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Titles and Styles


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I wanted to get people's take on this. While reviewing Kings of Westeros on ASOIAF Wikia, I looked at all these titles various lords, petty Kings, and Targs used throughout the centuries. In this weeks GoT episode,tI reflected on the lack of styles and titles for the King in the North, Jon Snow (if you've seen in you'll know what I'm talking about). So I thought about the various titles that Jon Snow and Renly Baratheon may have used.

Jon Snow: Let me get this straight, I believe there's power in simplicity, and Jon probably wouldn't accept most of these high-and-mighty titles. But this is just to imagine, so all kneel for Jon Snow, King in the North and of the Trident, Lord of Winter, the White Wolf, Shield of The Realm, and Protector of the Night's Watch.

Renly is a fanciful prick who doesn't give a fig about actually being a king, he just wants to dress up like and be called one. I can't think of ones that make sense besides the originals, so all kneel for Renly Baratheon, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, Protector of the Realm.

Comment below with better ones!

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If we speak about the show he is only King in the North. He is not Lord of Winterfell, that is Sansa's title at the moment. He is not King in the Trident, although I would like to know whether his dominion includes Vale. The only other "title" we can give is: White Wolf.

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First, for his style, that always goes with the best one you're entitled to, so it doesn't matter whether Jon is just King in the North or 23 other things besides, his style is… well, whatever the rules are that determine when a King is Your Grace, when he's Your Highness, and when he's Your Majesty (I think we've heard all three?), that's the rule for how to address him.

For titles, I think it's simple: He has only one title, King in the North.

If you want to get into the details—and there's really no point talking about titles otherwise, because it's an inherently nitpicky subject—let's first note that, although Westeros isn't England, we really have nothing to go on but the same historical parallels that GRRM studied and D&D had an intern look up on Wikipedia.

Jon is king by acclamation of the assembled Lords at Winterfell, not by inheritance from Robb. The most obvious evidence is that everyone assumes Sansa automatically inherits Robb's title as Lord of Winterfell, but nobody's calling her Queen, but there's more if you want it. So, whatever Robb's claim to the Riverlands was, Jon doesn't have that. And there were no River Lords at Winterfell to acclaim him. And no River Lords have since done fealty to him. He's not their king.

But even if Jon had inherited, I don't think Robb was King of the Trident.

Book!Robb definitely was. In the books, when Greatjon calls out "King in the North", the River Lords call back "King of the Trident". Multiple people then make a point to refer to him as King of the Trident; he's announced with both titles; etc. He's definitely one king with two separate kingdoms. Like James VI and I, King of the Scots and King of England.

But on the show, nobody ever calls him that. The River Lords swear to him as King in the North. Edward III didn't become King of England and King of Wales, or King of England and Wales, when the Welsh Lords swore to him; he was just King of England, a kingdom that now included the principality of Wales. Likewise, show!Robb didn't become King of the Trident, he was just King of the North, a kingdom that now included the (I have no idea what the technical term for these regions is in show!Westeros…) of the Riverlands. That's how Hoster Tully, who's his vassal, is still Lord Paramount of the Trident and Warden of the Riverlands.

And the same is true for Jon at Winterfell. He's just King in the North. It's not clear whether the Vale Lords are joining in acclaiming him as King in the North or not, but if they are, they're annexing the Vale to his kingdom, not declaring a new kingdom. Like Wales, again.

Also, I guess, the lands of House Seaworth in the Stormlands are annexed to the Kingdom of the North. I don't think either Jon or Davos would take that seriously, but I could see Sansa and Tyrion negotiating a settlement between Jon and Dany, and Sansa using the Seaworth lands as a bargaining chip. I guess the best parallel here is… the Isle of Man before reversion?

Of course Jon could make up any other titles he wanted. "Shield of the Realm" might be uncomfortably close to "Protector of the Realm", which, whether or not it has a real meaning (we don't really know either way) has traditionally been used by the kings of the whole Seven Kingdoms, so I definitely wouldn't bring that one up when entreating Dany or Cersei for peace. But "The White Wolf"? Sure. That's basically just a nickname, no different than Ser Gerold Dayne calling himself "Darkstar" in the books or "Ser Not Appearing in This Show" in the show. If everyone finds you impressive and the title fitting, they'll be suitably awed by it; if not, they'll giggle about your silly attempted nickname when all the kings get together for their next slumber party.

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