Guest Post at Tower of the Hand: The Blacks and Red Part IV, The Golden Company, Then and Now

madeinmyr:

II. The Secret Sovereignty of the Iron Bank

It seems Steven Atwell is quietly moving towards our view of the Iron Bank. Namely that it is a powerful and malevolent institution that wields a terrifying amount of power over the Narrow Sea’s financial system:

So I’m going to stake out a rather bold hypothesis here: I believe that the Golden Company is essentially to the Disputed Lands what the Iron Bank is to the Free Cities and Westeros, a secret sovereign pulling the strings behind the scenes, in this case to ensure a permanent state of war and balance of power in the Disputed Lands to keep Lys, Myr, and Tyrosh paying them their exorbitant fees. (The Blacks and Red Part IV)

Time will tell whether he’s riding this train of thought to its logical destination.

Powerful yes, malevolent, no.