Someone correct me if I’m out of line here… but based on the history outlined in WOIAF, I can’t help but think of the Riverlander nobility as shockingly ungrateful towards the Durrandons?
It’s like… Arlan didn’t have to come save their asses from the Teagues, who they all hated. And when he was done with that, he could have simply gone home rather than deal with his responsibilities towards the failed state he created. He even offered the Riverlanders one of their own to rule them, and they turned him down flat because she had lady-parts and they couldn’t be having that. So he just went “fuck it, all y’all are sworn to Storm’s End now.”
And there’s no evidence that either him or his heirs were particular repressive, tyrannical, or incompetent rulers. They merely demanded that the Riverlanders see to the common defense of their shared realm, which is literally your bare minimum of obligation to your ruler in a feudal system. And this demand was seen as so onerous by the Riverlanders that they rose in rebellion time and time again rather than fulfill it!
It isn’t even that the Riverlanders were strongly committed to not being ruled by an outsider; plenty of them were more than willing to declare for Harwyn Hoare and then a century and a half later for Aegon Targaryen and then three hundred years after that for Robb Stark. But they seemed uniquely pissed off at the Durrandons for no better reason than that they were Durrandons. Why? What the hell was going on there?
Uh, the Teagues weren’t universally hated…that was the issue. Arlan III Durrandon didn’t come to “save their asses from the Teagues,” he intervened in a civil war in which there were partisans on both sides: the Blackwoods, the Tullys, and the Vances on one side, and the Brackens, Darrys, and Teagues on the other. As I said in my essay, the Riverlands were likely split on religious, regional, and partisan affinities.
So the Teague loyalists who fought at the Battle of Six Kings were unlikely to forgive or forget. Thus Shiera Blackwood wasn’t just rejected because she was a woman, it also didn’t help that she was married to Arlan III’s son, or that (in the minds of these lords) her father had been a rebel and a traitor who had invited foreign invaders into the kingdom. And then Arlan III just decides to “add the riverlands to his own domains” – he didn’t get his loyalists to acclaim him King, he didn’t even claim the crown by force of arms, he just outright abolished the Riverlands as a kingdom and announced it had been annexed by a foreign kingdom, which offended the pride of all Riverlords.
Thus, the Durrandons lacked legitimacy in the eyes of the majority of the Riverlands’ political class – as we can see from the fact that “a dozen pretenders from as many houses” rose up against them, often pointedly taking on monikers of Riverlander nationalism that harkened back to the Justmans, the Mudds, the Fishers, etc.
he just outright abolished the Riverlands as a kingdom and announced it
had been annexed by a foreign kingdom, which offended the pride of all
Riverlords.You mean the same Riverlords who were perfectly happy to be annexed by the Targaryens, the Starks, and the Hoares?
And yes, I count the Hoares in there. The Bracken theory, which is solid, notwithstanding, I would submit that any Riverlord who declared for Harwyn Hardhand and didn’t affirmatively know he was exchanging the Durrandon’s for the Hoare’s was too big an idiot to be allowed to lace up his own breeches. They knew what they were doing and were happy to do it, as they were with Aegon and Robb Stark. Why do only the Durrandons get resented for it?
That’s not accurate: the Harwyns claimed the crown by right of conquest, and both the Targaryens and the Starks were acclaimed. They participated in the political process as people understood it, and gained legitimacy thereby.
The Durrandons didn’t play by the rules, and were resented for that.
I guess I don’t see how what the Durrandons did DOESN’T count as right of conquest with some acclamation thrown in as well. I mean, didn’t his entire justification for both having the power to offer the Riverlanders a Queen in the first place, and then to declare himself their King when they refused, stem from “I militarily conquered this place with a big army of Stormlanders and some Riverland allies, so now I’m in charge and you’re part of my kingdom.” How is that not basically what Harwyn did, subbing in Ironborn for Stormlanders?
I mean, admittedly, the Hoares were also roundly hated… but the Hoares were active agents of misrule.
Well, it could have done…but the thing about medieval politics, being all about the body and symbolism and ceremony, require relatively straightforward statements. If Arlan III had marched in with his men and grabbed the crown, placed it on his head, sat on the throne and dared anyone to disagree, that would be one statement. If he had gathered the Blackwoods and their supporters together and had them offer him the crown, that would be another. But while Arlan III could have done these things, he didn’t.
Here’s what Harwyn did differently: he claimed the kingship of the Riverlands by right of arms, and then demanded fealty be done at pain of fire and sword. There’s a significant symbolic difference between that and annexation.
Interesting. So the case against Arlan is basically symbolic rather than substantive; that he didn’t follow the appropriate diplomatic forms (acclamation) nor the appropriate warrior caste forms (”Come on and have a go if you think you’re hard enough”) in the wake of his conquest, and this upset the Riverlords enough to provoke revolt after revolt after revolt against him and his heirs despite the Durrandons not really ruling badly.
This would seem to buttress my initial point of “shocking ingratitude” rather than undercut it. The Riverlords decided to spill a lot of blood and weaken the large and powerful kingdom they were part of, that was willing to protect and defend them, and dramatically weaken their own positions because… the proper forms weren’t exactly met?
That’s entirely understandable. Westerosi (and real life) nobility have done MORE idiotic things. But man, it doesn’t make them look good.
There is substance to symbolism, I would argue. Arlan III made a big damn statement: I am the enemy of your nationhood, you are now second-class citizens of my empire, I will rule you without any reciprocal obligations whatsoever.
In that situation, if you think of yourself as a Riverlander, yeah you’re going to want to fight back against that kind of oppression. But I gotta push back on something: it’s not like there weren’t material costs to the Stormland empire for the people of the Riverlands. After Arlan III, the Stormlands got the same crab-bucket treatment as everyone else in the Great Game:
“the Dornish came swarming over the Boneway to press them in the south, and the Kings of the Reach sent their knights forth from Highgarden to reclaim all that had been lost in the west.“
Plus, I’m sure the Lannisters and the Arryns weren’t about to sit idly by and let the Durrandons become continental hegemons. The point is, all of this takes levies and taxes…and while you see it as the “common defense of their shared realm,” the Riverlanders would respond that:
- we didn’t consent to become part of the Stormlander realm.
- why should the Riverlands pay blood and treasure to keep the stag flying over the Boneway or the headwaters of the Mander?
Should we call that idiotic? I dunno, I’m not really comfortable issuing blanket condemnations of people wanting to rule themselves and not be ruled by a foreigner on the grounds that the foreign administration wasn’t horribly incompetent. There are issues of legitimacy that go behind administrative savoir-faire, as the medieval Scots and Welsh and Irish would point out.
Arlan III made a big damn statement: I am the enemy of your nationhood,
you are now second-class citizens of my empire, I will rule you without
any reciprocal obligations whatsoever.Whoa whoa whoa, back up. What proof do we have that Arlan did any of that? That he didn’t intend to, or did not, treat his Riverlands vassals as having lesser worth and lesser rights than his Stormlands vassals, and that he had no intention of upholding his own obligations as their feudal overlord?
I dunno, I’m not really comfortable issuing blanket condemnations of
people wanting to rule themselves and not be ruled by a foreigner on the
grounds that the foreign administration wasn’t horribly incompetent.Oh, neither am I! But what I’m saying is, in other circumstances the Riverlords were perfectly content, eager even, to be ruled by foreigners, and were not at all restive without a secondary aggravating factor like active misrule, and that the circumstances in which at least some of those foreigners came to power over them are not, substantially, different from how the Durrandons did.
Which means there’s another factor somewhere that aggravated them. Now, your explanation that it is because Arlan didn’t leverage the proper symbolism is a good one, but it doesn’t exactly make the Riverlords really look all that good. It’s all very well to be for home rule and against oppression… unless you’re being hypocritical about it for not-very-strong reasons.
Whoa whoa whoa, back up. What proof do we have that Arlan did any of that? That he didn’t intend to, or did not, treat his Riverlands vassals as having lesser worth and lesser rights than his Stormlands vassals, and that he had no intention of upholding his own obligations as their feudal overlord?
The proof is in “His Grace decided to add the riverlands to his own domains.” By not seeking acclamation from the Riverlands, Arlan III made the Riverlands secondary to the Stormlands, who would have acclaimed him when he became Storm King. One group of lords gets to consent to being ruled in a ceremony that includes reciprocal vows of protection and support, one doesn’t.
Here’s the thing tho: in the case of Arrec, there weren’t a lot of Riverlanders who were eager to have him back – maybe the Blackwoods, given their blood ties, although they would have been licking their wounds from their massacre at Blackwood Hall, and maybe the Tullys (although they were far too practical to throw good money after bad) – and a lot of Riverlanders who had participated in overthrowing him (the Brackens, the Charltons, and twenty other houses) who would have been facing treason trials if he ever retook the Riverlands.
As for Arlan V, it’s probably a case of better the devil you know – Harwyn was a hard man when it came to tribute and homage, but if you kept out of his line of march, he generally let you alone (”their ironborn overlords had largely ignored such conflicts amongst their vassals”) – than the devil you don’t. After all, the memories of Durrandon tyranny were still fresh, and the worst of Ironborn tyranny had yet to come…
Simply put, in the Riverlands, Durrandon was not a name a name to conjur with.
But what I’m saying is, in other circumstances the Riverlords were perfectly content, eager even, to be ruled by foreigners, and were not at all restive without a secondary aggravating factor like active misrule, and that the circumstances in which at least some of those foreigners came to power over them are not, substantially, different from how the Durrandons did.
Which means there’s another factor somewhere that aggravated them. Now, your explanation that it is because Arlan didn’t leverage the proper symbolism is a good one, but it doesn’t exactly make the Riverlords really look all that good. It’s all very well to be for home rule and against oppression… unless you’re being hypocritical about it for not-very-strong reasons.
Right, but the difference is that in both of the cases you’re citing, the Riverlanders consented: Aegon was acclaimed King, Robb was acclaimed King. And consent really matters.
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