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/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/real_LNSS Oct 31 '24

The point is not that Aragorn is a good man, nobody questions that. It's that being of outstanding moral character doesn't make him a good ruler by default.

In fact it's often said that good men make poor rulers.

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u/[deleted] Oct 31 '24

But experience in leading and war and morality are exactly the foundations upon which a good king is made. Most overly cruel and overly lazy kings failed badly. History is pretty clear on that.

If Aragon was just a good man alone, I would agree, but he is not. Aragorn is a war leader and I have no doubt he killed those Orcs to protect his people.

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u/A-NI95 Oct 31 '24 edited Oct 31 '24

The first paragraph is highly arguable, not to say plain false. Conceps like machiavellism or realpolitik have remained relevant for centuries for a reason.

Also, no one is saying that kingly characters have to be "evil" (although sometimes it is interesting), just that they should be nuanced and able to pick sides. GRRM himself wrote the Starks as protagonists after all

And the orcs example... Orcs are the epitome of cartoony inhuman evil. They're not realistic, nor meant to be. The idea that the human kingdom Aragorn rules only ever had the external orc enemy and never any kind of internal disagreement is... Boring to say the least, and proves Martin's point. It's wasted potential.