knightsinquisitor:

racefortheironthrone:

knightsinquisitor:

racefortheironthrone:

Well, the Great Game is the term I use to describe “that long epoch between the assimilation of the Andals and the coming of the dragons” when the “Kings of the Reach
warred constantly with their neighbors in a perpetual struggle for land, power,
and glory. The Kings of the Rock, the Storm Kings, the many quarrelsome kings
of Dorne, and the Kings of the Rivers and Hills could all be counted amongst
their foes (and ofttimes amongst their allies as well.)”

In terms of what the countries wanted, the prize of the Great Game was the conquest of all of southern Westeros, or at least as much of southern Westeros as possible in the hopes of becoming a continental hegemon that could overawe those parts of Westeros it couldn’t conquer outright.

No one quite succeeded in that ambition, although many tried, in no small part because one of the rules of the Great Game is that the moment anyone looked to be winning, everyone else would gang up against them. Hence when the Reach had conquered all of the Stormlands save for Storm’s End itself, “the King of the Rock swept down upon the Reach in his absence, forcing him to lift his siege and hurry home to deal with the westermen. The broader war that followed involved three Dornish kings and two from the riverlands.” Likewise, when Arlan III conquered the Riverlands, “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,” and eventually the Ironborn took it off them. And just before Aegon landed, it looked like Harren the Black might be the next up for the dogpile. 

The somewhat annoying thing about the Great Game, as I was just discussing with @goodqueenaly, is that we don’t have enough information from the sources to chart the whole 5,000 year period: we have a good bit of info about the early Great Game (from the Andal Conquest to the time of Lancel IV, Gyles III, and Torrence Teague), and we have a good bit of info about the late Great Game (from the time of Arlan III to Aegon’s Conquest), but the middle is very vague. 

I call it “The Age of the Hundred Kingdoms”, but check out what I wrote up on A Wiki of Ice and Fire for that; there’s some debate regarding whether:1 – It’s the official term for the era between the Andal Invasion of 6,000-4,000 (ending with the Iron Islands), and thus stretches across around 4,000 years of history, or…2 – It’s a general term for “anything before the Targaryen Conquest, even before the Andal Invasion”.  Parts of the World book and GRRM comments imply the former, others cite references to the latter.  

So I read the article. Very useful!

The “Age of A Hundred Kingdoms” part is a bit tricky, because some of the Seven Kingdoms had already begun (or even completed) the process of national unification before the arrival of the Andals: the North was a unified kingdom, the Riverlands and the Rock were partially unified, the Vale wasn’t, the Reach was, the Iron Islands were, Dorne wasn’t, the Stormlands were (mostly).

I do have a quibble about the timing of the War Across the Water/Worthless War. If the War was begun during the reign of Theon Stark, who “later in his blood-drenched reign, he himself conquered the Three Sisters and landed an army on the Fingers, but these conquests did not long endure,” it couldn’t have started ~2000 BC since Theon was a contemporary of the beginning of the Andal Invasions, unless you take the extreme short estimate. 

Well, Yandel briefly touches on this once:  were the ancient Andals “kings” the way “king” later meant absolute monarch?  Like “Erreg”?  Because the “Kings of Winter” of the pre-Andal Starks were more of a ….loose hegemony.  Only later did they strengthen their grip and call themselves “King in the North”.

I mean, the real-life example I point to is ancient Ireland.  With all of its numerous “Kings”, but then “High Kings” who were more of a “ringleader”.OR….you could deal with the fact that Elio & Linda flat out said that when GRRM wrote the regional histories he wasn’t paying too close attention to chronologies, and the Iron Islands in particular is a bit messy. 

Ultimately, records from that era are sketchy at best. 

Depends on which kingdom you’re talking about, but the Starks had conquered all of their rivals in the North before the Andals arrived, so I’d say that counts. Likewise, Garth Goldenhand is clearly a king in full command of the power and might of the Reach and he comes before the Andals. The Lannisters are a bit less well-established, but they still hold half the Westerlands.

But the Mudds, the Royces, not so much. 

opinions-about-tiaras:

racefortheironthrone:

Davos arrived a year into the siege, so it must have been towards the end of the war. 

You know, I want to know the story of how he got that job. I want to know it so bad.

Because someone had to actually track down a badass smuggler, which if they could do reliably you’d think he’d have already been in gaol, and then they had to make it worth his while to sneak past the entire frickin’ Redwyne fleet, which is a MUCH DIFFERENT proposition than dodging customs patrols and maybe bribing some inspectors. Did they threaten him? Or just promise him the knighthood and wealth that he eventually received and Davos was thinking “I’m married and have kids now, I need to think about my future” and was like “okay deal.”

I just love the idea of Jon Arryn reluctantly sending a bird to his less-than-couth Gulltown Arryn cousins and being all “we need a someone to sneak into Storm’s End, you guys run the biggest port in the Vale, who can you find for me?” and them being all “Well, nobody legitimate. Legitimate merchant captains aren’t in the habit of running blockades. We’ll need a smuggler.” And Jon is like “UGH FINE whatever, make any deals with some douchebag who brags about how he makes the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs you have to, just get them onions to Stannis” and it turns out Davos is just in the right place at the right time to get dragooned.

It wasn’t a hired job; Davos had a load of onions and whatnot and decided to break the siege to get a better deal. 

Davos arrived a year into the siege, so it must have been towards the end of the war. 

knightsinquisitor:

racefortheironthrone:

Well, the Great Game is the term I use to describe “that long epoch between the assimilation of the Andals and the coming of the dragons” when the “Kings of the Reach
warred constantly with their neighbors in a perpetual struggle for land, power,
and glory. The Kings of the Rock, the Storm Kings, the many quarrelsome kings
of Dorne, and the Kings of the Rivers and Hills could all be counted amongst
their foes (and ofttimes amongst their allies as well.)”

In terms of what the countries wanted, the prize of the Great Game was the conquest of all of southern Westeros, or at least as much of southern Westeros as possible in the hopes of becoming a continental hegemon that could overawe those parts of Westeros it couldn’t conquer outright.

No one quite succeeded in that ambition, although many tried, in no small part because one of the rules of the Great Game is that the moment anyone looked to be winning, everyone else would gang up against them. Hence when the Reach had conquered all of the Stormlands save for Storm’s End itself, “the King of the Rock swept down upon the Reach in his absence, forcing him to lift his siege and hurry home to deal with the westermen. The broader war that followed involved three Dornish kings and two from the riverlands.” Likewise, when Arlan III conquered the Riverlands, “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,” and eventually the Ironborn took it off them. And just before Aegon landed, it looked like Harren the Black might be the next up for the dogpile. 

The somewhat annoying thing about the Great Game, as I was just discussing with @goodqueenaly, is that we don’t have enough information from the sources to chart the whole 5,000 year period: we have a good bit of info about the early Great Game (from the Andal Conquest to the time of Lancel IV, Gyles III, and Torrence Teague), and we have a good bit of info about the late Great Game (from the time of Arlan III to Aegon’s Conquest), but the middle is very vague. 

I call it “The Age of the Hundred Kingdoms”, but check out what I wrote up on A Wiki of Ice and Fire for that; there’s some debate regarding whether:1 – It’s the official term for the era between the Andal Invasion of 6,000-4,000 (ending with the Iron Islands), and thus stretches across around 4,000 years of history, or…2 – It’s a general term for “anything before the Targaryen Conquest, even before the Andal Invasion”.  Parts of the World book and GRRM comments imply the former, others cite references to the latter.  

So I read the article. Very useful!

The “Age of A Hundred Kingdoms” part is a bit tricky, because some of the Seven Kingdoms had already begun (or even completed) the process of national unification before the arrival of the Andals: the North was a unified kingdom, the Riverlands and the Rock were partially unified, the Vale wasn’t, the Reach was, the Iron Islands were, Dorne wasn’t, the Stormlands were (mostly).

I do have a quibble about the timing of the War Across the Water/Worthless War. If the War was begun during the reign of Theon Stark, who “later in his blood-drenched reign, he himself conquered the Three Sisters and landed an army on the Fingers, but these conquests did not long endure,” it couldn’t have started ~2000 BC since Theon was a contemporary of the beginning of the Andal Invasions, unless you take the extreme short estimate. 

unsungvaliance:

poorquentyn:

racefortheironthrone:

So I haven’t checked in on the WOIAF app for a while, but I came across a r/asoiaf post that rounded up some stuff. This quote grabbed my eye especially:

“The warlocks under Pyat Pree attempt to pursue and avenge themselves on Daenerys, but their ship is taken by Euron Greyjoy, who seizes their alleged dragon-binding horn from Valyria and takes them as slaves.” 

So the dragon horn belonged to Pyat Pree! Makes sense, I guess that they would try to use it to revenge themselves on Dany. 

Does this mean that Euron-the-liar is potentially back on? @poorquentyn, your thoughts?

Woah! This is a big deal!!!

On the one hand, yeah, that definitely makes Euron’s claim much shakier. On the other, he does have the Valyrian steel armor, and we hadn’t even heard about anything like that before. I also still believe him when he says he had a dragon egg at one point, because that fits so well as his payment to the FM for Balon’s death (right down to the poetic license of saying he tossed it into the sea, given what happened to Balon). 

So the question becomes, if he never went to Valyria, where did he get his other artifacts? There are of course many possibilities across Essos, but one candidate which would fit Euron’s character and speak to a similar mad reckless ambition on his part leaps to my mind: 

“What are they?” she asked, her voice hushed and full of wonder.

“Dragon’s eggs, from the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai,” said Magister Illyrio.

Despite its forbidding aspects, Asshai-by-the-Shadow has for many centuries been a thriving port, where ships from all over the known world come to trade, crossing vast and stormy seas.

The ships come nonetheless. For gold, for gems, and for other treasures, for certain things spoken of only in whispers, things that cannot be found anywhere upon the earth save in the black bazaars of Asshai.

The dark city by the Shadow is a city steeped in sorcery. Warlocks, wizards, alchemists, moonsingers, red priests, black alchemists, necromancers, aeromancers, pyromancers, bloodmages, torturers, inquisitors, poisoners, godswives, night-walkers [remember Urrathon Night-Walker, argued by many to be an alias of Euron’s?] shapechangers [of which Euron is probably one, given Bloodraven’s interest in him], worshippers of the Black Goat and the Pale Child and the Lion of Night, all find welcome in Asshai-by-the-Shadow, where nothing is forbidden. Here they are free to practice their spells without restraint or censure, conduct their obscene rites, and fornicate with demons if that is their desire.

I saw this the other day on the Wiki of Ice and Fire and didn’t think anything of it… One part AFFC section reads:

According to a semi-canon source, he captured and holds hostage four warlocks of Qarth, including Pyat Pree, and seizes their dragon horn.

I cocked my head to the side thinking, “Wait, that’s not right. Huh.” and moved on. Honestly, I wonder if it’s a mistake. It doesn’t make a ton of sense to me that he seizes Dragonbinder from the warlocks, simply because if they had Dragonbinder in their possession, why didn’t they simply use the horn to take control of the dragons when she arrived in Qarth with them? Why send her through the House of the Undying? Or, why not immediately use it once she emerges with Drogon having killed the Undying Ones? It doesn’t make a lot of sense within the context of the story to me. 

I can think of a couple reasons:

1. Dragonbinder kills people, they might not have wanted to draw straws to die. 
2. The warlocks in the HOTU clearly wanted Dany’s life essence as well as her dragons. If they steal one or more of her dragons, no way is Dany drinking the shade of the evening willingly.
3. Ego. The mental whammy of the HOTU has clearly worked on everyone else who’s ever come by, so they’re pretty sure it’ll work on her.
4. When Dany emerges, the House is on very real fire. I imagine they’d have to wait for the fire to be put out at the very least to go rooting around for artifacts. 

I think with immediate effect, since Robb was very much aware that he could die in any upcoming battle. 

Also, apparently the WOIAF app says as much?

Because A. as far as we know, the North was not involved in the Great Game, and B. after the Andals battered themselves stupid on Moat Cailin, everyone else seems to have stopped trying.