"So what you mean to say is that he's changed for the better? As if he were a completely different person?"
Eddard Stark sat at his desk in his study with maester Luwin standing before him, his facial expressions flickering in the candlelight.
"Yes, my lord. But it seems that maybe the changes will be for the better. And perhaps he may be what you're looking for."
"Yes, I really hope it were so, or Gods save us all." Eddard turned to look at the bright moon in the sky and sighed.
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After that first day, Torrhen fell into a very vigorous routine of studies and swordsmanship.
He would spend pretty much the entirety of his days reading, learning and training. Whenever he was taking a break, he could be seen playing with his siblings or daydreaming in the Godswood.
One thing he learnt, though, was the sheer deficit in Westerosi civilization on all accounts.
Records of human population on Westeros dated back thousands of years, yet there was still a feudal society in place. Technology had barely advanced, nothing knew was being taught or discovered at the Citadel and those who dared to reach out and discover new boundaries in science and wisdom were silenced one way or another.
This situation reminded him of what maester Qyburn said on the TV show, about how the maesters study without learning and repeat their knowledge to those who come after without anything new being added.
Torrhen was baffled by this, and surmised that there could only be two possibilities for the current technological and economical stagnation in Westeros.
The first possibility was the lack of a spark. On Earth, society only emerged out of the feudal system and moved towards a more centralized government due to the discovery of gunpowder and its many uses, namely the cannon, which effectively forced those in power to leave the confines of their castles and move towards developing larger standing armies, which lead to boundless technological and economical advances.
The second, and more likely, possibility would be that it has been manipulated to remain so by the actions of others, whether intentionally or unintentionally.
There was no desire for innovation by the smallfolk and the lowborn; anything good or worthwhile that they made would eventually be taken from them by the lords who rule over them, thus making it a wasted endeavor. Those in power and those with wealth would never deign to try research something new either as they were too caught up in trying to better and raise their position in the kingdom and move their way up the feudal hierarchy. Those who could never bothered and those who needed to weren't able to. Thus, society couldn't advance.
According to Torrhen, the only people or group that could have restricted society's development in Westeros would be the Citadel themselves. They made themselves out to be the Saints of the realm, selflessly giving up women, siring children, wealth, power and even their own names. They all went to all corners of the realm, teaching and advising all the lords that rule over the kingdom.
But their very rules has placed a kind of chokehold or Westeros' advancement.
All those who wished to join had to swear off pretty much everything other than knowledge and swear oaths of servitude to the people. Only after this were they allowed to become a novice at the Citadel. This meant that those with the resources to research further and actually fund breakthroughs in science would never get to learn there because they would be unwilling to give up everything else. Only bastards, commoners and sons with nothing to inherit would go there because they have nothing to lose or give up in.
Novices could only become maesters when they have forged enough rings on their chain, with each chain indicating a maester's level of mastery in a specific subject such as accounting or medicine. This led to a large amount of generalists and a very apparent lack in specialists. All the maesters were, as a result of this, jacks of all trades, but masters of none, each of them indoctrinated with only the existing pool of knowledge.
Those who wished to branch out and find out or do new things were all suppressed by the Citadel in one way or another, albeit not on paper. In the TV show, it was made apparent that it was the Citadel who suppressed the Alchemist Guild and lead them to fall out of favor with House Targaryen due to their so-called 'jealousy' and 'fear' of wildfire.
Torrhen lamented as he thought of the sheer advantages of wildfire for war, power and development. It was akin to nuclear energy as it couldn't really be put out, only smothered or exhausted; as long as you something to burn, it would continue to burn. And yet, the Citadel did not seem to take note of this.
As a result of all of these, the people were ignorant, the level of knowledge was stagnant, civilization had halted and society had not progressed.
This made things more annoying for Torrhen, as he full well knew that the coming catastrophe could be much more easily dealt with if not for these issues. He could do nothing about that for the moment and just consistently trained and studied.
"It seems that House Stark must increase its power and influence. Bu why do we have to be so poor?"
Another thing that bothered him was how poor house Stark was. To the smallfolk, House Stark could be drowning in gold for all they cared, but they really were quite poor given their standing and the land they rule over.
The Starks had no highly profitable source of income. The people were poor, the land thinly populated, the minerals unvaried and sparse in quantity and the climate unsuited for large-scale production of most foodstuffs of any sort. This lead to House Stark being quite poor compared to other houses further south, such as the Lannisters and the Tyrells.
This was detrimental to The North as they wouldn't be able to sustain an army large enough to face against the southern lords, nor would they have enough soldiers to defend against the army of the dead.
This damned medieval situation was giving him a headache.