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PaperclipPerfector  9d ago (text post)   1752 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for February 28, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Dothraki are feared for the same reason that similar nomads wrecked Eurasia from the taming of horses up to 19th century. Mounted warriors are very powerful both with bow and melee weapons and in nomadic tribal social structure almost every man can take on that role if needed.

Braavos is clearly modeled on Italian merchant republics, specifically Venice and to a lesser extent Genoa. I would recommend Roger Crowley's "City of Fortune: How Venice Won and Lost a Naval Empire" to see many problems that rich navally dominant city with mercenary military can have in maintaining its dominance. In short enemies can build fleet too, you are reliant on your trade partners and it's not always easy to translate your wealth into military power.

The Mongols did have armor, siege weapons and ranged weapons though.

Dothraki are feared for the same reason that similar nomads wrecked Eurasia from the taming of horses up to 19th century.

You mean up to the 14th century? Tamerlane was the last successful nomadic conqueror.

Yeah that was typo, but I meant to write 18th century mostly relating to Dzungars and some other lesser scale nomadic activity. I think while Tamerlane truly was the last one to really "wreck" Eurasia singlehandedly, nomads as a whole still did enormous damage all around for a long time afterwards. Crimean khanate for example was still at large and commencing massive raids for much of 18th century.

Well sure, I do get that Dothraki are based on the Mongols while Braavos is based on Venice. But the way its portrayed in the books and especially the show is... not great. ACOUP has a whole series about the Dothraki: https://acoup.blog/2020/12/04/collections-that-dothraki-horde-part-i-barbarian-couture/ saying that "The complex patterns of a war-shirt becomes a simple vest (which then becomes a collection of crude leather belly-straps that have more in common with bondage gear than with clothing." I can't recall a single scene from the shows of them using a bow. They certainly never use gunpowder or siege engines like the mongols did. mostly they use whips which just... LOL.

Venice seems cool but, like you said they were limited in their power. Braavos seems to have unlimited weath and mercenary manpower in addition to technology and actual magic.

90% sure they use bows in the loot train attack

You're right, they do use bows occasionally. But so what, everyone else has bows too.

Yeah obviously they are flanderized version of the real life cultures, but I don't think that authentic clothing matters that much. They do commonly use bows in the books. And while ACOUP has pedantic in its name it's still too nitpicky, not to mention ideologically captured to be a good source of critique. Like can you imagine there is no description of Dothraki art and music, that means that Martin is racist and/or ignorant, not that it just isn't very interesting thing to focus on.

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