It is a bit odd, yes. But if you think that’s odd, what about the Faith of the Seven?
You’d think that the religious leader of the Vale, as the oldest Andalized region in Westeros (where we don’t even know about a single named sept!), would have demanded pre-eminence vs. that upstart at the Starry Sept when the position of High Septon was created. For that matter, why wasn’t there a schism or some kind of controversy when Oldtown suddenly lost its place to King’s Landing?
The Lannisters would certainly have built a Golden Sept in Lannisport just to make it more magnificent than everyone else’s and be constantly bribing the Most Devout to get a Westerman elected as High Septon. And there’s no way that the Septons of Dorne aren’t going to have adapted their practices to suit Dornish customs, or haven’t picked up Dornish attitudes to the Reachermen, even if just for evangelical purposes?
For that matter, given the Iron Islands’ contentious relationship with the Faith, why don’t the mainlanders consider the Ironborn heathens? And given the wars between the Vale and the North, you’d think Valemen of the Faith would be more anti-Old Gods than the rest of the South. Likewise, given its history, how does the Riverlands not have syncretic elements from the Old Gods and the Drowned God?
The Riverlands certainly has its own customs though. The Tully funeral rights of sending the deceased back to the river sounds like something more likely to be done by followers of either the Old Gods or the Drowned God rather than the Faith of the Seven. So does the Quiet Isles’ significance as a a place where the dead wash up and are “reborn” though admittedly this might be reaching. As to the center of the Faith being in Oldtown/King’s Landing, the Vale seems like it would be a poor seat for the High Septon. Despite its history, the region is pretty isolated from the rest of the Seven Kingdoms, thus the bureaucracy of an organized religion would be rather difficult to manage with the Mountains of the Moon in the way. Sure the Vale has Gulltown, but the lack of easy access over land makes Oldtown or King’s Landing seem more ideal as Rome/Constantinople type locations.
Agree in parts, dissent in parts.
1. The Tully funeral custom probably is an Old God or pre-Pact First Man tradition.
2. The Quiet Isle I think goes too far.
3. History is important for questions of institutional development. For decades while the Riverlands was being conquered, the Vale was the only Andal Kingdom, and thus the only center of their faith. Indeed, the Andals didn’t get to the Reach until after they’d invaded the Vale, the Riverlands, and the Stormlands.
3A. The Starry Sept was built ~1000 years before the Conquest, and even in the most optimistic scenario, 1000 years passed between the Andal invasion and its construction. A millennium does not pass without seeing the Faith set up a religious bureaucracy, especially as centralized a religion as the Faith of the Seven. There would have been Septs across eastern Westeros that were ancient beyond living memory when Septon Robeson proclaimed himself the first High Septon, and if the history of Christianity is anything to go by, the Septons of the great septs of the Vale, the Riverlands, and the Stormlands would not have accepted Robeson’s authority meekly or quickly. And given the power relationships involved, why would the Kings of the Vale or the Riverlands have accepted that House Hightower should hold the preeminence?
In other words, where’s the equivalent of the Sees of Antioch or Alexandria? Why don’t we have regional heresies, like the Arians or the Monophysites?
RFTIT Tumblr Backup 