House Manderly originally Ironborn?

[Nittanian]

And I don't think House Manderly's sigil is the Merling King, just a regular old merling. And I've also never seen a mention of House Greyiron's sigil specifically being the Merling King either.

The Citadel states that the Greyiron sigil is "The sea king's head, white with dark green seaweed beard and hair, a black crown on a grey field". Has GRRM mentioned the Greyiron sigil in the books?

[The WolfSpider]

I just don't see any real proof of this. Just some taking some facts and saying "hey look, what if the Manderlies were originally Ironborn?".

And I don't think House Manderly's sigil is the Merling King, just a regular old merling. And I've also never seen a mention of House Greyiron's sigil specifically being the Merling King either.

Of course there is no conclusive proof GRRM would not give us that info. It gets tiresome to have people saying silly stuff like that. He'd be out of a job if he gave us all the info to figure his stuff out beforehand. In order to figure anything out there is going to have to be an intuitive leap after doing due diligence on the research.

As for whether it's the Merling King...I was wrong the Manderly sigil is just a merman, my mistake. It's also totally irrelevant as the point was that

A.) Mermen or the Merling King have only been linked to salt water, thus establishing the Manderlys on a coastal area of the Reach prior to their exile.

B.)The only other house to have a merman is House Greyiron of the Iron Islands

I think there is a good chance that,as I said before, they conquered Dunstonbury back when the Ironborn were taking most of the west coast and in order to keep it they took the Seven to assimilate. This would pretty much cause them to be unable to return to the Iron Islands.

With the Ironborn controlling nearly the whole west coast at one point it's virtually guaranteed that some of the houses on the west coast got their start that way. The Manderly sigil makes them a strong candidate and I can't see anything that rules them out. It fits. But no it's not a guarantee. No theory is.

[The WolfSpider]

@Nittanian I don't think he has mentioned it. AWOIAF says it's semi-canon.

[The King in The Mount]

That idea has merit but seems like a reach.

Hehe

[The WolfSpider]

😉

[SolomonBlack]

Of course there is no conclusive proof GRRM would not give us that info. It gets tiresome to have people saying silly stuff like that. He'd be out of a job if he gave us all the info to figure his stuff out beforehand. In order to figure anything out there is going to have to be an intuitive leap after doing due diligence on the research.

As for whether it's the Merling King...I was wrong the Manderly sigil is just a merman, my mistake. It's also totally irrelevant as the point was that

A.) Mermen or the Merling King have only been linked to salt water, thus establishing the Manderlys on a coastal area of the Reach prior to their exile.

B.)The only other house to have a merman is House Greyiron of the Iron Islands

I think there is a good chance that,as I said before, they conquered Dunstonbury back when the Ironborn were taking most of the west coast and in order to keep it they took the Seven to assimilate. This would pretty much cause them to be unable to return to the Iron Islands.

With the Ironborn controlling nearly the whole west coast at one point it's virtually guaranteed that some of the houses on the west coast got their start that way. The Manderly sigil makes them a strong candidate and I can't see anything that rules them out. It fits. But no it's not a guarantee. No theory is.

The burden of proof for a theory lies with its proponent. It enjoys the default assumption that it is in fact wrong, and that words are wind. I could make a mutually incompatible theory and they can't both be right, a scenario that can be played out any of trillions of potential other theories out there in fandom (all fandom btw) and reality. How do we resolve these conundrums, why with evidence of course the theory that has conclusive proof. Saying a theory cannot be disproved (aka no conclusive proof) is therefore also saying a theory is wrong.

Your evidence is solely that the Manderlys have a merman sigil ergo were Ironborn. This has numerous issues including:

1) First off this has a problem in that merlings are not a distinctly Ironborn legend. Putting aside such close geographic cases as Lannisport fisherfolk we have say the Driftwood Throne, and figurehead on an Orphan boat in Dorne, and the Merling Queen in Braavos. Of course the Merling King is also a deity distinct from the Drowned God. You can go to the top level global Deep Ones idea of course for all this... but by the same token you cannot go back down and say its clearly related to the Iron Islands. Its in fact clearly not because merlings (much like mermaids here) are a more universal mythological figure.

2) Second since when are there clear and universal rules on sigils? Sure there is probably a story to everyone given that we've heard tale of a number of them but they range from a seeing a shooting star one night to some lions once lived in your mountain castle that also vaguely looks like a lion silhouette. Better still they can change like the Blackwoods couldn't have had a Raventree sigil while petty kings in the North, the Peake's presumably changed theirs to celebrate acquiring the Manderly castle unless they held three before or something. How can you from the outside tell a mythological reference from a geographical reference, from some banal tale about dogs nobody outside your house will care about. Simple answer: you can't.

Sometimes a sigil of a dragon biting its tail might be an ouroboros... or maybe its really just mocking Aegon the Conquerer for literally fighting a fool.

3) Third, the Manderlys have an established history you must successfully contradict by adding some super special secret. Since Westeros has a loooong memory that would certainly include such a juicy detail... what shows this concealment from the historical record, chapter and verse. Note that they don't have a full history of their founding isn't unusual most house we only have broad strokes.

Put together and there's nothing to go on. Worse still being true would undermine the basic purpose of the Manderlys. Namely showing that the North is a non-monolithic and diverse place which might not be readily apparent otherwise. A different house being Ironborn openly would do that further, the same house in secret? Nothing added but complication in an already complicated tale. So the theory serves no purpose by being true.

[Not a kneeler]

Perhaps when the Manderlys fled north they chose the Merman sigil to more truly signify their new location. Their culture and beliefs seem more like the First men or the Andals than the Ironborn. O course, there is that matter of Frey pies, although that is still more subtle than anything the Ironborn could cook up.

Interesting job on the color meaning. I often wonder about that myself.

[The Witch King of Asshai]

@Wolf Spider: I think it's said that men of the free companies take any name they want, so those in the GC may be fakes. If not, then they are just as, if not more likely, to be an offshoot of the main branch, a younger brother or cousin to Lord Gormon, whose descendants still rule Starpike. But it doesn't change the fact that the Lord Gormon was not exiled, but personally stripped of two of his own seats, and was allowed to retain his main seat at Starpike. If there were separate branches controlling the castles, then why would Lord Gormon be so annoyed that he ended up dying trying to get Daemon II on the throne, as he hasn't lost anything? Indeed, one of the main driving forces behind the Second Blackfyre rebellion was Lord Gormon's loss of Dustonbury and Whitegrove.

If your theory was right, then surely Lord Gormon would also have been exiled, as one of Daemon I biggest supporters and powerful allies, as well as his hypothetical treacherous cousins? Power that came from controlling three powerful seats directly.

Also, it would make sense that in those thousands of years the hypothetical offshoots would, like the Karstarks, have adopted different names for themselves. But there is only one House Peake ever referred to, and it stands to reason that the Manderly lands must've been directly absorbed, which would only be practical if they neighboured each other, and this severely reduces the odds of House Manderly having lands on the western coast. The Gardeners weren't stupid, they would have given the land to lords directly surrounding the Manderly land, not on the other side of the Reach.

[The WolfSpider]

I made a long reply but then screwed up and closed the window losing it and pretty much sucked the wind from my sails. I just want to say no one has presented anything contradicting my question with facts except the Merling King vs Merman which really is irrelevant to the point.

I am not saying that the Manderlys faked their history in the Reach only that there is more to the story, before the Reach. One theme in the series is how so much of history is forgotten, lost to the mists of time. Which would explain why none of the characters thought or mentioned the Manderlys full history but of course with the 1st person, unreliable format they could fill well know and just not have had it crossed their minds. Or simply haven't learned it. Am I guaranteeing it? No but there is room for it.

[The WolfSpider]

@Wolf Spider: I think it's said that men of the free companies take any name they want, so those in the GC may be fakes. If not, then they are just as, if not more likely, to be an offshoot of the main branch, a younger brother or cousin to Lord Gormon, whose descendants still rule Starpike. But it doesn't change the fact that the Lord Gormon was not exiled, but personally stripped of two of his own seats, and was allowed to retain his main seat at Starpike. If there were separate branches controlling the castles, then why would Lord Gormon be so annoyed that he ended up dying trying to get Daemon II on the throne, as he hasn't lost anything? Indeed, one of the main driving forces behind the Second Blackfyre rebellion was Lord Gormon's loss of Dustonbury and Whitegrove.

If your theory was right, then surely Lord Gormon would also have been exiled, as one of Daemon I biggest supporters and powerful allies, as well as his hypothetical treacherous cousins? Power that came from controlling three powerful seats directly.

Also, it would make sense that in those thousands of years the hypothetical offshoots would, like the Karstarks, have adopted different names for themselves. But there is only one House Peake ever referred to, and it stands to reason that the Manderly lands must've been directly absorbed, which would only be practical if they neighboured each other, and this severely reduces the odds of House Manderly having lands on the western coast. The Gardeners weren't stupid, they would have given the land to lords directly surrounding the Manderly land, not on the other side of the Reach.

My friend you are ignoring the evidence. Where in Westeros does one man control three seats? The Targs had three seats and have the lessers to princes. In the feudal system you give it to someone else to oversee ersee, generally the person who takes it for you. For instance Lord Peake sending an army headed by another Peake who would siege it and then be granted it upon conquest. The original Lord Peake would still be the head of the house and have some influence over his kin of course.

Gormon may have been upset at the blemish on his houses reputation. On failure on general or, since they seem to be the preeminent Blackfyre supporters, maybe just upset that the black dragon was beaten.

[Kaminsod]

It's been explicitly said that the Manderlys were from the Reach, specifically they were lords of the river of the same name. They were exiled approximately a millennium ago by the Gardeners, and were given rule of the White Knife by the Starks. How you could think of them having any Ironborn connections is beyond me.

[TheSovereignGrave]

My friend you are ignoring the evidence. Where in Westeros does one man control three seats? The Targs had three seats and have the lessers to princes. In the feudal system you give it to someone else to oversee ersee, generally the person who takes it for you. For instance Lord Peake sending an army headed by another Peake who would siege it and then be granted it upon conquest. The original Lord Peake would still be the head of the house and have some influence over his kin of course.

Gormon may have been upset at the blemish on his houses reputation. On failure on general or, since they seem to be the preeminent Blackfyre supporters, maybe just upset that the black dragon was beaten.

I think what he's trying to get at is if Gormon wasn't Lord the Dunstonbury and Whitegrove, why wasn't he himself punished for participating in the uprising?

[The WolfSpider]

@kaminsod It does not say with certainty that the river is named after them. They could have taken their name from it after conquering in a raid and holding it. Later taking in the Faith of the Seven and rising to prominence in the Reach in a thousand years time, or some such.

@sovereign I understand what your saying and I don't know it hasn't been stated but I would figure gold, hostages and maybe tracts of land. It seems fairly common to accept a surrender and let a lord keep his seat. Maybe the lords of Whitegrove and Dunstonbury did something worse than Gormon to warrant exile. There is options. It doesn't rule anything out.

[TheSovereignGrave]

@kaminsod It does not say with certainty that the river is named after them. They could have taken their name from it after conquering in a raid and holding it. Later taking in the Faith of the Seven and rising to prominence in the Reach in a thousand years time, or some such.

But there's no proof. There's nothing to even suggest such a thing. You could theorize that almost every House on the western coast of Westeros is descended from the Ironborn, but there's no evidence of it.

[BitsOfBrains]

Aside from the fact that there is absolutely nothing Iron Borny about the Manderlys, what exactly would this add to the world/story?

"Hey, you know that most loyal, unassuming, fat, industrious, and clever house in the North? Turns out they come from a bunch of scumbags known for the exact OPPOSITE of those traits! BOOM!"

It could be that their sigil just came from a dude who began their house who was an excellent swimmer or something and one day someone was like, "wow he swims like a merling." That seems just about as likely.

Also not everything has to mean something sigil wise.

I mean Ser Patrik of Kings Mountain (the guy Wun Wun shredded) got his sigil because GRRM hates the Dallas Cowboys (like everyone who has branches on their family tree).

I always assumed GRRM was writing Wyman Manderly as himself, or a character he sees most like himself. Maybe GRRM likes writing in Starbucks chilling on a frappuccino?

[Mithras]

We do not know where was their original castle (Dunstonbury) in the Reach but we do know that the New Castle in White Harbor was built to reflect the original castle. New Castle was built atop a hill that overlooks the harbor. So Dunstonbury should be a castle that was built on a hill close to Mander. In fact, that is true for almost all of the Reach castles. They are all built along Mander or its vassal streams. Highgarden is one such castle built atop a hill and overlooks Mander. So, the question is, where to put Dunstonbury along the Mander?

The World Book mentions Owen Oakenshield, a son of Garth Greenhand, who drove the merlings and selkies away from the Shields. So, my guess is that Dunstonbury was located closer to the mouth of Mander, And it is not a big stretch that the Manderlys were born there, possibly from the offspring of Owen Oakenshield. There is even a crackpot possibility that Owen and the selkies/merlings he drove away came to an agreement in the end and sealed it with an interracial marriage. That might explain the possible walrus blood in the Manderlys and why did they adopt the Merling King sigil.

[Joe Pesci]

The Ironborn were supposed to have controlled pretty much the entire west coast and this location would certainly fit. Consequently I think they are Ironborn who managed to gain a seat in the reach. Their different heritage may have ever contributed to the Gardeners having them run off.

It's not a lock but I feel like there is enough information to suggest this. Not to mention the only other house to use the Merling King as their sigil was House Greyiron of the Iron Islands. And what better sigil for a house this nomadic?

Can you establish anything with a time frame of when House Manderly was created and if it fits in with when the IB were in control of the western coast of Westeros?