Southron Ambitions. Who Is Maester Warlys's Father?

[Jem]

So one of the most fascinating things that I have found about ADWD is the allegations of Lord Rickard Stark’s 'southron ambitions'. These seem to be fuelled by Lord Stark’s maester, Warlys, who also seems to be behind the Stark-Tully marriage alliance.

Lady Dustin tells us that Warlys was the bastard son of a Hightower girl and an archmaester of the Citadel. Warlys’s father and his cronies seem to be the ones who are directing Warlys and feeding him suggestions to pass on to Rickard. So I wondered: who is Warlys’s powerful father? Wouldn’t it be interesting if Warlys’s father was someone we have met before?

I flicked through the appendix on AFFC to try to find an answer. There I found listed an archmaester Wargrave. The War… prefix of his name caught my attention – Warlys-Wargrave – maybe a father and son? There are some fathers and sons in Westeros who have similar names (eg Tywin and Tyrion Lannister), however it is hardly a trend or common convention to name your son similarly to his father, so no real evidence there.

However, old Wargrave is the archmaester that Pate, from the prologue of AFFC, is in service to. Archmaester Wargrave is now old and senile, but he once was the archmaester in charge of ravens for the Citadel. In other words, he was the chief communications officer for the whole of Westeros – a pretty powerful position to hold. He is also the owner of the black iron key that the Alchemist gets Pate to steal. Inside the chest Pate finds the key as well as a lock of blond hair, a portrait of a woman (presumably Wargrave’s mother) and a gauntlet that Wargrave says belonged to a prince. I don’t know what any of that means, if anything. Wargrave also sometimes confuses Pate with someone called Cressen. Pate doesn’t know who Cressen is, but we know him as the long-time Baratheon maester who dies in the prologue of ACOK.

So, could Wargrave be the one who was ultimately behind Rickard’s southron ambitions? He was a friend of Cressen’s, so maybe he was using Cressen to encourage the Stark-Baratheon alliance from the Baratheon end. Though after re-reading Cressen’s prologue, he doesn’t not mention anything like that.

From Sam’s last chapter in AFFC, Marwyn suggests that the maesters were responsible for killing off the last of the Targaryen dragons. The maesters seem to be against magic and against dragons. They also do not like the Targaryens. Old Maester Aemon seems to be under the impression that the Citadel would offer Dany, as the PtwP, protection and guidance. Marwyn is highly sceptical of this suggestion, to say the least. Marwyn also says that Aemon was sent to The Wall because the other maesters did not like his blood.

So were the maesters plotting to overthrow the Targaryens? Was Wargrave using his son Warlys to direct Rickard Stark into forming a faction against the Targaryens? Wargarve, with his ultimate access to the ravens and their messages, could have been mobilising other maesters, such as Cressen, towards building a Stark-Baratheon-Tully-Arryn alliance against the Targaryens.

I think something really big was going down behind the scenes and we have just now begun to glimpse it. I think herein lays the seed of Robert’s Rebellion.

[The King in the South]

I like the idea of this. The whole start of the Rebellion seemed to flow together too easily.

[jurble]

I like this conspiracy. I hereby subscribe to it.

[The Lost Lord]

So were the maesters plotting to overthrow the Targaryens? Was Wargrave using his son Warlys to direct Rickard Stark into forming a faction against the Targaryens? Wargarve, with his ultimate access to the ravens and their messages, could have been mobilising other maesters, such as Cressen, towards building a Stark-Baratheon-Tully-Arryn alliance against the Targaryens. I think something really big was going down behind the scenes and we have just now begun to glimpse it. I think herein lays the seed of Robert’s Rebellion.

There have been a few threads about this and I feel sure you're on the right track. I suspect that the maesters knew about the "Prince that was promised / song of ice and fire" prophecy that Rhaegar mentions, that the prophecy deals with magic returning to the world, and that the maesters were trying to prevent the prophecy from being fulfilled. They knew a Targaryen would have to fulfill it, so they tried to wipe them out by whispering in Rickard Stark's ear that he could make a king with a Stark-Baratheon-Tully-Arryn alliance. Varys is thought to have frightened Aerys with imagined conspiracies, but perhaps he merely warned Aerys about the real maester-Stark conspiracy. Most importantly, an undercover maester at Winterfell sabotaging the mail could answer the infamous question of "If Lyanna eloped with Rhaegar, why didn't she tell her family where she was going?"

[Tyroshi Sellsword]

I need to reread AFFC, obviously, with this theory in mind... very interesting post. Lots to think about.

Question: how would Brandon marrying Catelyn and Lyanna marrying Robert lead to the overthrow of the Targaryens? I'm sure I'm just being dense, but there must have been a next stage to this plan that we don't know about.

[Lord Damian]

Remember, the Targaryens conquered through fear and terror because of dragons. These were once 7 independent kingdoms that were thousands of years old. Once the dragons died, the fear of the Targaryens went with them. However, it took another 100 years of honor towards their oaths to erode and then the mad king was the last straw. I think the theory is right. If the maesters killed off the last dragon, then they have been plotting for a few generations through strategic marriages and strategic maester deployments in order to set things in motion. Maester Aemon was sent to the wall and made a member of the Night's watch to get him out of the way. To outright murder him would have created much suspicion as he was royal by blood.

[blackseer]

There is also the Lannister-Tully marriage. Jaime was supposed to marry Lysa Tully, according to Tywin. And if this happened after Rhaegar's marriage to Elia, mayhaps Cersei was meant to marry Willas.

[Tammy]

There have been a few threads about this and I feel sure you're on the right track. I suspect that the maesters knew about the "Prince that was promised / song of ice and fire" prophecy that Rhaegar mentions, that the prophecy deals with magic returning to the world, and that the maesters were trying to prevent the prophecy from being fulfilled. They knew a Targaryen would have to fulfill it, so they tried to wipe them out by whispering in Rickard Stark's ear that he could make a king with a Stark-Baratheon-Tully-Arryn alliance. Varys is thought to have frightened Aerys with imagined conspiracies, but perhaps he merely warned Aerys about the real maester-Stark conspiracy. Most importantly, an undercover maester at Winterfell sabotaging the mail could answer the infamous question of "If Lyanna eloped with Rhaegar, why didn't she tell her family where she was going?"

Do we know how long Maester Luwin was at Winterfell?

[tze]

Remember, the Targaryens conquered through fear and terror because of dragons. These were once 7 independent kingdoms that were thousands of years old. Once the dragons died, the fear of the Targaryens went with them. However, it took another 100 years of honor towards their oaths to erode and then the mad king was the last straw. I think the theory is right. If the maesters killed off the last dragon, then they have been plotting for a few generations through strategic marriages and strategic maester deployments in order to set things in motion.

So the question then becomes, which House were the maesters planning on elevating to the Iron Throne? I'm not so sure it was Robert Baratheon---his grandmother was a Targaryen, and if the plan was to end the Targs, the maesters wouldn't have wanted a House with Targ blood on the throne. (Is it possible that Lannister-loving Pycelle was actually acting to prevent true members of House Baratheon from keeping power?)

If Rickon Stark was an instigator of this (and the intermarriages seem to have been mostly his idea), then it stands to reason the plan was to put a Stark on the Iron Throne. And if you think about it, that makes sense: the North is the last bastion of old gods magic south of the Wall, so if the maesters want to destroy magic, they need to "southernize" the Starks. Bringing Winterfell "into the fold" by forcing a Stark into King's Landing is the perfect way to do that. (Brandon might have been more amenable to sitting the Iron Throne than Ned was.) But for a Stark to hold the Iron Throne, he'd have to adopt the Faith of the Seven---the religious figures of the Seven won't anoint a pagan as King, and the southern Houses won't like being ruled by someone of a different religion. Having the Starks adopt the Seven is an easy way to get the other Northern Houses to do so. Voila, no more old gods south of the wall, so no more skinchanger/greenseer magic.

[SFDanny]

I have my doubts that the Citadel was trying to set up a new dynasty to replace the existing Targaryen one through the use of the Stark, Baratheon, Arryn, Tully, and even possibly the Lannisters. No, I think it makes much more sense for the Starks and the Citadel to be behind a plot to reset the political landscape of Westeros to approximately what is was before the Conquest. Seven Kingdoms with maesters whispering into the ears of seven petty kings sounds much more suited to the Citadel's needs than a new Westerosi overlord, even one free of dragon dreams. All the Great Lords, with the possible exception of the Martells who are literally in bed with the Targs, have a reason to want independence and the Citadel benefits from building support for such ambitions. I guess that Rickard's "southern ambitions" is toward building alliances with other Great Lords who would support a new King in the North, not a new Stark overlord replacing a Targaryen one on the Iron Throne.

[Dragonfish]

Nice detective work, Jem. I find your speculation quite plausible. So are you thinking that the "lock of hair", and maybe even the portrait of a woman, belong to this Highgarden girl who gave birth to Warlys?

Question: how would Brandon marrying Catelyn and Lyanna marrying Robert lead to the overthrow of the Targaryens? I'm sure I'm just being dense, but there must have been a next stage to this plan that we don't know about.

As others have said, it's not necessarily the overthrow of the Targaryens that was envisioned, but the secession of the North (well, I think that's what Rickard may have envisioned, but the maesters may have planned on the Northern secession leading to a major conflict that would destroy the Targaryens). An alliance with the Riverlands and the Vale would be useful for this purpose, because it would create a sort of "buffer region" between the North and the Iron Throne. In other words, if the Targaryens wanted to take the North back from the northerners, they'd have to go through their friends first.

I haven't quite figured out how the Baratheon alliance would fit into this strategy, though. My best guess is that it would create a potential "dagger aimed at the back" of the Iron Throne. In other words, if the Crown ever tried to marshal its forces and head north, it'd have to worry about a potential enemy in its rear.

[Jem]

Nice detective work, Jem. I find your speculation quite plausible. So are you thinking that the "lock of hair", and maybe even the portrait of a woman, belong to this Highgarden girl who gave birth to Warlys?

Thanks Dragonfish. The lock of hair could belong to the Highgarden girl, but the woman in the portrait apparently resembled Wargrave and I think the implication is that she is his own mother. What I am interested in is who owned the gauntlet? Wargrave says that a prince gave it to him but he can't now remember that prince's name. I can't imagine who this prince was or what association he had with Wargrave. Very curious, but of course it may mean nothing!

Quick edit: Unless it was Prince Aemon Targaryen. Though why Wargrave would have a sentimental attachment to it, I don't know.

[Sevumar]

Thanks Dragonfish. The lock of hair could belong to the Highgarden girl, but the woman in the portrait apparently resembled Wargrave and I think the implication is that she is his own mother. What I am interested in is who owned the gauntlet? Wargrave says that a prince gave it to him but he can't now remember that prince's name. I can't imagine who this prince was or what association he had with Wargrave. Very curious, but of course it may mean nothing!

Quick edit: Unless it was Prince Aemon Targaryen. Though why Wargrave would have a sentimental attachment to it, I don't know.

I'm curious about the gauntlet too. Too bad there's not more evidence of which prince the story is talking about. My only random thought here is that it could have something to do with Summerhall. Aren't some types of magic more effective when you have a possession of the target's to use as a focus?

The description of the painted figurine reminded me of the descriptions we have of Selyse Florent, particularly the reference to heavy facial hair. Perhaps Walgrave's mother was a Florent from the Reach?

[Brucolac]

I thought that the pregnant lady in Bran's vision that wanted revenge was probably Rickard's mother, and that was the the motivation for his power consolidation. Aegon pisses her or the Starks off while he is there with Duncan, and she raises him to hate Targaryans.

[Stefan_Sasse]

I wouldn't go as far as too assume a massive maester-conspiracy to overthrow the Targaryens on the whim of a prophecy. Maybe some of them knew it, but it would contradict everything the Citadel stands for to base such a large undertaking on it. Remember from AFFC how isolated Marwyn with his belief in magical stuff is, which surely includes prophecies, given the statements we get from maesters such as Luwin. It just seems unrealistic. And the Targaryens pose no problem at all to the maesters, since they have no dragons and no access to magic.

Even if the maesters would want to stage such a coup, it seems rather odd to create such an alliance. How would they get into a situation where they could orchestrate the marriage policy of four or five major houses? It feels like one of these Dan-Brown-conspiracies, worldwide with a ridiculous amount of planning involved.

[Kadence]

I'm not sure about the rest but Wargrave being Warly's father seems extremely likely to me after reading of it. Great work.

I think an anti-Targ plot was possible - with the talk of rebellion being in the air at Harrenhal, the Stark-Arryn-Baratheon-Tully (also almost Lannister) alliance would seem the most likely source of this. Could be that the Harrenhal whispers really did involve Rhaeghar though, who Aerys was perhaps rightly suspicious of, and it didn't have to do with the maesters or Rickard.

No idea who the prince who gave the gauntlet would be - could be Maester Aemon, could be Aerys, could be Rhaeghar even. Or someone of less direct plot relevance like Jahaerys or Duncan the Small.

The description of the painted figurine reminded me of the descriptions we have of Selyse Florent, particularly the reference to heavy facial hair. Perhaps Walgrave's mother was a Florent from the Reach?

Now this is a neat theory too. I like it, makes sense.

[Ches Rockwell]

Very interesting thread, and I think you are on to something here. My guess is that we will discover more about these characters and situations in the next Dunk and Egg novel.

I also guess the gauntlet belonged to either Egg or his son.

I wonder what happened to Warlys? I think I remember Cat saying in Thrones that Luwin assisted in the birth of all her children, therefore he would have been in Winterfell since the start of the war, if not before. But if Warlys was the Maester of Rickard, and organized the betrothal to Cat, and I assume that this betrothal was not long before the conflict, then something must have happened to Warlys not long after that to remove him from his position. Maybe he went south with Rickard and got killed along with him in KL? We always here about Rickard going there and getting killed but no way he traveled alone from Winterfell to KL to plead with the Mad King. He would prob have taken his Maester and other advisors, servants, guards, etc. Prob they all got killed there, and Luwin was sent to Winterfell not long after...

Not sure if that advances the discussion any, but its all i have atm :)

[HodorSaysHodor]

So the question then becomes, which House were the maesters planning on elevating to the Iron Throne? I'm not so sure it was Robert Baratheon---his grandmother was a Targaryen, and if the plan was to end the Targs, the maesters wouldn't have wanted a House with Targ blood on the throne. (Is it possible that Lannister-loving Pycelle was actually acting to prevent true members of House Baratheon from keeping power?)

If Rickon Stark was an instigator of this (and the intermarriages seem to have been mostly his idea), then it stands to reason the plan was to put a Stark on the Iron Throne. And if you think about it, that makes sense: the North is the last bastion of old gods magic south of the Wall, so if the maesters want to destroy magic, they need to "southernize" the Starks. Bringing Winterfell "into the fold" by forcing a Stark into King's Landing is the perfect way to do that. (Brandon might have been more amenable to sitting the Iron Throne than Ned was.) But for a Stark to hold the Iron Throne, he'd have to adopt the Faith of the Seven---the religious figures of the Seven won't anoint a pagan as King, and the southern Houses won't like being ruled by someone of a different religion. Having the Starks adopt the Seven is an easy way to get the other Northern Houses to do so. Voila, no more old gods south of the wall, so no more skinchanger/greenseer magic.

Catelyn and Lysa Tully were from the southern riverlands, and the Tullys followed the Faith of the Seven... the Stark children were raised to believe in both, the "Old Gods and the New". Arya says those words to her father a couple of times, when he asks for her word, as a promise. I'm guessing that the Baratheons and Arryns followed the Seven, as well. My point is: it didn't seem to bother Lord Rickard that his children might 'lose' their faith, and the marriage alliances should've actually pleased the Maesters at the Citadel if killing off the "Old Gods" was their goal. :)

ETA: Cool theory, Jem!   :thumbsup: 

[Stefan_Sasse]

That's right. Sansa leans more towards the new gods, Robb to the old, the rest seems undecided yet.

[Wouter]

I wouldn't go as far as too assume a massive maester-conspiracy to overthrow the Targaryens on the whim of a prophecy. Maybe some of them knew it, but it would contradict everything the Citadel stands for to base such a large undertaking on it. Remember from AFFC how isolated Marwyn with his belief in magical stuff is, which surely includes prophecies, given the statements we get from maesters such as Luwin. It just seems unrealistic. And the Targaryens pose no problem at all to the maesters, since they have no dragons and no access to magic.

Even if the maesters would want to stage such a coup, it seems rather odd to create such an alliance. How would they get into a situation where they could orchestrate the marriage policy of four or five major houses? It feels like one of these Dan-Brown-conspiracies, worldwide with a ridiculous amount of planning involved.

I agree with this; I think people may be going a bit too fast with the conspiracy theories, here.

For the citadel and Starks plotting to overthrow the Targs and replace them with another king: there is no indication for this in the text. The rebellion started for entirely different reasons; the kidnapping of Lyanna, Brandon's death threats, Aerys murdering Rickard and a bunch of others, and finally Aerys' demanding the heads of Robert and Ned. Starks nor Baratheons were ready for the war, they both had to make adventurous treks to reach their power bases and gather their respective armies (Robert even had to fight some of his own bannermen, as did Arryn). It seems to me that it was mostly the actions of Rhaegar and the madness of Aerys, together with the rashness of Brandon, that caused the war and there is no indication the Starks were aiming at a rebellion beforehand.

For secession of the north: then surely it doesn't make too much sense to marry into southern houses? The Starks married off would suddenly be "outlanders" for the north, then. And this while Ned and Brandon seem to have been on a good personal footing with several southern nobles (like Jon Arryn and Robert Baratheon, in Ned's case). Why would the north seceed anyway, they could pretty much do their thing anyway in the existing kingdom?

It is worth noting that all this suspicion comes from lady Dustin, who does not seem to be the most stable/sane person around (she is the one who wants to feed Ned's bones to her dogs). Moreover, she is angry with the maester because his advice meant she couldn't marry Brandon nor Ned, so the maester stood in her way. Marwyn's word isn't necessarily gospel either, allthough he at least does have some credibility - we shouldn't leap to grand conspiracies just yet, though. For all we know, lord Rickard's master merely thought it a good idea for the Starks, or for Westeros in general, to build/improve ties between the great houses. There doesn't have to be a nefarious plot attached to this idea.