Welcome to House Words Wednesdays! Each week, I take a House without known canon or semi-canon words and present what I think could make sense as that House’s motto. You’re free to suggest more as well, if your favored House has not yet been suggested; take a look at this link to see what has already been suggested, and shoot me an ask if you have another House you’d like to see done.
We’ve done it! We’ve made it to A HUNDRED HOUSES FOR HOUSE WORDS WEDNESDAYS!
If you told me when I started this project that not only would I still be doing it almost two years later, but that I had over a hundred Houses scheduled, I would never have believed you. For all I thought this would be a few-week experiment, I’m so grateful that I’ve been able to do this for so long and that people have actually enjoyed it.
Being that I schedule these Houses as I get them, House 100 for HWW ended up being House Hunter of Longbow Hall – not exactly the most epically important of all Westerosi families, but a schedule is a schedule. House Hunter is a noble House of the Vale, one of the principal Houses sworn to the Arryns of the Eyrie, The Hunters are old First Men of the Vale, an established power by the time the first Andals arrived in Westeros (though House Hunter seems to have been a lordly, rather than a royal, House by the time of the Andal Invasion). Being First Men, the Hunters resisted the Andal takeover, eventually siding with King Robar II Royce in a unified First Men alliance against Artys Arryn’s forces. Legend has it that young Robar won the allegiance of Lord Hunter by outshooting him in an archery contest – a neat show of strength, given that the Hunter sigil is a fan of five silver arrows on brown – though legend equally claims King Robar cheated. Unfortunately, the Hunters were defeated alongside King Robar at the Battle of the Seven Stars, and though their line endured (Teora Hunter even being married to one of the first Arryn kings), they would always be bannermen to the falcons of the Eyrie.
The Hunters have not been ignored in the modern narrative either. Old Lord Eon Hunter attended the great Tourney of Harrenhal with his liege lord Jon Arryn, and paid court to Lady Lysa after Jon’s death, even offering to champion her in Tyrion’s trial by combat. Unfortunately, Lord Eon died sometime into ASOS, so suddenly that his younger sons accused the new Lord Gilwood of arranging his murder. According to Littlefinger, however, it was actually youngest son Harlan who orchestrated his father’s death; Littlefinger confidently predicts Harlan will have Gilwood murdered within the year, and thus writes off “Young Lord Hunter” as a non-issue among the Lords Declarant. (Interestingly, the current maester at Longbow Hall is Willamen, formerly Willamen Frey – the son of Lord Walder and Bethany Rosby, and brother to Stark-loyalist Olyvar and Lady Roslin Tully.)
For Hunter words, I took inspiration from Diane de Poitiers, all-powerful mistress of King Henry II of France. Diane shared her name with the Roman goddess of the hunt, and liked to emphasize this connection: she once posed for a statue as the goddess with a stag beside her and a bow in her hand, and she decorated the Château d’Anet (a gift from Henry) with the device of an arrow and the motto Consequitur quodcunque petit, “She attains whatever she seeks”. Thus, my Hunter words are Sought and Attained. It seemed fitting for a family which so prizes skill with the bow – advertising it on its sigil and only bowing to Robar (allegedly) after he demonstrated his excellence in that art – that its motto should focus on hitting whatever mark a Hunter seeks. I also liked these words for the way they reflect young Harlan Hunter’s ambitions toward the rule of Longbow Hall. Littlefinger jokes that Harlan is “in for a penny, in for a stag”, having murdered Lord Eon; Harlan has sought mastership of House Hunter and looks on the path to attaining it, no matter how many of his kin he has to kill to get it.
Let me know what you think for this hundredth House’s words. Next week is another H-named Vale House.
You know, if they have to bring back original flavor Logan, it would be pretty hilarious if the X-Men track him down and he’s Magic Mike-ing it up in some roadside strip club and having the time of his life.
I think the answer is to look at where and how the North has defeated the Ironborn on land:
It was too late for that now, however. Theon had no choice but to lead Asha to Ned Stark’s solar. There, before the ashes of a dead fire, he blurted, “Dagmer’s lost the fight at Torrhen’s Square—” “The old castellan broke his shield wall, yes,” Asha said calmly. “What did you expect? This Ser Rodrik knows the land intimately, as the Cleftjaw does not, and many of the northmen were mounted. The ironborn lack the discipline to stand a charge of armored horse. Dagmer lives, be grateful for that much. He’s leading the survivors back toward the Stony Shore.”
The sea was closer, only five leagues north, but Asha could not see it. Too many hills stood in the way. And trees, so many trees. The wolfswood, the northmen named the forest. Most nights you could hear the wolves, calling to each other through the dark. An ocean of leaves. Would it were an ocean of water. Deepwood might be closer to the sea than Winterfell, but it was still too far for her taste.
If it were me, I would take the strand and put our longships to the torch before attacking Deepwood…
“My queen,” said Tristifer, “here we have the walls, but if we reach the sea and find that the wolves have taken our ships or driven them away …” “… we die,“
Something flew from the brush to land with a soft thump in their midst, bumping and bouncing. It was round and dark and wet, with long hair that whipped about it as it rolled. When it came to rest amongst the roots of an oak, Grimtongue said, "Rolfe the Dwarf’s not so tall as he once was.” Half her men were on their feet by then, reaching for shields and spears and axes. They lit no torches either, Asha had time enough to think, and they know these woods better than we ever could. Then the trees erupted all around them, and the northmen poured in howling. Wolves, she thought, they howl like bloody wolves. The war cry of the north. Her ironborn screamed back at them, and the fight began.
And we had other help, unexpected but most welcome, from a daughter of Bear Island. Alysane Mormont, whose men name her the She-Bear, hid fighters inside a gaggle of fishing sloops and took the ironmen unawares where they lay off the strand. Greyjoy’s longships are burned or taken, her crews slain or surrendered…
The Ryswells and the Dustins had surprised the ironmen on the Fever River and put their longships to the torch….
Harren died at Moat Cailin. One of the bog devils shot him with a poisoned arrow…
In Moat Cailin he had taken to wearing mail day and night. Sore shoulders and an aching back were easier to bear than bloody bowels. The poisoned arrows of the bog devils need only scratch a man, and a few hours later he would be squirting and screaming as his life ran down his legs in gouts of red and brown.
Behind him were the camps, crowded with Dreadfort men and those the Ryswells had brought from the Rills, with the Barrowton host between them. South of Moat Cailin, another army was coming up the causeway, an army of Boltons and Freys marching beneath the banners of the Dreadfort. East of the road lay a bleak and barren shore and a cold salt sea, to the west the swamps and bogs of the Neck, infested with serpents, lizard lions, and bog devils with their poisoned arrows.
While the Ironborn are stronger at sea, the North is stronger on land, and the problem for the Ironborn is that the North is nothing but land. The Ironborn don’t have the numbers to occupy the North, and their soldiers don’t have the training or equipment needed to fight the greenlander way.
If it I was giving strategic advice, I would tell the Northmen to surrender the coasts after carrying off everything edible and burning the rest, retreat into the interior, let the Ironborn spread themselves thin by trying to occupy the North.
Then once the Ironborn are over-extended and as far from the sea as can be arranged, ambush their patrols and attack any force on the march, besiege every castle and starve them out, burn their ships and cut them off from the sea.
“Archmaester Matthar’s The Origins of the Iron Bank and Braavos provides one of the more detailed accounts of the bank’s history and dealings, so far as they can be discovered; the bank is famous for its discretion and its secrecy. Matthar recounts that the founders of the Iron Bank numbered three-and-twenty; sixteen men and seven women, each of whom possessed a key to bank’s great subterranean vaults. Their descendants, whose numbers now exceed one thousand, are known as keyholders to this day, though the keys they display proudly on formal occasions are now entirely ceremonial. Certain of the founding families of Braavos have declined over the centuries, and a few have lost their wealth entirely, yet even the meanest still cling to their keys and the honors that go with them.
The Iron Bank is not ruled by the keyholders alone, however. Some of the wealthiest and most powerful families in Braavos today are of more recent vintage, yet the heads of these houses own shares in the bank, sit on its secret councils, and have a voice in selecting the men who lead it. In Braavos, as many an outsider has observed, golden coins count for more than iron keys.”
In the first place, the extinction of family lines doesn’t seem to be a problem, given their 43-fold growth. In the second place, to the extent that it’s a problem it’s been solved by allowing the wealthy and powerful to buy shares of the bank’s stock, and thus becoming voting members.
He might have been willing, if he could have been assured that the Riverlands would not be treated poorly, which depends greatly on who the king was. If it’s Stannis or Renly, he might go along with it as long as there are amnesties and the like to ensure his former bannermen and current kinsmen are not mistreated. If it’s the Lannisters, unless it’s literally a matter of life and death, I don’t think he would go along with it.
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