Just a backup in advance of the detumblring
I don’t think it’s a lack of foresight, I think it’s simply a case of being stuck between a rock and a hard place. Mance spent enough time accompanying Lord Commander Qorgyle to Winterfell to know the North fairly well, he knows the North is going to fight them.
But worst comes to worst, I think Mance thinks it’s better to die at human hands and stay dead than come back as zombies.
Yes, that’s kind of the point, to create a comedy scene where Gendry almost emulates his Targaryen ancestors.
If numbers were the only factor that mattered, wars wouldn’t be fought, you’d just compare army sizes and go home.
But more seriously, I would guess that Tywin would use the defenses of King’s Landing and the fords over the Blackwater as defensive multipliers, while using his reavers to try to cut Renly off from his supply lines. Because the thing about a giant army is that it requires an astonishing amount of resources otherwise it starts to starve to death.
I don’t think the horn is fake. Euron got it from the Warlocks of Qarth, so it’s probably legit.
I mean, more historical evidence GRRM is always good, but Aenys and Maegor is not exactly a period we’re lacking information about.
Honestly, I would trade Sons of the Dragon for a decent timeline of the Great Game, or anything that covered the Third Blackfyre Rebellion in better detail, in a heartbeat.
Sometimes I think about what if I got the opportunity to ask GRRM a question, but part of me is secretly glad I haven’t because I’d probably waste it on something literally no one else cares about.
“So Barba Bracken is totally named after Barbara Villiers, right, Mr. Martin?”
“Mr. Martin, when Gyldayn says that Criston Cole ‘unhorsed both of the celebrated Cargyll twins, Ser Arryk and Ser Erryk of the Kingsguard’ at Maidenpool, does he mean that only Erryk was on the Kingsguard in 104 AC, or both of them were, or neither of them were and Gyldayn is only referencing their future fame as Kingsguard?”
Yeah, I was thinking about how I would come off, and it would be a mix between this guy:
And some mad textbook editor who doesn’t care about any of the main characters and just wants to know what the legal status of the peasantry is, how the judicial system and the tax system works.
A good, if morbid, question!
It depended, both on who won the battle, what terms were agreed to, and what your status was, and of course by what period of history we’re talking about.
(Key image here is actually in the center margin, ignore Harold for a second.)
If we take the Battle of Hastings, as an example, the field was not cleared by anyone in particular: the victorious Normans and their camp followers stripped the dead of their arms and armor and left the bodies for the crows, which was pretty common until the 12th century. If you came from the area you were fighting in, maybe your family would look for you and try to bury you. Maybe you’d get lucky and some monks might consider it the Christian thing to do. But chances are you were crowfood.
By contrast, by the time you get to the later period of the Hundred Years War or the Wars of the Roses, mass graves (often with people being buried in their armor) become the normal post-battle practice – according to some scholars due to the Black Death convincing everyone that manhandling corpses or leaving them in the open air was a Bad Idea. And of course, status played a big role here: one of the reason why anyone with status brought camp followers with them was for them to retrieve your body and bring it back home, or at the very least arrange for it to be buried at a nearby church with some ceremony, as opposed to being dumped in the pit.
As to who did this, well, this is one of the reasons why armies marched with camp followers: large labor force who could be pressed into doing the messy business, and you could get around paying them by letting them loot the dead.
Hey fam, couple more interesting things to note from the infodump that brought us the news about Euron and Dragonbinder the other day, though neither really qualify as “news.” I don’t have the WOIAF app so I didn’t know this (many of y’all probably did!) but apparently it confirms that, yes, Robb legitimized Jon and named him his heir in his will. I addressed the theory that he changed his mind to Arya a li’l while back, and I know Preston Jacobs has the idea that it was actually Catelyn *rolls eyes so hard they spin off into the atmosphere* but yeah, this is canon. I’m still not quite sold on Jon as the next King in the North because Stannis is still right there, Ramsay doesn’t have Rickon in his power like in the show, and not only do the clans know Bran is alive, but they won’t be alone after he speaks to Stannis and Theon from the weirwood at the crofters’ village. But we shall see!
The other bit (and again, this is probably old news for those of y’all more studious than I am) is this quote from GRRM’s Notablog from 2007…
Ah, if only the Tyrion in the books could fly, what mischief he will… ah… could… ah, never mind.
…which leaves me more convinced than ever that Tyrion is indeed the third dragonrider for endgame alongside Dany and Jon.
TBH, I’m less interested in whether Jon ever becomes King in the North (looking at you, Season 6) than the way in which Robb’s will complicates the political storyline in the North by setting up a conflict between Wyman’s pro-Rickon faction (which may or may not be backed by Stannis, or at least by Davos representing Stannis, depending on when Stannis gets (heh) snowed-in to Winterfell), Sansa backed by the Vale, and then Jon Snow and (the Mormonts, Glovers, and whoever else witnessed Robb’s will).
Because unlike in Season 6, there are legitimate positives and negatives to all three candidates:
Hence plenty of room for machinations by the Northern lords and tensions between the re-uniting siblings that can be resolved for dramatic payoff.
It’s bothered me for a while that there is no centralized resource for all of the Houses sworn not to paramount Houses, but to the Houses themselves sworn to paramount Houses. So, I figured it was time to remedy that, with much help from @racefortheironthrone.
North
- House Ryswell: The Appendices for both AFFC and ADWD list Roger, Rickard, and Roose Ryswell as Lord Rodrik’s “quarrelsome cousins and bannermen” (though Theon in ADWD notes that Roger, Rickard, and Roose are Rodrik’s sons)
- House Manderly: Wyman Manderly tells Davos in ADWD that his “bannermen include a dozen petty lords and a hundred landed knights”
- Ramsgate and the Sheepshead Hills are definitely sworn to White Harbor, according to the app, but it’s unknown which families control them (though the Woolfields controlling one is a strong possibility, given the name of the family and the fact that a Woolfield is married to the current Manderly heir).
- It’s possible that the Lockes of Oldcastle and the Flints of Widow’s Watch are sworn to the Manderlys, as Wyman alleges he can deliver “all the lands east of the White Knife, from Widow’s Watch and Ramsgate to the Sheepshead Hills and the headwaters of the Broken Branch”. However, in all relevant appendices the Lockes and this branch of House Flint are listed as primary bannermen of Winterfell, rather than bannermen of the Manderlys; Wyman’s words may only be suggesting his ability to influence his lordly neighbors, rather than a true liege-vassal relationship.
- House Reed:
- House Blackmyre (“Reek II”, ADWD)
- House Boggs (“Reek II”, ADWD)
- House Cray (“Reek II”, ADWD)
- House Fenn (“Reek II”, ADWD)
- House Greengood (“Reek II”, ADWD)
- House Peat (“Reek II”, ADWD)
- House Quagg (“Reek II”, ADWD)
- House Glover:
- House Bole (“The King’s Prize”, ADWD)
- House Branch (“The King’s Prize”, ADWD)
- House Forrester (“The King’s Prize”, ADWD)
- House Woods (“The King’s Prize”, ADWD)
Vale
- House Royce:
- House Coldwater (AFFC Appendix)
- House Tollett (AFFC Appendix)
- House Shett of Gulltower (AFFC Appendix)
- House Corbray: in “Alayne II”, AFFC, Sansa thinks that “Corbray’s vassals” would be attending the wedding of Lord Lyonel and his Gulltown bride
- House Waynwood:
- House Hardyng (“Alayne II”, AFFC)
- House Sunderland:
- House Borrell (AFFC Appendix)
- House Longthorpe (AFFC Appendix)
- House Torrent (AFFC Appendix)
Riverlands
- House Vance of Wayfarer’s Rest:
- House Smallwood (“Arya IV”, ASOS)
- House Frey
- House Erenford (“Jaime VI”, AFFC)
- House Haigh (“Jaime VI”, AFFC)
- House Charlton (“Jaime VI”, AFFC)
- Harrenhal (presumably applicable for the duration of Harrenhal’s feudal holding)
- House Wode (“Jaime III”, AFFC)
- House Whent (formerly) (“The Riverlands: House Tully”, TWOIAF)
Westerlands
- House Reyne: TWOIAF notes that “Lord Reyne reportedly laughed when his maester read him Ser Tywin’s edicts and counseled his friends and vassals to do nothing”.
- House Tarbeck: TWOIAF notes that “[t]he Lannister host descended so quickly that Lord Walderan’s vassals and supporters had no time to gather”.
- House Farman
- House Clifton (“Jaime VIII”, AFFC)
Reach
- House Rowan
- House Osgrey (“The Sworn Sword”)
- House Webber (“The Sworn Sword”)
- House Tarly
- House Hunt (AFFC Appendix)
- House Hightower
- House Beesbury (AFFC Appendix)
- House Mullendore (AFFC Appendix)
- House Costayne (AFFC Appendix)
- House Bulwer (AFFC Appendix)
- House Cuy (AFFC Appendix)
- House Redwyne
- House Rhysling: speculative. “Rhysling” sounds not unlike “riesling”, which might be a clue that the Rhyslings are in the winemaking business – and the only spot for real winemaking in the Reach is the Arbor.
- House Cupps: speculative. Again, the name suggests a connection to the wine-drinking Arbor, and House Cupps being a vassal of the wealthy and powerful Redwynes might explain why the very powerful Leyton Hightower would allow his daughter Leyla to wed Ser Jon Cupps (especially as Leyla’s sister Denyse wed Ser Desmond Redwyne)
Dorne
- House Yronwood
- House Drinkwater: possibly if not probably. The app says that Gerris Drinkwater is a “knight sworn to Yronwood”, though this porbably only refers to Gerris being a household knight at Yronwood, as Gerris does not seem to be the head of House Drinkwater (since his twin sisters are called daughters, rather than sisters, of a landed knight). The House is not formally noted as a vassal of Yronwood in any Appendix, and only designated as a landed knightly House in the text, but in “The Spurned Suitor” Quentyn Martell thinks that he wants to “go back to Yronwood and kiss both of [Gerris Drinkwater’s] sisters”. This may suggest that the Drinkwater twins live on or near the Yronwood holdings, which would be sensible for daughters of an Yronwood bannerman.
- House Jordayne (formerly) (“Ancient History: Ten Thousand Ships”, TWOIAF)
- House Wyl (formerly) (“Ancient History: Ten Thousand Ships”, TWOIAF)
- It’s possible that the Blackmonts and Qorgyles were also at one time Yronwood bannermen; Yandel writes that Nymeria and Mors Martell “struggled against Yronwood and his bannermen (the Jordaynes of the Tor, the Wyls of the Stone Way, together with the Blackmonts, the Qorgyles, and many more)”.
- House Dayne of Starfall
- House Dayne of High Hermitage (AFFC Appendix)
Iron Islands
- House Harlaw
- House Volmark (AFFC Appendix)
- House Myre (AFFC Appendix)
- House Stonetree (AFFC Appendix)
- House Kenning of Harlaw (AFFC Appendix)
- House Harlaw of the Tower of Glimmering (“The Kraken’s Daughter”, AFFC)
- House Harlaw of Grey Garden (“The Kraken’s Daughter”, AFFC)
- House Harlaw of Harlaw Hall (“The Kraken’s Daughter”, AFFC)
- House Harlaw of Harridan Hall (“The Kraken’s Daughter”, AFFC)
Crownlands
- House Hayford
- House Hogg (“Jaime III”, AFFC)
^ Useful knowledge.
There is a mention of an alliance, but there’s also this:
“Yet in the end, even the Dreadfort fell before the might of Winterfell, and the last Red King, known to history as Rogar the Huntsman, swore fealty to the King of Winter and sent his sons to Winterfell as hostages, even as the first Andals were crossing the narrow sea in their longships.”
(Emphasis mine).
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