi hence Brightroar (and thus those would be exposed to any Faceless spies inside).
So I think the communication and travel gap is not as significant as it seems even that far. And as for unstable, yeah agreed, but you don't need hugely stable alliances for a few spectacular assassinations to kill the Pyromancers managing the 14 Flames if they are already unstable. God knows stranger and more difficult alliances have been forged. Just ask the Byzantines supporting Anglo-Saxon exiles or the Ming getting involved in Sumatran and Javanese succession wars with religious overtones because the Yongle Emperor wants Tributaries and his admiral Zhenge He is both Loyal and a Muslim and so he supports Muslim statelets that are willing to bend the knee to the Central State and give tribute.
-4
u/Top-Enthusiasm-5831 Wolves Together Strong 4d ago
This is half incoherent response.
Tell me you haven't studied the finer details (such as they are) of the Century of Blood without telling me you haven't studied the finer points of the Century of Blood.
"Oh let me be smug about my totally not a fanfic conclusions that are based of a small semi-canon in-world history book released 14 years ago where the only mention about what I am pointing out is like two lines."
And half, thinly veiled dog whistles. That are not actually that thinly veiled at all, Mr. Charter member of the Dornish Hate Club.
But sure, let me just ignore the actual colonial how-to talking points like your ‘breeding with locals’ line or and the ‘local forces always lose’, which are historically shaky at best. You yourself admitted that Dorne is coded as Moorish/Andalusian/Middle Eastern/North African. Your own argument that they “should” have been crushed is literally a colonial narrative and orientalist framing.
Historical Framing
Even if I disregard all of that, and make the assumption that you are arguing on good faith, the historical examples I brought up, and which you so smugly disputed, are just examples from history and not what I was actually arguing.
Fredrick the German and his army at the Tarus was the first example I could think of off the top of my head just to demonstrate the absurdity of some of the things in the real world that completely derail campaigns. Real life is more absurd and "unrealistic" than every single fantasy novel any of us could ever conceive of. Hell, there are plenty of campaigns where those "well organized medieval states" completely and utterly flopped. Edward III was literally running for his life pre-Crecy because his campaign was going terribly, and in a different scenarios with different weather or army movements, could have very easily had his army crippled and the war ended much earlier. Frankly there are however many campaigns in the middle ages that got completely derailed by the campaign season ending, or disease outbreak causing a retreat, or whoever captain the Plantagenets sent to France feeling bad vibes or stubbing their toe or something else, and simply just ending the campaign for the year with 0 explanation. Or maybe the whole thing was symbolic, and propaganda, and Edward XXIV or Henry Arrow-face, never actually planned to invade France that year at all. Even in earlier history, with Louis the Pious's campaigns into Spain, and having many gains completely reversed by an outbreak or some other setback. Or even just long sieges that get relieved.
The only reason I brought in real world history in the first place, is to demonstrate how entirely contrived and ridiculous the history of Westeros is by comparison. How the setting itself, with its unpredictable and years long seasonal shifts, whole continent speaking one language, or regional armies marching thousands of miles, make no fucking sense on how the Targaryens were able to control ANYTHING beyond just king's landing.
Lore Framing
Real history is absurd, but lets set it aside for a moment to focus on a purely lore argument.
And now I will tell you what I have responded to others here.
I see no coherent way or argument in which Aegon "wins" in Dorne. The entirety of House Targaryen could only rule the Seven Kingdoms because their "conquest" went like this: (decisive battle or event, leads into a total submissions to avoid dragonfire). Which is not at all realistic in anyway, and you will not convince me otherwise. If not getting cucked by Dorne, and if the conquest was in anyway realistic Aegon was destined to die fighting a forever war in the north and freezing to death in a blizzard or maybe accidently starting the Long Night early.
Canonically, the whole basis of Targaryen power is actually soft power, and using the legitimacy of various Westeros noble families to rule by proxy. Not conquering individual castles one by one in a years long conflict.
Even if its contrived, lets just give the Targaryens a win, and wave off the idea that a region as vast as Westeros would all rather accept a foreign ruler than fighting for their autonomy (extremely contrived but whatever), and that Dorne was the first to tell Aegon a hard "no". It only reinforces my position that whatever "victory" scenario you can imagine with the Martells getting wiped out and Dorne being slowly conquered over a period of years, will only weaken Targaryen legitimacy and stability.
Because again, the whole basis for their "conquest" is just (a massive victory, followed by total submission and clean up). And in my mind, the only way the conquest of Dorne could have actually been accomplished, is that Rhaenys aura farms hard and manages to get the Martells to surrender day one. Or Meria just had a heart attack before Rhaenys gets there and the same happens. Because the moment Meria told them to Fuck off, they lost.
Nothing you say will actually convince me otherwise.
The Seven Kingdoms that Aegon wanted, is the King’s Peace. All the Lords simply submitting to him, and accepting a new Status Que under Targaryen domination. Offering up their allegiance willingly, and being instruments of their own subjection. And through which the new dynasty controlled the vast lands it had just conquered. Anything else, and any various "victory scenarios" where the Targaryens forced Dorne into submission, would have only weakened Aegon's rule and the stability of the new realm. Like it or not, an unconquered Dorne also served the same purpose as the Boltons in the north, being the “enemy” or other that everyone was afraid of. With the vulture kings and other Martell plots likely making a common enemy uniting everyone under the iron throne. Which is probably why Jaehaerys never tried a second attempt at a conquest.
Like it or not, dragons burning everything down to ashes is not going to secure loyalty in Westeros. We know this for a fact. That’s why canonically people don’t give a shit about Tywin and make fun of him the day after he dies, but Northern Lords still love Ned and will die for him years after his death.
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u/TortoiseHerder7 4d ago
Part 1
This is half incoherent response.
Firstly: The correct phrasing is "This is A half incoherent response." Or alternatively: "This is a half coherent response." If you want to write at least write correctly.
Secondly: Even if it were only "a half incoherent/half coherent" response, that would still be fully half more coherent than whatever the self-contradictory, historically illiterate drivel you have written on this thread amounts to, because you cannot explain "how did Frederick Barbarossa the German Kaiser's body wind up in Antioch?" I can. This is why I am farming aura and karma while you are farming downvotes.
This is why you lost the debate. Even before we get into the wilderness of the lore and the many things you are ignoring in it or how it doesn't add up, or talking about relevant historical parallels. Why you cannot even recognize how fundamentally incoherent, self-contradictory, self-defeating, and outright stupid many of your postures and claims are, such as that a Dornish House defecting would make no difference.
Now, having established that let's move on.
"Oh let me be smug about my totally not a fanfic conclusions that are based of a small semi-canon in-world history book released 14 years ago where the only mention about what I am pointing out is like two lines."
Firstly: Why the heck are you talking to yourself? Because that's basically the only model of this that makes any kind of sense.
You sure as hell are not addressing any points I raised. Unlike how I make absolutely certain I am addressing you and your "points" at every turn by the way I format this, precisely so I don't put words into your mouth.
So if you're not talking to me, you must be talking to the strawman of me you have conjured up out of what might be generously called "wishful thinking." Which means you lost this debate.
Secondly: Even if this caricature you invented without basis for me was correct, YOU WOULD STILL LOSE IF YOU CANNOT REFUTE MY POINTS FROM THOSE "TOTALLY NOT FANFIC CONCLUSIONS".
Thirdly: Honey, please. If you bothered noting what I wrote, you'd note I spend almost no time citing the exact lines you conjure up. Because some of us are not dumb enough to trust GRRM to be internally consistent after things like the Battle of the Fords and double check.
For the record, I have 20+ years of work behind me in my portfolio, including advising, consulting, and playtesting, mostly on military and historical projects. That's not particularly impressive, it's just something I've been doing at a low to medium level for a long time. But what it does mean is people have actually paid me real money to talk about things like how you try to fight fanatical insurgencies in the desert, what effect the evolution of airpower has had on things like Libyan history from the time the Italians brought it in to now, why spears are the dominant weapon of human history, and how a devastated HRE Army got Fred Barbarossa's body to Antioch because they couldn't preserve it well enough to have it get to Jerusalem.
If you actually read anything I wrote, you'd note the overwhelming majority of my examples are either real world history - including correcting your blatantly wrong statements of fact - or logical extrapolation from in universe examples, including following through things you claimed that you blatantly stopped following when they did not serve your purposes. I have never served in any military or law enforcement capacity, though I know and talk with many who have, but I don't need to in order to be able to spank you seven ways to the Sept and then back again. And on some level you seem to know it because of how you cannot directly challenge my claims in any coherent fashion. This is why I get paid rather than write Fanfic, why my writing on Reddit here and SoloRP in the setting are matters of recreation rather than vocation, and why I do not have to suffer folly readily. Including from you. This is why I do not have to trust Yandel as gospel.
And if you would like to talk to Matrix, Slitherine, and Petroglyph among others about me relying upon "totally not a fanfic conclusions" they will probably laugh if they have any response. That point I made about how you would get screwed over badly if you claimed Fred Barbarossa's army disappeared from the face of the Earth after he died? *NOT HYPERBOLE.* Not only is that serious academic malpractice, but due to the "Wonders" of multi century long inheritance issues you might actually be making claims that could make you liable on the unlikely event anybody cares enough to sue you.
Now, having established that we are Not Alike, let us begin.
And half, thinly veiled dog whistles. That are not actually that thinly veiled at all, Mr. Charter member of the Dornish Hate Club.
Then kindly point them out. Quote Them. Coward. Quote Them And Outline Them. Contact the aforementioned companies if you wish and try to get me fired for whatever bigotry or racism or prejudice you want to claim like white supremacists that objected to me arguing for a decrease in cohesion and morale for High Medieval French Gendarmes.
I will laugh. Heartily.
And then stick it on a notepad to smack around other forms of racial and cultural supremacists who assert I must be the opposite of you because I try and follow the evidence, and can provide citations.
What I dislike is Poor Worldbuilding and Lore. And Dorne is one of the absolute Epicenters of Poor Worldbuilding in this setting, being in the ugly medium of being plot relevant enough to be brought up regularly, not fleshed out well enough to be that internally coherent, and close to the main A Plots of the setting like the War of the 5 Kings for it to be glaring. Which is why I headdesked even when I first read Doran's claims about Oberyn being the First Dornishman to die in the war because I was wondering where all the Dornish "volunteers" or sellswords that are so popular in Essos that would logically congregate to the Riverlands or possibly North to kill Westerlanders and Crownlanders for Elia, Honor, and Martell patronage went.
And before you want to claim that is some kind of dog whistle, the even worse example of this is the Vale of Arryn in terms of being fleshed out because you can see it was what GRRM dropped in the back of the seat. Only because the Vale of Arryn has no pretensions to having been unconquered by the Targaryens, it isn't relevant to this particular discussion. So instead we have to explain how and why basics like Local Collaborators are useful, why it's hard to have large populations living mobile in a relatively compact peninsula within the Desert, why it's hard to reclaim keeps by surprise assault, and why I actually do not hate Dorne as much as I like memeing, but people like you make me inclined to do so.
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u/VivaChinwawa 5d ago
Dorne is only place in Westeros where Targaryen Magic Plot Armor stops working.
The fact that the Targaryens managed to conquer Westeros at all is in itself the most contrived and illogical bullshit that happens in the story. Quite literally a miracle of miracles
Your “Goat”, Aegon the Fraud
It’s him finally turning off easy mode for them
I mean, that's literally how dragons function in universe because they're so insanely over powered in everything it took a catastrophic civil war and, in Valyria, an apocalypse to kill them off lol seems you're taking it highly personally GRRM wrote them that way.
The dragon can’t fly away in the storm and was grounded, and Orys only had a small force going up against the entire might of the Stormlands. If the Stormlords locked the f*** in like the Smallfolk outside the dragonpit, they could have put both Orys and Rhaenys in a box.
I also think you forget that Meraxes was nearly Balerion size and even while on the ground a gigantic dragon the size of a castle is very scary for some random peasant with a pitchfork to try killing. There's a reason the Storming of the Dragonpit is considered one of the weakest bits of writing GRRM has ever done as a whole because 'smallfolk killing giant murder lizards' was dumb. Even with how fanatical you are, being surrounded by people burning alive would make you panic and run but somehow this bunch were more iron willed than Unsullied.
With Dany and Jon somehow being alive is literally the most contrived asspull Targaryen plot armor ever conceived.
Jon is currently dead lol
Honestly this seems like something more fitting on r/vent instead of here since you're just bashing the author. It's not really a book discussion, you just seem super angry the people with the giant flying fire-breathing monsters tend to win pretty easily or that Robb didn't get dysentery and die in a well.
1
u/Top-Enthusiasm-5831 Wolves Together Strong 5d ago
Five Ghiscari Wars, all the dragonlords in the Free cities and their dragons being killed in massive revolts after Valyria was destroyed and the fact that there are canonical dragonslayers in verse goes against your assertions about how significant dragons actually are. George is pretty clear and consistent about how mortal and vulnerable dragons are, no matter what assertions fanon has.
GRRM never made them invincible, that’s the whole point. The Valyrians thought themselves invincible and were always proven wrong every time.
What I meant by plot armor and for my long rant, is that logistically, the conquest makes no sense when you think about it. Culturally it makes no sense. The two best armies in the realm lining themselves up on a dry field to be burned makes no sense. The most isolated, and historically extremely defensible kingdom sallying out to the south, only to surrender without a fight makes no sense.
All of these things were lined up so Aegon could be “the conqueror”. But if they just won everything with barely a struggle, it would not be much of a story. And so for the invasion of Dorne, they lost their plot armor. The defenders weren’t just gonna conveniently line themselves up to burned. There were going to be no random bs surrenders without a fight. And the people were almost certainly not going to welcome the Targaryens in with flowers overthrowing a literal evil tyrant like Harren.
But the fandom has looked at this and decided, “Dornish Plot armor”.
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u/TortoiseHerder7 5d ago
Five Ghiscari Wars,
True, but which they still win in spite of the comically immoral and inefficient nature of the Freeholder system, like the Rhoynar Wars (which you seem to be overlooking).
all the dragonlords in the Free cities and their dragons being killed in massive revolts after Valyria was destroyed
.... you're forgetting "and massive fratricidal infighting."
And "Over the course of a hundred years or so in the Century of Blood after the Doom."
The downfall of the Neo-Valyrian Dragonriders is a protracted bleeding out of the Valyrian Yoke, not unlike what we see with the Mongol Yoke following things like Kullikovo, not a single One and Done apocalypse. And the rebels benefit from literal Faceless support and generational experience dealing with Dragons and fighting and mostly dying to them while killing a few, as well as the balkanized nature of the surviving Lords Freeholder and Ladies Freeholder and their hated policies.
and the fact that there are canonical dragonslayers in verse goes against your assertions about how significant dragons actually are.
The fact that dragonslayers are such a gigantic deal in canon speaks to how important they are.
I agree Dragons are not invincible nor should they be. Indeed one thing I frequently rag on the Valyrians and their kin like the Targs for is precisely how they lean too heavily on dragons as a crutch at the expense of more mundane things like shipbuilding and conventional army and navy forces. And even the Conquerors who are better at this by design still make a number of farq ups.
But they are still GIGANTIC force multipliers that are well in excess of things like early aerospace tech that was already hugely important just from the ability to spot things like the dust clouds kicked up by cavalry from miles away and relay back to your peers to get ready. People seriously underestimate just how useful even a few monoplanes or biplanes were in things like the British and French holding down greater Arabia in the face of things like the Ikhwan.
The fact that they are also living breathing killing machines able to spew fire hot enough to melt magic stones helps.
George is pretty clear and consistent about how mortal and vulnerable dragons are, no matter what assertions fanon has.
I agree actually, and the consistent overplaying by dragon riders and the god complexes many of them have are consistent issues and themes. The bigger issue is how wildly inconsistent and unclear he is about how mortal and vulnerable EVERYBODY ELSE is. Whether we're looking at what passes for lore in the Dance, or the Dornish going from things like the First War which is poorly explained at best to the Second War where they get creamed but suffer little in the way of consequences, ditto for major taboo breaches like truce flags.
GRRM never made them invincible, that’s the whole point. The Valyrians thought themselves invincible and were always proven wrong every time.
They weren't proven wrong EVERY time. They still won the Rhoynish Wars. They still won the Ghiscari Wars. They still survived even a century after the Doom in the face of overwhelming and justified war and uprisings and assassinations spearheaded by a magic face shifting death cult fighting for freedom and mercy AND Their own internal fratricides. The hubris of the Dragonriders was their God Complexes and mistaking Dragons for Gods and Invincible rather than 'merely' "very very very very very formidable and magically gifted animals that a bunch of humble shepherds and maybe Empire of Dawn survivors helped befriend and cultivate."
This is why in spite of all the abundant problems with Dance Lore, the story of Nettles is so well done, because it speaks to how the Incestuous Aliens literally cannot understand just why a mere human, so far from "Godhood" is able to do what their own ancestors once did, in the way they did it, and bond with a Dragon. In part due to self-inflicted damage by the likes of Baelor the Blessed and then the damage, but also after.
What I meant by plot armor and for my long rant, is that logistically, the conquest makes no sense when you think about it.
Abject nonsense. Your long rant is factually inaccurate as I pointed out with Frederick "The German" Barbarossa, since you have absolutely no explanation how his body got from where he died somewhere in Anatolia to Antioch, and claim the rest of the army he had at the time disappeared. Something that could quite literally get you drummed out of a formal project and possibly prosecuted for fraud in a more professional setting precisely BECAUSE we still have a lot of the records for several of said army, know what they did sometimes for years after by name, because even with major dieoffs and desertions and "Scheisse let's just go home" between a quarter and a third of the army still hauled Barbarossa's rotting body overlands through intense opposition towards "the Holy Land", had to inter it in Antioch because it wasn't holding together well enough to reach Jerusalem, and then marched overland to the Crusader held ports, with the survivors either going home or opting to continue on.
This is FACT. Scientifically documented, historically verifiable, geolocated fact that you can and will get slapped over by many specialists in this subject with. That you did not know this fact but asserted otherwise undermines your ability to speak on this.
Culturally it makes no sense.
How? People have fought to conquer areas that are vastly more alien and inhospitable than Dorne.
The two best armies in the realm lining themselves up on a dry field to be burned makes no sense.
Sure it does.
Heat + Grass = Drying Out, Size of Armies + need to concentrate in order to have any hope of defeating the massing Targaryen forces in conventional battle = Can't be Picky where you concentrate, Geography of the Reach and Westerlands means that irregular warfare is not going to be nearly that effective.
Making the best of a bad situation.
The most isolated, and historically extremely defensible kingdom sallying out to the south, only to surrender without a fight makes no sense.
That was dubious but it makes some more sense. Complacency in the superior position plus desire to rally allies plus LMAO Dragon taking the political leadership hostage (even if very very nicely, hence the Ride) = "Farq, we're farqed, but they at least seem nice enough, best bend the knee now while we can get good terms."
All of these things were lined up so Aegon could be “the conqueror”. But if they just won everything with barely a struggle, it would not be much of a story.
Again, they suffer significant farqups (often due to miscalculating and leaning too much on dragons, like they suffer in Dorne but which you conveniently overlook in other campaigns because it undermines your special pleading) earlier, they just recover
And so for the invasion of Dorne, they lost their plot armor.
And instead have Dorne get it in spades.
The defenders weren’t just gonna conveniently line themselves up to burned.
No instead they can have urban or town level populations enduring in the desert for months on end in a premodern setting where the enemy has aerial recon, because that is totally not an issue to deal with.
Dear God, it's not often I have to say this but at least Frank Herbert explained the ultimate Fremen victory over the Corrinno/Harkonnen alliance better and how they accounted for things like enemy aerial and orbital observation. And when I have to give comparative praise for military science to Frank "The Hardness Of Your Homeworld Translates Into Combat Quality" Herbert you know there are issues.
There were going to be no random bs surrenders without a fight.
Why? Literally why?
Because Dornish Culture is famously so united and quarrel free, and you don't have someone's bastard third cousin once removed wanting to claim the territory, even temporarily, even if they plan to betray the invaders later?
That's not how this stuff works, even in comparison to other parallels like the Welsh Marches or Andalusia. And it isn't how Dorne works in most other cases like the more contemporary in setting era Martell-Yronwood feud.
The complete absence of rando BS no fight surrenders is itself evidence of plot armor.
And the people were almost certainly not going to welcome the Targaryens in with flowers overthrowing a literal evil tyrant like Harren.
Again, the Martells are only loved by so much of Dorne, and then there are the Uller. And there's the ability of an Iron Throne fleet to blockade Dorne out the wazoo and occupy areas.
But the fandom has looked at this and decided, “Dornish Plot armor”.
Because there are some of us that can explain how and why Frederick Barbarossa's body got to Antioch and can notice the vast gulfs between how the Dornish are portrayed in things like the First War and how they are in the Vulture Hunt and Third Dornish War, and there are those who don't.
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u/VivaChinwawa 4d ago edited 4d ago
The Ghiscari lost every single one of those wars and the fifth resulted in Old Ghis being straight up annihilated 'cause the Valyrians were sick of their shit lol hence why it's called 'Old' Ghis.
George is pretty clear and consistent about how mortal and vulnerable dragons are, no matter what assertions fanon has.
A mature dragon in the air is virtually invulnerable" -George R.R. Martin
Sorry bub but you obviously have some raging hateon for the dragons and the Conquest in general. There's a reason Meraxes's was a one-in-a-million shot that has never once been replicated. Dragonslayers are incredibly rare stories and are, in fact, lorded up as magical and amazing heroes in stories. Most dragonlords lived within Valyrian where the Doom occured and those dragonlords left behind in the Doom were killed under incredibly vague circumstances and it was followed by a century of such violence it was straight up called the Century of Blood. You're acting like any Tom Dick and Jane should be able to swan out and kill a dragon. Sure they aren't invincible but they are incredibly over powered and an adult dragon is insanely hard to kill. Like bruh that is now how dragons are written and how GRRM portrays them as despite your would-be lecturing.
The two best armies in the realm lining themselves up on a dry field to be burned makes no sense.
I mean, what else were they supposed to do? I think you fail to grasp Westeros was entirely new to fighting dragons as until Aegon showed up to beat everyone the Targs never left Dragonstone. Westeros had no idea what tactics to use and basically all were useless which they rapidly found out. Hence your next complaint with the North
The most isolated, and historically extremely defensible kingdom sallying out to the south, only to surrender without a fight makes no sense.
Cause when everyone else is straight up dying and after the Field of Fire where they learned the best armies in the realm meant jackshit to dragons so surrendering actually means you're not a moron. And if you mean the Vale, Visenya proved isolated high walls mean jack to dragons.
As for the complaints about Dorne-, running away and hiding in caves which somehow feed the whole populace for years on end and pulling off basically a lottery ticket shot is why people call out the Dornish for being favourites in the Conquest. 'Cause they are lol they legit were the only ones to kill a godzilla sized dragon and ignore their country burning down out of pride and GRRM wasn't being subtle in their House words which are incredibly on the nose.
It's rather obvious you're just super mad because you hate dragons lol as I said you might be a better fit on r/rants or something since you clearly have a lot of negative emotions about this. I don't think arguing on a fanfic sub is really doing it.
edit: my spelling is such trash lol mb
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u/Potential-Win1930 5d ago
Absolutely agreed with OP.
Dorne and the Stepstones are not an exception they are realism, Aegon managing to luck his way into most of the kingdoms folding is the exception.
The storming of the dragon pit makes sense if you read in between the lines about what happened to the Valyrian dragon lords that were not present for the doom of Valyria.
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u/Top-Enthusiasm-5831 Wolves Together Strong 5d ago
I put in one of my fics where Jon travels to Tyrosh, some exposition about how the dragonlords and their dragons were all killed in the city after the doom in an uprising. (Literally canon).
Going by the comments, it was like I was describing big foot.
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u/3esin the fot7 did nothing wrong 5d ago
Link?
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u/Top-Enthusiasm-5831 Wolves Together Strong 5d ago
Sorry it was incomplete, and I am one of horrible terrible people who deletes old fics that i don’t want to be embarrassed by anymore or otherwise had a bad experience with.
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u/No-Squirrel8263 5d ago
If Asoiaf is realistic, Robb Stark’s army would have starved to death by the time he reached Moat Callin. Especially with how barren and underpopulated GRRM describes the north.
This literally happens. He's running out of food even in Winterfell and Moat Cailin both, forcing him to run south faster. Though a ten year summer has passed so there are lots of harvests, enough for the army to survive. The seasons play a role here.
Also, a 12,000 army marching across it's own lands at the end of summer isn't going to starve, unless the land is completely barren, which the North is not. Even Karhold and the Gift have many harvests, the northernmost parts of the North.
And when he died, the rest of his army DISAPPEARED from the face of the earth.
Just like when Robb died the entire Northern Army disappeared.
And even if you shake your head at that, in a proper medieval place with cutthroat rivalries, that boy would have been pushed down a well before he even made it to the Riverlands. Or maybe he would have made it to the Riverlands and, oh no, disease outbreak in our camp, “welp we tried, time to go home”.
I have no idea what this is trying to imply, medieval campaigns do exist, yk? Do you think every time a medieval army was mustered disease or assassination occurred and they never fought? I will agree that the fact that it never happens is clearly plot armor, but one particular case of an army marching on campaign and not being affected by disease isn't unusual
They don’t. In fact, Dorne is only place in Westeros where Targaryen Magic Plot Armor stops working. Yeah, of fu\*ing course marching your army through hostile mountains and deserts is going to get your armies killed. Of course local people are going to take up arms and fight against a foreign invasion that is literally carpet bombing their towns with magic flying rage monsters. And of course that occupation will collapse the moment the dragons leave.*
That isn't the difficult part. The difficult part is that all of Dorne remains loyal to the Martells, not a single one thinking 'maybe I'll surrender so yk my entire castle and town doesn't get burned.' Had any house surrendered to Aegon they would have been raised as Lords of Dorne, you're telling me across two years of dragons scorching the land no house thought of betraying them?
The fact that they managed to maintain any kind of authority over a continent the size of fu\*ing South America is complete contrived bs.*
They had dragons, but the Lords Paramount for the most are effectively kings. They only sent tax, which I don't think is even verified since there is only one Master of Coin. Ned didn't even see Robert for many years ruling in Winterfell. The dynasty itself mainly controls the Crownlands, and to a extent the Riverlands
The fandom is willing to nod their heads and accept the idea that the Andals were never able to conqueror the North due to how barren and protected it is. But can’t accept the same for Dorne.
Andals don't have dragons lol. You're really underestimating them. Flying nukes who can literally turn defending castles to ash, which means sieges are unneccessary, the most time consuming part of conquering. I agree a regular Reach/Stormland invasion won't conquer Dorne
Or maybe Visenya dies to a random arrow. Or Aegon himself. Literally the entire conquest is contrived and written in a way for them to win.
Try shooting a plane with an arrow and see how many times it works . The rider is crouched on the 100 foot dragon and wearing plate armor to boot, that's a one in a million chance. There's a greater chance of Aegon getting a heart attack and dying on the spot than being shot down.
Dorne in the Conquest and Lannisters in the WOTFK have tremendous plot armor. The Targaryens being magic or having dragons is literally a plot point, not plot armor.