Author: stevenattewell

When Robb presents his terms to Cleos, he declares all the Stark Lands as well as “all the lands watered by the River Trident from the Golden Tooth to the Mountains of the Moon” as part of his new kingdom. Why the weird description for the Riverlands? Why not just “all Tully lands”? Does the specific wording include or exclude any fiefs, such as Harrenhal?

Good question!

If I had to guess, Robb’s terminology is based on a historic formulation of the boundaries of the Riverlands, which tended to be somewhat more fluid than those of other kingdoms.

Prior to the advent of modern surveying techniques, natural features tended to be used quite a bit as boundary markers – hence part of the reason for the Mexican-American War was that Mexico and the U.S disagreed whether the U.S/Mexico border was at the Rio Grande River or the Nueces River, or why France historically tried to expand its borders to the Alps, the Pyrenees, and the Rhine even though its linguistic borders are considerably to the west, and why the Germans tried to do the same for the territory between the Rhine and the Danube. 

Moreover, the phrase that Robb uses is somewhat more complex: it’s the lands “watered by the River Trident and its vassal streams (emphasis mine).” To figure out what he means by this requires looking at a map:

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Note that the Trident and its vassal streams snake up to that disputed territory between Greywater Watch and the Twins in the north, and significantly into the Westerlands territory up by Ashmark and Hornvale  if you compare it to the political maps (hence why he’s also claiming the Golden Tooth), it might even include Wickenden in the Vale if you push if far enough.

The bigger issue is what about that territory between the Red Fork and the Narrow Sea south of the Trident? Well, arguably it’s “watered” by the eastern bank of the Red Fork from the Mummer’s Ford north to Riverrun along its western border and then again on the southern bank of the Red Fork from Riverrun to Darry, and then you have the Trident Proper which runs from Darry to Maidenpool all the way out to Cracklaw Point (which historically was something of a border territory). Harrenhal down to Stony Sept would be a bit tricky, since Harrenhal itself isn’t bordered by the Trident (although its lands probably are). Likewise, where does the waterline end: Antlers? Sow’s Horn? Duskendale? (It was once part of the Riverlands, after all.)

can you explain the stark civil war/succession crisis that happened when beron stark died?

Ok, settle in, because this is going to get byzantine.

The background of this is that Cregan Stark was a serial monogamist with a gift for children living to adulthood. 

  • With his first wife Anna Norrey (who must have died young for reasons that will become clear in a second), Cregan had his firstborn son Rickon, who married Jeyne Manderly and had two daughters before dying outside Sunspear in the armies of Daeron the Young Dragon. 
  • Cregan married a second time to Alysanne Blackwood after the Dance of the Dragons, and had four daughters (doesn’t seem like any of them had issue). 
  • He then got married again to his cousin Lynara Stark (although where she came from is a bit unclear, but it must have been back a few generations at least since she wasn’t the descendant of his uncle and his grandfather only had two sons), and had four sons with her. 

This caused something of a dynastic issue, because Rickon’s daughters Serena and Sansa had a claim that arguably would supersede those of his living sons and at least Serena was married into the Umbers so she had political backing. Meanwhile his living sons also had significant political marriages: Jonnel (the oldest) was married into the Ryswells, and Brandon (the youngest) was was married into the Karstarks (but sleeping with a highborn crannoglady from House Fenn). 

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As the Peter O’Toole in the Lion in Winter that he was, Cregan dealt with the situation by marrying his relatives to one another. Serena Stark’s Umber husband died, so that let him marry her to Edric (his second-oldest), and Sansa was married to Jonnel, whose Ryswell wife had also conveniently passed away. Problem solved, right?

Except that Jonnel died without issue (which leaves Sansa a loose end), then Edric had twin sons and two daughters (who married into the Umbers and Cerwyns, and had issue), except that Winterfell didn’t pass to any of them (the sons may or may not have been alive), instead it passed to Barth Blacksword (the third-oldest) and from him to Brandon. I don’t imagine this went over well with Edric’s wife, who had now been passed over twice and who had the Umbers and Cerwyns on her side and the Manderlys (although they might have been temporarily peeled off when the Manderlys married Rodwell Stark), but it’s not like the Karstarks were about to step aside when they had an adult male Stark with two half-Karstark sons waiting to inherit. 

Beron was the youngest of those two sons, and was mortally wounded fighting Dagon Greyjoy’s Ironborn, leaving behind five sons who were probably around Egg’s age at the time. However, alongside Lorra Royce, Beron’s widow, you probably also had Arrana Stark and Aregelle Stark (the daughers of Edric and Serena) both of whom had issue and a claim that was undeniably better in everything but proximity, you might have had Lonny Snow or the Blackwood daughters still kicking around. 

So you have a nasty combination of competing claims and competing power blocs.