GRRM on TWoIaF [YT video]

[Free Northman Reborn]

No that is not true. When a ruling House is wiped out, their tens or hundreds of thousands of subjects aren't wiped out with them. They are just replaced with lords that are loyal to the victors. As in the case of the Karstarks at Karhold, the Manderlys in White Harbor and whichever other petty kings were defeated and replaced with Stark loyalists.

There is no mass migration of the entire populace when a lord is defeated or exiled. The Blackwoods would have left with their closest retainers and maybe some of their wealth, but 99.9% of their peasant population would have remained behind.

Same when the Manderlys left the Reach to come North. They could not bring their peasant population with them.

[Hardstone]

Re: Towers and Fisher not being the same as the Riverland Houses.

In "modern" times, there is a House Wells in the North and Dorne listed on the wiki so there is potential for Houses with the same name not being related at all.


Great find by the way!

[Ramsay's Penguins]

I mean the men that fought in their armies, the people of their lands and settlements, people still faithful to the old kings and queens. There would be fatalities, perhaps less then I thought, but many.

[Mrs.Grumpy]

I can barely read Kings of Winter but I can't even read a letter from Highgarden page. Which is a shame because I'm a Tyrell fan Q.Q

Help Q.Q

So the Blackwoods claim that they ruled up until the Wolfswood?

"Warg Kings of Sea Dragon Point had greenseers in his service."

Woah woah woah woah :O

That is the coolest thing in the whole universe.

[Ran]

Just quoting myself from the previous page because it feels like it's getting lost...

Don't think population and number of kingdoms has much connection. There were 7 Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in Britain in 650 AD, but an estimated population of 500,000 people. 700 years later, there was one kingdom and a population of 5 million.

TL;DR: Number of kingdoms does not relate to total population.

[The Wolves]

I can barely read Kings of Winter but I can't even read a letter from Highgarden page. Which is a shame because I'm a Tyrell fan Q.Q

Help Q.Q

So the Blackwoods claim that they ruled up until the Wolfswood?

"Warg Kings of Sea Dragon Point had greenseers in his service."

Woah woah woah woah :O

That is the coolest thing in the whole universe.

Highgarden is gorgeous!!!

And yes Warg King is such a badass title.

Also the Starks of old scare me and I can honestly say I think they were more ruthless than Tywin I can see now why Ned was scared of them while walking the tombs, them crazy beasts bowed to no one.

[Lord Varys]

FNR,

you really should consider the effects of winter and continuous warfare (prior to the Conquest). The North is very vulnerable from the sea, since it has leagues of undefended coastlines on both shores. Lands like the Stony Shore, Bear Island, Sea Dragon Point, Cape Kraken, etc. all were once in possession of the Ironborn. Just as the Gifts are now depopulated due to the continuous wildling threat, people may have abandoned large portion of coastal lands in the North for decades and centuries, and only returned much later in smaller numbers.

The Andals and other would-be invaders (slavers, pirates from the Sisters, etc.) may have troubled the western shores from time to time in a similar fashion (the latter is sort of confirmed in the known history of White Harbor).

And we should also consider that there may have been very few First Men in the North to begin with - especially compared to the other regions. Why the hell should they go up there, when they can take land in the warmer South?

It is very likely that the unification of the Realm resulted in a sort of slow but steady rise of the population in all of Westeros, eventually resulting in the numbers GRRM gives us for the present day Realm. The 55,000 men for the combined forces of House Gardener and Lannister on the Field of Fire do not sound unreasonable when we keep that in mind.

I'd be surprised if the Towers of Harrenhal would be the same as those in the North, but considering that the Blackwoods apparently successfully got south, members of other houses might have, too.

Speaking about that - do you guys think that the Blackwoods being Northerners originally could suggests that the Brackens as Kings of (parts of) the Riverlands took the Blackwoods in as their vassals, or are the Blackwoods the older royal house of the Riverlands?

[butterbumps!]

Well, it's good to be able to talk about something of this:

1. The Highgarden picture is from Ted Nasmith, it was part of a calender years ago, and belongs to the earliest art commissioned for the book (I remember Ted showing pictures of that series in 2008 or so ;-)). The really interesting tidbit on Highgarden I could make out is that it has three weirwoods with carved faces as heart trees in its godswood, called the Three Singers (second column, second paragraph of the Highgarden page).

2. The Bolton-Stark-rivalry dating back to the days of the Long Night is very telling. In my opinion, this has nothing to do with the Night's King and stuff (that is, as long as the Night's King story has nothing to do with the origin of the Others) but rather a hint to the fact that the Boltons may have been allied with/servants of the Others during the Long Night (like Craster was in present days). I've said it many times that an important subplot during the final volumes of the series - i.e. when winter has come and the Others make their move - should be humans trying to/successfully collaborate with the Others. And there is no one more suited to this type of behavior than Roose! And the pale, almost colorless (i.e. 'icy') eyes aren't there because they are so scary...

3. This 'War of the Wolves' strongly suggests that the ancient Kings of Winter were less reluctant to make use of their skinchanging ability.

4. A good deal of Children of the Forest blood in the Stark veins could come from the women they took as prizes from the Warg King on Sea Dragon Point.

That's exactly why I was so excited about the Bolton mention in there-- that their rivalry dates back to the Long Night seems telling. Why would 2 human powers be fighting against each other, and continue fighting, when some apparently inhuman alien race was apparently threatening all mankind. It seems to suggest to me that one side was somehow aligned with the Others (and I'm not precluding the possibility that all 3 parties were using ice magic back in the day). It's also somewhat interesting to me in light of how the Boltons choose to make their move on the eve of another Long Night. Are they truly oblivious to what's going on up North?

I'm still wondering about the NK, though. I only read the KoW page, but is it certain that the NK doesn't date to the "time of the Long Night?" My hunch has been that the Boltons are a Stark offshoot branch, and the NK sort of fits as a significant place this might have occurred. I might be wrong about that line of speculation, but I do think this might lend some credence to some sort of Others-Stark-Bolton history such that the idea of some sort of alignment between Others and Boltons (or even Starks) isn't all that crazy.

[Maia]

The really interesting tidbit on Highgarden I could make out is that it has three weirwoods with carved faces as heart trees in its godswood, called the Three Singers (second column, second paragraph of the Highgarden page).

Isn't it odd that all the supposed strongholds of the Andals are revealed to have carved weirwood heart trees? Hadn't the Andals supposedly cut most of them down? I mean, Catelyn in her first PoV in AGoT reflects how while they do still have godswoods in the south, with a few exceptions, they don't have weirwoods in them. Yet even at the Eyrie, the castle of the dynasty with the strongest Andal roots of all, they had allegedly tried to plant a weirwood, but it was unable to grow due to the earth being too stony. Did GRRM change his mind on this? Or are the Riverlands (bar Blackwood castle and Harrenhal) particularly devoid of proper heart trees? As is KL, of course.

I've said it many times that an important subplot during the final volumes of the series - i.e. when winter has come and the Others make their move - should be humans trying to/successfully collaborate with the Others. And there is no one more suited to this type of behavior than Roose! And the pale, almost colorless (i.e. 'icy') eyes aren't there because they are so scary...

Maybe. One would think that if the Others had been open to such collaboration, then more wildlings than just Craster would have made arrangements, instead of leaving their lands for a fairly desperate attack on the Wall. But maybe they have. Maybe they have smuggled some Others past the Wall and those are going to reveal themselves in TWoW. After all, if the wights can't cross under their own power, but can be brought through by humans, why not the Others themselves?

But wouldn't it be a nice twist if the _Starks_ had been the ones who had betrayed humankind and collaborated with the Others? Far more interesting than the obviously evil antagonists Boltons doing the same. And yea, I don't believe that the Others just seek to redress the balance of nature and thus aren't really bad ;).

Maybe the Starks made war on the Warg King, who was an ally of the Children for that reason. Also, we have been previously told that the First Men had been living harmoniously and peacefully with the Children after the Pact, but now it is revealed that this didn't apply to the Starks, who had slaughtered and driven away the Children from the North before the Andals, who were the ones supposedly responsible for extermination of the Children, even showed up in Westeros! Curious, to say the least.

This 'War of the Wolves' strongly suggests that the ancient Kings of Winter were less reluctant to make use of their skinchanging ability.

Not sure about that. At least on this page it isn't as much as hinted that Starks had been known to be skinchangers. Could just apply to their sigil.

P.S. Yes, now that we know the origins of Blackwoods, it seems quite likely that the Bracken version of how their feud started is the correct one ;). Native Brackens were more likely to take fugitive Blackwoods as vassals. Only, it didn't work out for them as well as the Stark - Manderly deal did for the Starks. Which is a good twist, given how the Blackwoods have been portrayed as the more sympathetic ones.

[butterbumps!]

Maybe. One would think that if the Others had been open to such collaboration, then more wildlings than just Craster would have made arrangements, instead of leaving their lands for a fairly desperate attack on the Wall. But maybe they have. Maybe they have smuggled some Others past the Wall and those are going to reveal themselves in TWoW. After all, if the wights can't cross under their own power, but can be brought through by humans, why not the Others themselves?

But wouldn't it be a nice twist if the _Starks_ had been the ones who had betrayed humankind and collaborated with the Others? Far more interesting than the obviously evil antagonists Boltons doing the same. And yea, I don't believe that the Others just seek to redress the balance of nature and thus aren't really bad ;).

Maybe the Starks made war on the Warg King, who was an ally of the Children for that reason. Also, we have been previously told that the First Men had been living harmoniously and peacefully with the Children after the Pact, but now it is revealed that this didn't apply to the Starks, who had slaughtered and driven away the Children from the North before the Andals, who were the ones supposedly responsible for extermination of the Children, even showed up in Westeros! Curious, to say the least.

Well, that's kind of what I'm thinking. I think we might have discussed this a bit before, but I kind of think the Others might have been a Stark creation. I'd posited that the Starks were about ice magic initially, and then later adopted the CotF magic, and this excerpt somewhat strengthens that speculation. I think it would be really interesting if the Starks and Boltons were related (like, the Boltons were once Starks or something), and that they fought over the continued use of ice magic/ Others alliance/ potential Stark power abuses or something to that effect. I suspect this isn't nearly as clean, or leaving the Starks as historically justified as we're led to believe.

[Free Northman Reborn]

Ran

That is not my contention.

The point is that Sea Dragon point and the Stony Shore had enough people to support noteworthy petty kings. Yet today we are told these regions are virtually without people.

Same with the Wolfswood. The Blackwoods were apparently powerful kings in the days when they ruled this wood. So it had peasants they could draw armies from. Today it seems to hold just isolated crofter villages.

Where is the settlement of Blackpool today, the former stronghold of House Slate? Where is the castle formerly ruled by the Fisher Kings, when today there is not a single named settlement on the entire map of the Stony Shore?

The Blackwood Kings must have had a castle in the Wolfswood. Where is that settlement today?

Same for the Ambers, Towers, Greenwoods etc.

It just seems as if there are way more blank spots on the map of the North today than there were 5000 years ago. This when the South is covered by settlements all over the map.

[Veltigar]

Why did Roger the Huntsman bend the knee? I couldn't make it out from the page. Seems like the Boltons were dominating the whole North's Eastern Coast, from the Last River to the Sheepshead Hills. They lost a lot of power. I think it's safe to assume that House Karstark was founded after the defeat of a Bolton Lord.

Where exactly are the Sheepshead Hills? I can't seem to find them on the map?

And also House Glover used to be a royal house....

Makes it even stranger that they are just of masterly rank and have only a shitty wooden castle for a keep.

House Manderly embarrassed the Reach lords at a tourney by defeating them in the reign of Jahaerys the First.

Go Manderly! these guys are awesome :D

The children of the forest had something to do with Gendel and Gorne, the kings beyond the wall, helping them get through.

This the best piece of info so far to me. I have been theorizing this since I read ADWD. I think BR's cave is the entrance to the tunnelsystem that leads all the way to the other end of the wall. Furthermore, I have been thinking that Gorne's way would turn out to be incredibly important to these novel ever since Ygritte told Jon when they were in the cave. Potentially, this is huge. If the WW manage to force themselves inside, they don't need to attack the wall anymore, they could just pop up unanounced.

[Ran]

The point is that Sea Dragon point and the Stony Shore had enough people to support noteworthy petty kings.

What's "noteworthy"? They have legends about having conflicts with the Starks. They could have had an "army" that amounted to 200 men, and maybe having a personal following like that was all you needed to be able to claim a crown.

Same with the Wolfswood. The Blackwoods were apparently powerful kings

They were kings. What's "powerful" back then? Again, you don't really know. What counts as a "war"? What was a war back then might amount to a series of skirmishes now.

Where is the settlement of Blackpool today, the former stronghold of House Slate? Where is the castle formerly ruled by the Fisher Kings, when today there is not a single named settlement on the entire map of the Stony Shore?

Do you really think the place names on the maps are all the placenames that exist? There's a number of towns and villages in the riverlands, for example, that have not appeared on the maps and yet we know they exist. Absence of a name does not mean absence of a place.

I will say that when The Lands of Ice and Fire came up, George only worked on the non-Westeros stuff in terms of adding placenames and so on. I don't know if he has a map that's updated with names he's come up with in the last decade or so. He may feel the map of Westeros is complete "enough" for his purposes. Doesn't mean that he doesn't think there's more stuff there, he just hasn't gotten around to marking it out.

It just seems as if there are way more blank spots on the map of the North today than there were 5000 years ago. This when the South is covered by settlements all over the map.

Imagine George made a map of the North for 5,000 years ago, and when he published it, maybe the only addition would be one castle. But then you say, "Hey, you mentioned all this other stuff. Where's that?" And he'd likely say, "Haven't decided yet. Somewhere."

Don't draw conclusions based on absence of stuff from the maps. There are unnamed settlements and the like out there -- villages, certainly, and castles, and even whole noble families we know nothing about.

[Free Northman Reborn]

What's "noteworthy"? They have legends about having conflicts with the Starks. They could have had an "army" that amounted to 200 men, and maybe having a personal following like that was all you needed to be able to claim a crown.

They were kings. What's "powerful" back then? Again, you don't really know. What counts as a "war"? What was a war back then might amount to a series of skirmishes now.

Do you really think the place names on the maps are all the placenames that exist? There's a number of towns and villages in the riverlands, for example, that have not appeared on the maps and yet we know they exist. Absence of a name does not mean absence of a place.

I will say that when The Lands of Ice and Fire came up, George only worked on the non-Westeros stuff in terms of adding placenames and so on. I don't know if he has a map that's updated with names he's come up with in the last decade or so. He may feel the map of Westeros is complete "enough" for his purposes. Doesn't mean that he doesn't think there's more stuff there, he just hasn't gotten around to marking it out.

Imagine George made a map of the North for 5,000 years ago, and when he published it, maybe the only addition would be one castle. But then you say, "Hey, you mentioned all this other stuff. Where's that?" And he'd likely say, "Haven't decided yet. Somewhere."

Don't draw conclusions based on absence of stuff from the maps. There are unnamed settlements and the like out there -- villages, certainly, and castles, and even whole noble families we know nothing about.

Fair enough. Though I would suggest that the Worldbook makes mention of only the most noteworthy kings that were defeated by the Starks. Over the course of 5000 years there would have been hundreds of such kings and lords. So the ones that are remembered after thousands of years likely had a larger footprint on history than just having 200 men in tow.

Especially if they ruled territories as large as the entire Sea Dragon point or the Wolfswood.

So I take your point, and am glad that there is at least some semi official recognition of all the settlements that must exist in the areas that appear as blank spaces on the map.

[Ran]

Bear in mind that this holds true for every other region, of course. George hasn't shown a 10th part of the Reach, the Westerlands, the Riverlands, etc.

[Veltigar]

The point is that Sea Dragon point and the Stony Shore had enough people to support noteworthy petty kings. Yet today we are told these regions are virtually without people.

Apart from what Ran said, aren't the Ironborn a good explanation for why these particular spots are depopulated? We know that Euron is the first Ironborn to capture the Shield Islands in 2000 years. Before that, the Ironborn were free to plunder along the shores of the Mander and other warning systems (the watchtowers) were probably not there yet as well.

This would have made the Reach easy pickings. Add to that the Riverlands and possibly the Westerlands which might have had similar problems. Those three regions probably drew most of the Ironborn raids in the early times, because it was more profitable to raid those richer lands. After the Reach became impossible to plunder as extensively as before (with perhaps the Westerlands being closed off in a similar fashion), the Ironborn attacked the North and displaced the population there.

Just a thought of course.

[Lord Varys]

On the Night's King:

Old Nan seems to believe he was the 13th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. If the Wall was raised after the Long Night (which seems to be the case), and if the Night's Watch was founded during/after the War for the Dawn as a result of the threat the Others posed to all humanity, then it would time line wise be impossible that the Night's King was the founder/creator of the Others.

But, of course, there may be some contraction, simplification, and confusion going on in a story this old. And we don't know what happened to the Night's King in the end. His queen seems to resemble both an Other and a beautiful female wight, so it is really hard to tell. One could imagine that this thing was a sort of last feeble attempt of the defeated Others to achieve with guile what they failed to achieve with brute force during the Long Night.

And I am, of course, aware of the Night's King slip in regards to the TV show, so there may really be some connection in there. However, it is not really sure that the Night's King was a member of House Stark. Even if the present day Others fill up their ranks by turning human infants into their own, this does not have to be the original origin of the Others - they could also be an offshoot branch of Children of the Forest or another inhuman species living in the Far North who were pissed about the First Men expansion.

If the freak seasons are caused by the existence of the Others (or by magic used by the Others) I cannot possibly think of a reason why human founders of the Others would want to exterminate all the non-otherly humans. However, it could be something as fishy (or simple) as a human sorcerer fucking up some immortality spell ('the cold preserves', after all). If the Others need a very special cold, they may be forced to draw the warmth away to continue their existence (on the other hand, they seem to have a lot of land up there in the Land of Always Winter, so they really have to have a good reason for coming down).

I personally are not looking forward to a scenario were the Others turn out to be some race of twisted humans, determined to 'conquer the world with magical cold' or to avenge themselves on their fellow humans for some insult from thousands of years ago. The underlying theme that the humans relentlessly pursued and exterminate the Children and the giants really should come back to bite them in the ass.

The whole 'half-human Other children' stuff seems to be something that could apply more to the Boltons than the Starks, though. They have those icy eyes, and especially Roose is a very cold fish, devoid of emotion (apparently due to the leeching stuff, but that could just be a cover story). I don't think he necessarily knows what he is, if he he is descendant of the Others in the, say, 100th generation, or so, but this could be revealed to him. There may also be Stark blood among the Others, but not necessarily vice versa.

And as to why most of the wildlings do not strike a deal with the Others:

You have to worship them as gods, and give them all your male children (and you have to breed a lot to keep them happy, it seems). That is not exactly a modus operandi the Free Folk would adopt. And we also don't know how stable such an alliance is. Unless the Others cannot immunize grown-up humans against the cold, even the allies of the Others would die in a world completely dominated by the Others.

TFR,

the old kingdoms may have been large in size, but not necessarily very populous. Just as Ran has said. Who is to say that the Blackwoods did not rule over, say, 100 people in all the Wolfswood back then? And, of course, the same would be true, although perhaps to a lesser degree, for the kingdoms in the South. They would be much smaller, especially during those days the First Men still shared Westeros with the Children and the giants. But even later on, there would have been large portions of empty land full of forests, just as it was back during the Early Middle Ages...

[Mithras]

The biggest clue is hidden in the oath.

I am the watcher on the walls.

This means the NW predates the Wall. Probably, castles were built along the current line of the Wall to defend the Realm. Nightfort should be one of them. The NW was guarding the walls of those castles as well as the other castles further south. After the LN, the Wall was made to unite them. I think there were 13 castles like them and the NK was the commander of Nightfort. Him being the 13th LC is not true. The LH should also be a commander of one of those castles (I think he is also Brandon the Builder). His lost companions are the other commanders who fell under the power of the NK.

[Free Northman Reborn]

Varys

Your post about the Others demanding your children as sacrifice suddenly resonates to me with the Night's Watch vow that you may father no children. Maybe a way to starve the Others of new population growth?

Maybe signifying that the Others can only procreate through sacrificed human Children?

Or at the very least, only manifest physically through sacrificed human children.

[AryaNymeriaVisenya]

I'm not sure if you've already seen them, but there are some previews out there,

http://images.abovethetreeline.com/ea/RH/images/illustrations/original/9780553805444_il_1.jpg?width=1000

http://images.abovethetreeline.com/ea/RH/images/illustrations/original/9780553805444_il_2.jpg?width=1000

http://images.abovethetreeline.com/ea/RH/images/illustrations/original/9780553805444_il_3.jpg?width=1000

http://images.abovethetreeline.com/ea/RH/images/illustrations/original/9780553805444_il_4.jpg?width=1000

http://img1.imagesbn.com/p/9780553805444_p1_v6_s600.JPG

http://img1.imagesbn.com/p/9780553805444_p2_v7_s600.JPG

http://img1.imagesbn.com/p/9780553805444_p3_v8_s600.JPG

http://img1.imagesbn.com/p/9780553805444_p4_v9_s600.JPG

http://img1.imagesbn.com/p/9780553805444_p6_v11_s600.JPG

http://img1.imagesbn.com/p/9780553805444_p7_v12_s600.JPG

Please tell me Blackpool Castle has/had a huge tower!

That Kings of Winter page has a few shocks. The Blackwoods' northern roots, the taking of the 'Warg Kings' daughters, was the Greywolf a Greystark? Is there a connection between House Royce and the Boltons?