Game of Thrones: why hasn’t Westeros had an industrial revolution?

https://theconversation.com/game-of-thrones-why-hasnt-westeros-had-an-industrial-revolution-25240

by smacktoward • 12 years ago

76 61 12 years ago

rasur• 12 years ago

Because it's a book, and thus at the whim of the author?

I'm a HUGE GoT fan (have read the books multiple times) but it's a work of fiction, fantasy fiction as that. The rules don't apply. There hasn't been an industrial revolution because George RR Martin has decided there shouldn't be one in his world.

maxerickson2• 12 years ago

There still has to be some internal consistency, if too many things happen on just a whim of the author the story falls apart.

rjtavares2• 12 years ago

Missing from the analysis is the exploration of Westeros' magical winters. They're described as smal Ice Ages lasting for a few years, and occouring every 5-7 years (if memory serves me). People hoard food during the good years so that they don't starve during the long winters, which are (particularly in the north) complety barren. I imagine that would have an impact on society, particularly on specialization and the pursuit of knowledge a related activities.

jffry• 12 years ago

The seasons are frequently described as unpredictable, but over the course of the novels it's suggested that in recent living history they have become elongated.

Imagine the effects that a 9-year winter would have on a population. It's possible that these seasons are a part of a cycle where civilization builds up, and then is decimated, which would be a huge hindrance to technological progress.

Amezarak• 12 years ago

(If you haven't read all the books, don't read this comment.)

There's also magic in general. Until relatively recently, societies could accomplish a great deal through magical means, from road-building to instantaneous long-distance communication. For much of the six thousand years, there was probably no reason to focus on scientific and technological advances when you could just use magic.

Things apparently changed with the near-extinction of the dragons. Dragons apparently somehow boost magic - it almost disappeared without them, and now it's coming back with them.

In the books, Marwyn the Mage (a maester) claims that the maesters were responsible for the death of the dragons, because they couldn't build the world they wanted with magic, prophecy, and dragons around - suggesting that the maesters want a world of science and technology, perhaps with them as the gatekeepers. Lady Dustin also suggests that the maesters are much more political than they pretend.

rjtavares2• 12 years ago

Yeah, I thought about that too. As they say, necessity really is the mother of invention...

morazow• 12 years ago

Also, some of the Targaryen kings tried to revive the dragons using magic.

antonioevans• 12 years ago

Yep, as an entrepreneur it would be pretty difficult for me to have my factory shutdown for 5-7 years because the roads had 5 years worth of snow on them.

wfn5• 12 years ago

Obligatory link to a paper on arXiv analyzing the astrophysics of long and volatile winter seasons in Westeros (basically, can you have a system where you wouldn't be able to analytically solve/predict winters, etc.): http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.0445 ("Winter is coming")

Excerpt from the abstract:

To right that appalling wrong, here we attempt to explain the apparently erratic seasonal changes in the world of G.R.R.M. A natural explanation for such phenomena is the unique behavior of a circumbinary planet. Thus, by speculating that the planet under scrutiny is orbiting a pair of stars, we utilize the power of numerical three-body dynamics to predict that, unfortunately, it is not possible to predict either the length, or the severity of any coming winter. We conclude that, alas, the Maesters were right -- one can only throw their hands in the air in frustration and, defeated by non-analytic solutions, mumble "Coming winter? May be long and nasty (~850 days, T<268K) or may be short and sweet (~600 days, T~273K). Who knows..."

(I like arXiv.)

thaumasiotes• 12 years ago

The example reminds me of a web page presenting the Awesome Unpredictability of Chaotic Systems that left me underwhelmed. You'd click on a pixel in a flash object and it would start moving in a lemniscatish path defined by some differential equations. The lesson to be drawn was that this system, easy to define, makes it "impossible to predict" the position of the particle at any given time, in the sense that tiny changes in the initial position led to rather wide gaps between the particles at time t=t_1 (maybe two particles released at the same time from adjacent pixels end up across the lemniscate from each other at some later time).

The lesson I actually drew was more like so:

Hm, if you release a few particles into this system you'll quickly notice that they all seem to be traveling along the same rough lemniscate. The lemniscate is a tiny minority of the entire space, so learning the differential equations lets me substantially improve my predictions of where the particle will be at any moment. ("It's probably near the lemniscate" is much more precise than "it's somewhere in space".)

If the difference between the best winter and the worst is a 40% longer duration (admittedly, not pleasant) and 15 degrees centigrade... there's plenty of room left for real variation. ;)

twic2• 12 years ago

I am reminded of the history-shaping long seasons in the Pern and Helliconia series of books. Those embed what are ostensibly fantasy stories in a science-fictional universe; the seasons are explained by orbital mechanics.

In both series, high technology from the science fictional context eventually plays a disrupting role in the fantasy world. You don't see a lot of that these days. I would slap my thigh with unrestrainable jollity if GRRM ends ASOIAF that way.

bluedevil2k• 12 years ago

The article doesn't discuss the effectiveness of the plagues in adjusting the supply/demand curves of labor, thus disrupting the feudal system, thus unlocking the power of knowledge and innovation from the masses. Perhaps in Westeros, the upcoming Winter will have the same effect.

klackerz• 12 years ago

That's one of my main pet peeves about fantasy novels. The only author I know who has introduced long term changes in a fantasy world is Brandon Sanderson in his fantasy series Mistborn.

OscarCunningham• 12 years ago

Terry Pratchett is another.

Macha2• 12 years ago

In effect, the long term direction of the Discworld books, especially since the start of the watch sub-series is basically "What if the industrial revolution happened in a (mostly) traditional fantasy world?".

walshemj2• 12 years ago

Actually that was the reality fracturing and being put back together (sort of) by the history monks - its why you have Elizabethan theater next to an 18 century opera

koshatnik• 12 years ago

Also, although this is more the case overseas rather than in Westeros itself, slaves. Ancient Greece and Rome certainly had the knowledge and ingenuity to have industrial revolutions, but with the availability of mass forced labour, there would have been a much smaller cost saving in mechanising tasks. Serfdom kind of does the same thing to a lesser extent.

marknutter• 12 years ago

Because GRRM is too busy introducing new characters.

stephencanon• 12 years ago

I think you meant "killing".

Macha2• 12 years ago

Replacements need to come from somewhere or he'll run out of characters to kill off.

glenra• 12 years ago

The article claims loaned money is wasted in "useless pageants and tournaments" but pageants might be the opposite of useless in this context. Having regular events where people travel from near and far to show off their finery encourages the development of technology - and the sharing of information - far in advance of what's necessary in normal day-to-day life.

Suppose you're making clothing (or armor, or swords...) and there's one big annual pageant in your region. That pageant constitutes a financial incentive to show off your best work. You now have a reason to save money and build up technological prowess the rest of the year so you can try extra hard to make something extra impressive that one week so the people who wear your stuff at that event will outshine everyone else. Having special show-offish events (generally with an associated crafts fair) leads to an arms race. If one lord has an especially finely-woven blue silk shirt in this years tournament, the next year everybody else HAS to have shirts made that well; the guy who came up with the technique for making it makes out like a bandit and other people copy his techniques. The need to impress others in a limited context produces tech that isn't normally necessary and that tech first spreads to the rest of the elite then trickles down to the masses.

Anyway, that's the "crafts fair" theory of how industrial development came about.

_random_• 12 years ago

No colonies to rob?

wfn5• 12 years ago

Somewhat related: "The Last Ringbearer": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer - "an alternative account of and an informal sequel to the events of J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy, The Lord of the Rings."

The novel is based on the premise that the Tolkien account is a "history written by the victors". In Eskov's version of the story, Mordor is described as a peaceful country on the verge of an industrial revolution, that is a threat to the war-mongering and imperialistic faction represented by Gandalf (whose attitude has been described by Saruman as "crafting the Final Solution to the Mordorian problem") and the elves.

Author's article on salon.com: http://www.salon.com/2011/02/23/last_ringbearer_explanation/

The whole book in English here: http://ymarkov.livejournal.com/280578.html

JoeAltmaier4• 12 years ago

Surprisingly familiar. But isn't it another idealogical exaggeration in a different direction? Cute though.

Maybe a balanced version, where feuding between an agrarian society and an imperial nation rises to war, with atrocities mounting by the imperium's secret police as the naieve masses of farmers slowly accept the need for fighting back? Oh, that was Tolkien's version.

wfn5• 12 years ago

But isn't it another idealogical exaggeration in a different direction?

Yeah, probably! It's just.. an interesting angle, really!

I'll quote from the second foreword to LotR[1] (written in 1966) (excerpt somewhere from the middle), because I like it and it's somewhat relevant to all this (tl;dr: just read the second paragraph)

As for any inner meaning or 'message', it has in the intention of the author none. It is neither allegorical nor topical. As the story grew it put down roots (into the past) and threw out unexpected branches: but its main theme was settled from the outset by the inevitable choice of the Ring as the link between it and The Hobbit. The crucial chapter, "The Shadow of the Past', is one of the oldest parts of the tale. It was written long before the foreshadow of 1939 had yet become a threat of inevitable disaster, and from that point the story would have developed along essentially the same lines, if that disaster had been averted. Its sources are things long before in mind, or in some cases already written, and little or nothing in the war that began in 1939 or its sequels modified it.

The real war does not resemble the legendary war in its process or its conclusion. If it had inspired or directed the development of the legend, then certainly the Ring would have been seized and used against Sauron; he would not have been annihilated but enslaved, and Barad-dûr would not have been destroyed but occupied. Saruman, failing to get possession of the Ring, would in the confusion and treacheries of the time have found in Mordor the missing links in his own researches into Ring-lore, and before long he would have made a Great Ring of his own with which to challenge the self-styled Ruler of Middle-earth. In that conflict both sides would have held hobbits in hatred and contempt: they would not long have survived even as slaves.

Other arrangements could be devised according to the tastes or views of those who like allegory or topical reference. But I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.

(I've been listening to the LotR audiobook during my walks in the woods etc. recently. Recommend+++.)

edit p.s.: it wasn't me who downvoted you. fwiw, while your tone was somewhat condescending, i thought your comment did add to the discussion.

[1]: e.g. http://www.thetolkienforum.com/showthread.php?16713-LOTR-The...

gcv• 12 years ago

Fascinating. Is that Salon article even remotely accessible to a non-Russian (speaker)? It makes fairly subtle references to writers non-Russians have likely never heard of (the brothers Strugatskie, Lev Gumilev, Griboedov), and so builds a large argument which can come across as vapid and pretentious. I'm not necessarily saying it is, but I got most of the references and thought the author went a little too far. The comments are rather less charitable, and point out a few factual errors (e.g.: currency at Bree — silver pennies, explicitly mentioned by JRRT; the weakness of sequels — what about Huck Finn?).

wfn5• 12 years ago

It makes fairly subtle references to writers non-Russians have likely never heard of (the brothers Strugatskie, Lev Gumilev, Griboedov), and so builds a large argument which can come across as vapid and pretentious.

fwiw, I don't speak Russian, but I've read 'Roadside Picnic' (and am somewhat familiar with what else they wrote), know of Griboyedov, etc. I'm sure I've missed many references and nuances, but the article did deliver a consistent overall message/point to me.

I got most of the references and thought the author went a little too far.

I probably agree, it went a bit over the top, but knowing where he's coming from (i.e.: I understand his defensiveness), it was OK for me. Some of the references to lore/history/etc were.. more 'cute' than argument-building. :)

pron3• 12 years ago

Breaking up the feudal system with its attendant absurdities would help

Feudalism is anything but absurd. In fact, it makes much more sense than capitalism: trust is built slowly, and enhanced by gifts of land and marriage bonds. It was a major cultural change that allowed people in the early modern economy to put blind faith in faceless institutions and unseen strangers. People living in developed countries often don't see how much trust is required to maintain it, and this trust takes ages to build. Children grow up seeing that the "system works" so as adults, they don't rock the boat (well, most of them don't). To them, rampant bribery and nepotism in developing countries seems strange and illogical, but it is the exact opposite. Those "backwards" systems are built around the idea of cultivating personal relationships because you can't trust strangers.

The lessons from this is that the converse is also true. A society built around capitalism (and I'm talking capitalism in general; not necessarily predatory free-market capitalism) requires, first and foremost, a lot of trust in the system. If that trust is lost, we go back to feudalism. There is no such thing as trust-free capitalism (specifically, because without trust there is no credit – which, literally means "faith" – and without credit there is no capitalism).

JoeAltmaier4• 12 years ago

Just a coincidence the history of feudal systems is the history of sadists tormenting the people they lord it over? Its all fine and good as long as you are one of the people with marriages and land bonds to barter. But the vast majority of people called it serfdom and died young.

icegreentea• 12 years ago

You're claim has minimal basis in history. The number of sadists tormenting their serfs is surely non-zero, but also not systemic. For one thing, lords DEPEND on their serfs for their well being. Their serfs economic output is crucial.

barry-cotter• 12 years ago

The wealth produced by capitalism that allows rising standards of living is a historical aberration. For nearly all of human history Malthusianism was correct and most people lived on the brink of starvation.

Feudalism was no different from any other pre-industrial social structure, a parasitic rentier class taxed the peasantry to support their lifestyles. This was true from the god kings of Sumer, Mycenae and Mexico, the cultured, civilized, literate empires of China and Rome and the warlord kingdoms of Europe and India.

Most of human history was a boot stomping on a human face and if we're not very lucky this Dteamtime will end too.

pron3• 12 years ago

Feudalism is terrible for the people (well, at least more than capitalism), and I'm not suggesting otherwise (in fact, I was warning against inadvertently going back to feudalism by trying to build a "trust-less" economy). But feudalism wasn't absurd, either. It was very logical.

In fact, most systems where power is concentrated in the hands of the few, while the majority is exploited by the powerful make more sense. It is the crowning achievement of the West that we've been able to slowly and excruciatingly build large democracies based on trust in the system. While (very) far from perfect, these democracies are closer to the humanist ideal than any other system in human history.

HarryHirsch• 12 years ago

There were several factors playing in favour of the serfs. First, there was competition between the feudal lords, if one neglected his responsibilities too much and treated his subjects to harshly they could flee and find themselves another patron. What prevented a Silicon Valley wage cartel type race to the bottom was the emergence of cities and a merchant class entirely outside the feudal system. A serf who settled in a city had no master at all. The story of the Middle Ages is the struggle between the feudal system and the forces outside it, first the church, then the cities.

Also, the church launched a peace movement, just because someone had to keep up the public peace; in 9th century Europe warlordism had spiraled out of control. Ultimately, they were successful in restricting private war between the nobility and mitigating the impact on the general population.

Living conditions for the peasantry in the Middle Ages could have been worse. They didn't have cars and flatscreens, fridges and washing machines, but they had more holidays than the American worker today. And no back-breaking commute.

riffraff2• 12 years ago

I am reasonably sure "credit" means "belief" rather than faith (i.e. I believe you will pay back, I have faith in $DEITY).

The difference is relevant: the banking system works based on the fact that I don't have to trust you 100%, I only need to believe you will be able to pay back, and if you don't I will come and break your legs (or equivalently, I will recur to the judicial system and ask for my pound of flesh).

It doesn't need trust, it only needs accountability.

pron3• 12 years ago

Actually, trust goes much deeper than a crude lending example, which is used merely for demonstration. First, banks can't break your legs; they really don't have the resources to do that (not now, and not when the lenders were warlords and used the loans to buy armies).

The use of violence, or the threat of it, in a capitalistic society is much more complicated. The direct wielders of violence, say, the police, need to do as they're told. Money can't be the only incentive, because all sides have it. In our society, the police (more or less) have faith in the judicial system, and believe they're doing the right thing.

This system of trust permeates everything in modern Western societies.

ghshephard• 12 years ago

My father was a mortgage broker back in the 90s, so I had a chance to see hundreds of deals done - and there was zero "trust/faith" when it came to credit. Everything requires collateral, and the presumption, going in, is that the borrower is going to default, and you will need to seize the collateral in order to make good.

Even in 2007/2008, there was a weird twisted logic that suggested that because, historically, the market for real-estate doesn't all go down at once, that the collateralized debt obligations were credit worthy on the basis of the their underlying assets.

That logic, of course, turned out to be based on false premises - but not because the bankers had any trust/faith in the borrowers.

bane• 12 years ago

As somebody who spends a bit of time in East Asia, face-to-face, personal relationships are how business is accomplished. People from Western societies struggle with doing business in these areas because of this. There's no shortage of cultural business guides that talk about chopstick usage and how to bow.

But the reality is, you have to form a personal relationship in these countries to accomplish many things. Business deals are sealed over rounds of drinking or dinner or karaoke and other similar activities.

Change is occurring slowly towards more Western style business. But it's not clear if it will ever be fully adopted. Westerners often struggle with lose attitudes towards contracts and regulations, because the core of the business attitude is about personal trust.

The reasons for changes away from this system are complex, but likely because Western systems of business are built around assumptions that you can't trust your business associate, so both parties and the legal system does support strict attitudes about contracts and regulations -- collateral or contractual penalties are often used to ensure compliance rather than trust. Risk minimization is something Western businesses are pretty good at.

As more and more people start to do business together, they realize that no amount of karaoke and liquor will prevent your business associate from screwing you over. So eventual social reform is happening and is likely to continue to happen until a local comfort level is found. It might not look anything like the Western model in the end, but it is likely to be informed by it.

malkia2• 12 years ago

I just finished reading Kazuo Ishiguro's "The remains of the day" which portrayed the life of an over-loyal butler who devotes all his life to his lord, and realizes at the end that he's lost all his personal life along the way.

Such was the life for a lot of of the people living in the feudal period - a servant's life fully devoted to your master, without questioning right or wrong.

angersock2• 12 years ago

It is left as an exercise for the reader to compare this mindset with those of software engineers at startups. 3 pages, 12 pt. font, due Friday.

henrikschroder2• 12 years ago

No, feudalism is a hierarchical economical system that is capable of producing and maintaining heavy cavalry in a poor agrarian society.

When famine is likely, feudalism ensures that the knight, his horse, and his family, never starves and can defend the population at all times.

Knights were granted enough land such that it was deemed possible that it could feed the serfs living there, and produce enough excess to feed the knight and his horse.

Indentured servitude was a way of guaranteeing a stable population of serfs, and prohibiting competition between the landed gentry, otherwise the serfs would urbanize or move to richer lands. Feudalism is about utilizing all the land for the purpose of raising knights.

The "attendant absurdities" only appeared once the economy started producing so much excess that it became hard to justify the system, even though the system is what allowed the various realsm to be protected from raiders and each other in the first place.

higherpurpose• 12 years ago

In Europe, industrialisation depended on the dissemination of ideas. The more know-how was spread widely, the more people could hear of an innovation and could copy or improve it, building an accelerating cycle of technological development.

This hits the spot for the patent system, which is actually detrimental as it is for technological development. Imagine if back then the "big guys" could sue/take the property of anyone daring to copy or improve on existing technologies? I also doubt that back then many would be interested in licensing the technology, but more in keeping it for themselves to "rule the world".

claudius2• 12 years ago

The patent system was introduced to solve the latter problem: By openly specifying a solution to a problem, more people could benefit from that solution. Combine that with a period of time where only the original inventor is allowed to benefit and you catch two birds with one stone:

- invention is incentivised as people can expect to be protected for a period of time to get their investment back

- to do so, they have to share their inventions with the world which then can use it at a later point.

The problem today is that the period of protection is much longer than necessary and sensible given the speed of innovation. Just a few decades ago, waiting ten or twenty years for a patent to run out was much preferable to spending ten, twenty or fifty years trying to solve the original problem yourself.

The patent system is not the problem, its parameters are.

GlennS• 12 years ago

I think it's a mistake to think that Westeros has been the same for 6000 years. Rather, the people of Westeros are making the same kind of historical errors that Medieval people commonly did.

Evidence: the phrase 'stories about knights before there were knights' (I think this is from Bran).

riffraff2• 12 years ago

did the Reform break the church near-monopoly on education?

I was under the impression the printing press had been the big thing there (and also the main enabler of the Reform, which could have been a random isolated heresy otherwise)

henrikschroder2• 12 years ago

Because: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MedievalStasis

fiatmoney• 12 years ago

Intermittent bitter winters result in negative real interest rates - you'd gladly give up a loaf of bread plus something else now (in summer) for a guaranteed loaf of bread later (in winter).

With periodic long-term negative real interest rates, hoarding or investing in hoard-protecting projects (fortresses, larders, giant walls) makes more sense than investing in capital that will become idle in a long-term bitter winter - especially when that source of capital makes you a target.

bladedtoys• 12 years ago

Why hasn't Westeros had an industrial revolution?

Because no one has ever had one[1].

There was no industrial revolution in China or India or the Muslim world who arguably were more advanced than medieval Europe.

There was no industrial revolution in Rome or the Hellenistic era who had vastly more potential in the creation and exchange of ideas than the medieval period.

There were no industrial revolutions among the new world civilizations who had larger populations than any medieval nation. There were no industrial revolutions in sub Sarahan African even though there was iron working and abundant resources.

Quite possibly the industrial revolution was actually an improbable set of circumstance and people for which ad hoc but inadequate explanations abound.

(and so there hasn't been an industrial revolution on that tv show because it is unrealistically unlikely.)

[1]With one exception, the one we happen to live in.

angersock2• 12 years ago

For anyone interested in industrial revolutions in fantasy or medieval settings, I'd recommend checking out de Camp's "Lest Darkness Fall" and Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court".

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura is a pretty great CRPG in that setting as well, with fantastic writing and worldbuilding--even if the vanilla version of the game is somewhat buggy and imbalanced.

moomin• 12 years ago

Another unique fictional aspect of the Game of Thrones world is that they have a well-documented and well-understood technology (magic) that just plain stopped working. Even things that you'd regard as chemistry e.g. wildfire stopped working when the dragons died. So you're looking at an environment in which normal scientific investigation might be unreliable.

For that matter, if you've got dragons, who needs cannons?

Game of Thrones: why hasn’t Westeros had an industrial revolution?

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