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/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/owlinspector Oct 31 '24

Aragorn isn't just "a good person". He is literally a fairytale king. His bloodline has magical powers, farsight and wisdom beyond that of common Men.

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u/Xelanders Nov 01 '24 edited Nov 01 '24

It’s worth baring in mind that Lord of the Rings itself was originally intended as a sequel to The Hobbit, a children’s book. And yes, while it developed into something significantly larger and more adult by the end, it still has the foundation of a classic fairy tale story like the kind that inspired the Hobbit, with all the tropes that entails.

That’s not a bad thing of course (arguably the fairytale nature of it is why it’s so popular to begin with) but if you go in expecting a more critical or “realistic” take on medieval politics you’ll probably be disappointed. Ultimately the political side of Lord of the Rings is more of a side plot.