Jump to content

What if the Starks had 4 seats


Tarellen

Recommended Posts

What if by the time the series began the Starks had besides there ansetral lands also have the lands of houses manderly, Bolton, and dustien. The seats and land are kept in the main line. To rule the seats more efficiently and the north overall the Starks go itinerant, moving from seat to seat with there followers. When there not there casstelans mange in there place. There not lords just officals. Does this have any effect on the story?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why would they have four seats? Rickon marrying into the Manderly house would just mean that his heir takes the Stark name and the second son takes the Manderly name. And that's if he marries Wylis' heir.

Assuming House Bolton is extinguished, the Dreadfort would either be pulled down or it would go to one of Rickon's allies. Or hell, maybe one of Stannis's allies gets it, depending on what happens.

As for House Dustin, I don't see why the Starks should take it for their own. I still find it absurd that Barbrey Dustin apparently has no heir, and has never been encouraged to remarry, unless there's some Dustin cousin who will take over when she dies.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, King Floki of the Ironborn said:

Why would they have four seats? Rickon marrying into the Manderly house would just mean that his heir takes the Stark name and the second son takes the Manderly name. And that's if he marries Wylis' heir.

Assuming House Bolton is extinguished, the Dreadfort would either be pulled down or it would go to one of Rickon's allies. Or hell, maybe one of Stannis's allies gets it, depending on what happens.

As for House Dustin, I don't see why the Starks should take it for their own. I still find it absurd that Barbrey Dustin apparently has no heir, and has never been encouraged to remarry, unless there's some Dustin cousin who will take over when she dies.

I said by the time the series begins. All the house are estiugused or the Starks are the heirs of. Also the law states they can't give away the extra seat. Not that it matters since most lord parmounts don't give away land to younger sons.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wait, so you're asking what would happen if House Stark, at the start of AGOT, had Winterfell, the Dreadfort, Barrow Hall, and White Harbour to deal with?

Why wouldn't they give away seats to their younger sons? Garlan's the new Lord of Brightwater Keep, once he conquers it at least. House Lannister took over House Darry and gave it to Lancel, a cousin. Hell, the Starks themselves have given lands away. The Karstarks and Greystarks were both part of the Stark family once.

So if they had four castles to deal with, Eddard would presumably leave Winterfell to Robb, maybe give one of the other three to Bran and Rickon when they come of age. But yes, until then they would have castellans running things.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, King Floki of the Ironborn said:

Wait, so you're asking what would happen if House Stark, at the start of AGOT, had Winterfell, the Dreadfort, Barrow Hall, and White Harbour to deal with?

Why wouldn't they give away seats to their younger sons? Garlan's the new Lord of Brightwater Keep, once he conquers it at least. House Lannister took over House Darry and gave it to Lancel, a cousin. Hell, the Starks themselves have given lands away. The Karstarks and Greystarks were both part of the Stark family once.

So if they had four castles to deal with, Eddard would presumably leave Winterfell to Robb, maybe give one of the other three to Bran and Rickon when they come of age. But yes, until then they would have castellans running things.

They also move around. Also the lord paromount house don't seem to give away extra castles to younger son even though they have them just not mentioned. Also the garlan and lancale thing were special cases.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Tarellen said:

They also move around. Also the lord paromount house don't seem to give away extra castles to younger son even though they have them just not mentioned. Also the garlan and lancale thing were special cases.

Well then Ned would pick his most loyal soldiers and promote them to their own noble houses. Especially since you picked the three biggest/most important places in the North besides Winterfell.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, King Floki of the Ironborn said:

Well then Ned would pick his most loyal soldiers and promote them to their own noble houses. Especially since you picked the three biggest/most important places in the North besides Winterfell.

You know I wasn't uncommon for royal house and high noble house in the real world to have mutiple big seats. So why can't the Starks have mutiple big seats? Also why would he give land to his soldiers over his sons? Couldn't he just keep the land? Also does anyone want to answer how does this affect the story?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think the Starks can do much travelling come winter, so every few years they would have to remain at one those settlements for around 48 months, with Winterfell being the probable one given how populated Wintertown gets come Winter.

White Harbor does not seem practical as well given that it is 490 miles away, any rebellion there or attack would need a strong Lord to quickly deal with it rather than waiting for news to reach the capital and the Starks reacting. 

The North is just too big for this to make sense, eventually one of these Castellans is going to want his own children to inherit and will rebel.

What template Kingdom are you basing your thoughts on? Charlemagne or The Early Norwegian Kings?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Loyal Castellans would proplably raise more soldiers than their respective Lords, especially Bolton/Dustin. But other than that I don´t see how it would affect the story at all.

Robert would still come to winterfell, Ned would still be hand and later beheaded, Robb would still get himself murdered etc. A couple thousand more soldiers would change none of that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, King Floki of the Ironborn said:

I don't understand anymore. First I suggest he would give the lands to his sons, and you dismiss that saying Lords Paramount wouldn't do that. Then I suggest Ned choosing his most loyal followers and you ask me why he'd pick them over his sons?

Sorry if I'm confusing you but for this scenario the Starks keep all that extra land in the main line. 

 

6 minutes ago, Ser Tristan Flowers said:

Loyal Castellans would proplably raise more soldiers than their respective Lords, especially Bolton/Dustin. But other than that I don´t see how it would affect the story at all.

Robert would still come to winterfell, Ned would still be hand and later beheaded, Robb would still get himself murdered etc. A couple thousand more soldiers would change none of that.

Yeah but the boltons are gone so no disloyalty there. Also Ramsey won't exist. So no hornwood civle war. Also who would say that Robert would meet Ned at winterfell. They could meet at barrowtown.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Tarellen said:

BSorry if I'm confusing you but for this scenario the Starks keep all that extra land in the main line. 

 

Yeah but the boltons are gone so no disloyalty there. Also Ramsey won't exist. So no hornwood civle war. Also who would say that Robert would meet Ned at winterfell. They could meet at barrowtown.

But eventually, these "main lines" start to diverge, as we see in the case of the Karstarks. They were originally the Starks from the line of Karlon who happened to be a younger son. Than they called them Karstarks because that was the way they went on. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, Bryan Stark said:

But eventually, these "main lines" start to diverge, as we see in the case of the Karstarks. They were originally the Starks from the line of Karlon who happened to be a younger son. Than they called them Karstarks because that was the way they went on. 

By main line I ment the line that holds winterfell with its head holding everything

Link to comment
Share on other sites

30 minutes ago, Tarellen said:

 

Yeah but the boltons are gone so no disloyalty there. Also Ramsey won't exist. So no hornwood civle war. Also who would say that Robert would meet Ned at winterfell. They could meet at barrowtown.

There might not be a Red Wedding, but Robbs decisions would still bite him in the back somehow. Winterfell would still be the capital, their main seat. I don´t think the King could settle for anything less. And why would Ned reside in Barrowtown?

14 minutes ago, Tarellen said:

By main line I ment the line that holds winterfell with its head holding everything

And all these former Manderly/Bolton/Dustin vassals would just accept that, despite the fact that this is unheard of in Westeros?

You would get rid of one troublemaker just to gain 5 more. Feudal responsibilities are split for a reason.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Ser Tristan Flowers said:

There might not be a Red Wedding, but Robbs decisions would still bite him in the back somehow. Winterfell would still be the capital, their main seat. I don´t think the King could settle for anything less. And why would Ned reside in Barrowtown?

And all these former Manderly/Bolton/Dustin vassals would just accept that, despite the fact that this is unheard of in Westeros?

You would get rid of one troublemaker just to gain 5 more. Feudal responsibilities are split for a reason.

Because there moving around to govern all there extra land like a real medival noble. Also why would the former manderly/Bolton/dustien vassals care who there new direct feudal over lord is? Why can't they have there direct overlord be the lord winterfell?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, Tarellen said:

Because there moving around to govern all there extra land like a real medival noble. Also why would the former manderly/Bolton/dustien vassals care who there new direct feudal over lord is? Why can't they have there direct overlord be the lord winterfell?

Because they´re human beings, thus greedy and ambitious. They would want the high lordship and expect the lord of winterfell to hand these titles out, like its commonly practised across the realm.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Things would then be quite different then, and must more realistic and interesting.

The idea of a feudal state like Westeros even functioning in the fashion it is presented simply doesn't make much sense. In the real world kings acquired as much control over lands and castles as they could - in fact, they raised most of those castles, and very little of them were actually in control of (semi-)independent hereditary lords.

But it would be a completely different world. In a world like that the Targaryens would have royal castles and residences all over the Realm where they would live during their progresses, and which would have been controlled, as the private property of the king, by royal officials, not independent lords.

1 hour ago, King Floki of the Ironborn said:

I still find it absurd that Barbrey Dustin apparently has no heir, and has never been encouraged to remarry, unless there's some Dustin cousin who will take over when she dies.

This is not absurd. Widows have claim, although somewhat weaker ones than blood relations of the lord. Ramsay's claim to Hornwood comes exclusively from Donella Hornwood whom he married against her will.

Lady Dustin apparently was given control of Barrowton and its lands by Ned or she took the lordship for herself and he did not intervene. Technically any brother, uncle, or cousin of her husband would have come before her/inherited the lordship on the day her husband died. But she apparently dealt with that, most likely in final way. I don't expect that there are any Dustin uncles or first cousins running around. Perhaps there are some distant relations, but Barbrey clearly doesn't care about them. She is in absolute control of Barrowton and the Barrowlands, and those relations apparently know better than to challenge her.

Jeyne Arryn may have been in a similar situation. Her name suggests she never married, and if that's the case then she may never have named an heir and her succession remained unclear. In fact, we know she died during the Regency and subsequently Corwyn Corbray, another regent and Rhaena Targaryen's first husband, was murdered during a parlay outside Runestone. That quarrel could very well have been connected to the unresolved succession issue of Vale if multiple Arryn cousins laid claim to the Eyrie, and were supported in this by various greater lords in the Vale (and the Corbrays and the Royces may easily have been on opposite sides in that).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...