#feudal society

[rhianna]

The vassals were the servants

Seignobos, Charles, 1854-1942, and Earle Wilbur Dow. The Feudal Régime.New York: H. Holt and company, 19041902.

[catofoldstones]

I love how George creates the duality of being low-born v high-born in the asoiaf world. The juxtaposition of Catelyn calling all swords and seizing Tyrion at the unsuccessful attempt to kill her son v Mycah’s father being handed his son’s chopped up body, to the point he couldn’t even recognise that it was his son and not a pig, and still not being able to do anything about it but stay quiet. Chilling.

[horizon-verizon]

Reasons Why the Westerosi Houses Didn't Overthrow the Targs After they Lost their Dragons

feudal oaths and ideology of loyalty to one's monarch...yes it matters, even though lords have also been known to break oaths or press for their own interests, this is still something considered relatively taboo (remember Ned's hatred for Jaime killing Aerys).....this is still a feudal society, guys.

(if you have in mind that they should have ousted the Targs out of some idea the Targs caused too much havoc or misery to the lords and peasants) #1, the Targs actually provided more years of sustained peace [ozymalek/PheonixAshes] than when the houses were all leaders of kingdoms pre-Conquest [list of a lot of warring across Westerosi relams pre-Conquest], inclu the years AFTER the Dance -- the Targs were "dramatic" but also most of their issues stem from patriarhcal abuses adopted from pre-conquest Westerosi leading into inevitable succession crises...if there ha dbeen no Targs and a Westerosi lord somehow "unifed" the realms through Conquest (even Dorne), you can't tell me there wouldn't be any wars or crises of succession...come on! The War of the Five Kings occurred even without any Targ tomfoolery, bc by then they were long (1 and a half generation away) gone by then.

The Targs were pretty and pragmatically tolerant of nonTarg Westerosi customs and never tried to stop them from practicing MOST (right of first night to be excluded); plus the Widow's Law was pretty beneficial as well.

some houses actually got to become Great Houses or Paramount Houses BECAUSE the Targs made them so: the tullys, the Baratheons, the Tyrells.

Post Dance, Rhaenyra's sons Aegon III and Viserys II were more or less pretty good at keeping things together...Viserys esp so before and during his own reign. And esp by keeping the women of their family out of politics or practicing enough autonomy and authority, since some felt the Dance happened bc they had authoritative and powerful queens (F&B tries to convince use female rulership was a disorderly and dangerous thing) so that the lords or any possible rivals couldn't or had not much to protest, etc.

[rhaenin-time]

"Ugh, Dany's so entitled for wanting to take back her ancestral seat. She's definitely going to be the villain to the hero Starks. I can't wait until they take back their ancestral seat — they're entitled to it, after all."

[karrakincavalrycollege]

The Karrakin Cavalry College is excited to announce that our historical research department may be closing in on identifying who Passacaglia's mothers were, and how many of them there were!

[atopvisenyashill]

i think it’s deeply silly to call second born children “middle class” or people who know ~struggle~ and idk where that impulse is coming from bc i’ve seen this take a LOT lately (i think s2 of hotd is rotting everyone’s brains tbh). like “otto had to earn everything he’s gotten” are we somehow also making the argument that kevan lannister or bran stark are middle class and have to ~work for everything they got~ or can we acknowledge that just like every other noble in this series they were all handed immense privilege by their older brothers? like, bran is not ever going to worry about being homeless lol and neither would otto; hell, tywin fucking hates tyrion and is looking for an excuse to disinherit him and says as much to his face but tyrion never suffers for anything materially (until the trial) because regardless of his status as a disabled man, a younger brother, or the scapegoat for all his family’s problems, they’re not going to let him wallow in squalor!! otto, kevan, quentyn, bran, like 70% of the freys, oberyn, ned and benjen, daemon - these are all second born sons and they are not at all equivalent to someone in the modern day who is one medical crisis away from poverty! they are noble born and castles are fucking huge, even if they never married an heiress or their daughters never married heirs, they would NAWT have been homeless!

[throwawayasoiafaccount]

when the long night inevitably ends and the previous social structure has crumbled and both westeros and essos are in chaos, do you want characters who genuinely care about creating meaningful change to be in power, or do you want them to die/not be in power because “feudalism is bad” and therefore these characters who derive some of their authority from the class they belong to cannot hold any power after the long night bc that somehow contradicts one of asoiafs most prominent messages. (despite the fact that many of our main characters suffer due to the current social systems in place)

personally, i’d prefer it if the characters who are able to see the good in the undesirables of society (and protect/empower these undesirables) are able to live on in order to restructure society in a way that protects all people.

to be frank, i don’t think it’d even be possible for the world of asoiaf to return to feudalism after something like the long night occurs.

but the thing is, society needs structure and humanity will naturally restructure itself whether people like it or not. so when spring comes, i want the characters who wish for a better tomorrow for all people to be in power in order to create a better world.

so to everyone who thinks that certain characters being in power only perpetuates the cycle of class violence and oppression, i’d like to ask you what you think is a better alternative way for asoiaf to end.

[francy-sketches]

little baby in a silly hat

[synchodai]

My post about "girlboss eugenics" has reached 10k+ notes, and while i understand i can't control how people take a post once it's escaped containment and will ultimately interpret it to fit their personal blog and tastes, i can't help but resent that a good chunk of reblogs have completely ignored that i was complaining about the trope promoting eugenics. Instead, it's been read to be about chosen one narratives in general which oftentimes aren't about eugenics at all.

Just to be clear, chosen one narratives are not inherently eugenicist! ATLA is a chosen one narrative and explicitly anti-eugenics. The main character being special because she's secretly related to a special person is not eugenics! The Last Skywalker is not eugenicist and its core message that Rey can reject her Palpatine side and choose to be a Skywalker actively goes against bioessentialism. Eugenics isn't when a character is born special because of blood ties, genetic inheritance, or just being magically chosen.

Eugenics is actively breeding people to promote "desireable" traits and neutering, disenfranchising, or even just outright killing those with "undesireable" traits so they won't "pollute" the gene pool. Eugenics is the numerous amount of times I've heard someone casually saying "dumb people shouldn't breed." Eugenics is using genetic disability and illness as a narrative shorthand to convey that a character is twisted and evil, and that the kindest fate for such a "wretched creature" is death. Eugenics is a character saying she never wants to have children so she won't pass on her curse, dwarfism, or whatever else it is to her offspring and being lauded by the story for making the right, selfless choice. Eugenics is calculating how much percent race X character is compared to Y character and using them being more Valyrian/Illyrian/whatever race to justify why X is the better ruler instead of Y.

I get that some people are tired of biological and divine determinism and just want to see characters reject that and carve out their own path, but chosen one and secret princess tropes by themselves are hardly as deleterious as what I noticed in the recently published books I read that have this obsession with breeding. It's English royal family fanatic level of obsession over maintaining the continuation of a bloodline and calculating who's even distantly related to who to justify who gets to receive fame and wealth for basically just existing. It's glorifying a woman's womb and her pregnancy as something absolutely necessary for the continuation of a good and civil society. THAT is what I find absolutely horrific in what's supposed to be my escapist, meant to empower women readers, fantasy fiction.

[fromtheseventhhell]

Ned having multiple angry outbursts throughout AGOT, even physically assaulting someone at one point, and still being viewed as the "calm and collected" counterpart to a "feral" Catelyn perfectly encapsulates this fandom's misogyny

[rhianna]

Chivalry and Apprenticeship

Seignobos, Charles, 1854-1942, and Earle Wilbur Dow. The Feudal Régime.New York: H. Holt and company, 19041902.

[harrowscore]

another anti-dany post from someone with a sansa pfp, another blocked user 💃💅

[prompt-of-the-day]

Dialogue: #048

"Do not turn your back to me! I'm your wife! And I deserve to be treated as such!"

"Yes, indeed, you are my wife. Does it make you happy? Are you satisfied? All your plots, your lies, your bribes, your threats, everything you have done, has led you here. Are you proud? Of tying me in this farce of a marriage and still going to sleep alone at night?"

"I'm your wife!"

"I heard you the first time. You could be the Queen for all I care, you could be my wife untill the day I die, and I will still not touch you, I will still not love you, I will still despise you. Do not for a moment think you can get more from me, because you can't, and if you dare reach for more you won't like my response."

[horizon-verizon]

Maybe this Will Put Things into Perspective about Rhaenyra & Cersei's Kids Being Bastards or Not...

Feudalism is an early period or a economic phase of a millennia-managed con against anyone who isn't a noble man, and most men are the active conmen.

Neither set of kids were ever declared bastards. Nor were they ever or "acknowledged" as bastards, because noblemen "acknowledge" a child they father onto another woman. noblewomen, in theory, can, but if their having had sex premaritally/extramaritally isn't already known outside of the household they do not. Because to do without it already being known (like with Alys Turnberry) would publicly ruin her prospects for marriage in the future, ruin her reputation, and likely muddy the family's as well.

Robert probably would have removed those kids from the line of succession had he known (and he didn't) if not outight remove them from the mortal coil. But instead, he got gutted. Therefore, Cersei's kids are not officially or "legally" bastards. That prior declaration is what is required to have them "legally" known as bastards.

Bastardry has always been more of a legal question in its nature than a biological fact of nature. Of course, we the audience and most of ther know that Rhaenyra's kids aren't Laenor's biologically; Ned correctly deduced that Cersei's weren't Robert's biologically. However, he was never able to get his information to matter "legally", or to get it to Robert to make a decision on. Whereas Laenor, Corlys, Viserys all knew and decided to maintain the boys as their heirs. And they made this decision based on the lack of knowledge the public has/what they can control. Which is often what any noble does; once again, GRRM has explicitly stated that the lords of Westeros often take advantage to twist "laws" (customs) according to the circumstances around them & their own desires, and it's is not exclusive to bastards already "acknowledged".

The purpose of marriage as an institution is entirely for the lord/nobleman's benefit. It is an institution that was created and developed entirely for a man's political interests (a father's, a brother's, a husband's, a son's, etc.). And it was made to consolidate/monopolize the noble woman's (or really any woman) body and reproductive labor so as to produce living products to pass on the resources/titles mainly the lord and his ancestors have aggregated. To try to make sure those resources are passed to the people the lord wants passed own to, the sexual purity culture imposed on women and girls works to construct shame & suppress female extramarital and premarital sexual activity, which is an aspect of her overall agency. Her agency is re-confined/socially reduced to her sexual activity because she has no other primary function nor legal privileges aside form being a wife, mother, daughter, virgin, etc. Or sometimes the protectoress of her husband's/son's assets: the castle at times of war/siege when the lord is not present; director of his household's activities and servants by being its head overseer of accounts. Therefore, the lord is literally claiming his wife as his effective property through her womb & this is often why when we see women like Daena sleeping with a man not her husband, it is an act of reinforcing her authority or political agency in spite of how she was raised to see her own body.

Think about it: why do we not have a world or society (fictional or not) where even though the wife births a child not her husband's the husband's do not willfully or are "legally" compelled to adopt that child as their own, effectively de-fathering the biological father? Because men want to feel as if they have as close to total ownership over female companionship and labor so they consolidate power to themselves and not to women. Having all these designations of gender and "bastardry" that everyone are compelled to follow makes that easier without expending energy or sharing power. Medieval customs put the social-legal identification of "bastard" from the institution of marriage, its compulsions on women, and their reproductive labor/bodies/uteruses being claimed by the men who are "licensed" to own them. Which is why when we say that neither Cersei's nor Rhaenyra's kids are "bastards" it is true *in the sense that one should not carry the sense of their inferiorty into how we see their innate value as human beings AND none of them have ever been "proven" publicly to be not their putative father's children*, because the purpose of bastardry is to attempt to reclaim the product of reproductive labor and Viserys/Corlys/Laenor/Robert have already done that. To protest about how Robert didn't know about his kids not being his kids is really to protest how he didn't not get the products of Cersei's reproductive labor in the usual male-prioritized business of objectifying female labor that is intrinsic in this feudal society. Whereas Viserys/Laenor/Corlys accepted the products of Rhaenyra's reproductive labor.

All this is also why I really don't care for the impassioned argument of these women were being "unfair" to the system (Rhaenyra) or to their husbands, fathers etc. (Cersei) or them being "liars" or "destructive". Feudalism is itself an objectifying, unfair, unequal system. It is designed to benefit men and mainly men inherently, and directly at the expense of women who risk death itself while a man fathering any sort of kid never risks death. Men lie and destroy the women who birth their children, manage their household, protect their castle, rear their children....and it is all "licensed" and justified under the constructed institutions of marriage, oath-making, knighthood and principles of chastity, virginity, the different sub-meanings of "honor" for men vs women, etc. Men are themselves already objectifying or making an exclusive economic use of their female counterparts as well as going back on their vows (a deal that is still in feudal marriages, even for men) through their socially-allowed extramarital and premarital affairs producing bastards. *Therefore, if a noble woman (or any woman) cheats, it's simply not as amoral as when a man does--it's actually sometimes brave and admirable and a relief to see bc she is taking the risk for the sake of her own autonomy and/or happiness at the expense of a system/man who would exploit or have a consistent upper hand over her, for children he may not even like (Tyrion).*

[nervousenby]

Watching throne of blood for the first time (finally) and HOLY SHITTTT

[cuntstable]

grr martins legendary mind asking questions like What if there was a heterosexual butch woman? all the way back in the year of the lord 1998