Jump to content

Dalton Greyjoy Succession Crisis


Recommended Posts

Following the Red Kraken's death, we're given a short account of the struggle for power in his wake, which is referred to as a "bloody three-way fight":

Quote

In the Iron Islands, a savage struggle for power followed upon the death of the Red Kraken. His three sisters and the men they had married seized Toron Greyjoy, the boy upon the Seastone Chair, and put his mother to death, whilst his cousins joined with the lords of Harlaw and Blacktyde to raise up Toron's half-brother Rodrik, and the men of Great Wyk rallied to a pretender called Sam Salt, who claimed to be descended of the black line. 

The part that confuses me here is the seizure of Toron Greyjoy. We're told later on that Toron was still the lord when Leo Costayne attacked the Iron Islands months later, and there's no indication that Dalton's sisters tried to supplant him--I'm guessing if there was another claimant they supported, he/she would have been mentioned.  We're told the conflict was made up of three factions, not four, which would mean that someone's supporting Toron. So is this "seizure" supposed to indicate that they championed his claim over Rodrik and Sam Salt's? And if that's the case, then why was Toron's mother killed? 

On a side note, it's curious that we never found out what happened to Veron. He and his Farman salt wife were mentioned both here and in TWOIAF, which makes me wonder if he's going to get name-dropped at some point in TWOW. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, direpupy said:

I read siezed as taking control of him, as in they ruled with him as there puppet but that is only possible if they kill his mother who would legally be his guardian and thus regent in his name as long as he is underage.

That makes sense.

It's kind of odd that they would even have to kill her in the first place, seeing as she was a salt wife and therefore probably didn't have much support to begin with. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On a side note, it's a real shame that we still don't really know anything about the Ironborn women aside from Asha. Dalton had three sisters who were apparently very active in the succession crisis, yet we don't even know their names. I'm hoping that we eventually do meet some more Ironborn women, whether in TWOW or the supplementary material. I have a feeling their experiences would be unique among the stories of the women we've read about, much like with the Dornish. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...