The Riverlands deserve everything bad that happens to them. Bowing to ROBB and naming him King. Pathetic losers. Like I get Edmure siding with Robb family and all that. But to bend the knee to a northerner?
The riverlands:
- Multiple Rivers for quick transportation/farming.
- More people
- More farmable land.
- Better Climate
- Easier to trade with other kingdoms.
So what do the Riverlands gain by bending the knee to Winterfell? They are
willingly choosing to become the Ukraine to the North's Soviet Union to be exploited as a bread basket.
Please no sperging about the current conflcit. I'm talking about what historically happened.
That's just another worldbuilding fail on GRRM's part tbh. The Riverlands logically shouldn't be the stomping ground for everyone else if you think about it, given their advantages they should be one of the stronger kingdoms in the setting and the one rocking probably the second-largest army behind the Reach (more fertile land means they can support a larger population, thus, more recruits). Yeah their central position on the continent & lack of prominent mountains/hills also makes them vulnerable to multi-front wars in the style of Poland or Belgium, but 1) the rivers themselves could've served as a natural defense and 2) you don't see that fucking the Reach for example (which also doesn't have much in the way of defensible terrain while bordering the warmongering Durrandons & ruthless Lannisters, who both
do, on top of having a long coastline vulnerable to Ironborn attacks). We already know it's not an impossible position to work from for centuries based on the reigns of the Mudds, Justmans and Teagues (who did successfully beat back external & internal challenges for a good while before their luck ran out in the lore).
Nor should they be eager to play second fiddle to anyone even under Martin's own logic, as I was just saying, they kept rebelling against foreign overlords (Storm Kings, Iron Kings) in the lore he himself wrote. Even if Edmure's willing to kneel because of the Tullys' Fast & Furious-esque attitude to FAMILY, the other Riverlords should at least demand significant concessions (less taxation/feudal dues, more court positions, royal non-intervention in their own personal feud for the Brackens/Blackwoods, etc.) of their own, not just Walder Frey badgering the Starks about a betrothal. And the North would have the same disadvantage in trying to rule the Riverlands as the Ironborn did, in that they have a different culture & religion (even if it's theoretically less niggerish and easier to get along with than the Ironborn/Drowned God). If Gurm had handled religion in his setting with any actual 'realism' then Robb, at a minimum, should've had to make a huge personal concession in converting to the Seven to more safely rule the majority-Sevener Riverlands ('
Paris Riverrun is worth a Mass' and all that).
A surviving 'Kingdom of the North & the Trident' would realistically run into the same problems an England that won the HYW did - the southern half of the kingdom is so much richer, more populous, more 'cultured' & just plain nicer climate & geography-wise than the northern half that the king & his court would want to increasingly permanently stay there, such that the Starks (or at least Robb's line thereof) might well eventually cease being Northern in any meaningful way. This already canonically happened with the last couple Hoares, who GTFO of their shitty homeland and moved their seat to the Riverlands (first to Fairmarket, then they built Harrenhal) as fast as they could, for which they were criticized by Ironborn conservatives at the time.
