Why No Lord of the Causeway?

[TheThreeEyedCow]

Catelyn described the place as a death trap. This combined with the reader seeing first hand how futile it was trying to hold the place against the will of the crannogmen, basically sums it up for me. 

It's a great place to stick archers when and if there's an invading army. But there's little else to it. The Targaryen's won, so there's no need to defend the moat from a southren army. For the last 300 years, all the Northmen have had to contend with is Free Folk coming from the opposite direction. The same goes for the Stoney shore. It's another region where people generally don't settle due to the poor terrain. You don't need the WotN to command people to settle anywhere. People will naturally live where they can survive. The quality of the land denotes it's value. Both the IB groups at MC and Deepwood were whittled down rather easily by Northmen who basically just live there and understand the terrain. Once the IB took these places, they were trapped there. 

The North, being as it is, sort of defends itself. The region can basically absorb an attack. It is costly, but when you combine the guerilla tactics and the harsh terrain, then add the fact that this region is as vast as Russia and plays host to a winter the likes of which no other known culture or nation understands. It's easy to see how Moat Cailin just has little to no significance in the grand scheme of things.  

Winter is the true guardian of the North. Moat Cailin is just a decrepit castle in a wasteland under the influence of Crannogmen. A garrison will help reduce the loss of small-folk to raids, but eventually winter rolls around, and any invader with some common sense will get out while they can. And if you did put a Knightly house there, they wouldn't have a lot to do/eat/trade. It would be dependent on the realm. It would be difficult to prioritise this during peacetime. And I'd be concerned that the position of Kinght of the Neck or whatever would be considered a sentence and not a reward.  

[Shouldve Taken The Black]

2 hours ago, Rufus Snow said:

The evidence in the text does not give us solid grounds for any permanent occupation since the Neck was brought into the North, no more than it rules it out.

Agreed on that. I'm basing my opinion solely on the view that it would be surprising if, when there were several kingdoms almost constantly at war, that there wouldn't be some sort of permanent defence there. I claim no textual evidence whatsoever. It is possible that they didn't permanently guard it of course, I just find that unlikely.

 

2 hours ago, Rufus Snow said:

why not? It costs money to maintain a garrison, and this is no longer a border post.

You would either leave it occupied or destroy it surely? Otherwise any bastard could take control of it. You could end up with some sort of robber baron controlling access to the Neck.

2 hours ago, Rufus Snow said:

The Reeds can police the Neck, the Dustins and Manderlys keep their beady eyes on the Kingsroad anyway, so what benefit is there to an expensive permanent garrison that can't support itself off the surrounding land?

 Fair point. If the Manderlys and the Dustins had regular watches on the causeway then maybe. However, to prevent a surprise attack from the south, the North would be reliant on the Crannogmen getting word to them that an army approached in time to close the Neck.

[Nittanian]

2 hours ago, Rufus Snow said:

I believe "a thousand years" can mean anything from 200 to 2,000. The war between the Starks and the Barrow Kings was said by some to have lasted "a thousand years" although the maesters claim it was more like 200.

George often uses it to simply mean "long ago" or "for a long time". 

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Catelyn found her husband beneath the weirwood, seated on a moss-covered stone. The greatsword Ice was across his lap, and he was cleaning the blade in those waters black as night. A thousand years of humus lay thick upon the godswood floor, swallowing the sound of her feet, but the red eyes of the weirwood seemed to follow her as she came. (AGOT Catelyn I)

 

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Jon Snow laughed with him. Afterward they sat on the frozen ground, huddled in their cloaks with Ghost between them. Jon told the story of how he and Robb had found the pups newborn in the late summer snows. It seemed a thousand years ago now. (AGOT Jon IV)

 

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"Your brother had part of the truth," Ser Jorah admitted. "The Dothraki do not build. A thousand years ago, to make a house, they would dig a hole in the earth and cover it with a woven grass roof." (AGOT Daenerys IV)

 

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"No, my lord," Sam replied in a thin, nervous voice. The high officers frightened him, Jon knew, the Old Bear most of all. "I was named in the light of the Seven at the sept on Horn Hill, as my father was, and his father, and all the Tarlys for a thousand years." (AGOT Jon VI)

 

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"The Martells have every cause to hate us. Nonetheless, I expect them to agree. Prince Doran's grievance against House Lannister goes back only a generation, but the Dornishmen have warred against Storm's End and Highgarden for a thousand years, and Renly has taken Dorne's allegiance for granted." (ACOK Tyrion V)

 

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"Long have we awaited you," said a woman beside him, clad in rose and silver. The breast she had left bare in the Qartheen fashion was as perfect as a breast could be.

"We knew you were to come to us," the wizard king said. "A thousand years ago we knew, and have been waiting all this time. We sent the comet to show you the way." (ACOK Daenerys IV)

 

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The north is hard and cold, and has no mercy, Ned had told her when she first came to Winterfell a thousand years ago. (ASOS Catelyn III)

 

[Rufus Snow]

53 minutes ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

You would either leave it occupied or destroy it surely? Otherwise any bastard could take control of it. You could end up with some sort of robber baron controlling access to the Neck.

The best defence against such bastard or robber baron is MC's vulnerability from the North - it's a very poor place from which to rebel against the WotN/KotN. Its only redeeming feature is sealing off the causeway from the south.

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 Fair point. If the Manderlys and the Dustins had regular watches on the causeway then maybe. However, to prevent a surprise attack from the south, the North would be reliant on the Crannogmen getting word to them that an army approached in time to close the Neck.

We've seen that it takes any sizeable party  (or army) a couple of weeks to cross the Neck. More than enough time for the Frog-eating Bog Devils (sorry, I just love that phrase.. ) to get the word out whilst harrassing the invaders.

And I believe, tactically and strategically, it is the bottleneck created by the causeway that makes MC as useful as it is for a ruin. With the awful terrain either side of the road, and the crannogmen having complete mastery of their environment, the invaders are strung out, unable to bring any concentrated force to bear; they are effectively immobile, whilst an elusive and very mobile guerilla force is picking them off one by one and spreading foul and painful diseases.

[Shouldve Taken The Black]

4 minutes ago, Rufus Snow said:

The best defence against such bastard or robber baron is MC's vulnerability from the North - it's a very poor place from which to rebel against the WotN. Its only redeeming feature is sealing off the causeway from the south.

I know, but my point is that leaving a fortress unoccupied could lead to all sorts of shenanigans. It simply wasn't done in the middle ages, you kept it occupied or tore it down.

 

[Rufus Snow]

4 minutes ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

I know, but my point is that leaving a fortress unoccupied could lead to all sorts of shenanigans. It simply wasn't done in the middle ages, you kept it occupied or tore it down.

 

I don't disagree with your general principle - and perhaps in our world it's more pertinent than in Westeros, too. But I do think MC is a special case where this risk is lessened considerably, for the reasons I outlined.

And there's also the counter-examples of Castamere and Oldstones, both of which have been left empty (though over very different timespans, of course...) Castamere is being re-allocated 'now', and I think that's partly down to it being a viable fief that can give the new Lord a living, whereas MC will be a money-hole that will never be filled.

Now I think of it, there's probably more mystery to Oldstones being left unoccupied than MC, having been the seat of the last FM River King and all that....

[Shouldve Taken The Black]

5 minutes ago, Rufus Snow said:

And there's also the counter-examples of Castamere and Oldstones, both of which have been left empty (though over very different timespans, of course...) Castamere is being re-allocated 'now'

The Castamere's castle was destroyed. The underground bit was flooded and the overground bit was put to the torch. Sibyl Spicer's brother was made lord of Castamere, but I imagine he would have to build a new castle.

Oldstones is a ruin, similar to MC. We don't know if it was abandoned in full condition, or wrecked before it was abandoned (similar to MC)

[Universal Sword Donor]

11 hours ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

No, but we do know from Cat's POV in AGOT that Moat Cailin had a wooden keep that rotted away "a thousand years ago". That could mean literally a thousand years ago, or just a long time ago.

That doesn't exactly fit with my idea of course, as the Conquest was 300 years ago, but it does suggest it was occupied permanently at one point. Not necessarily by "lords", but you don't just leave a keep abandoned until you need it.

 

There are abandoned keeps all over the crownlands, riverlands, and north. I wouldn't follow that line of thinking myself.

[Faera]

On 8/27/2018 at 10:40 PM, Relon said:

While the strategic value of Moat Cailin is well-known and acknowledged in the books, it does not seem that it has had a proper lord ruling over it since the Starks won it over from the Marsh Kings.  Does anyone know, or have a good theory, why this is?  True, it's a bit of a fixer-upper, but disrepair hasn't really stopped Harrenhal or other strongholds being given over to vassals to hold (bonus: no curse - that we know of!)  Plus, wouldn't it be good to get a House in there to take on the time, energy, and cost of repairing it?

Several reasons, I imagine.

1.  It is such a great strategic point for the North that it makes better sense to be kept a neutral fort rather than gifting it to one family.
2. It is in the middle of marshy terrain that most people cannot navigate. It also cannot yield any produce or graze any animals. No income for any lord, no tax revenue for the Starks. No House could hope to repair it because they won't have any money! A toll would be a bad idea too because it runs the risk of annoying the other families both North and South if one family is pocketing any travellers coming by land, like House Frey do, not least because...
3. Moat Cailin is in the Neck, the territory of the crannogmen. To put a non-crannogman as lord there, no matter who they are, runs the risk of upsetting the balance of power. It would be seen as an affront to House Reed, a principle house, de facto "gatekeepers" of the North and rulers of the Neck. Even if House Stark asked Howland Reed to give Moat Cailin to one of his own vassals, they are more likely to use it as it is now rather than set-up shop there full-time. Culturally, even in the days of the Marsh King, it seems Moat Cailin was used as a frontier for wars with the kingdoms in the south and not a permanent base of operations.

Ultimately, Moat Cailin simply isn't a viable permanent residence for any lordship. It's not habitable for any long period of time and without income there is no means of any family fixing it up. There's no land to reap profit from, so, no means for a traditional lord to support themselves and a crannogman is unlikely to ever want to live there permanently.