Are the Royce's closet Old God worshippesr?

[Maia]

16 hours ago, Luddagain said:

Recall that the FIRST Sept ever built at Winterfell was for Catelyn, so it must be assumed that the various Royce and Blackwood women who married and came North either had no religion or were Old God worshipers.

 

Nothing has to be assumed about the Blackwoods, who are known far and wide as the only noble family still worshipping the old gods below the Neck.

As to Royces, they are clearly followers of the Faith, seeing how all their men appearing/mentioned in ASoIaF are knights and there is not a whiff of a rumor that they practice any other religion. Also, given their documented closeness and numerous intermarriages with the Arryns. Yes, they still have their pre-Andal sigil, but so does the vast majority of the  Houses of First Men origin. Yes, they use what is supposedly a relic of their House - the runic bronze armor (which is either magical indeed or as "bronze" as Jaime's was "golden"), so do the Daynes. The runes are part of Royce sigil anyway. 

And yes, apparently the first sept as a separate building in WF was built for Cat, but that doesn't mean that Larra Royce and the 2 Manderly wives didn't have rooms that they could use for their worship.

I also have to wonder about religion of Lockes, who seem close to the Manderlies - there was at least one knight from that family in NW. Though, it may have been a battlefield knighthood from a king, which even the old gods worshippers can receive, if that old one-legged jail warden  Ser Barthimeus is any guide. That would also explain cases like Ser Helman Tallhart, Ser Jorah, etc.

 

16 hours ago, Luddagain said:

Indeed I have a vague theory that it was Ned's decision to allow a Sept at Winterfell that allowed the Other to rise again by weakening the power of the Old Gods.

 

Sigh. Starks weren't friends of the CoTF, they had slaughtered them and their ally the Warg King of Sea Dragon's Point, and likely drove the Children out the North. This theory is just another attempt to blame everything bad happening in the series on Cat.

 

16 hours ago, Luddagain said:

Same for any Manderley, except that they are worshipers not exactly of the Old Gods but of one of the First men gods ie Garth Greenhand.

 

Um, what? They are very much followers of the Seven.

[falcotron]

21 hours ago, Luddagain said:

Same for any Manderley, except that they are worshipers not exactly of the Old Gods but of one of the First men gods ie Garth Greenhand. This is of course critical to the story line.

I wish people would say up at the top "Warning, my argument for this theory is going to require assuming other, even less-motivated tinfoil theories."

[Nittanian]

On 9/8/2017 at 4:41 PM, FylkirKarl said:

Again, I'm not saying that it's only First Men but the First Men houses tend to be more leaned toward volunteering for the Nights Watch, and the Mallisters are also a First Men house. So are the Marsh's and Tollet's.

IIRC, we don't know if the Mallisters are First Men or Andal in origin. We know very little about House Marsh, aside from Bowen being a member. Their name and sigil suggest they come from the Neck, but they have not been mentioned as crannogmen ("Fenn and Reed, Peat and Boggs, Cray and Quagg, Greengood and Blackmyre, those were the sorts of names they gave themselves"). House Tollett is Andal in origin, with Torgold the Grim being a feared warlord in the Vale.