Just a backup in advance of the detumblring
Politics of the Seven Kingdoms: The Reach (Part IV)
credit to ser-other-in-law
In the previous section, I looked at how House Gardener responded to the Andal Invasion of the Reach through a masterful use of assimilation that resulted in a cultural and political regeneration that made the Reach one of the leading contenders in the Great Game of Westeros…
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Politics of the Seven Kingdoms: The Reach (Part II)
credit to ser-other-in-law
Last time, we discussed the geography of the Reach, and the pre-history of Garth Greenhand and how it structured the polity that House Gardener would build. In this essay, we’ll look at how House Gardener went from ruling a fortnight’s ride from the walls of Highgarden to the masters of the Reach.
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Politics of the Seven Kingdoms: The Reach (Part I)
credit to ser-other-in-law Hey folks, so this essay is looking like it’s going to be as long as the Westerlands essay if not longer, so I decided to pre-emptively break it up into pieces so it’s easier to read (and write, to be honest). Part I covers the geography and prehistory of the Reach, Part II will cover the rise of House Gardener and the construction of the Reach as a polity, Part III…
Well, keep in mind that the Riverlands aren’t just a nexus point for the Stormlands and the Iron Islands – we know that that the Kings of the Rock “warred against the many kings of the Trident,” we know that “the lords of the Reach sent iron columns of knights across the Blackwater whenever it pleased them,” and we know two kings from the Riverlands invaded the Reach during the reign of Gyles III.
Dorne was another important nexus – hence the political importance of the marcher lords in both the Reach and the Stormlands and the fierce independence of the mountain lords of Dorne – both before and after the arrival of the Rhoynar. Dorne’s role was to force both the Reach and the Stormlands to keep an eye on their southern borders and to pounce on any sign of over-stretch or weakness: Garth VII had to be nimble as hell to fight the Fowler Kings and the Ironborn at the same time, but when Gyles III looked to conquer the Stormlands, three Dornish kings invaded him; likewise, when Arlan III conquered the Riverlands, the moment he died the Dornish launched invasions over the Boneway.
So I would argue there are several levels that the Great Game operated on: there’s the Riverlands nexus (which includes the Westerlands, the Stormlands, and occasionally the Reach and the Vale, and would later include the Iron Islands), the Westerlands/Reach nexus, the Reach/Stormlands nexus, and the Reach/Dorne/Stormlands nexus. And all of these nexii were going on at the same time, making for a very complicated conflict.
In terms of the importance of the Rhoynar, we don’t know enough – we get a sense that Nymeria’s uniting of Dorne allowed them to successfully hold off invasions by the Stormlands and the Reach, and we get a few accounts of invasions of the Reach and the Stormlands by the Dornish, but most of that is during the pre-Martell phase.
Politics of the Seven Kingdoms: The Westerlands, Part II
So in an unprecedented development, I’ve had to split one of these essays into three parts, because this one was getting ridiculously long before I even got to Tywin, and I’m going to need some serious space to talk about the Rains of Castamere.
So enjoy!
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Politics of the Seven Kingdoms: The Westerlands, Part I
credit to J.E Fullerton/Ser Other-in-Law Introduction: If Part IV of this series was about trying to figure out why the Riverlands, with all its natural advantages, nonetheless became a failed state, and thus come to a better understanding of the dynamics of successful state-building, this essay (and Part VII on the Reach) will be an exploration of what we can learn about the pre-Aegon balance of…
Hiya!! Great work on the newest Politics of the Seven Kingdoms as usual! One thing that I thought kinda went underplayed in your analysis of the Ironborn was the effects of thralldom on military development. Using Sparta, chattel slavery, or manoralism as examples, it seems like there would be a serious concern amongst “Old Way” adherents about thrall revolts, especially since their reaving drastically expands the population of thralls. This would mean that the next time they sail, they would leave more people behind to maintain their caste system which would in turn reduce the number of men they had available for reaving in a stagnating cycle unless some “New Way” king comes to power to clean up. Do you think this would help address some of the concerns regarding the Ironborn’s numbers? I often see it put up that thralldom would increase the Ironborn’s military strength, but honestly this seems backwards compared to a lot of historical examples, where these kinds of systems hamper military mobilization due to fear of revolts (which can be seen even as late as the terror of European aristocrats at the strength of Revolutionary France’s levee en masse). Even in universe, Braavos rapidly developed and seems to have achieved parity with the rather unstable slave societies of Valyria’s ancient colonies and has a glut of ship builders and bravos hanging around, while Volantis is paranoid about having enough guards to prevent a R’hllor led slave revolt. At a fundamental military level, it just doesn’t seem entirely suprising that the Ironborn’s biggest successes (apart from plot power) come from singular strikes after a New Way king reduces the thrall population (freeing up guards and increasing available population) and increases the number of available men closer to its 15000 man limit for Balon or Harwyn Hardhand.
I felt I’d addressed it enough via the Sparta comparisons, but this is a fair point. Generally speaking, keeping a large segment of your population bound to unfree labor means having to hold back a significant number of soldiers to keep them in place.
Just one of the many ways in which slavery warps slave societies.
Politics of the Seven Kingdoms: The Iron Islands (Part I)
Credit to J.E Fullerton/Ser Other-in-Law Introduction: If there’s one thing that I hope I have done in this series, it’s to push back against the idea of essentialism – whether it’s the idea that Northmen are inherently honorable, Valemen inherently isolationist, or the Riverlanders inherently divided. Cultures, societies, polities are all too complicated for such simplistic narratives. This is…
Politics of the Seven Kingdoms, Part IV (The Riverlands)
Hey folks, if you’d like to read Politics of the Seven Kingdoms, Part IV in one glorious post instead of two separate ones, it’s now up at Tower of the Hand. Check it out!
So as I discuss here, it’s not entirely clear quite how the sequence goes.
What we know is that the Red Kings of the Boltons were the last rivals of the Starks to bend the knee, we know that 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,” we know that “King Theon Stark, known to history as the Hungry Wolf, turned back the greatest of these threats, making common cause with the Boltons to smash the Andal warlord Argos Sevenstar at the Battle of the Weeping Water,” and we know that “after the defeat of the Boltons, the last of their Northern rivals, the greatest threats to the dominion of House Stark came by sea.”
Two of the three pieces of evidence suggests that the Boltons surrendered before or just as the Andals attacked the North, but the third suggests the opposite, as the use of the phrase “common cause” suggests that the Boltons were still independent during that initial battle with Andal invaders.
There’s a couple different possibilities: one is that Rogar bent the knee to get military support from Theon to defeat Argos Sevenstar. Another, as you suggest, is that Theon turned on Rogar after the battle, taking advantage of their exhaustion. A third is that Theon’s support might have prompted Rogar to bend the knee freely after the battle, seeing the existential threat that the Andals posed.
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