Fun and Interesting Houses to play as when the goal is to become a King in Westeros?

[blackninja9939]

You try to make sense of G(u)RRMs very lazy, basic and naive worldbuilding. Don't. It's fruitless.

GRRM has built a pretty detailed and in depth world to be honest, calling it basic is just plainly not true

 

[blackninja9939]

It is basic. It just is. Nothing is truly developed, nothing is truly fleshes out, and what in some part is, well, there it took decades to take it to not even so high level of complexion. All of Westeros speaks the same language. All of Westeros is basically culturally uniform save for Dorne and some tiny little differences between broadly understood North and as broadly understood South. Religion is underdeveloped and way too simple to be realistic. Where are schisms, where are heresies, what do the holy books contain, we don't know about any of this. Only thing that is somewhat developed is strictly political history.

And most of those things you listed would only hinder the story he planned out, multiple languages would achieve nothing as you would then need a permanent translator so characters knew what the hell was going on or you would just ignore the different languages on the assumption people on the same continent can understand it hence you have wasted time by adding all these languages as you are effectively ignoring that they exist anyway.
The cultural differences are definitely there between the northman, iron islanders, dornish, valyrians and then the andal descendants who make up the rest of Westeros.
Do you really care about the inner writing of the seven as a religion? In what way would that effect the story? In what way would that add to anything?
How would having a heresy add to the world? Have you ever watched a medieval political drama where heresy was a key part to the story and was actively used as a plot point? Why bother writing about a heresy if it doesn't add to the story, only a point in adding them if it adds something useful to the world.

Things that have been developed: Political history, dynasties and their families, wars, different continents, different religions and how they all perceive a similar event but change it based on their religion/culture, different cultures and their traditions, the magic of the world, the many locations etc etc etc

 

[blackninja9939]

As you say - story, story, story. What G(u)RRM basically did is that he took a very short, specific period of English history, modified it slightly - ever so slightly, names are even there, barely hidden, in oldest, most important elements of this quasi-worldbuilding, Stark = York, Lannister = Lancaster and so on - and decided to tell us a story. Story about characters, interactions between them, their dilemmas and personal problems, about past of their families, destiny of heroes and so on. Political drama smudged by some elements of shallow fantasy. World is secondary is Martin’s books and it shows. You ask how these things would enhance the story - like I give a damn. I’m not talking right now about plot of the ASoIaF, but about… Planetos let’s call this setting. It’s a shallow setting. It only works on most basic of levels. Nothing makes sense on deeper one. Continent of roughly South America’s size whole speaks same language and it has really basically the same culture, same technological level of advancement, same customs and laws. Differences are there, but they are shallow, or, better - they are provincial. They would be justified on a national level, on a level of realm size of... heh, go figure, England? Or Britain as an island. But this is fricking continent, and now it becomes unrealistic. Faith of the Seven has millions of adherents judging by its history and available statistics, yet it’s the same everywhere, no religion ever worked this way.

Same with chivalric culture of southern Andal Seven Kingdoms. It was a specific set of historical circumstances that occured during a specific, short, period of medieval European history that led to phenomenon that Martin is copying. Christian values, Germanic traditions. How the hell is this the same in Seven Kingdoms? It makes no sense.


You come off as little bit… stupid, writing such things. “Do you really care about inner writing of the Christianity as a religion? In what way would that effect the story? In what way would that add to anything?”

Well, looking by dozens of Christian sects, stories of heresies, schisms and religious wars, it adds a lot. But whatever, MUH TYRION AND MUH CHARACTERS AND SO DEEP WORLD. What do I know.


Not counting Valyrians, who are obviously something else, they are almost the same. They speak same language, they have almost same names and surnames, they act the same, they follow the same laws and customs, they all adhere to aristocratic culture of the same kind, they do look the same. There are differences, like religious ones and so on, but they are shallow. It's like thay are not there. Only Dorne somehow stands out (it's quite obvious why - it's ONLY thing that Martin added to the combined map of England and Ireland that make up map of his OH SO ORIGINAL Westeros...).

Man thats an essay and a half. GRRM writes to make a story so why would he add in things that are not relevant to the world? Things that really do not make that much of a difference.

Its called a fantasy setting for a reason, hence you can have the same technological levels in the continent so things are a level playing field for your wars without one side clearly winning cause they have better <insert weapon here>
Would the world really be that much better by adding in arbitrary distinctions in languages or changes in a group of cultures who are all descended from the same ones?
As for the same customs and laws, they are all ruled by the same monarch so of course the laws and custom are the same (bar the Dornish obviously but there is lore reasons for that exception).

You come off like a bit of a dick. Does the inner writings of Christianity effect much? No it really doesn't, the big differences maybe at a push but the majority of the world follows the same basic ideas with minor pointless variations arbitrarily defined by average people who thought their view on religion was somehow better so they make their own sect. Would that make the world of ASOIAF better? Not really, not unless it was going to be used in the story at any point otherwise it has just been needlessly tacked on and achieves nothing.

As Moarice said with the example of Chekhov's gun and the point of GRRMs books, adding unnecessary detail does not achieve anything.

Also next time you write a post about you try and act like less of an self-righteous arse