(SPOILERS) Cannibal is on Skagos

[The Fourth Head]

my mistake- was using my phone

[The Fourth Head]

What do vassals do for their liege lord?

Let put clarify that:

The options are

1) that the Skagosi declared independence and/or didn't want to pay taxes and tribute

- This is the easiest option. They are remote, loosely lorded over by the Starks, and has advantageous terrain for guerrilla warfare. We know a Lord Stark and hundreds of his retainers died. The only two Stark kings/lords killed in battle we know of are William Stark by Raymun Redbeard (with tens of thousands of wildlings) and a nameless Stark killed by Bolton, Starks' most powerful or 2nd most powerful bannerman at the time.

2) The Skagosi landed enough troops somewhere along the east coast of the North that the Umbers and Karstarks couldn't contain the threat

This is a lot less likely. Skagos is a remote backwater, and its inhabitants are basically raiders a la the mountain clans. Their strength, depending on who you ask, is going to be somewhere between 2500 - 9000. They wouldn't take all those men to the mainland, and they lack the ships to take very many at all. Stannis required 200 ships for his 5K men vanguard. Even landing 2000-3000 men is something that the Karstarks could likely handle. They march 2300 men down to WF, and we see the quality disparity between the IB and mountain clans. Now imagine well-trained heavy cavalry that broke the IB shield wall plus armored infantry with polearms taking on the mountain clans.

Occam's razor being what it is, I think the vastly simpler, more likely option is the Starks had to invade Skagos to put down a rebellion.

[The Fourth Head]

Well this is very interesting. I would argue there is no textural evidence of any lording over or interaction with skagos. They provided no troops, they did not bring anything at harvest, nor were they mentioned or expected to. They don't participate. Perhaps the king would visit skagos and demand offerings but I doubt given their obvious lack of material wealth it would have been worth a kings while. This bears out with the general mystery roose and the north in general hold with anyone on skagos. It suggests a long period of virtually zero interaction.

From there, the only cause for large scale war would be imo, disturbing the kings peace, and someone- perhaps a lord petitioning the king. I would not be surprised if winter was a cause for a major Viking-esque raiding expedition to the mainland out of sheer need and desperation, attempting to do a Skane on the karstarks largely out of a basic desperate need to eat. It doesn't take a massive population to pose a massive threat, but if everyone on skagos was starving, why sit around? The desperation alone would have posed a major problem for the Starks as the skagosi wouldn't have been presented with a choice- it was starve or die fighting.

I appreciate this is pure hypothesis but this was what I envisaged when I read about a skagosi rebellion. The degree of isolation suggests to me they raided, just as the Irish and scots did during roman Britain, and just as the Norwegians did later on. It doesn't take a massive population to pose a major danger.

This would also explain why the skagosi felt inclined to take on the Starks. I don't think it was out of a strong desire for independence when relations seem so loose to non existent. A major war would seem fairly pointless from a material pov. I think the Starks drove the skagosi out of Karstark and umber land and got any trapped leaders to acknowledge the kings authority and peace before they returned home.

[Lord Varys]

Just to clarify:

I don't think it makes sense to assume the Cannibal hangs out on Skagos. If he survived and was not claimed by anyone, Dragonstone would be a much better place.

We know he lived there, and as long as we don't know that he ever left, the island would be the best place for him. There are a lot of volcanic caverns on the isle, it seems, and GRRM built up the 'something secret may be hidden/going on on Dragonstone' since the island was first introduced.

Sinister reputation, stone dragons, Stannis and Mel investigating some of the caverns beneath the Dragonmount etc.

I'm just not really sure how we'll get a POV back on the island. Perhaps Aegon could go there for some reason after he acquires ships?

But Sheepstealer may have gone/ended up on Skagos.

[Calibandar]

Just to clarify:

I don't think it makes sense to assume the Cannibal hangs out on Skagos. If he survived and was not claimed by anyone, Dragonstone would be a much better place.

We know he lived there, and as long as we don't know that he ever left, the island would be the best place for him. There are a lot of volcanic caverns on the isle, it seems, and GRRM built up the 'something secret may be hidden/going on on Dragonstone' since the island was first introduced.

Sinister reputation, stone dragons, Stannis and Mel investigating some of the caverns beneath the Dragonmount etc.

I'm just not really sure how we'll get a POV back on the island. Perhaps Aegon could go there for some reason after he acquires ships?

But Sheepstealer may have gone/ended up on Skagos.

I also think the whole mystery regarding whether or not there are dragons or eggs left on Dragonstone is intriguing and wonder if somehow the Cannibal could be alive, in some form, there or elsewhere.

It's like the question of whether or not there may be a dragon left in the Vale.