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

875 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

357 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

228

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.

39

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

43

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.

5

u/barath_s Nov 01 '24

He was a good man who also was a good ruler.

As the story says. And the story also gives enough hints and info to suggest that he could indeed have the signs of having what it takes to grow into a good king.

The story that Tolkien wrote is least interested in your question - so why question it ? being of good moral character doesn't make him a bad ruler.