Paolo wrote: Thu Apr 25, 2013 5:10 am A generation of winter? Do they import food, then, to keep from starving? Or eat each other?
I could answer some of the questions on here, but I have refrained since reading ahead would spoil some people, but THIS, I can answer, Paolo...
With the long summers, (and thus growing seasons) they typically stock up, eat through that, then begin to starve. Stories are told of mothers who smother their babies because it is a more merciful death than starving, and cannibalism DOES happen, although if a noble person catches you, they would execute you, and then let all that valuable meat go to waste. 8)
This coming winter in the series, however bodes especially ill because the war of the houses has disrupted common folks abilities to grow crops, and it's been an unusually long summer, which means, a longer than normal winter is looming, and then there's the white walkers that only come out ever thousand years or so. It's been so long that no one really believes there is a danger, and the Nights Watch has been reduced to a couple of towers of actively manned garrisons, (down from if memory serves, about two dozen fully manned garrisons in the past) and at the current stopping point where the books are at in the series, the rest of the world has STILL not pulled their heads out of their asses regarding this.
gone ?