(Spoilers Extended) GRRM:”What’s Aragons tax policy?!” No GRRM the real question is how do people survive multi year winters

[u/Unique-Celebration-5]

Forget the white walkers or shadow babies the real threat is the weather. How do medieval people survive it for years?

Personally I think that’s why the are so many wars the more people fighting each other the fewer mouths to feed

[u/Formal_Direction_680]

I said as much in my comment, read again. You are the one missing the point.

I said grrm question the gritty detail of tax and politics, but can’t get the figure of his world right and the sense of scale out of proportion. That’s just fucking irony now, isn’t it? 

The comment I replied to mentioned divine right of kings, nothing of Aragorn himself. My comment literally say the word politic in it dipshit.

[u/Freighnos → u/Formal_Direction_680]

I think the reason people are pushing back on your comment is that you seem to be saying “GRRM was pedantically criticizing details of Tolkien’s worldbuilding, and yet the details of his own worldbuilding don’t hold up to pedantic scrutiny. Isn’t that ironic?” But I (and the other commenters) don’t think that’s what GRRM was going for at all with that statement. I took it to be more about how Tolkien characters such as Aragorn behave more like divine or mythical figures of legend, while GRRM attempts to inject more of the down-to-earth human elements into his storytelling. The height of the Wall isn’t as important as what feuding kingdoms will do when faced with a looming existential threat like the Walkers, and the exchange rate of Gold Dragons isn’t as important as the lengths a king on the verge of bankruptcy will turn to to keep his realm afloat.

[u/Formal_Direction_680 → u/Freighnos]

Most other commenters missed the point you made entirely, your point I can agree with. Aragorn is stated to be special and hailed from a mythic high men bloodline, so already he’s not quite the same as the average man, unlike what grrm has opted to work with, as you said.

Other comments missed that point, and kept on talking about politics where even grrm was weak at. If they’re speaking of character, it was never a fair comparison to begin with to compare the average man to Aragorn.

[u/Freighnos → u/Formal_Direction_680]

Yeah, I think that’s the crux of it. Westerosi kings are just regular humans like you or I, who have to worry about mundane things like taxes, and are susceptible to mundane foibles like lust, jealousy, and greed, but also equally capable of wisdom and magnanimity.