February 5, 2021 24 Minutes
This is the second part of a three part (I, II) discussion of the idea of a ‘universal warrior’ – the assumption that there is a transcendent sameness about either the experience of war or ‘warrior values’ which might provide some sort of fundamental truth for understanding war, either in the past or present, or else a useful blueprint for current life more generally. In investigating this question, we are using Steven Pressfield’s recent video series as our foil, since it is a more completely explained expression of this idea and one should always try to debate the stronger form of the opposing argument.
January 8, 2021 42 Minutes
This is the fourth part of a four part (I, II, III) look at the Dothraki from George R. R. Martin’s
A Song of Ice and Fire and HBO’s
Game of Thrones. We’re looking at, in particular, if Martin’s claim that the Dothraki are “an amalgam of a number of steppe and plains cultures” can be sustained in the face of even basic knowledge about historical Steppe and Great Plains nomadic peoples.
Last week, we concluded that the vast majority of Dothraki culture, social organization, economic practices and family structure are effectively completely untethered from the historical realities of effectively any of the literally dozens of historical Great Plains Native Americans or Steppe nomads. This week, we’re going to close out our look by discussing Dothraki warfare. We’ll start with the visual – weapons and armor – and then move to the conceptual – strategy, operations and tactics.
December 19, 2020 35 Minutes
This is the third part of a four part (I, II, IV) look at the Dothraki from George R.R. Martin’s
A Song of Ice and Fire and HBO’s
Game of Thrones. We’re looking at, in particular, the degree to which George R.R. Martin’s claim that the Dothraki are “an amalgam of a number of steppe and plains cultures” holds up in the face of research. Last week, we looked at the subsistence systems of historical Steppe nomads and Great Plains Native Americans and found that the Dothraki subsistence system was less than a pale imitation of them, having stripped out nearly every activity from the daily routine of survival which wasn’t brutal or violent.