When did the Andals leave Essos?

[AlaskanSandman]

I agree with questioning the time lines. Like the Andal Invasion. Yes the commonly excepted time for this event withinn the story by characters largely whos view points come from westeros where history is written by the Maester with an Agenda. Three dates are given for the event, 6000 (coomonly excepted) and 4000 and 2000 as counter information also provided by people with in the history. Its even said that Maester disagree on events. Arch Maester Haereg believes the last Kinsmoot was 4000 years ago, while Maester Denestan believes 2000. These countering dates are being given for a reason. The clear reason being that the commonly excepted time lines dont make sense. Especially when compared with stories out side of Westeros. Since these inconsistent time lines are given with in the actual novels, its safe to say they're a plot point. This is also why i believe Dany is in Ghis, as a plot mechanism to reveal the truth. What truth exactly is hard to say for sure with out speculating, but even Qaithe suggest that Dany must head east to discover the truth. Is is just about her, or a larger issue. We'll see. But def worth questioning.

[Mithras]

So any book after the very first is utterly unimportant? All lies? Robb Stark is alive and kicking Lannister butt?

 

We are talking about what should be considered canon and what should not. The information given in the first book is conclusive. That is why it should be taken as canon. The information given in the next books about this specific subject is something totally different and cannot be taken as canon. If this turns out to be the case, blame George for retconning.

[DMC]

 

We are talking about what should be considered canon and what should not. The information given in the first book is conclusive. That is why it should be taken as canon. The information given in the next books about this specific subject is something totally different and cannot be taken as canon. If this turns out to be the case, blame George for retconning.

 

I wouldn't blame him at all for such 'retconning.'  The idea there is Westeros-wide consensus on the timing of events happening thousands of years ago is silly anyway. 

[Mithras]

I wouldn't blame him at all for such 'retconning.'  The idea there is Westeros-wide consensus on the timing of events happening thousands of years ago is silly anyway. 

 

As with the tales of Old Nan about the Others and such.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

 

We are talking about what should be considered canon and what should not. The information given in the first book is conclusive. That is why it should be taken as canon. The information given in the next books about this specific subject is something totally different and cannot be taken as canon. If this turns out to be the case, blame George for retconning.

You are arguing that the information that Joffrey is Robert's son given in the first chapter is conclusive and canon and that the information given later about this specific subject is something totally different and cannot be taken as canon? That him being Jaime's bastard is a retcon and GRRM is to blame for it?

 

That is your very argument.

 

Especially since there are countless passages lampshading the problems of the timeline given in the first book and flat-out statements that a lot of it is purely made up.

[Mithras]

You are arguing that the information that Joffrey is Robert's son given in the first chapter is conclusive and canon and that the information given later about this specific subject is something totally different and cannot be taken as canon? That him being Jaime's bastard is a retcon and GRRM is to blame for it?

 

That is your very argument.

 

Especially since there are countless passages lampshading the problems of the timeline given in the first book and flat-out statements that a lot of it is purely made up.

 

It is apples vs. oranges. Definitely not my argument.

 

Can you give examples of those "countless passages lampshading the problems of the timeline given in the first book and flat-out statements that a lot of it is purely made up"?

[DMC]

 

As with the tales of Old Nan about the Others and such.

 

Now, if you're argument was Old Nan = the one true cannon, I may have been more sympathetic to your cause.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

 

It is apples vs. oranges. Definitely not my argument.

 

Can you give examples of those "countless passages lampshading the problems of the timeline given in the first book and flat-out statements that a lot of it is purely made up"?

There are archmaesters at the Citadel who question all of it. Those old histories are full of kings who reigned for hundreds of years and knights riding around a thousand years before there were knights.

Sam I Feast

 

Bran was going to be a knight himself someday, one of the Kingsguard. Old Nan said they were the finest swords in all the realm. (...) Serwyn of the Mirror Shield...

Bran II Game, Serwyn of the Mirror Shield was a "knight" of the "KG" from the Age of Heroes. And yes, that's from Old Nan (via Bran)

 

Far from a full list, just something I could easily search for.

[Ser Arthur Hightower]

 

His smile was gentle. "You listen to too many of Old Nan's stories. The Others are as dead as the children of the forest, gone eight thousand years. Maester Luwin will tell you they never lived at all. No living man has ever seen one."

 

"No doubt I will hear what your brother says soon enough," Robert said. "The Wall has stood for what, eight thousand years? It can keep a few days more. I have more pressing concerns. These are difficult times. I need good men about me. Men like Jon Arryn. He served as Lord of the Eyrie, as Warden of the East, as the Hand of the King. He will not be easy to replace."

 

Jon could have told him. He knew, they all knew, yet no man of them would say the words. The Others are only a story, a tale to make children shiver. If they ever lived at all, they are gone eight thousand years. Even the thought made him feel foolish; he was a man grown now, a black brother of the Night's Watch, not the boy who'd once sat at Old Nan's feet with Bran and Robb and Arya.

 

"Spare me your but's, boy," Lord Mormont interrupted. "I would not be sitting here were it not for you and that beast of yours. You fought bravely … and more to the point, you thought quickly. Fire! Yes, damn it. We ought to have known. We ought to have remembered. The Long Night has come before. Oh, eight thousand years is a good while, to be sure … yet if the Night's Watch does not remember, who will?"

 

All from AGoT. So, at least the Long Night and the Wall are thought to be eight thousand years old by a large variety of characters.

 

Alyssa Arryn had seen her husband, her brothers, and all her children slain, and yet in life she had never shed a tear. So in death, the gods had decreed that she would know no rest until her weeping watered the black earth of the Vale, where the men she had loved were buried. Alyssa had been dead six thousand years now, and still no drop of the torrent had ever reached the valley floor far below. Catelyn wondered how large a waterfall her own tears would make when she died. "Tell me the rest of it," she said.

 

Still from AGoT. I don’t know any First Man with the Arryn surname, which means the Arryns should have been there for at least six thousand years.

 

 

No, because we are given the canon dates long before any of those characters appeared.

 

So I suppose Dacey or Alysanne Mormont has a daughter around Robb's age that Maege would like him to marry? Or could it be that stuff written in the first book can be discredited if new information is repeatedly given to us in later books?

[Mithras]

There are archmaesters at the Citadel who question all of it. Those old histories are full of kings who reigned for hundreds of years and knights riding around a thousand years before there were knights.

Sam I Feast

 

We are talking about the first book. The archmaesters can be quite ignorant sometimes. In fact, the unorthodox people are the ones who turn out to be much more accurate. Examples are Septon Barth, Maester Theron, Old Nan etc. George has been bashing the positivism of the maesters since the beginning of the series and whatever Rodrik Harlaw or Sam or Hos Blackwood later talked about are all examples of that same positivism. This is not the real world. This is a world full of magic. So far, every in-universe positivist attempt to explain the irregularity of the seasons failed. Septon Barth argued that the reason was magical and George confirmed that in an SSM.

 

Bran was going to be a knight himself someday, one of the Kingsguard. Old Nan said they were the finest swords in all the realm. (...) Serwyn of the Mirror Shield...

Bran II Game, Serwyn of the Mirror Shield was a "knight" of the "KG" from the Age of Heroes. And yes, that's from Old Nan (via Bran)

 

So?

[Jaak]

Meanwhile Andals were still migrating to Westeros.
 
I agree that Andals came in waves. But there is no report that the surviving subjects of Qarlon's Kingdom migrated to Westeros. On the contrary, the legend says that no Lorathi Andals survived the attack.
 
If there were any Andal survivors from Qarlon's Kingdom, they should be few in number. Some of them might be enslaved but one way or the other, they must be absorbed into Pentoshi society. These survivors cannot in any way be strong or numerous enough to turn Westeros upside down as the Andal Invasion took shape.

They could not turn Westeros upside down because Westeros already had a large population of well-organized Andals. Did Andal fugitives from Rhoynar conquest of Dorne turn Westeros upside down? 

[Bright Blue Eyes]

 

We are talking about the first book. The archmaesters can be quite ignorant sometimes. In fact, the unorthodox people are the ones who turn out to be much more accurate. Examples are Septon Barth, Maester Theron, Old Nan etc. George has been bashing the positivism of the maesters since the beginning of the series and whatever Rodrik Harlaw or Sam or Hos Blackwood later talked about are all examples of that same positivism. This is not the real world. This is a world full of magic. So far, every in-universe positivist attempt to explain the irregularity of the seasons failed. Septon Barth argued that the reason was magical and George confirmed that in an SSM.

 

 

So?

So Old Nan was flat-out wrong when she told Bran about Serwyn of the Mirror Shield, knight of the Kingsguard, from the Age of Heroes.

 

Yes, that is possible.

[Lord Varys]

The very idea that the great scholar Old Nan could be correct on dates is just silly. She is giving us the best account on what may actually have happened, but that doesn't mean she has to be correct on the dates. George is very aware of the fact that tales grew in the telling, especially if they remembered or told only orally (e.g. given the number of lances Ser Arlan broke against Prince Baelor - and that was during the lifetime of both knights).

 

The same thing could explain why there are nearly thousand Lord Commanders of the Night's Watch. Just as people imagined that the Long Night was farther and farther back in time they also exaggerated the numbers of Lord Commanders that had served. If there is no complete list then there is clearly no way of knowing that there were as many as tradition claims there. But even if that was the case, who is to say that not quite a lot of them died during one winter alone (say, 50-100).

 

Mithras usually decides for himself what's correct and what's not, and then uses pretty much every straw to support his argument, even stuff that has obviously or probably nothing to do with the topic at hand. This is a very good example of that type of behavior. It doesn't really matter when exactly the Long Night was - but the fact that George has introduced doubt to the 'official history' established in AGoT strongly suggests that it will not turn out to have been 8,000 years ago. If that was the case then George would have not needed to cast doubt on the time line in the first place. He writes a fantasy novel, not some critical history of Westeros.

 

I guess he changed the time line because he realized - either on his own or due to input from readers - that 8,000 years for the Long Night and 6,000 years for the Andals are simply way too much time to make this whole thing a remotely plausible scenario in a world that is supposed to resemble our own in many aspects. If you read old SSMs there is some stuff where he directly rejects the idea that Andal invasions could have been caused by the expanding Valyrians - yet TWoIaF makes it perfectly clear that this was the cause.

 

If the Andals came to Westeros 6,000 years ago then Valyria must have been founded 7,000-8,000 years ago, considering the fact that Valyria first dealt with the Ghiscari before it began expanded into the west, and unless they jump directly to Pentos or Lorath (which they did not) it makes little sense to assume that the first establishment of Volantis, Tyrosh, Lys, or even Myr threatened the very existence of the Andals in Essos.

 

Mithras comes up with weird fan fiction ideas that aren't supported by the text. There is no real hint the Andals came in waves stretching over centuries - instead, what we know suggests that they came in steady waves only stretching over a few generations. This is best exemplified by the short time it took them to overwhelm the Vale, the Riverlands, and the Stormlands. There is no reason for us to believe that there was a history of Andal raids centuries before their arrival in the Vale, nor is there a reason to believe that they were intending to keep a foot back in Andalos or Essos in general when they came. Else the Andal kings in the Vale - especially the Arryns later on - would have ruled over a realm that encompassed land both in Westeros and Essos which apparently never was the case.

[Jaak]

And yet History gives confident list of a number of first Arryn kings, with years even.
1) Ser Artys Arryn
2) Artys´ eldest son
3) Artys´ second eldest son (sat in Gates of Moon, commanded some additions)
4) Roland Arryn, Artys´ grandson
 We are told that:

Roland Arryn had been fostered with an Andal king in the riverlands as a boy

By that time, perhaps in the lifetime of Ser Artys and certainly in the time of his son, such a feature - "Andal king in the riverlands" - existed. Andal invasion had advances from Vale to Riverlands, then.
Further details:

and had traveled widely after winning his spurs, visiting Oldtown and Lannisport before returning to the Vale upon his father’s death to don the
Falcon Crown. Having seen the wonders of the Hightower and Casterly Rock, and the great castles of the First Men that still dotted the lands of the Trident, he felt the Gates
of the Moon looked mean and ugly by comparison.

Interestingly, he did not find any great castles of First Men in Vale.
His death is given in detail:

Taken unawares by a band of Painted Dogs, King Roland I Arryn was pulled from his horse and murdered, his skull smashed in by a stone maul as he tried to free his
longsword from its scabbard. He had reigned for six-andtwenty years, just long enough to see the first stones laid for the castle he had decreed.

Years now.
Then next kings:
5) Roland I-s son - continued building
6) Roland I-s grandson - ditto
7) Roland II - went to war in Riverlands instead. 6 Kings and 5 generations after Artys, we hear that:

After several small, meaningless victories over petty kings, he found himself facing Tristifer IV, the Hammer of Justice. The last truly great king of the First Men
handed Roland Arryn a shattering defeat, then served him a worse one the following year. In peril of his life, His Grace
fled to the castle of one of his erstwhile allies, an Andal lord, only to be betrayed and delivered back to Tristifer in chains.
Four years after riding forth from the Vale in splendor, King Roland II was beheaded at Oldstones by the Hammer of Justice himself.

So, we have the count of generations between Artys and Tristifer.
8) Robin Arryn, Roland II-s brother - resumed building Eyrie
9-12):

Yet it was forty-three years and four kings later before the castle was finally completed and fit for habitation.

Exact years - rather few for 4 kings.
We have a fairly detailed account of first 12 Arryn kings then.

If this is delivered with confidence and details, how can there be a serious doubt as to whether Alyssa lived 6000 or 2000 years ago?

[Mithras]

First, a minor error in the text:

 

Legend claims it was his future wife, Lord Hunter's daughter Teora, who reminded him of how his grandfather had defeated Robar Royce, by attacking from the high ground. Much taken by the girl's words, and by the girl herself, Lord Roland resolved to seize the highest ground of all and decreed the building of the castle that would become the Eyrie.

 

It had to be King Roland.

 

Second, this is an ancient First Men name.

 

In those centuries of trial and tumult, the Reach produced many a fearless warrior. From that day to this, the singers have celebrated the deeds of knights like Serwyn of the Mirror Shield, Davos the Dragonslayer, Roland of the Horn, and the Knight Without Armor—and the legendary kings who led them, among them Garth V (Hammer of the Dornish), Gwayne I (the Gallant), Gyles I (the Woe), Gareth II (the Grim), Garth VI (the Morningstar), and Gordan I (Grey-Eyes).

 

Long before the Andals came, there was a hero called Roland of the Horn in the Reach, most probably an ancestor of Sam. Roland’s wife was Theora Hunter. The Hunters were First Men.

 

So, the pure-Andal Arryns married First Men and started giving First Men names to their children right from the beginning. This is not something strange. However, Artys and Artos seem quite the same.

 

During the long centuries when the First Men reigned supreme in Westeros, countless petty kingdoms rose and fell in the riverlands. Their histories, entwined and embroidered with myth and song, are largely forgotten, save for the names of a few legendary kings and heroes whose deeds are recorded on weathered stones in runes whose meanings are even now disputed at the Citadel. Thus, whilst singers and storytellers may regale us with colorful tales of Artos the Strong, Florian the Fool, Nine-Finger Jack, Sharra the Witch Queen, and the Green King of the Gods Eye, the very existence of such personages must be questioned by the serious scholar.

 

Artos too is a First Men name dating from long before the Andals came. There was another similar name. Argos Sevenstar was an Andal warlord who was slain by Theon Stark.

 

If the Arryns were so assimilated into the First Men nobility, how did the Vale was given the name Vale of Arryn? Why did the Arryns adopt ancient First Men myths like Winged Knight or Alyssa’s Tears? I sense a lot of forgery here. I sense a similar forgery with respect to Benedict Justman. He was supposedly an Andal bastard born from Blackwood-Bracken parents. That looks like propaganda.

 

ETA: speaking of suspiciously similar names, we have Mathos II Arryn, Mathis Rowan, Matthos Seaworth and Mathos Mallarawan, a pureborn from Qarth.

[LmL]

There are archmaesters at the Citadel who question all of it. Those old histories are full of kings who reigned for hundreds of years and knights riding around a thousand years before there were knights.

Sam I Feast

 

Bran was going to be a knight himself someday, one of the Kingsguard. Old Nan said they were the finest swords in all the realm. (...) Serwyn of the Mirror Shield...

Bran II Game, Serwyn of the Mirror Shield was a "knight" of the "KG" from the Age of Heroes. And yes, that's from Old Nan (via Bran)

 

Far from a full list, just something I could easily search for.

 

 

There's definitely lots more along these lines.  I question all of the timeline stuff beyond the very recent past. 

[LmL]

First, a minor error in the text:

 

Legend claims it was his future wife, Lord Hunter's daughter Teora, who reminded him of how his grandfather had defeated Robar Royce, by attacking from the high ground. Much taken by the girl's words, and by the girl herself, Lord Roland resolved to seize the highest ground of all and decreed the building of the castle that would become the Eyrie.

 

It had to be King Roland.

 

Second, this is an ancient First Men name.

 

In those centuries of trial and tumult, the Reach produced many a fearless warrior. From that day to this, the singers have celebrated the deeds of knights like Serwyn of the Mirror Shield, Davos the Dragonslayer, Roland of the Horn, and the Knight Without Armor—and the legendary kings who led them, among them Garth V (Hammer of the Dornish), Gwayne I (the Gallant), Gyles I (the Woe), Gareth II (the Grim), Garth VI (the Morningstar), and Gordan I (Grey-Eyes).

 

Long before the Andals came, there was a hero called Roland of the Horn in the Reach, most probably an ancestor of Sam. Roland’s wife was Theora Hunter. The Hunters were First Men.

 

So, the pure-Andal Arryns married First Men and started giving First Men names to their children right from the beginning. This is not something strange. However, Artys and Artos seem quite the same.

 

During the long centuries when the First Men reigned supreme in Westeros, countless petty kingdoms rose and fell in the riverlands. Their histories, entwined and embroidered with myth and song, are largely forgotten, save for the names of a few legendary kings and heroes whose deeds are recorded on weathered stones in runes whose meanings are even now disputed at the Citadel. Thus, whilst singers and storytellers may regale us with colorful tales of Artos the Strong, Florian the Fool, Nine-Finger Jack, Sharra the Witch Queen, and the Green King of the Gods Eye, the very existence of such personages must be questioned by the serious scholar.

 

Artos too is a First Men name dating from long before the Andals came. There was another similar name. Argos Sevenstar was an Andal warlord who was slain by Theon Stark.

 

If the Arryns were so assimilated into the First Men nobility, how did the Vale was given the name Vale of Arryn? Why did the Arryns adopt ancient First Men myths like Winged Knight or Alyssa’s Tears? I sense a lot of forgery here. I sense a similar forgery with respect to Benedict Justman. He was supposedly an Andal bastard born from Blackwood-Bracken parents. That looks like propaganda.

 

ETA: speaking of suspiciously similar names, we have Mathos II Arryn, Mathis Rowan, Matthos Seaworth and Mathos Mallarawan, a pureborn from Qarth.

 

 

Doesn't all of this suggest that Alyssa and the Winged knight were pre-Andal, and only later plastered with Andal trappings, much in the way Serwyn became a KG knight after the KG was created?  That's the way I look at Alyssa and the Winged Knight - later arriving Andals adopted the history at a certain point.
 

[Mithras]

Doesn't all of this suggest that Alyssa and the Winged knight were pre-Andal, and only later plastered with Andal trappings, much in the way Serwyn became a KG knight after the KG was created?  That's the way I look at Alyssa and the Winged Knight - later arriving Andals adopted the history at a certain point.

 

Or;

 

Artys’ birth from pure Andal nobility near Giant’s Lance was political propaganda. He had considerable First Men blood and he was raised in a mixed environment with First Men and Andal cultures.

 

Here is a possible scenario:

 

The first Andals who came to the Vale were legendary raiders ruled by warlords. They started raiding the Vale six thousand years ago similar to the Viking raids in Britain and Europe. Six thousand years ago, the Faith of the Andals was pagan (human sacrifices of Hugor according to Pentoshi legends) and gender-equal (axe symbol along with the seven-pointed star), again similar to the Vikings. I guess the early Andals did not have steel weapons yet. They had crude iron weapons that were equal or inferior to bronze weapons of the First Men.

 

Six thousand years ago, Alyssa’s husband, brothers and children were killed in front of her and she did not shed a tear. Well, perhaps Alyssa was a female raider and her raiding party met a bloody end in the Vale where all of her kin were slain. She did not shed a tear for them and her prowess in battle made her a figure of note. She was either executed or married into First Men nobility (claimed as a thrall as it was customary to the First Men). This might be the root of Alyssa’s Tears myth. Or perhaps, there might be an ancient First Men myth about this waterfall which was gradually merged with Alyssa’s story.

 

In time, the Andals must have been hired as mercenaries by the First Men kingdoms of the Vale. Occasionally, their nobles must have been married into First Men nobility. The Andals should have benefited from the religious tolerance of the Faith of the Old Gods. Perhaps some hybrid Houses might have been formed during this era. I think not only the Vale, but also the other kingdoms also should have seen Andal raids and later Andal intermarriages before Artys Arryn was born.

 

Artys Arryn must have lived thousands of years later than these first Andal raiders in the Vale. At his time, the Faith of the Seven must have taken the modern form which is strictly patriarchal and zealous. I think this was the problem. Artys’ war was a religious war, like a crusade. The change in the Faith of the Seven resulted in these religious wars starting in the Vale and spreading to other kingdoms where Andals were already present.

 

This scenario seems to contradict the World Book but if you read carefully, you will notice that the history of Artys’ campaign was written by septons and even Yandel claims that much of it was lost to legend.

 

As for this patriarchal and zealous change in the Faith of the Seven, Hightowers and Starry Sept should be blamed. For some reason, they must have planned to extinguish the CotF and the Faith of the Old Gods. Perhaps the Hightowers imported the advanced steel technology from the Rhoynar and taught it to the Andals to give them an upperhand in their zealous campaign. Considering the trade network at Oldtown and the Citadel, this is entirely possible.

 

So, after millennia of relative peace and tolerance between Andal immigrants and First Men, the Faith of the Seven was corrupted and Artys started a crusade against the Faith of the Old Gods. Vale and Riverlands were torn by wars. But the Reach was spared from this bloodshed because they immediately converted the Faith of the Seven.

[Jaak]

If the Arryns were so assimilated into the First Men nobility, how did the Vale was given the name Vale of Arryn?

That much is explicable.
If the Vale had previously been divided between a number of petty lords or kings, it may not have needed referring to as an unit - it may not have had a name.
If the concept only appeared with Arryns´ unification of the name, it would not have been off for the new geographical concept to receive a name after them.

[Free Northman Reborn]

Timeline uncertainty is a definite. What is clear, though, is that the radical ideas presented by some, namely to reduce the entire history to a period of 3000 years or less are also flawed.

 

From many different sources we have a very good idea that the Long Night ocurred at least 6000 years in the past, and possibly as much as 8000 years ago. Similarly, we have a good idea from the Maesters that the Andal invasion happened between 4000 and 2000 years ago.

 

Again, according to the Maesters written histories, the Rape of the Three Sisters happened 2000 years ago, and that kicked off a war with a Vale kingdom already ruled by the Arryns. Similarly we know that this occurred many centuries (perhaps millenia) after the Boltons knelt to the Starks, which in turn happened when the first Andals were crossing the Narrow Sea.

 

There are of course countless other sources - both from Essos and Westeros - which tie in with the above rough dates. The clearest picture that emerges is:

 

Long Night: 8000-6000 years ago

 

Andal migration: 4000-2000 years ago.

 

Within those relatively wide bands, there is a lot of room for movement. But I don't see any reason for either of the above two events to be moved outside of the bands as indicated.