I am not sure what is being disagreed on here, honestly.
Devereaux seems to have two major claims:
First, that the period depicted in Game of Thrones / ASOIAF reflects the early modern period, not the medieval period, and the early modern period was more violent.
Second, that Game of Thrones / ASOIAF depicts a world where a lot of the mitigating factors that were actually present in medieval times, such as religion, were not in effect. Something that is striking to Devereaux is that various acts -- military atrocities, treason and backstabbing of various kinds, more personal forms of sin -- seem not merely to be frequently be done, but nobody seems to even view them as bad.
I think asoiaf portrays the human cost of medieval warfare very well; the 'broken man' speech by septon Meribald is one of my favorite passages in all of fantasy. However, I think the rate at which castles are taken, especially by the golden company, is unrealistic. I get that Martin needs to move the story forward, but realistically it's going to take months of sieging to starve a castle out, especially the ludicrously large castles of asoiaf.
I am not sure what is being disagreed on here, honestly.
Devereaux seems to have two major claims:
First, that the period depicted in Game of Thrones / ASOIAF reflects the early modern period, not the medieval period, and the early modern period was more violent.
Second, that Game of Thrones / ASOIAF depicts a world where a lot of the mitigating factors that were actually present in medieval times, such as religion, were not in effect. Something that is striking to Devereaux is that various acts -- military atrocities, treason and backstabbing of various kinds, more personal forms of sin -- seem not merely to be frequently be done, but nobody seems to even view them as bad.
I think asoiaf portrays the human cost of medieval warfare very well; the 'broken man' speech by septon Meribald is one of my favorite passages in all of fantasy. However, I think the rate at which castles are taken, especially by the golden company, is unrealistic. I get that Martin needs to move the story forward, but realistically it's going to take months of sieging to starve a castle out, especially the ludicrously large castles of asoiaf.
I appreciate this post--I would have gone on being misinformed otherwise.
I agree that acoup is a great blog overall. Anyone interested might want to look at his Universal Warrior series, that goes over the way different cultures have looked at military professions: https://acoup.blog/2021/01/29/collections-the-universal-warrior-part-i-soldiers-warriors-and/