How much does being named "Stark" actually mean being a Stark.

[StarkofWinterfell]

I may be wrong but I remember reading (without being able to find where I actually read this) that once long ago, and I am talking in the range of thousands of years in the past, that there was a King Beyond the Wall that infiltrated Winterfell and actually took the surname Stark and became King. So regarding this, all of his descendants will be from his blood and not that of the original Stark line.

Does that mean that there are no true Starks that remain? Rickard, Ned, Brandon, Jon, Rob, Bran, and even Rickon are distant descendants of this King Beyond the Wall. What happened to the original Starks.

This is all assuming that I am not making this up as I am 90% positive that I read this somewhere either on the ASOIAF wiki or here. I'd like to know everyone's thoughts and perhaps we can have a good discussion regarding this possibility. (And if someone can find this info, that'd be great so I can re-examine it)

[Eddy of the Godswood]

Links? I've never read any mention of this in the main books or in AWoIaF.

Winterfell has been captured and razed, but the original Starks have always survived in one way or another. That may be what you're thinking of.

[Crionic]

Their genes or lineage doesn't matter. If the king beyond the wall cucked a stark of Winterfell and his descendance lost the original stark genes, it doesn't matter, because for thousands of years this new lineage has been called Stark, and that's what matters after all.

[StarkofWinterfell]

Links? I've never read any mention of this in the main books or in AWoIaF.

Winterfell has been captured and razed, but the original Starks have always survived in one way or another. That may be what you're thinking of.

Ah I found it! And as i am thinking about it, I believe that Mance told Jon about this in one of the books. Granted, I was a little off in my info, but the person that I was looking for was Bael the Bard. He was able to infiltrate Winterfell, impregnate Lord Stark's daughter to which she had a son. Bael escaped but his son eventually became Lord of Winterfell and King Stark himself.

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Bael

[falcotron]

How much would it really matter anyway, and what for?

As far as genetics go, after, say, 100 generations, the paternal line contributes about 1 nonillionth of your DNA.

As far as legality goes, if people have accepted the Starks as the Starks for thousands of years, they're the Starks.

As far as magic goes... well, that depends entirely on how magic works, but every impression we get in the books about what "king's blood" means implies that it has more to do with who gets crowned than anything else. (Edric, Gendry, Shireen, etc. don't descend from Aegon on the paternal line.)

[StarkofWinterfell]

While it is true that genetics do get diluted over the course of many generations, I do believe that this has some significance for those that are interested in the history of Westeros and the ASOIAF world. I think it very much matters because if a name is all that is required, king's blood means nothing in terms of R'hllor magic.

In addition, if people of Westeros believed Joffrey, Tommen, and Margery to be Baratheons, then it does not matter that they are actually full-blooded Lannisters. As much as Stannis or Renly believed that they had a claim to the Iron Throne, Tommen would then be the rightful heir.

Interested in your thoughts.

[falcotron]

While it is true that genetics do get diluted over the course of many generations, I do believe that this has some significance for those that are interested in the history of Westeros and the ASOIAF world. I think it very much matters because if a name is all that is required, king's blood means nothing in terms of R'hllor magic

Interested in your thoughts.

It's not just a name, it's many things: a name, a ceremony, tradition, the people's belief, the willful act of claiming the name and the crown... Why shouldn't all of those things have magical effects?

[Barty]

Genetics wise it doesn't matter - the blood will be too diluted after 8000 years.

Name wise it doesnt matter since everybody accepts these Starks as the real Starks.

Magic wise it doesn't matter because even if the Stark blood alone carried the magic then the current Starks still have that magic - the only difference being that they inherited it via the female line than the male.

The point being that you will have the same amount of Stark blood whether your mother or father was a Stark.

Also the tale is most probably a lie told by the wildlings who are fond of tall tales. The tale contradicts too many facts to be true

[falcotron]

Magic wise it doesn't matter because even if the Stark blood alone carried the magic then the current Starks still have that magic - the only difference being that they inherited it via the female line than the male.

The point being that you will have the same amount of Stark blood whether your mother or father was a Stark.

You're assuming here that magic is purely explained by genetics. I don't think it is. In fact, I don't think it's explained by anything at all--as GRRM has said, if you can explain the rules, it's not magic, it's science. "King's blood" is an inherently nebulous concept, but not only can magic deal with inherently nebulous concepts, that's what it deals with best.

But I agree with all of your conclusions. If the Bael the Bard story matters, it's because of its power as a story, the effect of that story on the wildlings over the centuries, etc., not because of its effects on the genes of the modern Starks.

[Free Northman Reborn]

Bael's story is wildling propaganda with no proof to back it up whatsoever.

It never happened.

[King of Winter-ish Stuff]

Even if Bael's story is true. I've been looking into Stark genetics. It would appear that male Starks will win out over other First Men, but not over say Andals (Robb and Sansa being the focus). Obviously R+L=J needs to be true, but it would then appear that female Starks win out over most everything. So even if Bael the Bard impregnated a Lady Stark, her "genes" would win out over Bael's since he was a wildling and therefore First Men.

[The Marquis de Leech]

1. For the "Starks" to have lasted for thousands of years, there would have to be numerous instances of inheritance via the female line or inheritance via cadet branches. Or even some other House saying "our third cousin four times removed was a Stark, so we'll take the name Stark. It gives authority to our rule."

2. Regarding genetic dilution, there's a little thing called in-breeding. Everyone in the North probably has Stark blood somewhere.

[Brian Powers Of Palantíri]

I think it's more a matter of Blood Showing itself, like Arya is said to have the wolf blood, as did Lyanna and Brandon. How Starky is a Stark? Even after thousands of years the Blood can show itself. The world though Daenerys dragon eggs were stone, but the Blood of the Dragon awakened them.

So as far as a dilution of magic blood goes, its magic, it can come back or fill up or reboot whenever need arises. Blood will out, traitors blood, noble blood, craven blood, or kings blood, or common blood, after so long every one south of the Wall has Andal blood of some kind, North of the wall, the free folk still have mostly or all first men blood. It's kind of like the Sword Of the Morning thing, maybe 5 or 10 generations might pass without any one having the Blood to be a SoM.

[The Marquis de Leech]

It's kind of like the Sword Of the Morning thing, maybe 5 or 10 generations might pass without any one having the Blood to be a SoM.

I hope not. Being predestined via "blood" makes for dull storytelling compared with someone who had earned the position through sheer hard work.

[Julia H.]

I may be wrong but I remember reading (without being able to find where I actually read this) that once long ago, and I am talking in the range of thousands of years in the past, that there was a King Beyond the Wall that infiltrated Winterfell and actually took the surname Stark and became King. So regarding this, all of his descendants will be from his blood and not that of the original Stark line.

Does that mean that there are no true Starks that remain? Rickard, Ned, Brandon, Jon, Rob, Bran, and even Rickon are distant descendants of this King Beyond the Wall. What happened to the original Starks.

This is all assuming that I am not making this up as I am 90% positive that I read this somewhere either on the ASOIAF wiki or here. I'd like to know everyone's thoughts and perhaps we can have a good discussion regarding this possibility. (And if someone can find this info, that'd be great so I can re-examine it)

The story of Bael the Bard was told Jon by Ygritte (though Mance knew the story, too).

"Your Bael was a liar," he told her, certain now.

"No," Ygritte said, "but a bard's truth is different than yours or mine."

The "bard's truth" may simply be a poetic way of saying that Starks / Northmen and the wildlings have common origin. Legends and stories about famous kings abound in real life as well, recounting adventures those people never had.

However, let's suppose it really happened. With regard to genetics, the boy was still a Stark. The son of the Stark girl still had Stark blood /genes, only not on the father's side. How is it genetically different from a Stark man taking a wife from a different house? It is not at all the same as Joffrey and his siblings, who don't have any Baratheon genes (unless they inherited some from a distant ancestor, but not Robert's genes).

There is also the question of legitimacy, but that is really in the eye of the beholder. Why? A bastard boy can be legitimized. If the family is on the brink of extinction perhaps, that's all the better reason to legitimize a bastard. In this case, of course, the boy was a Stark bastard on the mother's side, which must have complicated matters, but there were ways to solve that problem if Grandfather Stark was powerful enough. He may have claimed the boy was his bastard (and taken the head of every man who would whisper otherwise). Legitimized bastard sons must have inherited now and then in every really old family.

If there were other Stark branches at the time (were there?), they might have objected perhaps, but it depended on lots of things. Were they strong enough to go against Lord Stark? Did they have sons or "only" daughters? The legitimized Stark boy could even marry a cousin, thereby placating the relatives. And what would have been the alternative solution for the relatives? If they had somehow prevented the baby from being legitimized, then Lord Stark would still have had a daughter and she would have been the heiress. All she had to do was get married and give birth to a legitimate son, who would inherit Winterfell after her, and there would have been nothing the other Stark branches could (legally) have done to get any closer to the inheritance, so it was probably not worth the effort and the risk. (Of course, she was "soiled goods" now, but at the same time the number one heiress in the North. She would certainly have been able to find a husband.) So even if there were other family branches, they apparently just had to accept the somewhat irregular Stark heir and be happy if he married one of their daughters.

Then, as the generations came and went, the story was apparently (more or less) forgotten.

[AryaNymeriaVisenya]

Ah I found it! And as i am thinking about it, I believe that Mance told Jon about this in one of the books. Granted, I was a little off in my info, but the person that I was looking for was Bael the Bard. He was able to infiltrate Winterfell, impregnate Lord Stark's daughter to which she had a son. Bael escaped but his son eventually became Lord of Winterfell and King Stark himself.

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Bael

Well the girl was a Stark, she birthed a Stark. Her descendants are all Starks. Unless you believe only men matter?

[WolfgangII]

I believe Julia H. explained really well up there. Bael's story, if true, includes a Stark mom, so the rest of the bloodline will have Stark genes.

I will like to add that through many POV, mostly wildings, we have learn that Northerns, specially Starks, share a lot of First Men genes with wildings. We know that the Stark "powers" (warging, greenseeing, resistance to cold, spectacular idioticy) are the result of their First Men blood, so even if the mingled with wildings, the powers will not be diluted. I'll say they could be more diluted by mingling with non-Northern (e.g. Tullys), but the Stark/Tully mix turned up to be one of the most powerfull blends because all of this children are (or could have been) wargs, and even one is becoming a greenseer.