What if Lady Ellyn had sisters who married…

What would have happened if the Reyne-Tarbeck rebellion would have had outer support? With this I mean that the Reynes had claims to Casterly Rock older than the Lannisters themselves. Supposing than Ellyn Reyne would have had younger sisters who would have been capable of marrying one a Tyrell and another a Tully (or a Redwyne), how much would that have changed the outcome and even the beginning of the rebellion? Tywin relied on speed after all to defeat them, but supposing the Tyrells or Redwynes or Tullys would have been willing to meddle on Westerlands affairs (The Tyrells being eager with having a wide support, the Redwynes being the monopoly on the sea-trade and the Tullys still hurt for the broken betrothal of Celia) so, just speculation, really, because a web of alliances (other than the Reyne-Tarbeck themselves) may have been essential. And now that I think of it… did the Gardeners marry some Reyne to try overthrow the Lannister regime in some age before the Draconic Conquest?

Also, is Ellyn Reyne supposed to be an alter-ego of Barbrey Dustin more than one from Cersei? Both wanting to be their overlord’s family above all, but ending up hating them more than nothing in Westeros? One in the North, the other in the West

I don’t know what you mean by “claims to Casterly Rock older than the Lannisters themselves.” If you’re talking about Loreon the Lion, not only is that claim very much on the distaff side, but it doesn’t predate the Lannisters. I couldn’t find any mention of an alliance between the Reynes and Casterlys, for example.

As for outside support during the Rains, I think a house would have had to be reckless to the point of ambitious – Aegon V had already militarily intervened twice in the Westerlands, and there’s no reason he wouldn’t have gone for a third. But yes, it would have helped.

I don’t think Ellyn Reyne is an alter-ego of anyone. As the song goes…

“Goodman” as a Title

Is the term goodman used to refer to a member of the lower class by a noble? I recall “Goodman Willit” being rewarded after the Battle of the Blackwater. Is this accurate?

“Goodman” is a historical term, a polite way to address a respectable person who was nonetheless below the rank of gentleman. And to get even more complicated, it’s actually a term you would give to someone who was fairly lower-class, but still respectable. A “goodman,” for example, was more lowly than a “Master,” a term originally used for master craftsmen but was then extended outward to all respectable men, and then turned into “Mister.” It’s also a gendered term – “goodman” and “goodwife” (and “master” and “mistress” or “mister” and “mrs”).

“Goodman” was used in England in the late medieval and early modern period, but it eventually fell out of fashion. It stuck around longer in Scotland and especially in Puritan New England, where Governor John Withrop defined it as meaning “worth as a citizen capable of serving his community in civic matters,” although some Puritan ministers insisted that the term could only be applied to church members.

Summerhall

In your Summerhall theory that Egg intended to sacrifice his great-grandson, Rhaegar to give life to his dragon eggs.

Knowing Dunk, he would never have gone along with this. Do you think he could have been the one who ignited the wildfire to allow Rhaella and an infant Rhaegar to escape, dooming both him and Egg?

No, that’s not how I see it doing down, for one thing I don’t think Dunk would risk burning down an entire castle filled with people. I think the wildfire was always supposed to be part of the ritual, and Dunk’s role was in rescuing Rhaella and Rhaegar, and then going back in to rescue Egg.

Anon Asks: House Justman

How different would things have been if House Justman hadn’t been wiped out by the Ironborn?

Very, very different. While still making a lot of the same mistakes w/r/t city charters as other regimes, the Justmans were probably the strongest of the Riverlands dynasties.

If they hadn’t died out, then:

Right off the bat, the Riverlands avoid a hundred years of bloody civil war which restarts the Bracken-Blackwood feud.
They avoid the instability under House Teague, and the eventual religious civil war that brings about the conquest of the Riverlands by the Stormlands.
As a result, the Stormlander empire in the Riverlands never gets off the ground. This has a lot of ripple effects: first, the Riverlands is spared ~360 years of rebellions and repressions and having to fight in Stormlander wars. Second, the Durrandons don’t get over-extended and probably stand a better chance against the Gardeners and Martells.
Next, the Hoares aren’t going to be conquering squat. 3,000 men against 35-55,000 isn’t even a concern. Not only does this spare the Riverlands 140 years of really brutal rule, but it also means the Ironborn mythos of superiority isn’t going to get the shot in the arm it gets in OTL. Maybe Qhorwyn’s New Way gets a chance to sink in and the Ironborn continue as a nation of traders and strictly overseas pirates/mercenaries.

Now what happens when the Targaryens come, I don’t know. But if the Justmans survive, they’re going to be much stronger and more stable than the Tullys, that’s for sure.

titot asks: Wildlings and the Wall

I loved those last reflexions about Royce and the prologue, it encouraged me to ask you something about the wall, I just hope it’s not too stupid. I think the wildlings are said to come now and then quite easily to the south of the wall, like Mance visiting Winterfell, do they always need to climb the wall, as Jon and Ygritte did? On the other hand, I just can imagine the direwolf mother sent by 3er, avoiding the wall by the coast… Did I miss something? thank you in advance!

The wildlings have a few options: either they climb over the Wall, take the Gorge by the Bridge of Skulls which follows the Milkwater to the Bay of Ice, or take their small leather boats across the Bay of Ice or the Bay of Seals.

Bronn’s rise to Lord Stokeworth

1. Lady Falyse looked as if she were about to cry. “Your Grace is good to ask. Mother’s hip was shattered by the fall, Maester Frenken says. He did what he could. Now we pray, but …”

Pray all you like, she will still be dead before the moon turns. Women as old as Tanda Stokeworth did not survive a broken hip. “I shall add my prayers to your own,” said Cersei. “Lord Qyburn tells me that Tanda was thrown from her horse.”

“Her saddle girth burst whilst she was riding,” said Ser Balman Byrch. “The stableboy should have seen the strap was worn. He has been chastised.”

Was Bronn behind Lady Tanda’s fall from her horse?

I like to think that something like this happened.

No, seriously, it was Bronn.

2. When I ordered Bronn seized, one of his knights had the insolence to say that I should do as Lord Stokeworth said. He called him Lord Stokeworth!“ Lady Falyse clutched at the queen’s hand.

How come none of the Stokeworth garrison came to Falyse’s aid?

Because they know when to back a winning side.

anon-foreverandever: Tywin and Stannis

There is something that fascinates me, and is Tywin and Stannis parallelism and admiration for each other. Tywin speaks of how he always felt Stannis as a grander threat that the rest of them (kings) combined, but even so he makes the same mistake than with Robb, namely, “his sun set at the Blackwater” “the rest of them are usurpers and thieves”. While Stannis spoke of how, with Robert holding his hand, both saw someone on the Iron Throne so solemn that they thought it was the king and even when Steffon confessed them that it was Tywin the hand, Stannis believed that was the image a king should have (just like Jon said Jaime was the image a king should have).

I say this because, while both have the same outward behaviour, is the same as Aerys and Robert’s behaviour, namely, Stannis and Tywin are very introverted, only in public when neccessary, frown upon them all, etc.

BUT, and here’s the problem, they are actually the same face on different coins, while Aerys and Tywin are faces on the same coin, Robert and Stannis are another coin, though Robert was corruptible and therefore worn away until it was unrecognizible but Stannis’ face has been kept untarnished. I say this because, well, summing up, Tywin is a gilded surface with a rotten core, while Stannis is a rotten (or simply rough) surface with a golden core.

I want to know where did they differ. I understand Tywin continously hearing mocks under a house whose ancient history he was keenly aware of (and therefore asking himself why do they have to suffer such shitty behaviour) but so is Stannis, specially after knowing Robert was horned, it was more than love for Robert (love that they did have, embittered as that may be) like humilliation for their entire house, the “Lannister woman” laughing at him. So, where did Tywin finally break and think that image and not substance nor acts were more important whereas Stannis chose to do the right thing? Where did they diverge?

And also, another thing I was thinking, having into account that Renly most likely was an attempt to give Rhaegar a royalblooded bride, and supposing that Robert is equally socially skilled with women as well as men, it may mean that Female Stannis STILL holds Storm’s End while leaving his two supposed children (as Rhaegar would have another plot-excused reason to have his third child with Lyanna, Ice and Fire after all) in Dragonstone, and I mean, Female Stannis would be a Doctoral Thesis on duty. What are your thoughts on that?

Wow. That’s a lot to take in. I guess I could see the parallels to an extent, but I don’t know if I agree entirely. For one thing, I think Tywin always cared about power primarily, and image only as it extended to power, whereas Stannis’ fixation on law counter-balanced his resentment.

jedimaesteryoda asks: Septon Cellador’s antagonism towards Jon

Cellador is alongside Marsh and Yarwyck when they go to address concerns from Marsh and Co.

Septon Cellador cleared his throat. “Lord Slynt,” he said, “this boy refused to swear his vows properly in the sept, but went beyond the Wall to say his words before a heart tree. His father’s gods, he said, but they are wildling gods as well.“

Is Cellador’s opposition towards Jon based in part on being prejudiced towards those who follow the old gods or as he calls them "wildling gods”?

Absolutely.

Melisandre’s thoughts on the wildlings

Melisandre nodded solemnly, as if she had taken his words to heart, but this Weeper did not matter. None of his free folk mattered. They were a lost people, a doomed people, destined to vanish from the earth, as the children of the forest had vanished.

Do those thoughts seem disturbing given she is essentially saying regarding the wildlings that their lives don’t matter?

I think there’s two ways to interpret this passage.

The first way starts with the fact that Melisandre’s brand of religious devotion is intensely Millennialist and prophetic in nature – as far as she’s concerned, the Final Battle between Azor Ahai Reborn and the Great Other is at hand as the prophecies have foretold, and the entire world faces apocalypse unless it unites behind her god and his chosen champion. This is part of the reason why Melisandre is the most misunderstood character in ASOIAF – she doesn’t sacrifice people or burn weirwoods because she’s actively malicious, she genuinely thinks that what she is doing is necessary for the salvation of humanity, and like Varys she’s a hardcore consequentialist. A truly just woman is no less to be feared than her male counterpart.

In this reading, Melisandre views the wildlings as doomed by fate to be casualties in the coming war – these dead-ender wildlings who insist on staying north of the Wall have placed themselves right in the path of the Army of the Dead. And her view is helped by the fact that these wildlings have rejected both the true god and his champion, who are the only path to salvation.

The second way of reading has to do with her attitude of cultural superiority. Remember, Essosi consider Westerosi to be barbarians only recently raised to semi-civilization by the last remnants of the Valyrian Empire. Melisandre, as someone raised in one of the most ancient cities of Essos, probably shares this view, given that she is also a missionary bringing the true religion to the heathen.

Now think what someone like that would think of a people that even Westerosi consider barbarians and savages. One of the things I actually really like about ASOIAF is that GRRM shows his main POV characters reacting to the widllings or the mountain clans as people from their backgrounds would react: Tyrion considers the mountain clans’ devotion to democracy and gender equality to be signs of backwardness and part of his plan for using them to take the Vale is to educate them in civilized ways, like obedience to a king. Jon Snow comes to empathize with the wildlings’ desire for freedom and their attachment to their cultural heritage, but he also thinks that these same qualities will doom them on the battlefield.

In this reading, Melisandre is expressing the softer side of Manifest Destiny doctrine – as opposed to the harsher side, which presented native peoples as dangerous threats, this view said that native peoples were “destined to vanish from the earth” as the progress of Western Civilization eventually overtook them. Indeed, the very trope of the Noble Savage was premised on the idea that this fate was inevitable, but now interpreted as a tragedy that could be safely lamented. So in Melisandre’s eyes, the wildlings have rejected enlightenment in favor of clinging to superstion and will thus be swept away by the force of history.

So which is it? Take your pick.

jedimaesteryoda Asks: Brightfyre

What’s your opinion of the thoery that Aegon has some descent from Aerion as well as Daemon Blackfyre?

Personally, I think it is convoluting.

I’ve never been that much of a fan of the Brightfyre theory, and I think the WOIAF definitely makes it less likely. Given that Aerion’s exile was temporary rather than permanent and that Aerion fought against the Blackfyres in the 3rd Rebellion and did something really infamous that most likely is murdering Haegon after Haegon had surrendered, I don’t think any Golden Company loyalist would lift a finger to put his spawn on the Iron Throne.