(Spoilers) The History of the Westerlands

[MoIaF]

Yea, I have been quietly convinced for some time that Dany won't be involved in Second Dance at all, and that it will be a fairly perfunctory affair in any case.

I don't know how it'll play out but it just seems that there won't be much time for Dany to dedicated to a second dance. Also, people forget that Dany's dragons are relatively small. She's able to ride Drogon because he is the largest by far and she herself is quite small. I just don't see a repeat of the first dance.

Also, that some secret and plain obscure Targaryen descendants are going to come out of woodwork to provide the "dragon" component. Personally, I have grave suspicions about Lord Rosby's ward..

Interesting, I've never heard any theories about him.

Anyway if I am right, there is going to be wailing and gnashing of teeth among certain parts of teadership, for sure..

I think once TWOW comes out there will be many things that the readers will wailing about. Some many theories are going to go up in smoke.

[RumHam]

is it possible the second dance could be between fire and ice dragons? I guess probably not.

[HexMachina]

is it possible the second dance could be between fire and ice dragons? I guess probably not.

Or it could be Euron/Ironborn vs. somebody, what with the Dragon Horn coming into play. It could be literally anything. :) (I doubt the Ice Dragon idea, but then I dont expect to see any more dragons in the novels)

[Lord Varys]

Check the date, the SSM is from 2006, long before the release of ADwD. Which means, that Aegon's invasion was not yet on the table at that time. We expected Dany to go to Westeros, instead Aegon went there. Now, the second Dance most certainly will be a result from Aegon's invasion. Perhaps the term will be coined before Dany's eventual arrival in Westeros, perhaps this Dance won't even be fought in Westeros at all - it could be a war in Essos.

But my guess still is that this second Dance will have some other pretenders as well as the two dragons. Stannis, Euron, perhaps even Myrcella and Tommen, may still be around for that war.

The main pretenders in the first Dance were Rhaenyra and Aegon II, but there were also the Two Betrayers (with Hugh styling himself king), 'King Trystane', and perhaps even other pretenders. We simply don't know that yet.

As to dragons:

We should keep in mind that some dragons might still be around (Sheepstealer, the Cannibal), or already hatched from old eggs. Magic is coming back, after all.

[RumHam]

Or it could be Euron/Ironborn vs. somebody, what with the Dragon Horn coming into play. It could be literally anything. :) (I doubt the Ice Dragon idea, but then I dont expect to see any more dragons in the novels)

Alright if ice dragons don't exist in this universe, then how about a battle between living and wighted dragons? (Possibly sheepstealer, since nobody knows where she went.)

[HexMachina]

Alright if ice dragons don't exist in this universe, then how about a battle between living and wighted dragons? (Possibly sheepstealer, since nobody knows where she went.)

:dunno: I don't know, I really couldn't say what I think about the Dance...I have problems with the other dragons (Sheepstealer and Cannibal) coming back into the novels, so I'm naturally against your idea. But thats just me being biased :p To me, Rhaegal, Drogon and Viserion are the only dragons we will see (unless the series ends with others hatching, showing a true resurgence of magic or something). I agree with Lord Varys though, that we will likely see multiple Claimants. I believe Euron will be heavily involved in particular, especially with regard to Aegon, and the "dragon" part of his claim may be linked to the Dragon Horn...

[Lord Varys]

Well, no idea about ice dragons as a separate species, but I'd be surprised if they existed, too - we have fire wyrms, wyverns (on Wyvern Point), and sea dragons (Nagga). Why not ice dragons?

If not as a separate species, think about the possibility of wightified dragons. If dragons once lived in Westeros before the arrival of the Targaryens, then some corpses might still lie around in the Lands of Always Winter. The Others most certainly would have been able to revive those corpses, especially if they killed them. Such dragon wights most certainly would be quite literally 'ice dragons'.

[Mithras]

and sea dragons (Nagga)

I don't there was a sea dragon. Nagga's ribs are just petrified remnants of a large gathering of weirwood trees.

[RumHam]

I don't there was a sea dragon. Nagga's ribs are just petrified remnants of a large gathering of weirwood trees.

We don't see weirwoods anywhere else on the Iron Isles if I'm not mistaken. (this is supported by the fact that the Ironborn developed their own religion that didn't involve weirwoods.) A petrified tree would still look like a tree, no? With branches and bark and all. I think it's more likely they're just rocks.

[Mithras]

We don't see weirwoods anywhere else on the Iron Isles if I'm not mistaken. (this is supported by the fact that the Ironborn developed their own religion that didn't involve weirwoods.) A petrified tree would still look like a tree, no? With branches and bark and all. I think it's more likely they're just rocks.

Ahead loomed the sacred shore of Old Wyk and the grassy hill above it, where the ribs of Nagga rose from the earth like the trunks of great white trees, as wide around as a dromond’s mast and twice as tall.

I don’t think GRRM could have been more explicit than this.

I have a crackpot theory that the Iron Islands were once a single island connected to the mainland, probably before the First Men came. Then, a massive Hammer of Waters was sent to the Iron Islands and gave them their current shape. This might be a conflict between different factions of the CotF. Or it might be a conflict between the CotF and the giants.

[Lord Varys]

Paper Weaver,

well, I'd much rather assume that the Iron Islands - as well as all the other islands surrounding Westeros and Essos (i.e. Dragonstone, the Arbor, the Three Sisters etc.) - were never settled by the Children of the Forest. And if that's the case, then I'd also assume that weirwoods never grew on the islands, too - or if they did, that they had no special meaning whatsoever. The Ironborn speak and think in contempt of the First Men who 'worship trees', so my guess is that the old gods were never worshiped on the Iron Islands. Which would make sense if the Children never lived there - the First Men only took the gods of the Children, and the First Men traveling to the Iron Islands would thus have kept the gods they always had - or take the gods of the men already living there).

And I really think the ancient Ironborn would have been able to see the difference between white trees and a strange formation of curved rocks/bones that closely resembled a rip-cage. Yeah, I know they must have been stupid, but the tale of Nagga is way too elaborate to be explained away by 'petrified wood'...

[Eagle of Seagard]

Just checking - is the order in which the Kings of the Rock are listed in the transcript/summary the order in which GRRM read them (and thus are printed)? I assume yes, but then they seem to be out of order (which was mentioned).

For example, the fourth named king, Lorien II, was the first to hold a tourney in the Westerlands. I would assume the tourney was brought over by the Andals - knighthood and all being so closely tied to them. Yet, the Andals seem to arrive on the scene in the time of Tybolt Thunderbolt, no. 15 on the list.

I would've thought that the order would've been more like: Tybolt (initial retaliation against Andals), perhaps a generation or two here, Tyrion III & Gerold II (bringing Andals into the fold), Lorien II (embracing Andal culture and holding a tourney).

Also, do we know if heraldry existed before the Andals & knighthood et al. became part of Westerosi culture? I ask because the Lannister arms seem to relate to the story of House Casterly's founding (the gold and lions). If heraldic arms (as we know them) were around pre-Andal invasion, it seems likely that the Lannisters took on the Casterlys' arms as their own (à la Durrendon-Baratheon)

[History of Westeros]

Could it be that Aziz/Ashaya got it wrong who knighted who? If that's the case then perhaps Aerys was knighted by Tywin, not Tywin by Aerys?

We were scribbling notes down as fast as we could, it's definitely possible. :)

[RumHam]

Just checking - is the order in which the Kings of the Rock are listed in the transcript/summary the order in which GRRM read them (and thus are printed)? I assume yes, but then they seem to be out of order (which was mentioned).

For example, the fourth named king, Lorien II, was the first to hold a tourney in the Westerlands. I would assume the tourney was brought over by the Andals - knighthood and all being so closely tied to them. Yet, the Andals seem to arrive on the scene in the time of Tybolt Thunderbolt, no. 15 on the list.

I would've thought that the order would've been more like: Tybolt (initial retaliation against Andals), perhaps a generation or two here, Tyrion III & Gerold II (bringing Andals into the fold), Lorien II (embracing Andal culture and holding a tourney).

The notes on the reading say they don't appear to be in strict chronological order.

Also, do we know if heraldry existed before the Andals & knighthood et al. became part of Westerosi culture?

We don't know yet, but since the sigils don't include First Men runes I'd guess they were an Andal invention.

[History of Westeros]

Just checking - is the order in which the Kings of the Rock are listed in the transcript/summary the order in which GRRM read them (and thus are printed)? I assume yes, but then they seem to be out of order (which was mentioned).

Yeah we wrote them down in the order he read them, but it was clear from the narrative that some of the tales jumped around in chronology.

[Eagle of Seagard]

That would seem like an odd thing to do in an historical reference text - to not list kings in chronological order. Was there any indication that he wasn't reading verbatim from the WoIaF? Just trying to get my head around it...

You're right about the First Men runes not being on sigils (bar the Royces), though House Mudd, a known First Men house, has a sigil - though this may have been an example of giving a house a sigil posthumously to fit in with the dominant Andal culture, or, as the Mudds were fighting against Andals, they needed to distinguish their armies from the Andals, and thus appropriated their armorial style...

[History of Westeros]

That would seem like an odd thing to do in an historical reference text - to not list kings in chronological order. Was there any indication that he wasn't reading verbatim from the WoIaF? Just trying to get my head around it...

You're right about the First Men runes not being on sigils (bar the Royces), though House Mudd, a known First Men house, has a sigil - though this may have been an example of giving a house a sigil posthumously to fit in with the dominant Andal culture, or, as the Mudds were fighting against Andals, they needed to distinguish their armies from the Andals, and thus appropriated their armorial style...

Well, he didn't list the kings at all. It was more like a montage, though he didn't do things like jump from the Conquest back to the Age of Heroes. He jumped around a bit within relatively small time frames. (no indication he wasn't doing anything other than reading in order. He had the book up there and was just turning pages normally as far as I can tell).

This is how it has to be, because there is no precise history. Remember that WOIAF is not written from the perspective of an all knowing narrator, it's written by maesters with differing views. So they don't have all the info on Lannister kings. Especially the ones pre-Andal times, as there was no writing.

[Jaak]

This is how it has to be, because there is no precise history. Remember that WOIAF is not written from the perspective of an all knowing narrator, it's written by maesters with differing views. So they don't have all the info on Lannister kings. Especially the ones pre-Andal times, as there was no writing.

Does Westerlands have an official list of Lannister kings, one sponsored as official by the Lannisters themselves?

[Lion of the West]

Does Westerlands have an official list of Lannister kings, one sponsored as official by the Lannisters themselves?

I would assume they do, but given that the Lannisters are said to have reigned for thousands of years that list is going to be very, very, very long. So while we may get a family tree with every Lord Lannister since the Conquest I don't think that we'll get every King Lannister since Lann, only some mentioned here and there.

[The Wolves]

I would assume they do, but given that the Lannisters are said to have reigned for thousands of years that list is going to be very, very, very long. So while we may get a family tree with every Lord Lannister since the Conquest I don't think that we'll get every King Lannister since Lann, only some mentioned here and there.

Yeah I agree I would have thought that all of the Houses that's been around thousands of years would have some sort of genealogy book with the Kings and Lords that have reigned. I remember it mentioned in a reading that the Starks have a book called "Legends and Lineage of the Starks of Winterfell" I think that's what it's called and I'm sure the maesters would have kept some sort of info about the ancestors.