1st Crackpot of 2015: Lann the Clever was a changeling!

[Mithras]

Each of these families became powers, and some in time took on the styles of lords and even kings. Yet by far the greatest lords in the westerlands were the Casterlys of the Rock, who had their seat in a colossal stone that rose beside the Sunset Sea. Legend tells us the first Casterly lord was a huntsman, Corlos son of Caster, who lived in a village near to where Lannisport stands today. When a lion began preying upon the village’s sheep, Corlos tracked it back to its den, a cave in the base of the Rock. Armed only with a spear, he slew the lion and his mate but spared her newborn cubs— an act of mercy that so pleased the old gods (for this was long before the Seven came to Westeros) that they sent a sudden shaft of sunlight deep into the cave, and there in the stony walls, Corlos beheld the gleam of yellow gold, a vein as thick as a man’s waist.

The tale of Corlos who spared the lion cubs reminds me of how the direwolf pups were spared by the Starks. The Corlos incident must have happened during the Dawn Age while the First Men were fighting the CotF. Perhaps Corlos and his descendants were favored by the CotF. I think that is definitely case with the Starks.

That was when the golden-haired rogue called Lann the Clever appeared from out of the east. Some say he was an Andal adventurer from across the narrow sea, though this was millennia before the coming of the Andals to Westeros. Regardless of his origins, the tales agree that somehow Lann the Clever winkled the Casterlys out of their Rock and took it for his own.

The precise method by which he accomplished this remains a matter of conjecture. In the most common version of the tale, Lann discovered a secret way inside the Rock, a cleft so narrow that he had to strip off his clothes and coat himself with butter in order to squeeze through. Once inside, however, he began to work his mischief, whispering threats in the ears of sleeping Casterlys, howling from the darkness like a demon, stealing treasures from one brother to plant in the bedchamber of another, rigging sundry snares and deadfalls. By such methods he set the Casterlys at odds with one another and convinced them that the Rock was haunted by some fell creature that would never let them live in peace.

Other tellers prefer other versions of the tale. In one, Lann uses the cleft to fill the Rock with mice, rats, and other vermin, thereby driving out the Casterlys. In another, he smuggles a pride of lions inside, and Lord Casterly and his sons are all devoured, after which Lann claims his lordship’s wife and daughters for himself. The bawdiest of the stories has Lann stealing in night after night to have his way with the Casterly maidens whilst they sleep. In nine months time, these maids all give birth to golden-haired children whilst still insisting they had never had carnal knowledge of a man.

The last tale, ribald as it is, has certain intriguing aspects that might hint at the truth of what occurred. It is Archmaester Perestan’s belief that Lann was a retainer of some sort in service to Lord Casterly (perhaps a household guard), who impregnated his lordship’s daughter (or daughters, though that seems less likely), and persuaded her father to give him the girl’s hand in marriage. If indeed this was what occurred, assuming (as we must) that Lord Casterly had no trueborn sons, then in the natural course of events the Rock would have passed to the daughter, and hence to Lann, upon the father’s death.

About the bolded part, I don’t want to sound pervert but that description looks like a metaphor of vagina and intercourse. In fact, this whole thing seems like the general idea here. Lann the Clever impregnated the female Casterlys and his progeny inherited the Rock.

Lann the Clever supposedly lived to the age of 312, and sired a hundred bold sons and a hundred lissome daughters, all fair of face, clean of limb, and blessed with hair “as golden as the sun.” But such tales aside, the histories suggest that the early Lannisters were fertile as well as fair, for many names began to appear in the chronicles, and within a few generations Lann’s descendants had grown so numerous that even Casterly Rock could not contain all of them. Rather than tunnel out new passages in the stone, some sons and daughters from lesser branches of the house left to make their homes in a village a scant mile away. The land was fertile, the sea teemed with fish, and the site they had chosen had an excellent natural harbor. Soon enough the village grew into a town, then a city: Lannisport.

The extreme age of Lann and the extreme fertility of the Lannisters (even today they have the highest rate of producing twins), Lann might really have some inhumane origins. This origin must be definitely not due to the CotF considering their low fertility rate and Casterlys were probably pro-CotF.

Lann was said to come from the East. Obviously, he cannot come from West because there is no known settlement there, unless he was not a human.

We should ask ourselves the contrast between Westerlands and Iron Islands sections. The Iron Islands section has lots of stories about the inhumane origins of the ironborn, the practice of stealing women, merlings, selkies etc. If there was a race coming and taking women or impregnating them, why did they not come to Westerlands which is very close? I think they did and Lann was one of them.

I believe Brandon the Builder was a hybrid of a human male (or to be more precisely, the Last Hero, who might have been a Dayne) and a female CotF . He, like Lann, lived for several generations. Even in TMK, it is said that the Starks and Lannisters do not like each other. We can be pretty sure that the feud between the Starks and Lannisiters did not start with the Sack of KL. Can this antagonism have its origins in the inhumane origins of both Houses (CotF vs. this changeling race) that were in war? I think it can. I further think that Boltons were descended from the progeny of the NK and Lady Other and that is the start of the feud between the Starks and Boltons.

[Trogdor Targaryen]

Would this feud between cotf and changelings fit as an answer as to why the direwolves tend to treat Tyrion with hostility?

[Mithras]

^^That was due to the general Stark-Lannister antagonism but if that was based on this interracial feud, then yeah. Maybe the wolves are able to feel it.

The giants are almost gone as well, they who were our bane and our brothers. The great lions of the western hills have been slain, the unicorns are all but gone, the mammoths down to a few hundred. The direwolves will outlast us all, but their time will come as well.

This is what Leaf told Bran. I think it is possible that Casterlys were pro-CotF and they were given the gift of skinchanging by which they wore the skins of great lions.

[Trogdor Targaryen]

I think this is a very interesting idea, but I must say that the concept of this changeling race is new to me. If they are enemies of the children, does that imply that they have a relationship to the others? A search has me working through a bunch of heresy threads right now, but perhaps you might be able to help enlighten me?

You compare the Westerlands to the Iron Islands for proximity and contrast the stories shared regarding origins, suggesting that the two woud be similar, so it seems that you're impying that the Iron Born are largely a product of first men/changeling breeding as well. If this is the case, it would seem likely to me that the reason such tales continue in the Iron Islands and not the Westerlands is because the Westerlands saw a more significant culture shock from the Andal invasion, and such ideas of races intermingling became deemed inappropriate causing these tales to drown out, while the Iron Islands isolation allowed for less influence by andal culture.

If the Casterly's were in fact skinchangers, it is too bad they are not around anymore, because apparently cats are some of the lesser receptive animals to skinchangers, so that ability would have been an impressive one.

Note: I think it's interesting, btw, that Lann would select a lion as his house sigil, if those he overthrew were in fact the ones who shared the connection with the lions, as if he wanted to disguise his house as the one he replaced.

[Trogdor Targaryen]

If there are Changelings, I feel that house Frey would be another Likely candidate for having changeling origins.