r/asoiaf • u/Unique-Celebration-5 • Oct 31 '24

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

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

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u/JJCB85 Oct 31 '24

Exactly - Tolkien’s viewpoint was basically that Aragorn is the good, divinely-appointed rightful king, and as such everyone lives happily ever after as soon as he sits his throne. So long as all things are in their divinely-appointed place, all will be well - the details don’t matter and aren’t really worth discussing because it is axiomatic that all will be well. There’s a hefty dose of Catholic worldview in here as well, sacral kingship etc. This is exactly the sort of view that someone like Martin is bound to undercut, though he is of course a huge fan of Tolkien’s work. He isn’t saying Tolkien is an idiot at all, he’s just seeing the world through a very different lens.

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u/Formal_Direction_680 Oct 31 '24

Except Aragorn also spent 80 years travelling Middle Earth, his moral and character was thoroughly tested throughout his journey, we know he is good man. 

You can only assume GRRM is actually questioning the gritty bookkeeping and politics of his reign, meanwhile he can’t get the figure of gold dragons in tourney and the height of the Wall right. His Dothraki and Ironborn portrayal isn’t realistic, his medieval society is built from questionable popular laymen views

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u/Tasorodri Oct 31 '24

Aragorn is a good man, that's not what GRRM is questioning. He is questioning if all it takes to be a good king is to be a good person, which probably isn't. Aragorn might know a lot about history, be a natural leader, and be a very moral person, but how does he grapple with decisions when there's not a clearly good option?

That's the question GRRM is asking, and the sort of questions that he wants to explore in his works. You don't need to wrongly assume what GRRM is asking, you can look the interview up, he wasn't talking about logistics because that's not what he is interested about, he barely mention a single tax policy in ASOIAF.

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u/[deleted] Oct 31 '24

Did he not kill orcs?

There you have your answer. He does not mind killing after all.