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The Royces, Redforts and Mountain Clans: Old Gods or New?


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I know the wikis don't state one way or the other, BUT I wanted to know if anyone here I had heart otherwise at like a conference or at comic-con or something:



Do the Royces, Redforts and Mountain Clans worship the Old Gods? The first two are unambigously described as identifying strongly as First Men, even though they are the strongest most powerful bannermen to the Arryns, who are Andal to the core.



I think it might turn out that the Royces and Redforts outwardly keep the Seven, but secretly pray to their heart trees.



What does anyone else think?


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Since the Redforts and Royces are knights and called Ser I have a hard time seeing them following the Old Gods. More likley than not they are Andalized First Men Houses who takes pride in their ancient history and roots.

Though we do have a precedent for a knight who follows the Old Gods in the person of Ser Bartimus at the Wolf's Den.

ETA: Though it seems that holy oil/Faith business is part of the highborn knightly tradition. Lots of lowborn knights don't seem to do all that. So, you're right in that we'd expect highborn knights to have followed that more courtly tradition.

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In a video on the Vale for Season 4 of the TV series, Martin himself confirmed that the hill tribes are indeed the remnants of the First Men of the Vale who got pushed into the mountains by the Andal invaders.


...though even I was already wondering if they still worshiped the Old Gods at this point.


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I suspect the Royces and Redforts worship the Seven, though only because the Vale strikes me as quite a centralised place, where a family who hold different gods would be unlikely to stay in favour for so long. As for the Clans, who knows, maybe they worship other gods entirely. One or more of those ancient deities the First Men held before they embraced the Children's gods. We know of the the Lady of the Waves, the Lord of the Skies, the Merling King (possibly), the Storm God and the Drowned God. Might be there's a Mountian God amongst their number.


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Knighthood does not automatically disqualify one from worshiping the old gods in Westeros. The Blackwoods keep the old gods, live below the Neck and there are many named Blackwood knights in the stories- Bennifer, Roland, Robert and Roger Blackwood were at Ashford.



I think there is a good chance the the Royces keep the old gods and a fair chance the Redforts do. As for the clans- the Seven is the religion of the conquerors so I would be willing to bet that the clans have been able to maintain a ritually simplistic nature religion over the years out of both devotion and spite.


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Knighthood does not automatically disqualify one from worshiping the old gods in Westeros. The Blackwoods keep the old gods, live below the Neck and there are many named Blackwood knights in the stories- Bennifer, Roland, Robert and Roger Blackwood were at Ashford.

I think there is a good chance the the Royces keep the old gods and a fair chance the Redforts do. As for the clans- the Seven is the religion of the conquerors so I would be willing to bet that the clans have been able to maintain a ritually simplistic nature religion over the years out of both devotion and spite.

Yes, the Blackwoods rode at the tourney but where they knights? We see Eddard's men riding at the Tourney of the Hand despite not being knights so its not impossible.

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I can imagine Royces having a long, strong First Men history, the kind that would set them apart from the rest of the Vale families; from the both of the lands that border the North, only Royces and Blackwoods are shown to have made marriages into the North (so far) . Blackwoods still worship Old Gods and I would suspect something similar with the Royce family - the first thing newly wed Robb did when he met his mother is to emphasise Jeyne's First Men background.

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Knighthood does not automatically disqualify one from worshiping the old gods in Westeros. The Blackwoods keep the old gods, live below the Neck and there are many named Blackwood knights in the stories- Bennifer, Roland, Robert and Roger Blackwood were at Ashford.

I think there is a good chance the the Royces keep the old gods and a fair chance the Redforts do. As for the clans- the Seven is the religion of the conquerors so I would be willing to bet that the clans have been able to maintain a ritually simplistic nature religion over the years out of both devotion and spite.

I think it's telling that most knights are given their title (example, Ser Otho, the Brute of Bracken) so you would expect the Blackwoods to be given the same title, if they were in fact knights.

Although the Ashford tourney was limited to knights, I imagine there are exceptions made for men of noble houses wh followthe old gods. The limitation was, after all, intended to keep the riff raff out.

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This is all circumstantial but We remember" house words, Shield has Runes on it (first men related)

and They still use a first men Armor because of an old gods superspicion, why would you do that if you don't believe in those gods in the first place?

And then sending a Knight/Ser to the wall in the first pages of the first book, Waymar Royce anyone? Not a very common practice these times, and a third Royce is still a suitable match for alot of houses.

If only we knew where Waymar took his vow of the NW, make it an SSM question :)

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This is all circumstantial but We remember" house words, Shield has Runes on it (first men related)

and They still use a first men Armor because of an old gods superspicion, why would you do that if you don't believe in those gods in the first place?

And then sending a Knight/Ser to the wall in the first pages of the first book, Waymar Royce anyone? Not a very common practice these times, and a third Royce is still a suitable match for alot of houses.

If only we knew where Waymar took his vow of the NW, make it an SSM question :)

Very good points. I had thought of the armor, the house words and the runes. But not the fact that him joining the nights watch could have had something to do with the royces first men heritage and keeping the old gods.

One more interesting point to make is that in A Feast For Crows Lord Redfort forces his son to marry a daughter of Bronze Yohn . Why did he force him to marry into Bronze Yohn's family? Is it because both still keep the old gods?

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While the Royces are proud of their first men heritage and boast about it to show how ancient his lineage is (even older than the Arryns), I don't think they are keeping the old gods.

The Vale was the first place the Andals came, and where the process of Sevenification had to start earlier. It would be impossible to resist the influence in the Eastern coast of the Vale.

[in contrast, the Blackwoods lived in a mountainous isolated keep, in a region much more less cohesionated and without an unified leadership. The fact that the Riverlands fell under the rule of the Ironborn (who did not follow the seven) surely also helped the Blackwoods to keep the old gods.]

Becoming a knight involves a religious cerimony based on the Faith of the Seven, and the three sons of Lord Royce are knights. By comparison, none of the sons of lord Blackwood are.

[There's another way to become a knight: being knighted by another knight for prowess in the battlefield. That's how old god followers are knighted, such as Ser Jorah Mormont, and presumibly also Ser Helman Tallhart, Ser Mallador Locke or Ser Bartimus. All of them are old enough to have participated in wars and earn renown. That's not the case with the Royce sons (Ser Waymar was around 19 when he was killed)]

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The Blackwoods at Ashford were referred to as "Ser". They are also listed as "Ser" in the Wiki. That said this is one of those interesting questions that I hope is answered this fall. Knowing who follow what religion might be very predictive of actions in the the Battle for the Dawn to come.

Thanks for the info. This new information certainly make it more possible that the Royces and Redforts are still followers of the Old Gods.

EDITED: But it could also, of course, be like the AP suggested that these Blackwoods were knighted in the Blackfyre Rebellion.

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