Follow-ups on the hill clans: (1) Short of war and annihilation, what could the Vale lords do to integrate the clans? (2) Where else should/might there be clans in Westeros? The Westerlands, the Red Mountains, the larger Southern forests? (3) Given that there is so little Andal-First Men division elsewhere, why do you think GRRM chose the Vale to highlight that split?

1. Probably the Byzantine strategy of evangelizing (both religious and cultural), bribery and divide and rule, mercenary work, and military conquest comes closest, but it’s still more of a delaying tactic, and was never that successful. 

2. Well, you’ve got the crannogmen who come close. But the reason why you don’t get them elsewhere is how those regions dealt with invasions – the Riverlands and Iron Islands got overrun way too fast with nowhere to run, the Westerlands, Reach, and Stormlands were strong enough to pull off something close to a Byzantine strategy where they combined intermarriage, conversion, military victory, and land distribution to integrate the Andals into the First Men power structure, and in Dorne, the combination of intermarriage and greater localism meant that First Men power structures survived in the west.

3. Because GRRM wanted mountain barbarians to threaten Cat and Tyrion, and then had to figure out where they came from, way back when his worldbuilding was still in flux.