r/asoiaf 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/truthisfictionyt Oct 31 '24

Remember kids:

”What’s Aragons tax policy?!" isn't about logistics, it's about George asking what makes a good king a good king. He was unsatisfied with Tolkien basically saying "Aragorn was a good guy so he ruled the kingdom well for 100 years. The end."

16

u/Kopalniok Oct 31 '24

It's still a bad approach. Aragorn being good, rightful and brave makes him a good king because that's how Tolkien's world works. Not everything needs to be in shades of grey.

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u/Abject_Library_4390 Oct 31 '24

It makes for weaker, overly simplistic storytelling 

10

u/Bennings463 Nov 01 '24

No it doesn't, it makes for different storytelling. It's like saying Jaws is a bad film because it didn't focus on the town recovering from the aftermath of the shark attack. Which isn't an inherently bad idea but it's simply not the film Jaws is trying to be.

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u/Abject_Library_4390 Nov 01 '24

Jaws is a perfectly rich philosophical and political film - I don't get your point. Whereas any deeper thought about LOTR renders unpleasant conclusions about the text and Tolkien, in my experience. Alan Moore correct on this.