I know, I know-food could be imported from Essos or other regions. But for the sake of simplicity (and because we’re focusing on the Riverlands), we’re sticking to local resources and assuming they’re on their own. Let’s just say, even if they had a trade route, surviving three years of winter wouldn’t be a walk in the godswood!
what about hunting during the winter. and curing the meat? What about mushrooms? Honey? Fish? Fish are still alive during winter. Just under the ice. Ice fishing. Also nuts? My point is. Humans are capable of surviving such a harsh winter. Because... Wel scandinavia and siberia. They do it. There where periods where winters lasted for years. and the snow never melted. Hence surstrumming exist. Pickled herring. And other foods like that. Also roggebrot is something you can store a long time. Pemmican if they can make it.
This is one of the more educated discourses of medieval style living that I have had the pleasure of listening to I believe everyone here is right Yes you might be able to scrounge up more food throughout the winter but your body burns more calories working and keeping you warm I believe the conclusion of the video is still very much correct in gool if you're winter is 12 times longer than normal a lot of people are going to die not everyone and not just a few a lot
I lived in very rural northern Sweden most my life the snow only lasted 8 months but it still took all summer to get all the vegetables stored herbs dried and berries preserved and everything had to be rationed it was an interesting way to live it’s so much more peaceful just be focused on survival in a way We also still had grocery stores a few hours drive away so Westeros would suck so so so bad in comparison
Yes, if 3 months of winter was incredibly harsh , for the Medival ages, then 3 years going to wipe out population better than plague, there is no way that they still can care about wars, poltical alliances with such a weather
the answer on how they survive is likely that they get food from 1 trade from essos 2 the reach and southern riverlands can likely still grow food 3 the north can grow food using their greenhouses 4 inter kingdom trade 5 there are still things that can be grown and hence harvested in winter 6 animals can be hunted and livestock can still be kept meaning new animals are butchered and eaten 7 don't underestimate the potency of stews and how well they can feed people with few ingredients
I imagine after a thousand years the westerosi population has got accustomed to it's inconsistent Winters and get up to all types of shenanigans to quell food consumption Do a craster and kill your babies less mouths to feed Do a hound and kill for chicken food & Less Mouths to feed Do a winterfell and have a basement big enough to fit basically everything you need Do an iron islands and take someone else's Do a flea bottom with a bowl of brown Like Lordsqugm mentioned with stew My thought is if all this murder happened there would be less mouths to feed therefore less people in the riverlands (riverlands known for violence and rivalry) also a higher concentration of professional soldiers Like 4% instead of 2 not saying that a LOT of people wouldn't kick the bucket every time they had a 3-year winter but it might put a dent in those casualty numbers and this is medieval style living each couple is going to pop out 7 kids every 6 years so the population might bounce back quickly Also also they're just god-fearing peasants I doubt the Lords of westeros care if half their peasants die of starvation every couple of winters
Great points! All of these are definitely viable ways people could survive in Westeros during a long winter. It’s definitely true that trading with Essos, getting supplies from the Reach, and utilizing Northern greenhouses would be essential survival tactics for Westeros as a whole. But in this scenario, we wanted to dive into the grim reality of what a harsh winter would look like if the Riverlands had to sustain themselves without outside help. And yes, stew is definitely the unsung hero of winter survival!
Add to this 8. cave grown crops like edible moss and fungus 9. the whole central management of the food, with the lords (and their castles) storing the food so that it can be rationed out. It also means that you don't need to store the food yourself and if someone dies during the winter their food share goes to everyone else. 10. because the wildlife is somehow still able to survive years of winter, it means that it has adapted (meaning that there is some source of food available for the herbivores and carnivores) with means that humans would be able to cultivate that for food too.
@@Gomjibaryour number 9 is problematic lol knowing that if people die we get more food, would definitely cause alot of “mysterious” winter time deaths and alot of people getting sent to the wall lol
@@professorsassafras them year long storms is brutal, or continent covering waves or heat waves that turn entire continents into deserts for years Oh those things don't happen right
The reason the winds of winter hasn’t come out is because George is embarrassed he didn’t figure out how the winters in Westeros actually work and how people would actually survive them 😅
You've forgotten the main problem - livestock need food as well. By the third year almost all hay would definitely be eaten by livestock and almost all livestock would be eaten by starving humans. And while it is theoretically possible to grow enough grain to prepare for the next winter if you have some grain left, herds of livestock require way more times to recover. And without livestock you wouldn't have meat, milk, wool, leather and so on. Also you wouldn't have warhorses and medieval knights fighting on horseback - and without them the entire society would look differently. I do not think that medieval agricultural society makes any sense in Westeros climate. At best, there would be migrating hunter-gatherers or reindeer herders, like in Northern Siberia.
@marcusappelberg369 I think he did honestly people complain about medieval stasis in fantasy but when you take the long winters, constant war and the size of the Seven Kingdoms it makes more sense than in most settings.
@@marcusappelberg369as to the agricultural part, Britain even the Dark Ages had vast swatches of developed farmland. The Southern Kingdoms apart from Dorne are all very fertile and still very rural. This maybe why there are few proper towns nevermind cities in these broad, rich Kingdoms. A need to keep most communities small and dispersed along huge swaths of farming land.
About the meat preservation. I remember a part from the books when the Arryn household left the Eyrie for the winter quarters at the Gates of the Moon, they killed the Oxen used to turn the winches in the winch room which they used to get supplies in the Eyrie from Sky (a small castle protecting the way to the Eyrie). It was mentioned, when they return next spring, the unspoiled meat of the oxen will be served in a spring feast. Meat can be preserved pretty well if it's frozen, especially if encased in ice, like in Castle Black's ice room (or whatever they call the chamber where they keep frozen dead animals as their meat reserves).
I mean realistically a world with winters like this would have plants that are adapted to cope with these winters the real problem then isn’t storing food or even using the few things that can grow at those times and a government could plan ahead and maintain a robust storage network (take the Inca for example) the problem is maintaining Feudalism while having the storage attracts people to you having the storage and slightly better weather would mean every autumn armies are required to prevent refugees from just leaving and over populating the equatorial regions overwhelming their winter infrastructure and resulting in a paradoxically safer north.
Old Nan said during the Long Night mothers would smother their newborns to keep them from starving to death. In House of Dragons over 2000 old northern warriors volunteer to go south to fight with winter coming. A death in battle was preferable to dying shivering in their beds and being a burden on their family during the winter.
Still trips me up their summers and winters take like years to subside, even worse its never consistent sometimes its only a year sometimes its a generation. How do they upkeep food if thats the case? Food spoils overtime and judging by what they eat its not all salt dried food or hardtack. A question I always had about the series. The reach must yield an insane amount of crops to upkeep all this
@@frank832Apart from Timber(that too only in North and Vale) how are Landlocked Kingdoms like Rivelands gonna get Fish and I don't think there are Iron Mines spread evenly throughout Westores
I always thought the long winters in Ice and Fire were more like the small ice age during our middle ages, meaning "just" a harsh and cold year with less, butt no crops at all
That's why Iron Islanders always survive the Winter, I read it somewhere in A World Of Ice and Fire, As long as there is fish in the sea the Iron Islands won't starve
I mean realistically the same thing could apply to a lot of people in the Riverlands. There’s plenty of fish. They might have to ice fish to get it tho but it’s better than starving
When properly frozen and sheltered from the elements and animals , food can remain nutritious basically indefinitely even though it quickly becomes tasteless and bland. Sausages or bread made from a sack of flour that has been buried in snow for 5 years wouldn't taste great but would still nourish the body and prevent starvation. Survival foods like pemmican and hardtack biscuits can last years even at room temperature.
The size of the riverlands is also important, it's like 170 million acres total, even if only 10% of the land is arable, which in the "river" lands seems unlikely, that still would be enough land to feed the population. Love the video btw
I’m sure there would be a lot of ice fishing during winter in the Riverlands which would provide some extra protein. But it wouldn’t take long to overfish the rivers.
If I were a craftsman, couldn’t I just immigrate to Dorne? In House of the Dragon, Hugh's wife often talks about moving to another city, so it seems doable. Unless, maybe: (1) they're in King's Landing so a bit wealthier than the average Westerosi, or (2) It isn’t easy to become a craftsman in the first place
@@ProbablyTrueTalesi think so too. Like essos is already more populated than the rest, but it should be even more populated. Infact due to population pressure alone the dothraki and there way of life should have disappeared a long time ago.
If they run by serf rules the serf needs permission to leave, living on the Lords land and working your fields are technically his and your just in a contract to work them. Some Lords didn't care but others did and you needed to work the next harvest or find a replacement. A free man was like a journey man who can travel for work like a Mason and was outside of the serf rules until they entered into a service for a job.
I got my first glasses when I was 7. They don't have glasses in Westeros so I'd be 80% blind. I would also probably be either a wildling or a peasant. I would die so quickly.
Pimican can be made to last for 3 to 5 years without any modern storage techniques (i.e. vacuum sealing). In a frozen environment that could be stretched into 10 years easily. It's just dried meat, fat, and salt. Honey could also be used to store vegetables for a very long time. Grain in a frozen environment will also keep almost indefinitely provided you can keep it dry.
2 major food sources are missing, a sources that our ancestors survived on before agriculture and domestication of animals, both of which can be used even during the winter hunting and gathering is a major source of food that up until the industrial revolution was still widespread in the world. Yes, some animals hibernate and there isnt much to gather during a winter, but stocking on nuts, jams from berries and honey is a good way how to create an iron reserve since those foods doesnt have an expiration date if you prepare or store them properly and have a great caloric and nutritional value. Ice fishing is also a thing as well as hunting other animals that do not hibernate. Just like in our world the animals and plants evolved to survive our winters, we can assume on a different world it would have to be the same no matter how long the winters span since otherwise there would be no life. There are also parts of Westeros where you can grow some crops even during the winter that can be sold to whoever buys them, meaning a shitton of grain and potatoes can be bought by the riverlords if the famine hits later during the winter, no trade route from Essos needed i would also mention domesticated animals as a source of food, a major food source i dont know if you accounted for in the "meat" numbers since those can be slaughtered way into the winter and doesnt have to be killed at the begining and salted to extend their shelf life. But fun thing is that the amount of fodder needed to feed the animals so many years and not just a few months would be immense. A horse needs over a ton of fodder to survive 3-4 months of winter, but a winter that spans 36 months? I beginning to think that the Georgies world has to be some kind of "life despite all odds" with ubermench lifeforms that would survive a decade on a snickers bar
you missed one point here - if we imagine that you have enough supplies and food to live through the winter period you still have to account the period before the next harvest which for some of the common grain types can be up to a few months more
The whole differing lengths of seasons makes no sense. Our seasons consistently last around three months because of the tilt of our earth. When the hemisphere you live on is tilted toward the sun you get summer. When it’s tilted away you get winter. Planetos seems to have be pretty much like Earth in that it also has a moon that should regulate the worlds tilt like ours does. And as far as we know it also only has one sun to orbit around. Even if the orbit is elliptical in that the planet is further than the sun than at other times you’d at least expect some kind of consistency in terms of how that affects the climate. Otherwise you have a planet that is just travelling wildly in space being tossed around by multiple celestial objects which would almost certainly doom such a planet to either be thrown into the sun or thrown out into interstellar space to freeze forever. You can’t even predict and plan for such a situation even if conditions remain survivable because even with our technology you can’t mathematically determine how three or more bodies interact with each other for any length of time. Thus you’ll have no idea what your seasons are gonna be like. The chances of life lasting long enough for humans to evolve and establish society on such a world are extremely small anyway.
For those kind of reasons I like the idea of Planetos being a post-apocalyptic world. The world of ASOIAF is old and full of knowledge lost to time. Maybe there were more developed civilizations in the world until some magical shenanigan messed with the seasons, regressed everything to a quasi medieval state and kept it that way for thousands of years.
The seasons are kind of magical in nature and it's been stated in-universe that winters have been getting longer and longer ever since the last dragon died.
When my grandfather’s little sister was a little girl she met another little girl who lived in town (instead of on a farm like her) and was shocked they grew nothing. “You mean you buy all your own food?! But that must cost you a fortune!”
My personal theory is that the Westerosi winter is like a short magical ice age, or the whole climate in Westeros is actually magical ice age with warm (summer) and cold (winter) oscillations. This way you get the magical several years long summers and winters, but there's still a natural season cycle. This means that during the magical winter there's still a warm period of natural summer (albeit shorter and less warm than during magical summer) that allows some form of agriculture and survival of the feudal agricultural society. Also you would expect Westerosi society being quite adapted for this phenomenon (not that it's all that apparent from the books), so stuff like great granaries packed with years of summer harvest should be a thing, maybe combined with the adoption/cultivation of crops suitable for harsher climate and long term storage. In places like the North, you would expect population being partially/seasonally nomadic and focused more on husbandry than farming.
It says a lot that Cregan Stark sent his greybeards south during the winter, because he thought the odds of them survivng going to war in the southern kingdoms were better than their odds of surviving a winter in the North.
If he is basing firewood needed in colder climates, and uses Skandinavía as a comparison, there would be a lot more than 5 in a household. Often there would be 3 generatons living together and often 5-10 children. So 5 ina household is a far cry from that...
Honestly I always felt like this was a bit of a plothole in asoiaf, after all how can civilizations survive with such a large portion of their population dying on a daily basis. The setting would probably also see little to no war, after all fighting would in many cases spell doom for both sides, no matter who won.
It really depends how nature evolved and how often long Winters actually happen. The real problem is that the vegetation seems quite similar to ours. If a three year Winter is something abnormal it would make sense that civilization developes similarly to our and if it isn't for large amounts of flora and Fauna to exist past the oldtown or for that matter the neck, they must have evolved countermeasures. For example super durable seeds and a super explosiv growth cycle. Durable seeds might also explain how they can stored it as long as they do. Also there is propably a ton of frost resistent grops. Added to that is that large parts of the World don't experience Winter at all, so in long Winters westeros becomes a massive importer of food. Eitherway weather must be crazy during that time and planetos is propably more comparable to ice age earth than anything else. Also it makes sense that essos has so much more population then westeros, but the dothraki don't make sense anymore.
"Food could be imported from other regions." Are you gonna haul it hundreds of miles through 8 feet of snow? And that's just the south. Imagine trying to get food to Winterfell through blizzards and 20 foot snow drifts?
In our world, we get things like 536 or the 1816 year without summer. I'm not sure what kind of society would exist in a place where the winters happen every decade and are worse than 536. I'm pretty sure there could be settled humans in the south. But I wonder if most of Westeros would be made up of low density nomadic tribes, rather than complex agrarian societies.
I have a theory about the seasons of Planetos. Maybe the sun Planetos orbits doesn't have consistent luminosity. Perhaps during periods of increased luminosity, it is summer, while decreased periods of luminosity cause the winter. The gradual transition from one extreme to the other could cause fall/spring. Our own sun does have periods of increased or decreased luminosity. There's no hard guarantee how long each period will last. Maybe the sun of Planetos is a more extreme case. That said, I doubt this would explain the Long Night. I'm not aware of any stars that stop shining for a solid generation. Of course, magic may play a role in how the stars in the ASOIAF universe behave. Also, the Long Night happened 8,000 years ago and it's possible that some elements were exaggerated; like the sun being dimmer instead of going out completely.
I think the "Winters" aren't real winters but more like mini ice age and you still have the normal seasons so maybe in the summers even though it is still cold it would be warm enough to plant winter crops
How do Wildlings even exist? How the flip did the Wildlings survive the cold winters when theyre north of the wall? In literally the coldest part of westerous, with the least amount of castles qnd rubbing shoulders with wight walkers? How do you survive as a wildling? That deserves its own video.
This guy rates it at modern standards and has zero idea about how food works. It's probably not possible to survive years long winters, but this video is inaccurate about pretty much everything.
All of a sudden living in the Iron Islands doesn't seem too bad, who cares about granaries when you do not sow? Also, the fish must be extra fatty to survive those cold waters
Winter will actually never come because Valyria falling like Pompeii with 14 volcanos would cause long lasting effects on Westros and Essos beyond just destroying Valyria.
@ProbablyTrueTales you have a few different setting you can pick from, at peace and at war were you would be stockpiling for a siege. And sieges lasted at best months at worst years, plus you would have a bigger garrison during a war so more mouths to feed
There is always the Donner Party opinion if/when peons of Westeros' run out of food and people start dropping from starvation, disease, etc. Coastal and island communities I could see switching to more Inuit-like diets during the winter. Or we could just admit that any sapient life that evolved on Planetos would be biologically extremely different from humans and thus probably could spend winters in hibernation. And even in the "it wasn't always this way" scenario, I doubt that Westeros would end up having a society that is anything close to the vaguely European and feudal one portrayed due to the fucked up seasons. But doing that would mean no series about a fantasy War of the Roses but with dragons and ice zombies.
I got into GoT before I knew much of the pre-modern world and just took these multi-year winters for granted. Now, looking back, it is easier to understand why winter is a proxy for death in-universe: outside the privileged classes, winter is more likely to kill you than anything else. Sure, Westeros has had a long time to adapt, but even so, there is only so much adapting one can do before biological reality sets in. The body is a biological machine and needs fuel to run; without it, doom is certain. Gives new light on why "Winter is Coming" always scared Catelyn.
If the winter is so deadly in the riverlands, how are there lizard-lions (a crocodile type creature) in the neck up Nort where the weather is supposed to be even worse? Also how are people in Dorn and similar places surviving 10 years + of hotter weather.
I think it would be even worse. 2000 cal is the average for a people in modern rich countries where a lot is done by machines. In medieval times, you would need much more energy for everyday tasks. I think you can easily double all your numbers.
In Dorne, it's mentioned once or twice that it rains instead of snows. Basically, the oppressive heat and aridity Dorne is known for becomes mild. Also, the Westerosi know what greenhouses are (they call them glass gardens) so why the f*ck are those not all over the place? Winterfell has them so every castle and town in the North should have them too
Try heating a house or castle without isolation. The trees in Westeros would problably die because of winter beeing to long anyway. There is a reason that there are no trees in the arctic. But warming up the living spaces over a couple of years will kill every last tree without them beeing able to grow back. Like in real life in iceland.
I am pretty sure humans wouldn’t survive winter weather described in the books, or there would be a lot more malnourishment. One of the most common forms of malnourishment in real history was iodine deficiency. There are plenty of locations in this story where there should be entire villages of people who look somewhat dwarfish and with a goiter on their neck. In particular I am thinking about the mountain clans in the vale. If one of those mountain clans was cut off from the outside world for a few years, it is highly likely a generation will be affected.
The ridiculous part of the show is no depictions of neighborhoods. The keeps themselves only hold a few thousand. And most of the space is used for shops and businesses. Do the people who live outside just have scattered huts amidst the wilderness and plains? That’s a rough life.
Video idea, the cost of harrenhal. How much would that beast cost to repair or run, it was said to be so big you needed an army to garrison it. Plus how much land harrenhal owns for tax and food. Or the cost of valyrian steel, and how much that boosts some houses wealth. We know brightroar was bought and the cats paw dagger was lost in a bet then used to pay an assassin.
Though this isn’t accurate because they’d just import their food. Also the trees are likely evergreens, fish still exist and wild herds still exist. So i doubt over half the population would die.
i'm not 100% sure, but i'm pretty sure dried bread, crackers can last for eternity. And it's really easy to grow a lot of bread. also hunting exists in the north and fishing everywhere - is a steady source of food and protein all year 'round. also lard, vegetable fats ect do not spoil, like at all, i think. also animals could be kept alive (for slaughter) for as long as you need on crops, that can last for eternity. also i'm pretty sure pikeled stuff can last for eternity too, but it's a gamble, sometimes it spoils in a year, sometimes in 7, and practically 5 years is a hard limit. 6:00 also where would you find liquid water in the winter for food not to be dry??? it's as dry and cool as it gets. Besides, if you have a good granary rain would not be a problem...
Hunting wouldn't exist after a year of winter though, how would any wild animals survive? They can't eat snow, and even hibernating animals can't hibernate for an entire year. As for keeping domesticated animals alive, that requires even more grain and fodder. Fishing might be an option near deep lakes and the coast.
@@Pentagathusosaurus similarly to how raindeer survive in the polar regions, where the winter is everlasting. seals cansurvive on fish too anyhow, animals must survive the winter somehow, otherwise there would be no animals... like duh but biodiversity will probably be low, that i can give you
@VihniPuh-kolinkrivi winter isn't everlasting in the polar regions, there is a summer period with full days of sunlight. As to animals surviving, they wouldn't but they do because this aspect of world building doesn't really make sense. Unless if course "winter" is just a short period of climate change with regular seasons still occuring within these colder years. If it was actual full on winter lasting for years there would be extreme ecology devastation and you definitely wouldn't see the wildlife or plant life in the north that is described.
@@Pentagathusosaurus i mean yes, there's day & night, but it's litterally permafrost Worldbuilding does not make sence, that's true i suppose tho there must not be a devastation, 'cos ecological balance that would be destroyed in such a winter would not evolve in this world in the first place.
well you could simpy argue that spoilage is not as big of an issue in this universe and food holds much longer ........... also considering how big westeros is it has a tiny population density
Yeah, i imagine that if winters like this were real, the north wouldnt be permenantly populated. More like there would be a series of forts stocked to the brim with food that seasonal loggers, miners, hunters and their families would live in which get restocked by wagons from the south, when the winters are particularly bad these workmen and their families would migrate south.
You forgot milk (or better, cheese) and eggs as proteins. Just manage to take care of a cow and some chickens. About trees and heat: you can burn another things
Why haven’t you taken into account with trade in essos loans from the iron bank (give is now and we will pay you back in summer) etc etc even trade goods for food in essos and all that the many people would in this world
I think you may be wrong about the amount of people. The 45,000 men include peasants, only 2% may be men-at-arms but the commoners join the fight too. The population of the riverlands is probably less than 2.25 million.
I know, I know-food could be imported from Essos or other regions. But for the sake of simplicity (and because we’re focusing on the Riverlands), we’re sticking to local resources and assuming they’re on their own. Let’s just say, even if they had a trade route, surviving three years of winter wouldn’t be a walk in the godswood!
Subscribed yesterday and have watched all your videos! Absolutely love them keep them coming!
@painterforbeginners9613 thanks for the support, appreciate you🎉
what about hunting during the winter. and curing the meat?
What about mushrooms? Honey? Fish? Fish are still alive during winter. Just under the ice. Ice fishing. Also nuts?
My point is. Humans are capable of surviving such a harsh winter. Because... Wel scandinavia and siberia. They do it. There where periods where winters lasted for years. and the snow never melted. Hence surstrumming exist. Pickled herring. And other foods like that.
Also roggebrot is something you can store a long time. Pemmican if they can make it.
This is one of the more educated discourses of medieval style living that I have had the pleasure of listening to
I believe everyone here is right
Yes you might be able to scrounge up more food throughout the winter but your body burns more calories working and keeping you warm I believe the conclusion of the video is still very much correct in gool if you're winter is 12 times longer than normal a lot of people are going to die not everyone and not just a few a lot
@@TheSegert humans adapt to anything, 100%
I lived in very rural northern Sweden most my life the snow only lasted 8 months but it still took all summer to get all the vegetables stored herbs dried and berries preserved and everything had to be rationed it was an interesting way to live it’s so much more peaceful just be focused on survival in a way
We also still had grocery stores a few hours drive away so Westeros would suck so so so bad in comparison
Sounds like a good way to live. Bet you have some GRRM level stories to tell
@@ProbablyTrueTales hopefully not.
Yes, if 3 months of winter was incredibly harsh , for the Medival ages, then 3 years going to wipe out population better than plague, there is no way that they still can care about wars, poltical alliances with such a weather
@@ProbablyTrueTalesnobody should live like that
Only 8 months of snow😅
the answer on how they survive is likely that they get food from
1 trade from essos
2 the reach and southern riverlands can likely still grow food
3 the north can grow food using their greenhouses
4 inter kingdom trade
5 there are still things that can be grown and hence harvested in winter
6 animals can be hunted and livestock can still be kept meaning new animals are butchered and eaten
7 don't underestimate the potency of stews and how well they can feed people with few ingredients
I imagine after a thousand years the westerosi population has got accustomed to it's inconsistent Winters and get up to all types of shenanigans to quell food consumption
Do a craster and kill your babies less mouths to feed
Do a hound and kill for chicken food & Less Mouths to feed
Do a winterfell and have a basement big enough to fit basically everything you need
Do an iron islands and take someone else's
Do a flea bottom with a bowl of brown
Like Lordsqugm mentioned with stew
My thought is if all this murder happened there would be less mouths to feed therefore less people in the riverlands (riverlands known for violence and rivalry) also a higher concentration of professional soldiers
Like 4% instead of 2 not saying that a LOT of people wouldn't kick the bucket every time they had a 3-year winter but it might put a dent in those casualty numbers and this is medieval style living each couple is going to pop out 7 kids every 6 years so the population might bounce back quickly
Also also they're just god-fearing peasants I doubt the Lords of westeros care if half their peasants die of starvation every couple of winters
Great points! All of these are definitely viable ways people could survive in Westeros during a long winter. It’s definitely true that trading with Essos, getting supplies from the Reach, and utilizing Northern greenhouses would be essential survival tactics for Westeros as a whole. But in this scenario, we wanted to dive into the grim reality of what a harsh winter would look like if the Riverlands had to sustain themselves without outside help.
And yes, stew is definitely the unsung hero of winter survival!
@@ProbablyTrueTales Hell, just being Canadian, we all know that stew is THE best winter food! (Apart from poutine, of course.)
Add to this
8. cave grown crops like edible moss and fungus
9. the whole central management of the food, with the lords (and their castles) storing the food so that it can be rationed out. It also means that you don't need to store the food yourself and if someone dies during the winter their food share goes to everyone else.
10. because the wildlife is somehow still able to survive years of winter, it means that it has adapted (meaning that there is some source of food available for the herbivores and carnivores) with means that humans would be able to cultivate that for food too.
@@Gomjibaryour number 9 is problematic lol knowing that if people die we get more food, would definitely cause alot of “mysterious” winter time deaths and alot of people getting sent to the wall lol
"What was Aragorn's tax policy."
How do people survive winter George?
Magic😂
cannibalism.
@@ProbablyTrueTaleshow do people survive the storms at sea? Or the deserts in the south? Or lack of rain?
@@professorsassafras them year long storms is brutal, or continent covering waves or heat waves that turn entire continents into deserts for years
Oh those things don't happen right
Yeah, his world creation makes no sense.
The reason the winds of winter hasn’t come out is because George is embarrassed he didn’t figure out how the winters in Westeros actually work and how people would actually survive them 😅
Oof😂
Bro didnt figure out many things even while writing the books
Tbf, I think that the other kingdoms would help the more Northern kingdoms with food when winter comes.
You've forgotten the main problem - livestock need food as well. By the third year almost all hay would definitely be eaten by livestock and almost all livestock would be eaten by starving humans. And while it is theoretically possible to grow enough grain to prepare for the next winter if you have some grain left, herds of livestock require way more times to recover. And without livestock you wouldn't have meat, milk, wool, leather and so on. Also you wouldn't have warhorses and medieval knights fighting on horseback - and without them the entire society would look differently.
I do not think that medieval agricultural society makes any sense in Westeros climate. At best, there would be migrating hunter-gatherers or reindeer herders, like in Northern Siberia.
Yeah, it's probably a good thing we're not actually in Westeros.
Martin did not think this through, but I forgive him. These books are still amazing!
@marcusappelberg369 I think he did honestly people complain about medieval stasis in fantasy but when you take the long winters, constant war and the size of the Seven Kingdoms it makes more sense than in most settings.
@@marcusappelberg369as to the agricultural part, Britain even the Dark Ages had vast swatches of developed farmland. The Southern Kingdoms apart from Dorne are all very fertile and still very rural. This maybe why there are few proper towns nevermind cities in these broad, rich Kingdoms. A need to keep most communities small and dispersed along huge swaths of farming land.
@@adamantiiispencespence4012 But with those long winters Paleolithic stasis seems way more likely.
About the meat preservation.
I remember a part from the books when the Arryn household left the Eyrie for the winter quarters at the Gates of the Moon, they killed the Oxen used to turn the winches in the winch room which they used to get supplies in the Eyrie from Sky (a small castle protecting the way to the Eyrie).
It was mentioned, when they return next spring, the unspoiled meat of the oxen will be served in a spring feast.
Meat can be preserved pretty well if it's frozen, especially if encased in ice, like in Castle Black's ice room (or whatever they call the chamber where they keep frozen dead animals as their meat reserves).
Thanks for sharing🎉👉🏻👈🏻
I mean realistically a world with winters like this would have plants that are adapted to cope with these winters the real problem then isn’t storing food or even using the few things that can grow at those times and a government could plan ahead and maintain a robust storage network (take the Inca for example) the problem is maintaining Feudalism while having the storage attracts people to you having the storage and slightly better weather would mean every autumn armies are required to prevent refugees from just leaving and over populating the equatorial regions overwhelming their winter infrastructure and resulting in a paradoxically safer north.
Love it🎉
I have read all the books and there isn’t a single mention of a plant like you mention.
George r.r Martin fr wanted it to be harsh and hostile as fuck
There's Winter and then there's WINTAH. These plants would only ever grow in the den of the Others.
Old Nan said during the Long Night mothers would smother their newborns to keep them from starving to death. In House of Dragons over 2000 old northern warriors volunteer to go south to fight with winter coming. A death in battle was preferable to dying shivering in their beds and being a burden on their family during the winter.
I think I’ll pass😂
Still trips me up their summers and winters take like years to subside, even worse its never consistent sometimes its only a year sometimes its a generation.
How do they upkeep food if thats the case? Food spoils overtime and judging by what they eat its not all salt dried food or hardtack. A question I always had about the series. The reach must yield an insane amount of crops to upkeep all this
GRRM be cooking up some strange magic.
I mean there is large parts of the World, where there is no Winter. So after a year the Lords propably buy a lot from there.
@@deviousalemanni4235 In exchange for what? "We give you some starving peasants we do not need if you give us food"?
@@АнтонОрлов-я1ъ In exchange for timber, iron, fish and other goods.
@@frank832Apart from Timber(that too only in North and Vale) how are Landlocked Kingdoms like Rivelands gonna get Fish and I don't think there are Iron Mines spread evenly throughout Westores
I always thought the long winters in Ice and Fire were more like the small ice age during our middle ages, meaning "just" a harsh and cold year with less, butt no crops at all
Bless modern methods of preserving food!
Yes indeed!
That's why Iron Islanders always survive the Winter, I read it somewhere in A World Of Ice and Fire, As long as there is fish in the sea the Iron Islands won't starve
I mean realistically the same thing could apply to a lot of people in the Riverlands. There’s plenty of fish. They might have to ice fish to get it tho but it’s better than starving
When properly frozen and sheltered from the elements and animals , food can remain nutritious basically indefinitely even though it quickly becomes tasteless and bland. Sausages or bread made from a sack of flour that has been buried in snow for 5 years wouldn't taste great but would still nourish the body and prevent starvation. Survival foods like pemmican and hardtack biscuits can last years even at room temperature.
This channel is amazing, keep up the good work, I want to see what you have planned next
Appreciate the support!
The size of the riverlands is also important, it's like 170 million acres total, even if only 10% of the land is arable, which in the "river" lands seems unlikely, that still would be enough land to feed the population. Love the video btw
I’m sure there would be a lot of ice fishing during winter in the Riverlands which would provide some extra protein. But it wouldn’t take long to overfish the rivers.
If I were a craftsman, couldn’t I just immigrate to Dorne? In House of the Dragon, Hugh's wife often talks about moving to another city, so it seems doable. Unless, maybe: (1) they're in King's Landing so a bit wealthier than the average Westerosi, or (2) It isn’t easy to become a craftsman in the first place
I think they might experience mass migration when winter comes, and Essos might receive a few more tourists😂
@@ProbablyTrueTalesi think so too. Like essos is already more populated than the rest, but it should be even more populated. Infact due to population pressure alone the dothraki and there way of life should have disappeared a long time ago.
If they run by serf rules the serf needs permission to leave, living on the Lords land and working your fields are technically his and your just in a contract to work them. Some Lords didn't care but others did and you needed to work the next harvest or find a replacement.
A free man was like a journey man who can travel for work like a Mason and was outside of the serf rules until they entered into a service for a job.
I wouldn't survive a day in Westeros.
I got my first glasses when I was 7. They don't have glasses in Westeros so I'd be 80% blind. I would also probably be either a wildling or a peasant. I would die so quickly.
Pimican can be made to last for 3 to 5 years without any modern storage techniques (i.e. vacuum sealing). In a frozen environment that could be stretched into 10 years easily. It's just dried meat, fat, and salt. Honey could also be used to store vegetables for a very long time. Grain in a frozen environment will also keep almost indefinitely provided you can keep it dry.
Man, I really dug this video. You earned my subscription, sir.
Appreciate that, good sir. Welcome aboard!
man I just love the vibe and design of your videos! I thought that this channel had 200k Subs, what a gem
Thanks, appreciate that! Glad you enjoy my channel🎉
That adventure time inspiration is dope
At this point, the westerosi people should adopt a nomadic lifestyle: migrate north in summer, migrate south in winter
2 major food sources are missing, a sources that our ancestors survived on before agriculture and domestication of animals, both of which can be used even during the winter
hunting and gathering is a major source of food that up until the industrial revolution was still widespread in the world. Yes, some animals hibernate and there isnt much to gather during a winter, but stocking on nuts, jams from berries and honey is a good way how to create an iron reserve since those foods doesnt have an expiration date if you prepare or store them properly and have a great caloric and nutritional value. Ice fishing is also a thing as well as hunting other animals that do not hibernate. Just like in our world the animals and plants evolved to survive our winters, we can assume on a different world it would have to be the same no matter how long the winters span since otherwise there would be no life. There are also parts of Westeros where you can grow some crops even during the winter that can be sold to whoever buys them, meaning a shitton of grain and potatoes can be bought by the riverlords if the famine hits later during the winter, no trade route from Essos needed
i would also mention domesticated animals as a source of food, a major food source i dont know if you accounted for in the "meat" numbers since those can be slaughtered way into the winter and doesnt have to be killed at the begining and salted to extend their shelf life. But fun thing is that the amount of fodder needed to feed the animals so many years and not just a few months would be immense. A horse needs over a ton of fodder to survive 3-4 months of winter, but a winter that spans 36 months? I beginning to think that the Georgies world has to be some kind of "life despite all odds" with ubermench lifeforms that would survive a decade on a snickers bar
Thank you for this detailed comment, appreciate ya🎉
you missed one point here - if we imagine that you have enough supplies and food to live through the winter period you still have to account the period before the next harvest which for some of the common grain types can be up to a few months more
The whole differing lengths of seasons makes no sense. Our seasons consistently last around three months because of the tilt of our earth. When the hemisphere you live on is tilted toward the sun you get summer. When it’s tilted away you get winter.
Planetos seems to have be pretty much like Earth in that it also has a moon that should regulate the worlds tilt like ours does.
And as far as we know it also only has one sun to orbit around. Even if the orbit is elliptical in that the planet is further than the sun than at other times you’d at least expect some kind of consistency in terms of how that affects the climate. Otherwise you have a planet that is just travelling wildly in space being tossed around by multiple celestial objects which would almost certainly doom such a planet to either be thrown into the sun or thrown out into interstellar space to freeze forever.
You can’t even predict and plan for such a situation even if conditions remain survivable because even with our technology you can’t mathematically determine how three or more bodies interact with each other for any length of time. Thus you’ll have no idea what your seasons are gonna be like.
The chances of life lasting long enough for humans to evolve and establish society on such a world are extremely small anyway.
GRRM be cooking some wild magic
For those kind of reasons I like the idea of Planetos being a post-apocalyptic world. The world of ASOIAF is old and full of knowledge lost to time. Maybe there were more developed civilizations in the world until some magical shenanigan messed with the seasons, regressed everything to a quasi medieval state and kept it that way for thousands of years.
The seasons are kind of magical in nature and it's been stated in-universe that winters have been getting longer and longer ever since the last dragon died.
i dunno man this might be crazy but... maybe its just a fantasy book?
I also do not understand what does "year" mean to he people of Westeros and why they count time in years that are similar to Earth years in length.
When my grandfather’s little sister was a little girl she met another little girl who lived in town (instead of on a farm like her) and was shocked they grew nothing. “You mean you buy all your own food?! But that must cost you a fortune!”
Subscribed in the first 5 seconds, amazing channel
Thanks a bunch
Your art style is adorable! Keep it up!
Appreciate it!
My personal theory is that the Westerosi winter is like a short magical ice age, or the whole climate in Westeros is actually magical ice age with warm (summer) and cold (winter) oscillations. This way you get the magical several years long summers and winters, but there's still a natural season cycle. This means that during the magical winter there's still a warm period of natural summer (albeit shorter and less warm than during magical summer) that allows some form of agriculture and survival of the feudal agricultural society.
Also you would expect Westerosi society being quite adapted for this phenomenon (not that it's all that apparent from the books), so stuff like great granaries packed with years of summer harvest should be a thing, maybe combined with the adoption/cultivation of crops suitable for harsher climate and long term storage. In places like the North, you would expect population being partially/seasonally nomadic and focused more on husbandry than farming.
Great theory, I think our boy George should add maybe hints in the upcoming books, since winter is here, just for the hardcore fans.
It says a lot that Cregan Stark sent his greybeards south during the winter, because he thought the odds of them survivng going to war in the southern kingdoms were better than their odds of surviving a winter in the North.
How to survive.
Step 1. As soon as you hear “Winter is coming.” Move to Dorne 😭
Never visit the Starks or your travil bill will be insane😂
@ fr 😭 cuz at point I’d just stay in Dorne 😂
How is this channel only at 4k subs the animation and effort in these videos are phenomenal
Thanks for the kind words🎉
You forgot one thing… Dehydrated Potatoes, the Incan empire had storehouses full of potatoes that could last over a decade.
Did not know that, thanks for sharing🎉
If he is basing firewood needed in colder climates, and uses Skandinavía as a comparison, there would be a lot more than 5 in a household. Often there would be 3 generatons living together and often 5-10 children. So 5 ina household is a far cry from that...
Honestly I always felt like this was a bit of a plothole in asoiaf, after all how can civilizations survive with such a large portion of their population dying on a daily basis. The setting would probably also see little to no war, after all fighting would in many cases spell doom for both sides, no matter who won.
Yea, I guess we should probably not dive so deeeeep, but here we are😂
It really depends how nature evolved and how often long Winters actually happen. The real problem is that the vegetation seems quite similar to ours. If a three year Winter is something abnormal it would make sense that civilization developes similarly to our and if it isn't for large amounts of flora and Fauna to exist past the oldtown or for that matter the neck, they must have evolved countermeasures. For example super durable seeds and a super explosiv growth cycle. Durable seeds might also explain how they can stored it as long as they do. Also there is propably a ton of frost resistent grops. Added to that is that large parts of the World don't experience Winter at all, so in long Winters westeros becomes a massive importer of food. Eitherway weather must be crazy during that time and planetos is propably more comparable to ice age earth than anything else. Also it makes sense that essos has so much more population then westeros, but the dothraki don't make sense anymore.
George likes high school drama sociology not actual societal evolution and history sociology.
Most modern people probably wouldn’t survive a singular medieval winter let alone the magical multiple year winters of Westeros.
You can say that again😂
George didn't think about it.
With keep in the food, you’re forgetting that it’s winter. They would have definitely gotten good at mastering freezing food
they must have massive silos in Westeros.
Bunch of big boys🎉
Ideally the Winter should be the villain not the white walkers. The nights watch are justifiably more afraid of the cold than enemies.
Hop! A new video!
"Hey boss!! Im gonna be late today! Not feeling great!"
"Food could be imported from other regions."
Are you gonna haul it hundreds of miles through 8 feet of snow? And that's just the south. Imagine trying to get food to Winterfell through blizzards and 20 foot snow drifts?
👏
In our world, we get things like 536 or the 1816 year without summer. I'm not sure what kind of society would exist in a place where the winters happen every decade and are worse than 536. I'm pretty sure there could be settled humans in the south. But I wonder if most of Westeros would be made up of low density nomadic tribes, rather than complex agrarian societies.
Don’t forget the rampant cannibalism
I'd be fine .. what is dead can never die and I've been dead inside for a long time. 😜
Oof! Good luck with that bud :)
😂
@@ProbablyTrueTales Haha, thnx, I was just struggling for a House saying that fit .. 🔥🔥Everything is fine 🔥🔥 .. haha, great video!
God loves you and died for you
Another servant of the drowned God we pay the iron price for our daily bread what is dead may never die
I have a theory about the seasons of Planetos.
Maybe the sun Planetos orbits doesn't have consistent luminosity. Perhaps during periods of increased luminosity, it is summer, while decreased periods of luminosity cause the winter. The gradual transition from one extreme to the other could cause fall/spring.
Our own sun does have periods of increased or decreased luminosity. There's no hard guarantee how long each period will last. Maybe the sun of Planetos is a more extreme case.
That said, I doubt this would explain the Long Night. I'm not aware of any stars that stop shining for a solid generation. Of course, magic may play a role in how the stars in the ASOIAF universe behave.
Also, the Long Night happened 8,000 years ago and it's possible that some elements were exaggerated; like the sun being dimmer instead of going out completely.
This is essentially the year 1816, the year without summer
Or the little ice age in medieval times.
I think the "Winters" aren't real winters but more like mini ice age and you still have the normal seasons so maybe in the summers even though it is still cold it would be warm enough to plant winter crops
so well made videos keep working 👍
Thanks, glad you enjoyed🎉
How do Wildlings even exist? How the flip did the Wildlings survive the cold winters when theyre north of the wall? In literally the coldest part of westerous, with the least amount of castles qnd rubbing shoulders with wight walkers? How do you survive as a wildling? That deserves its own video.
"what was Aragorns tax policy?". How do wildlings exist George?
Love it😂
I imagine similar to native Americans in the north before Europeans arrived
Its about time someone covered this.
Glad I could peek your interest
This guy rates it at modern standards and has zero idea about how food works. It's probably not possible to survive years long winters, but this video is inaccurate about pretty much everything.
*_"TONIGHT'S FORECAST A FREEZE IS COMING!"_*
Guy named freeze👀
@@ProbablyTrueTalesMr. Victor Fries: 😏
I cant even survive in my perfectly 24 degrees room temperature room
For a moment I thought you were bulshit but then I remembered Celsius exists and my brain has been corrupted by freedom units
@theamazingsandwich1994 Murica fuck yeah! 🦅
We would also probably get some local infection which we are not immune to and die immediately 😂
All of a sudden living in the Iron Islands doesn't seem too bad, who cares about granaries when you do not sow? Also, the fish must be extra fatty to survive those cold waters
I think I have to agree, but I really would not want to be a fisherman in that cold😂
@@ProbablyTrueTalesthat’s what the sealskin coat is for
Winter will actually never come because Valyria falling like Pompeii with 14 volcanos would cause long lasting effects on Westros and Essos beyond just destroying Valyria.
Oof yea, haven’t even crossed my mind before😂
I am not sure what you mean, but should there at first be more Winter and also since the 400 years since the doom, there has been many long winters
@@deviousalemanni4235According to the books, after the extinction of the dragons, winters have become longer and summers shorter.
I get the feeling during long winters Dorne actually has ideal conditions for farming and if the winter lasts long enough it becomes a green land.
That would be a sight to see
Have you thought of doing a video on hoe much it would cost to build/maintain a castle
Thanks for the suggestion!
@ProbablyTrueTales you have a few different setting you can pick from, at peace and at war were you would be stockpiling for a siege. And sieges lasted at best months at worst years, plus you would have a bigger garrison during a war so more mouths to feed
Stannis baratheon siege in Robert's rebellion the origin story of The Onion Knight well a onion Knight (dark souls)
@@theamazingsandwich1994 by the end of the siege he is sat at the gate as king rob shows up and just says "still closed, still closed hum..."
Putting aside the obvious winters in Westeros can lasts for years rather than months. sometimes it could last for decades like how the Long Night.
Westerosi castles must be filled to the brim with Hard Tack (Ship Biscuit) and Pemmican.
I would rather eat snow😂
There is always the Donner Party opinion if/when peons of Westeros' run out of food and people start dropping from starvation, disease, etc. Coastal and island communities I could see switching to more Inuit-like diets during the winter.
Or we could just admit that any sapient life that evolved on Planetos would be biologically extremely different from humans and thus probably could spend winters in hibernation. And even in the "it wasn't always this way" scenario, I doubt that Westeros would end up having a society that is anything close to the vaguely European and feudal one portrayed due to the fucked up seasons. But doing that would mean no series about a fantasy War of the Roses but with dragons and ice zombies.
Westerosi people are built different
Scurvy would be common.
I got into GoT before I knew much of the pre-modern world and just took these multi-year winters for granted. Now, looking back, it is easier to understand why winter is a proxy for death in-universe: outside the privileged classes, winter is more likely to kill you than anything else. Sure, Westeros has had a long time to adapt, but even so, there is only so much adapting one can do before biological reality sets in. The body is a biological machine and needs fuel to run; without it, doom is certain. Gives new light on why "Winter is Coming" always scared Catelyn.
Good point! Winter really makes it clear that Westeros is a harsh place and for chads😂
If the winter is so deadly in the riverlands, how are there lizard-lions (a crocodile type creature) in the neck up Nort where the weather is supposed to be even worse?
Also how are people in Dorn and similar places surviving 10 years + of hotter weather.
Magic😂
Wouldn’t the freezing conditions help with food storage?
Problem is that food stockpiling can be done only during a summer. Summer, everything grow but keeping it is hard. Rotting, rodents and insects.
i would not even survive a regular winter in medieval Europe.
Thank all the Gods that we live in an age with heaters
Praise be to the Omnisia for our toasters and refrigerators
I think it would be even worse.
2000 cal is the average for a people in modern rich countries where a lot is done by machines.
In medieval times, you would need much more energy for everyday tasks. I think you can easily double all your numbers.
In Dorne, it's mentioned once or twice that it rains instead of snows. Basically, the oppressive heat and aridity Dorne is known for becomes mild. Also, the Westerosi know what greenhouses are (they call them glass gardens) so why the f*ck are those not all over the place? Winterfell has them so every castle and town in the North should have them too
Try heating a house or castle without isolation. The trees in Westeros would problably die because of winter beeing to long anyway. There is a reason that there are no trees in the arctic.
But warming up the living spaces over a couple of years will kill every last tree without them beeing able to grow back. Like in real life in iceland.
I am pretty sure humans wouldn’t survive winter weather described in the books, or there would be a lot more malnourishment. One of the most common forms of malnourishment in real history was iodine deficiency. There are plenty of locations in this story where there should be entire villages of people who look somewhat dwarfish and with a goiter on their neck. In particular I am thinking about the mountain clans in the vale. If one of those mountain clans was cut off from the outside world for a few years, it is highly likely a generation will be affected.
Thanks for sharing🎉
I’d survive just to spite all of you
Absolute menace!
The ridiculous part of the show is no depictions of neighborhoods. The keeps themselves only hold a few thousand. And most of the space is used for shops and businesses.
Do the people who live outside just have scattered huts amidst the wilderness and plains? That’s a rough life.
*Reads title* bold of you to assume I wouldn't use my knowledge here to start a cult to serve me and Tzeentch my way through to the iron throne.
👀
This makes me wonder, what stops all the lords from taking over Dorne and just using it as a snowbird getaway?
Probably the Dornishmen and their charismatic ways
7:23 thats why trading betweeen Westeros and Essos exist
Pretty much ye
We’re scandanvians we’ll be fine
Built different👏
Winters and summers have seasons too though. There are false springs, ect.
Kid named Winter :
Made my day😂😂
Video idea, the cost of harrenhal. How much would that beast cost to repair or run, it was said to be so big you needed an army to garrison it. Plus how much land harrenhal owns for tax and food.
Or the cost of valyrian steel, and how much that boosts some houses wealth. We know brightroar was bought and the cats paw dagger was lost in a bet then used to pay an assassin.
Thanks for the good suggestions, appreciate ya👉🏻👈🏻
"Why? Because...." Instant subscribe!
Winterfrll had greenhouses and warm springs. They were growing food in winter
Dornish family shivering.. iii it’s 75c this winter is ffffreeezzzzing
Underated 🗣🗣🗣🗣
Thanks again my G!!
Even if you had enough food what about firewood?
Someone didn’t watch the bonus secret section👉🏻👈🏻
You also forgot all the meat from the dead bodies it’s not entirely taboo in the world of westoros to eat on other human to survive in a long winter
Sounds like a great sunday dinner
New video, yey
I’m from New England, I’m all set thanjs
Can't believe you forgot about the cheese. THE CHEESE
Not the cheese😂
@ProbablyTrueTales in all seriousness cheese was extremely important source of protein that could last the winter
2:01 that was like worthy
😘
Though this isn’t accurate because they’d just import their food.
Also the trees are likely evergreens, fish still exist and wild herds still exist.
So i doubt over half the population would die.
i'm not 100% sure, but i'm pretty sure dried bread, crackers can last for eternity. And it's really easy to grow a lot of bread.
also hunting exists in the north
and fishing everywhere - is a steady source of food and protein all year 'round.
also lard, vegetable fats ect do not spoil, like at all, i think.
also animals could be kept alive (for slaughter) for as long as you need on crops, that can last for eternity.
also i'm pretty sure pikeled stuff can last for eternity too, but it's a gamble, sometimes it spoils in a year, sometimes in 7, and practically 5 years is a hard limit.
6:00 also where would you find liquid water in the winter for food not to be dry??? it's as dry and cool as it gets. Besides, if you have a good granary rain would not be a problem...
Thanks for the extra info👌🏻 appreciate ya
Hunting wouldn't exist after a year of winter though, how would any wild animals survive? They can't eat snow, and even hibernating animals can't hibernate for an entire year.
As for keeping domesticated animals alive, that requires even more grain and fodder.
Fishing might be an option near deep lakes and the coast.
@@Pentagathusosaurus similarly to how raindeer survive in the polar regions, where the winter is everlasting.
seals cansurvive on fish too
anyhow, animals must survive the winter somehow, otherwise there would be no animals... like duh
but biodiversity will probably be low, that i can give you
@VihniPuh-kolinkrivi winter isn't everlasting in the polar regions, there is a summer period with full days of sunlight.
As to animals surviving, they wouldn't but they do because this aspect of world building doesn't really make sense. Unless if course "winter" is just a short period of climate change with regular seasons still occuring within these colder years. If it was actual full on winter lasting for years there would be extreme ecology devastation and you definitely wouldn't see the wildlife or plant life in the north that is described.
@@Pentagathusosaurus i mean yes, there's day & night, but it's litterally permafrost
Worldbuilding does not make sence, that's true i suppose
tho there must not be a devastation, 'cos ecological balance that would be destroyed in such a winter would not evolve in this world in the first place.
well you could simpy argue that spoilage is not as big of an issue in this universe and food holds much longer
...........
also considering how big westeros is it has a tiny population density
Be born in Bravos & try not to tick off anybody that can afford to hire the faceless.
You would have to find a way to farm during winter and good luck with that
With winters like that I'd imagine Northerners would develop a tradition of cannibalism. 💀
Not saying I would, but I probably would
Yeah, i imagine that if winters like this were real, the north wouldnt be permenantly populated. More like there would be a series of forts stocked to the brim with food that seasonal loggers, miners, hunters and their families would live in which get restocked by wagons from the south, when the winters are particularly bad these workmen and their families would migrate south.
You forgot milk (or better, cheese) and eggs as proteins. Just manage to take care of a cow and some chickens.
About trees and heat: you can burn another things
Rural Minnesota is pretty close to the lands of always winter…. Well, in the winter anyway
Good luck!
I think you underestimate one thing... having that dog in you
😂😂
Why haven’t you taken into account with trade in essos loans from the iron bank (give is now and we will pay you back in summer) etc etc even trade goods for food in essos and all that the many people would in this world
I think you may be wrong about the amount of people. The 45,000 men include peasants, only 2% may be men-at-arms but the commoners join the fight too. The population of the riverlands is probably less than 2.25 million.