Finally someone who understands how ridiculous all of this sounds.

 

Absurd as it all sounds, cxjenious' most difficult job with this fic will be explaining away why Harry doesn't do some of that stuff.

It doesn't sound absurd because it's irrational. If you know how to create something like a Floo network, if you stand to profit personally from it, and you have the resources to do it, then the rational thing is to bring it about.

Rather, it sounds absurd because most of Harry Potter magic is thematically alien to the ASoIaF world. It doesn't fit. It's not just overpowered, it also functions in a completely different way. A cost free way.

We know that as readers. But Harry is in the world. The fact that HP magic is very different to everything else in the world won't matter to him.

 

I see no way of Harry even having time to contemplate advancing the technology of Westeros. I mean, I'm sure Tywin will be all for letting his nine year old grandson destabilise the class mechanics that he so lovingly toiled to put into place for the legacy of his family.

Harry will continue hitting things with swords for the near future, not discover a latent ambition to become Edison.

 

You're also forgetting that Harry doesn't have a wand and likely won't for a very long time. On top of that, if he tries to modernise in one way, others will oppose him. Last I checked the majority of aristocrats during the Tudor period had a very dismissive view of the lower classes. Same in Westeros. If Harry wants to improve their lives it'll either have to be through force (as has been mentioned, which would also mean sacrificing thousands of low class lives) or very, very subtly. Neither would be particularly easy.

 

That's a big if.

I don't really see it as a big issue. For the most part, I see him as a user of technology, magical or otherwise. A more pertinent modern transposition, imo, would be political rather than technological. Obviously Westeros cannot become a democracy in any form, but there is nothing stopping Harry from beginning the process of drafting something like the Magna Carta and initializing constitutionalism.

 

You guys are missing the point with this focus on technology. Harry could make a shit ton of money (and thus the ability to field armies) just with very basic things that they don't have in Westeros yet. Not technology. Other stuff:

The idea of insurance (not personal insurance, but stuff like insuring merchant ships).
The idea of corporations, and corporation tax.
Introduction of crops from Essos to Westeros to utilise more land for crop production.
Establishment of private hospitals.
Ponzi schemes.
The idea of a futures market.
Currency speculation.
Commercialisation of "milk of the poppy" (opium). Opium Wars style.
Creation of a Lannister bank, operating under fractional reserve principles.
The issue of Lannister bonds.
Investment in trade ships.
Crop rotation, if they don't already have it.

The best thing is that most of these aren't particularly out of place in the setting. Insurance already existed in Elizabethan times; it's a key plot point in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. Corporations started around that time too - the British East India company was given its royal charter by Queen Elizabeth. Introduction of New World crops to Europe started around that time, and trade with places like India was really taking off.

As a Lannister, he has plenty of access to capital to make these things happen. Historically, old money didn't invest in trade, earning their money from land, and we all know how that turned out. It seems to be the same in Westeros. Harry could add a lot of value to the Lannister fortune just by sending off a trade ship or five to Qarth.

The opium would probably be the most profitable. Not just because of the direct profits, but also because having control of the supply of a drug to an addicted population is a huge power. If he introduced the drug into an enemy's territory he'd have them over the barrel.

On the military side there are things he could do too, even with his very limited understanding of technology. The most obvious would be the fact that metal can float (thus leading to the use of armor on ships, though you wouldn't see ironclads without an industrial revolution to create sheets of metal that large). Another thing he could easily introduce is the idea of camouflage, squad-based military structure, and merit-based military appointments. A small, well-trained standing army could work too. Paid for by all that gold he's made from the above things.

 

Still, not particularly interesting to read about in a story. I'd be perfectly happy if it wasn't even mentioned.

 

Since I inadvertently started the whole "modernization" talk, I thought I should mention that my question about Harry pondering ASoIaF's Medieval Stasis was actually more of a philosophic question than a technological one. I'm not looking for a "Man from the Future" story like Army of Darkness or a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

I don't expect Harry to change the world through science. Realistically, would any normal person truly have the knowledge in their head to recreate even the most basic inventions? Gunpowder could make Harry insanely wealthy and powerful. So what is it made out of? That's all one would need to know, and most people don't know it.

The talk about the seasons is the same way. Based on what I think the future might hold, a normal person will probably be knowledgeable enough about astronomy to know that random seasons of varying length and the accompanying shorter or longer days lasting years is unusual. I meant that question in that Harry might realize it is magical and it would have an ominous effect on him, because to him it could be more evidence that greater powers hold sway over Westeros. Basically, it would be a "Dun-dun-DUNNNN!" moment.

PS- I wrote this, went to bed without posting, came back, and checked replies, and Taure's last post is pretty spot on in what would interest me. Whatever form the threat of Voldemort/The Great Other takes, Harry's time under Tywin will probably solidify some basic goals; Harry has to be doing something until that time comes. It would make for good characterization but it is far from a make or break deal for me.

 

You're saying all that but how do we know all the Lannister gold isn't from a shit ton of trading across the narrow sea. GRRM doesn't like to go into specifics of things like these but there has to be a reason that Lannisters shit gold.

 

If you didn't read the novels at least do a tiny bit of research before.

Another thing that Harry might be able to do is help preserve food for longer periods. Given the scale he would need to cast the charm he will probably need a wand, however once the problem of storing safely the excess food is solved there are a lot of agricultural improvements that he can implement. With enough food many other changes can follow.

 

Isn't that because they control many gold mines on their land?

 

I have read the books so I didn't bother looking it up. I guess my memory failed me there. My bad

Edit: Surely they must be doing some trade from Lannisport or King's Landing. I mean, the gold mines might be why they are the richest but isn't it possible they're doing a lot of trading as well? I mean, I can't imagine Tywin would not think of such a thing.

 

There would be trading, it just wouldn't be on a large, organised scale. There would be no investors funding trips to far off continents and the likes, so the benefits would be minimal.

 

Somethings are done, somethings are interesting but thematically irrelevant or really impractical.

Also, has there been any update about the next chapter? In the last one I saw the author mentioned Friday, a week or maybe two ago.

 

Well, I'm reading this story for blood and guts and because I find few acceptable male protagonists in a Song of Ice and Fire. I really don't want to read a rehash of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

 

Taure mostly has it right - it's logical for Harry to TRY recreating the technology he knows about, if not to improve the lives of others, then to make a profit or gain influence through it. The only reason Harry won't attempt to bring forth SOME magical or mundane technology through his knowledge is A) no time, money, or resources B) opposition from others who do not want him to bring about those advances C) Harry decides it's not a good idea to do it (eg giving people a way to rapidly relocate themselves could really making guarding against assassination much harder?)

If Harry doesn't even think about or attempt to bring forth new technology... then this needs to be addressed by the story in a lot of ways. Ignoring it all-together is... fine I guess, since WE are probably the only ones who'd even consider it - the masses at ff.net won't probably even dwell on the idea for a breath. But if it's just ignored by the author... well, for some of us picky people, we'll see it as a slight plot hole or convenience by the author.

 

I'm going to disagree here.
Introducing revolutionary concepts can fail spectacularly.

Bonds fail if people don't trust them to be paid out.
Banks default and fail.
Insurance policies need to be sold to enough people to be profitable, and priced appropriately for a benefit in returns.
Crop revolutions can end up like Kolkhoz introduction - great in theory, bringing famines in practice. The winted is coming after all, and how do we know the exact way the Seven Kingdoms grow crops?
Private hospitals can end up being untrusted or a point of profit for the few quick tricksters,
To trade any sort of secondary-financial instruments, you need to have primary ones. You can't just start playing with options and hope for some miracle.
Currency speculation was everywhere and every-when anyway. Not as organised, but...



Our history is bristling with troubles for new changes to arrive in. They are beneficial, they wreck the opposition - for a time, and then usually fail spectacularly to be revamped in their today's image.

All maner of apparatuses that manufactured things faster were opposed by the guilds who blamed them for the better quality and cheaper price. It took time for machines to take over, and there were Luddite movements for a short while afterwards.

Electricity was feared as something that might burn off the skin of people's faces.

Economical theories failed upon the very moment people developed them, and only because it took a handful of years to figure out how expectations of the public influence the market and wrap the theories.




You can't just expect for simple ideas to revolutionise the whole country. It's not a A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. That story was a comedy. You can't just force change on people, without a decent moving power, and it can really backfire.

A bottom line is simple - it takes time, expenses, and it has be seen as beneficial in the long term to actually become admitted into everyday life.

And there's always going to be a Luddite with a pointy stick demanding that everything should go back to the way it was.

 

You're still looking at this through the eye of altrusitic Harry trying to bring quality of life to the masses. That's not it.

If Harry causes a financial crash... awesome. He can then make a load of money off that too. Financial crashes are extremely profitable for the people at the top.

 

Cxjedious, I don't mean to be annoying, but are you nearly done with the chapter yet? It's killing me.