Poor Attempts at Creativity

So I know the meme is that Batman/Bruce Wayne/Gotham in general never manages to rehabilitate anyone, but I was thinking about it and there's actually more than a few Batvillains who've made a long-term transition to being anti-heroes/anti-villains/vigilantes/heroes.

Probably the most prominent is Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, who are probably better known now as as an anti-hero couple than they ever were as independent villains, but there's others - my Batman expert friend pointed out that Clayface got a 50-issue hero turn (which, as a fan of the Harley Quinn cartoon, I like the idea of), Bronze Tiger started out as a League of Assassins heavy and then became a good guy permanently, Killer Croc had a hero turn, Catman turned semi-legit in Secret Six, and so on.

In the books, the North is depicted a stern, (somewhat) bleak, with the lords and ladies detesting the politicking of the south and the excess of the south.

How plausible would it be (in the real world) that the northern lords would forgo (at least some) luxury items and pageantry, as they would see them to frivolous and as signs of excess?

Was there something in the real world, similar to how the North is depicted? Or has GRRM taken that to the extreme, to showcase the difference between the Old Man North and the Andal South?

As with everything in GRRM's worldbuilding, taking it to 11 is kind of what he does. In this case, GRRM is taking a pre-existing stereotype about North/South divides in English culture and politics - that the North is a backward, semi-civilized, rough land of 'ard men who're about heavy industry and hard work, and that the South is rich, decadent, and effete.

Now, as I have shown repeatedly, the North do a hell of a lot of politics, so that's not an accurate reading of the books.

Where GRRM does get things wrong is that the reputation of the North as poor and backwards mainly applied to the common people, who didn't have access to the gentler climates of the South - the great magnates of the North like the Percys, the Nevilles, the Dacres, the Scropes, and so forth were very rich and lived lifestyles as ostentatious as any other nobleman's, and spent plenty of time at the court in London and played politics like no one's business.

Yeah, I was referring to the virgin birth and the midichlorians nonsense when I mentioned the prequels in my previous post. I said my piece about Anakin some time ago, but yeah, I think Anakin should be a nobody from a backwater planet - because, as with Rey and The Last Jedi, the point is that anyone can be a Jedi because...

I'm even fine with the prophecy about someone bringing balance to the Force (although maybe don't use the words "Chosen One" directly because you don't actually have to hit the audience in the head with a copy of Hero of a Thousand Faces). As I said in my post linked above, I think there's potential to do a neat reverse on the audience by questioning what "balance" means, because if you're going to rip off Taoism you really ought to follow through on it rather than reverting to a more Western Christian conception of good and evil. And you can build that into Vader's tragic arc and Luke/Rey's triumphal arcs.

Yeah, I was referring to the virgin birth and the midichlorians nonsense when I mentioned the prequels in my previous post. I said my piece about Anakin some time ago, but yeah, I think Anakin should be a nobody from a backwater planet - because, as with Rey and The Last Jedi, the point is that anyone can be a Jedi because...

I'm even fine with the prophecy about someone bringing balance to the Force (although maybe don't use the words "Chosen One" directly because you don't actually have to hit the audience in the head with a copy of Hero of a Thousand Faces). As I said in my post linked above, I think there's potential to do a neat reverse on the audience by questioning what "balance" means, because if you're going to rip off Taoism you really ought to follow through on it rather than reverting to a more Western Christian conception of good and evil. And you can build that into Vader's tragic arc and Luke/Rey's triumphal arcs.

Not nukes; the dragons are much closer to Hueys with napalm. They are also notoriously bad at actually taking and holding territory on their own, as we've seen in quite a few Westerosi military conflicts. This is why you need conventional military forces, but the medieval state isn't capable of standing armies.

Balerion: Egg, my boy. Your infrastructure plan is horrible. Also I recommend a parliamentary system.