Why is he so autistic about tax policies of fictional kings?

Why is he so autistic about tax policies of fictional kings?

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  1. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    You can't run a kingdom without taxes fool. Do you think the castle builds itself? Do you think the resources just show up at the kings feet? No. You need israelites to collect them.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      B-but there are no israelites in westeros

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >Group of ex-slaves who become economically powerful and are renowned for their prowess in finance
        Braavosi = israelites

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          They're meant to represent Venice, you idiot. get off /misc/.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >get off /misc/.
            Literally nothing I said was anti-Semitic

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >Literally nothing I said was anti-Semitic
            that's why it was wrong

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Do you think the castle builds itself?
      I mean traditionally speaking in a feudal system things were built by labour obligated to work for their overlord, the modern concept of taxation and wage-labour is quite new

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        there are early examples of tax being used to feed armies, you pay army coinage and then expect the farmers to have some of the coins the next year
        >debt, graeber

        or literally look up "roman taxes"

        >ctrl f "tax" for all asoiaf books
        >"tax" appears only 18 times
        >15 of them refer to taxes in a literal sense
        >total word count of all books is 1,746,560
        >mentioning a certain word/concept 15/1,746,560 is autism

        its a reference to an interview he did

  2. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Because Tolkien made his world have true depth through his knowledge of language and his ability to paint rich pictures of his reality through his use of words. It's why people like GRRM have admitted that his world like most other fantasy worlds is like , a piece of floating ice which you assume is a tip of an iceberg but there's nothing below the ice. Whereas Tolkiens world is an actual iceberg. When he (GRRM) does things like tax policies of fictional kings it's his version of adding depth and realism to his world.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      How do taxes work in Tolkienia?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Fiefdoms and absorbed city-states who pay tribute to their respective capitals. It's literally not complicated. In fact historically taxation was literally a massive racket and you'd be elected a provincial governor as a treat/hiatus to skim off the top and make a little money.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Headcanon. What's Aragorn's tax policy? What changes did he bring to the tax code?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            It would probably not be codified but a system of alliances honored through ancestral oaths.

            Gondor would be embroiled in a Reconstruction era for the following decades, if there is even a sufficient population. It's possible the mortal cost was so high that, even under Aragorn, there would be far more supply than demand for almost everything that a viking-esque system of gift giving would replace taxation, and state's authority would be minimal at best. Minas Tirith may be too big for the surviving population, there may even be a consolidation of Gondor into one city state in a more fertile and sustainable location (like Osgiliath on the river).

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            See? More headcanon.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Then, thousands of Haradrim women and children and male youths arrive on ships and beg asylum because an entire generation of haradrim men was slaughtered on the fields of pelenor

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            There'd be so much depopulated land that these people would be welcomed to settle

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Sounds based, leading to an exotic Hyborean age world of crude civilizations jostling for power in the shadows of a dormant/dispersed evil.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            The upper limit for how much damage Sauron could have done to Gondor is the first Mongol invasion of Hungary. They weren't there for long enough to do more, and it's probably much less as the Pellenor Fields and Minas Tirith were both evacuated and people will return. Still, the reconstruction would dominate at least the first decade of Aragorn's rule.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            How is that relevant to the plot?

  3. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    fantasy wonkishness is fun

  4. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    You can't run a kingdom without taxes fool. Do you think the castle builds itself? Do you think the resources just show up at the kings' feet? No. You need tax collectors to collect money.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      just invade a neighboring country and pillage their towns like a real chad king

  5. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Taxes have been the single most influential aspect of states since their creation

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      taxes are older than states. Thats like saying corporations invented money

  6. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Anyone here interested in pre-state and early state economics should read Against the Grain and Seeing Like A State by James C Scott
    Lots of interesting insights into the formulation of agriculture, sedentism, taxes, and the evolution of states

  7. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >we never learn from Homer the tax policies of the Trojans or Odysseus etc.

    By Martin's logic Homer is a hack fraud. Frick this obese midwit.

  8. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Why do dumb autists online think he's autistic about tax policies?

  9. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >ctrl f "tax" for all asoiaf books
    >"tax" appears only 18 times
    >15 of them refer to taxes in a literal sense
    >total word count of all books is 1,746,560
    >mentioning a certain word/concept 15/1,746,560 is autism

  10. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    It probably has something to do with him being an old, obese israelite. This fat frick might be the most overrated author we will see within our lifetimes.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      troony mad

  11. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    tax policies are the most important detail in any piece of literature. if a novel doesn't have a 450 page tax code at some point, i immediately throw it in the trash. I'm reading the iliad right now and i can't fricking stand how they don't go into more detail about how Agamemnon raised taxes to pay for all the ships, and I was infuriated when Achilles didn't reference the tax policy for the amount of women any given warrior is allowed to keep when he raids a city. he could've btfo agammemnon right then and there at the beginning of the book if he could've pointed to a concrete rule about the specific policy for war brides. same with the Great Gatsby. The whole time i kept shaking my head... what the frick was the mayor of West Egg's tax policy? Why didn't he ask the IRS to investigate Gatsby after hearing about all of his parties. I mean it's so unrealistic that some no-name country bumpkin would suddenly move into town and buy a mansion and he wouldn't immediately be investigated for income tax fraud. When I was reading Moby Dick I got sick to my stomach because there wasn't a chapter where Ahab was sitting down and doing the books with the ship's accountant. It's unbelievable to me Melville didn't include a detailed scene of Ahab crunching the numbers and setting aside at least 25% of the squeezed sperm to pay to the shipping company later. I'm not sure who the President was at the time but there should've been more references to his tax code as well as the state tax the ship would have to pay. Not to mention tariffs and sales tax that the crew would've incurred when trading at distant ports. There are countless such examples in all of the Western canon when the idiot authors failed to explain tax minutiae in greater detail. If only they'd listened to GRRM's advice, so many so called "classics" could have actually been readable or have had some real world value. Alas. All we have is Tyrion's penny tax on prostitution. Tears well up in my eyes every time I read about his the taxes he raised to pay off the Iron thrones debt. It took a true genius and tax accountant... a true economist and realist to come up with that amazingly realistic policy. Bravo GRRM. Bravo.

  12. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Anglo-american mentality

  13. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >Why is he so autistic about tax policies of fictional kings?
    The irony is that it's you massive assburgers itt actually taking what he says at face value, complete missing the bullshitting humor of most creative people

  14. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    because GoT started out as an alternative-history fiction and got combined with fantasy ideas. His original plan was to write about the war of the roses but without the ending being predetermined by actual events, then he decided to combine it with his dragon lady book idea and it snowballed from there. In real history things like taxes and logistics are decisive factors that never make it into the romantic tales of bravery and heroism. Stuff like Aragorn's tax policy doesn't matter to LOTR but matters a lot to real kings, hence it matters to GRRM

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