Theon is present during the acclamation ceremony, but isn’t explicitly mentioned as having knelt or pledged his sword. On the other hand, in Catelyn I of ACOK, he does refer to Robb publicly as “the king,” which is suggestive that he did.

Theon’s turncloak status refers to several things: first, he was foster kin to the Starks; second, he fought alongside Robb at the Whispering Woods and the Camps; third he probably did pledge himself personally to Robb at Riverrun.

However, that doesn’t make the Iron Islands part of Robb’s kingdom: unlike in Edmure’s case where he’s in a liminal position because Hoster is clearly on his deathbed but hasn’t died yet, Balon is very much alive and well (just dumb) and is somewhat iffy on Theon inheriting at all; moreover, the Riverlords also bent their knees to Robb, which the lords of the Iron Islands definitely did not.

Sometimes an invading culture assimilates those they conquer and sometimes they get assimilated, what would you say differentiates these circumstances?

Good question!

Historically, it seems to be a mix of two factors:

• Demographics would be a major one – in the case of an invasion that is also a mass migration, you’re more likely to become the dominant culture that people assimilate into than if you have the conquest of a region by a relatively small army. So for example, the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain had a way bigger influence on the culture going forward than say, the less numerous Danes. 
• Policy is another factor – in some cases, invaders actively sought to force their new subjects to assimilate into the invader’s culture, and in other cases the invaders eagerly adopted the culture of the conquered. The Goths who sacked Rome learned to speak Latin, wore togas, kept the Senate around, all of which puts a different light on Justinian’s reconquest. Likewise, the Norman Kings of Sicily really quickly assimilated into the mixed Byzantine/Arab culture – if for no other reason than silks are a lot more comfortable in the Med than heavy furs…

But then again, you can also find historical counter-examples: the Normans who invaded England in 1066 were a numerical minority, especially in comparison to the Anglo-Saxon invasion, but they still had a tremendous impact on the culture and the language, even if they did later assimilate.

opinions-about-tiaras:

racefortheironthrone:

When Robb was alive and after Hoster died, Edmure remained Lord Paramount – but had knelt to acclaim Robb as king after the Battle of the Camps along with the rest of the Riverlords. 

The Lord Paramountcy of the Riverlands seems… hmm.

It seems to be less recognized as “legitimate” by a lot of people and especially by the throne compared to the other Lords Paramount. Or at least as something they’re more capable of fucking around with than other Lords Paramount.

Like… the Lannister regime had no trouble whatsoever taking the position away from the Tully’s and handing it to Petyr Baelish, who isn’t even a Riverlander, of all people.

But with the North, they didn’t just declare “the Starks are out, the Boltons in, they’re your Lord Paramount now.” Roose Bolton was declared Warden, but the Starks, theoretically, retain their right to Winterfell and their Lord Paramountcy; its why you need the fiction that Ramsay is marrying Arya, to establish their legitimacy. The Lannister regime also doesn’t appear to be in a big hurry to declare a new Lord Paramount of the Stormlands as well.

I suppose it might have something to do with the fact that all the other Lord Paramounts either come from the lines of kings or (in the case of the Tyrells) are easily able to cloak themselves in the mantle of thousands of years of royal authority. Whereas the Tullys never ruled aught but Riverrun until the Targaryens elevated them, and their control over the Riverlands has always seemed to be more tenuous than that of the other Lords Paramount.

Well, keep in mind that the reason Roose Bolton wasn’t immediately declared Lord Paramount is that Tywin had intended to let Roose Bolton wear himself out fighting the Ironborn and the wildlings, and then get rid of him when he was no longer necessary, to prevent him from challenging Tyrion and Tyrion’s son’s claim to Winterfell and the North. Attainting the Starks wholesale would have rendered Sansa’s hand in marriage worthless, and since the Lannisters had no other way to claim the North, they had to preserve the Starks as rightful heirs. 

As for the Stormlands, I think the reason they didn’t declare a new Lord Paramount is that, with Renly dead and Stannis attainted, the Stormlands belonged to Joffrey and then to Tommen as far as King’s Landing was concerned – as the Lannisters don’t seem to give a damn about the customary taboo against holding two great seats at one time. 

But it is true, the Tullys are the weakest of the Lords Paramount.  

When Robb was alive and after Hoster died, Edmure remained Lord Paramount – but had knelt to acclaim Robb as king after the Battle of the Camps along with the rest of the Riverlords. 

Well, Cregan is an example of how it’s not unique….

The Northern mountain clans (although I usually refer to them as hill clans because that’s how GRRM introduced them in ADWD, and it more clearly separates them from the mountain clans of the Vale) include the First Flints, Wulls, Liddles, Harclays, Norreys, Burleys, and Knotts that we know of, and about 33 that we don’t know of. 

I don’t know how accurate is to call them lowly. They’re “petty lords” in the sense that individually, each clan doesn’t have much land or men (3,000 divided by 40 gives you 75 men each, although there’s bound to be some rather complex sub-infeudation as there was in the clan structures of the Scottish Highlands). As a result, they’re not the principal houses of the North – although the Flints might be, the Appendix isn’t clear on which Flints are counted among the principals. But between the fact that they have to be personally asked for their military service and their customary right to shelter in Wintertown, I would say they’re honored rather highly. 

It’s a great movie, one of my favorites, even if it’s a pain in the ass to figure out which cut doesn’t have the damn voiceover. 

I’m a fan – read a lot of William Gibson when I was a young’un, played/read quite a bit of Shadowrun, Snow Crash and the Diamond Age were faves, I loved Windup Girl, and then moved on from them to read a lot of steampunk. Watched a lot of cyberpunk movies back in the day (the original Ghost in the Shell, the Matrix, even saw Johnny Mnemonic for reasons I don’t understand).

At the same time, I think cyberpunk is very tied to its origins in the 90s, certain assumptions about the way it thought tech and society were going to go, and so as with grimdark, there’s a need for a post-cyberpunk that does a bit of a rethink of some of those ideas/themes/attitudes.

Here’s a good start, but I’ve mentioned a bunch of stuff in my Politics of the Seven Kingdoms series.