Messenger Pigeons/crows - GoT

[kato13]

As far as I know crows were never used as messengers as pigeons are simply much better. Ease of breeding, domestication, inability to escape (compared to crows) quickly come to mind.

Crows are insanely smart for animals and one experiment conducted by the military suggests that crows possibly taught their offspring how to recognize faces. They also have the ability to deduce the need to change the order of a complex sequence and have a very long memory.

If you were in a world without pigeons (though I remember Arya killing one a few episodes ago) I could see using crows, but in the end they probably just seemed cooler. And pretty much all news in Westeros is bad news so the Crow is more appropriate.

[Targan]

It's an established fantasy trope. In Tolkien's fictional universe crows and ravens are used as messengers.

[Askold]

Originally Posted by Targan

It's an established fantasy trope. In Tolkien's fictional universe crows and ravens are used as messengers.

If you have ways to actually talk to the birds (MAGIC!) then it would make sense to use the smarter crows. It should be easier to explain to them what to do than to the stupid pidgeons.

The setting of Song of ice and fire / Game of thrones had magic and magic is returning slowly, so it could be that they trained crows back in the old days and are still using them because of it.