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Andals of Essos: What happened to them and are there any Andal societies that remain in Essos?


ninewinter

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In the chapter 5 of the Dance with Dragons, Tyrion travelled in the lands of what was Andalos. I'm quite intrigued at what happened to their kingdoms and petty lordships? 

a. I know Pentos and possibly Myr and Braavos is part Andal. All of these cities worship other gods now though, and they're not culturally Andal anymore right? 

b. What is the extent of Andal culture? I know reading from TWOIAF it extends in the Axe from modern day Braavos to Lorath. It's said that there's an Andal outpost in Myr too. So does it extend all the way to the whole of modern day Disputed lands, maybe bordering the Rhoynar? 

c. When did they arrive to Westeros 4,000 years ago or 2,000? Seems to me the later is most likely and the 4k is just the classic exaggeration/misinterpretation or the limited data available for a medieval scholars such as it is in the maesters of Westeros. 

d. Do you think their main reason going to Westeros is because of the Valyrian Free hold? 

e. The Dothraki called Jorah Mormont Jorah the Andal, does it mean that they have encountered and fought with Andal petty kingdoms remaining in Essos or just because he's from Westeros and lack of knowledge that the Northern part of Westeros is dominantly not Andal? 

f. Last but not the least I'm curious if  you think it's the Andals who really brought Iron to Westeros. 

Thanks for your insight! 

 

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A - No.  They're all Valyrian, except Braavos, which is a broader mix.  This is made explicit in the various non-main story canon books like the WOIAF.  The Andals were fleeing the Valyrian slavers and logically any who remained were, in fact, enslaved or at least subjugated to one of the Free Cities.

B - Now I see you've read the WOIAF.  Which means you have the info needed to figure this out

C- the unreliability of the historical sources is meant to be a thing.  Interpret as you will, but the clues are there that it probably hasn't been 8,000 year of recorded history.

D - Yes.

E -  Because the Dothraki don't understand the political divisions of Westeros.  It's probably understood that many people in Westeros are Andals, thus this is all that is needed to distinguish.  Much like Crusade-era Middle Eastern Muslims referred to all the European Crusaders as "Franks," a term which didn't really mean much anymore.  Or today, how you might find Americans referring to a vast variety of Muslim people "Arabs" despite what might be Turkic or Berber origins (or a million other things).

F - If history is any example (and with GRRM it usually is), it means that the First Men almost certainly knew of iron and had certain objects made from it, but were unable to craft it on an industrial scale.  It represents a technological advantage which gave an early edge to the Andals but was quickly adopted, which makes perfect sense.  Prehistoric Europe saw the Iron Age spread gradually, over ~500 years.  Ireland was entering the Iron Age after the Greeks had already left it.  These things spread gradually and are due to lots of factors, but its hard to see the First Men having no knowledge of iron, it was just not likely widely employed.

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20 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

A - No.  They're all Valyrian, except Braavos, which is a broader mix.  This is made explicit in the various non-main story canon books like the WOIAF.  The Andals were fleeing the Valyrian slavers and logically any who remained were, in fact, enslaved or at least subjugated to one of the Free Cities.

B - Now I see you've read the WOIAF.  Which means you have the info needed to figure this out

NO. We do not.

WOIAF is full of absurdities and omissions. A lot of relevant stuff which should be available WOIAF simply fails to mention, calls mysterious or presents nonsense.

Where we do have parallel and better coverage, in Fire and Blood, we see points where WOIAF is specifically wrong.

Quote

They're all Valyrian, except Braavos, which is a broader mix.  This is made explicit in the various non-main story canon books like the WOIAF.  The Andals were fleeing the Valyrian slavers and logically any who remained were, in fact, enslaved or at least subjugated to one of the Free Cities.

For Pentos, Gessio Haratis tells differently (Andals of Pentos were subjugated to Valyria, but on terms.). Yandel dismisses Gessio´s account, but given Yandel´s own unreliability, that+s pot calling black... who knows? A kettle, or a plate?

And no, we DON´t have the info to figure out whether Andals lived in Tyrosh and Lys before Valyrians. Yandel mentions founding of the sites - not who the previous settles of the countryside were.

"Before the Dragons..." WHY do you think should the pre-Valyrian history of Pentos be mysterious?

Quote

The Starks may well be older, but their legends came before the First Men had letters,
while the Arryns fostered learning amongst the septries and septs, and their good works and great
deeds were soon chronicled and remarked on in the devotional works of the Faith.

But Vale was by no means isolated:

Quote

the fourth Arryn king, the grandson of Artys I, who began the process that resulted in the
building of the Eyrie. Roland Arryn had been fostered with an Andal king in the riverlands as a boy
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,

Sitting at Eyrie, Pentos is closer than Lannisport or Oldtown - and it is in the old Andalos. A historian sitting and writing in Gulltown should be well aware of what happens in Pentos, back when it was Andalos.

Do we hear of Westerosi lordlings fostered at the court of Karlon the Great, and killed in Scouring of Lorath?

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On 3/18/2019 at 10:05 PM, ninewinter said:

 

b. What is the extent of Andal culture? I know reading from TWOIAF it extends in the Axe from modern day Braavos to Lorath. It's said that there's an Andal outpost in Myr too. So does it extend all the way to the whole of modern day Disputed lands, maybe bordering the Rhoynar? 

 

Quote

WoIaF:

We speak of Nine Free Cities, though across the width of Essos one may find many other Valyrian towns, settlements, and outposts, some larger and more populous than Gulltown, White Harbor, or even Lannisport. The distinction that sets the Nine apart is not their size but their origins

That quote helped me understand western Esssos. I always wondered what was there... the maps make it seem like not much, but apparently that is not the case.

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14 hours ago, Legitimate_Bastard said:

That quote helped me understand western Esssos. I always wondered what was there... the maps make it seem like not much, but apparently that is not the case.

Yeah. That's what I was often thinking when I read about posts like "why didn't the Targaryens conquer the Free Cities etc. I always think that the Free Cities are very complex and not just your average Italian City States.  Volantis for example is definitely bigger than Venice or Milan as it possessed "towns" such as  Volon Therys and Selhorys, each according to Tyrion, as big as Gulltown, (so possibly having at least a hundred thousands people), a perfectly fine city for Westeros or medieval standards. 

And also going back to the topic, as what @Jaak said TWOIAF  is full of "absurdities and omissions" and heavily Westeros oriented, which is very understandable, but I think, as with all parts of Essos, there's plenty of room for George to write about, maybe something that focused on Essos, its demography, history of the Andals for example, as I find it intriguing. Andal invasion in Westeros is similar to the "Germanic migrations" during the 3rd - 7th century.

We may discover that Pentos, though founded by Valyrian colonist is primarily "Andal" in the country side. Religion may differ as I think Pentos mostly followed the Lord of Light but in terms of genetic composition they're not that far with Westeros. Same way as Greek and Italian may look alike,  Pentoshi and people from the stormlands or the Vale may, and have been portrayed in the show, to look pretty similar. 

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I assume the Valyrian onslaught broke the back of Andal civilization, like they did in Slaver Bay.  The remaining people retreated into themselves and their culture lost its strength, like happened with Etruscans after Rome conquered them.

About Iron, I think the books suggested the Andals introduced (or at least expanded) the use of iron, or better techniques of forging. That's one of the reasons of their success. I got a feeling some First Men were so impressed with iron swords that they kept them as family mementos (like Valyrian steel), and that's why during the Dance of Dragons the Winter Wolves still used old iron swords.

 

Pentos was a Valyrian colony, but after the Doom the natives freed themselves and kept their original goods. They are a mixture of diferent races with an Andal component.

 

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13 hours ago, ninewinter said:

Yeah. That's what I was often thinking when I read about posts like "why didn't the Targaryens conquer the Free Cities etc. I always think that the Free Cities are very complex and not just your average Italian City States.  Volantis for example is definitely bigger than Venice or Milan as it possessed "towns" such as  Volon Therys and Selhorys, each according to Tyrion, as big as Gulltown, (so possibly having at least a hundred thousands people), a perfectly fine city for Westeros or medieval standards.

We may discover that Pentos, though founded by Valyrian colonist is primarily "Andal" in the country side. Religion may differ as I think Pentos mostly followed the Lord of Light but in terms of genetic composition they're not that far with Westeros.

They may be Andal by origin, but the countryside betrays a big cultural difference.

Tyrion remarks on absence of towns in Pentosian Flatlands. Which Illyrio does not deny.

People are there. Tillers and toilers, bound to soil. Illyrio owns estates there, but does not care to visit - stays inside the walls of Pentos.

Old Illyrio is a fat coward, but the implication is that the rest of Pentosi nobility do likewise. Were the Flatlands dotted with stone castles held and lived in by Pentosi nobles like Westeros is, that would have been noted.

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On 3/20/2019 at 1:33 PM, Jaak said:

NO. We do not.

WOIAF is full of absurdities and omissions. A lot of relevant stuff which should be available WOIAF simply fails to mention, calls mysterious or presents nonsense.

Where we do have parallel and better coverage, in Fire and Blood, we see points where WOIAF is specifically wrong.

Qohor and Norvos were founded following religious schisms. Others, such as Old Volantis and Lys, were trading colonies first and foremost, founded by wealthy merchants and nobles who purchased the right to rule themselves as clients of the Freehold rather than subjects. These cities chose their own leaders rather than receiving archons dispatched from Valyria (often on dragonback) to oversee them. It is claimed in some histories that Pentos and Lorath were of a third type—cities already extant before the Valyrians came whose rulers paid homage to Valyria and thus retained their right to native rule. In these cities, what influx of Valyrian blood there was came from migrants from the Freehold, or political marriages used to better bind these cities to Valyria. Yet most of the histories that recount this take as their source Gessio Haratis's Before the Dragons. Haratis was himself from Pentos, and at the time, Volantis was threatening to restore the Valyrian empire under its control, so the notion of an independent Pentos with origins distinct from Valyria was a most politic convenience.

We see here that the preponderance of evidence suggests that all of the Free Cities save Braavos are Valyrian in origin.  And even if there is an Andal population left in the area, the dominance of the Valyrians means that they were either subsumed into the population and ceased to have an independent identity, or were enslaved and deported.

I'm not sure why this is so difficult for you.  You are more than welcome to cast doubt on the Wiki, given what it purports to be (an in-world history, with all the biases that implies), but to claim we don't have the information is disingenuous.  We're told time and again that the Free Cities are the daughters of Valyria, with all that implies.  But we are told, more or less straight out, that modern Pentos is a Valyrian colony.  Sure, maybe there were Andals living there, but they no longer represent a distinct cultural identity within the city.

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8 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

It is claimed in some histories that Pentos and Lorath were of a third type—cities already extant before the Valyrians came whose rulers paid homage to Valyria and thus retained their right to native rule. In these cities, what influx of Valyrian blood there was came from migrants from the Freehold, or political marriages used to better bind these cities to Valyria. Yet most of the histories that recount this take as their source Gessio Haratis's Before the Dragons. Haratis was himself from Pentos, and at the time, Volantis was threatening to restore the Valyrian empire under its control, so the notion of an independent Pentos with origins distinct from Valyria was a most politic convenience.

We see here that the preponderance of evidence suggests that all of the Free Cities save Braavos are Valyrian in origin.  And even if there is an Andal population left in the area, the dominance of the Valyrians means that they were either subsumed into the population and ceased to have an independent identity, or were enslaved and deported.

I'm not sure why this is so difficult for you.  You are more than welcome to cast doubt on the Wiki, given what it purports to be (an in-world history, with all the biases that implies), but to claim we don't have the information is disingenuous.  We're told time and again that the Free Cities are the daughters of Valyria, with all that implies.  But we are told, more or less straight out, that modern Pentos is a Valyrian colony.  Sure, maybe there were Andals living there, but they no longer represent a distinct cultural identity within the city.

Time and again by one source, Yandel. Yandel tries to dismiss Haratis, but Yandel himself is shown to be unreliable. This leaves open the possibility that Haratis is the one in the right.

We need to look for independent signs. We do have some.

Tyrion´s trip notes the lack of towns, and by implication of nonmention, castles and rural nobility in Flatlands, in contrast to Westeros.

Whether the nobles of Pentos are by origin come from Valyria or from Andalos, by leaving their homelands to smallfolk and low status managers and staying full time in city they ceased to follow certain traits of Andal life.

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12 hours ago, Jaak said:

Time and again by one source, Yandel. Yandel tries to dismiss Haratis, but Yandel himself is shown to be unreliable. This leaves open the possibility that Haratis is the one in the right.

We need to look for independent signs. We do have some.

Tyrion´s trip notes the lack of towns, and by implication of nonmention, castles and rural nobility in Flatlands, in contrast to Westeros.

Whether the nobles of Pentos are by origin come from Valyria or from Andalos, by leaving their homelands to smallfolk and low status managers and staying full time in city they ceased to follow certain traits of Andal life.

I mean... Yandel has no reason to lie?  And no reason to be wrong?  Generally, when characters are wrong (to our definite knowledge) it's because of self-imposed bias (in Yandel's case, writing for the Baratheon regime), or when dealing with the supernatural, and trying to explain it away scientifically.  Or with issues of chronology.  In this case, both the in-universe history and Occam's Razor suggest the same thing - that the Andals who remained in Essos were enslaved or subsumed into the broader Valyrian Empire.  Pentos being founded by Valyrians as a trading outpost jives with what we know of the other Free Cities, which were all founded for one reason or another by Valyrians or Valyrian exiles/refugees, and thus maintained some level of political independence.

The lack of castles and towns outside of Pentos proper doesn't support either view; one could easily say it supports the theory that Pentos is a Valyrian colony and not a Valyrian conquest - if that were the case, the Valyrians would have been obligated to garrison the countryside to some degree.  See how that works?

Yandel gives a counterpoint, and then gives his evidence for why the bias in that source renders it untrustworthy.  That is the kind of responsible scholarship that should incline us to trust Yandel on this issue, not the reverse.

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The timelines in the world book are definitely suspect. The Andals claim they learned iron working from the Smith himself, most likely both they and the Valyrians learned from the Rhoynar. The world book dates the the destruction of the Rhoynar and Nymerias exile at between 700 to 1000 years ago.  Most likely the Andal date of colonization is closer to this timeframe than the 4000, tbh 2k even seems high given this context. The Andals themselves claim the Seven themselves lead them to Westeros for no reason other than it was thier "promised land" and make no mention of fleeing from dragon fire. The Rhoynar exodus and wars are much better documented. 

I believe all the free cities save Bravos where founded by Valyria, meaning there may have been much smaller settlements where Pentos and Lorath are now, and only grew to thier size and influence with Valyrian influence and support.

I regards to Bravos, to support a Navy and city that size, they simply must control some part on mainland essos for resources, everything cant be brought in by trade.

It is never mentioned but I would definitely assume that any andals left in essos after the Doom, either were absorbed by one of the growing free cities(and due to Geographic convenience, pentos makes the most sense) or wiped out by the dothraki, there is simply no where else they could go.

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9 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

In this case, both the in-universe history and Occam's Razor suggest the same thing - that the Andals who remained in Essos were enslaved or subsumed into the broader Valyrian Empire.  Pentos being founded by Valyrians as a trading outpost jives with what we know of the other Free Cities, which were all founded for one reason or another by Valyrians or Valyrian exiles/refugees, and thus maintained some level of political independence.

And yet Gessio, and several historians trusting him, simply say it was not unprecedented for Valyria to "subsume" existing communities as Free Cities.

9 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

The lack of castles and towns outside of Pentos proper doesn't support either view;

No, but my point is that whether the Andals of Flatlands were forcibly enslaved or did bend the knee voluntarily as Gessio claims, they ended up being culturally assimilated the way Andals of Westeros were not.

9 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

one could easily say it supports the theory that Pentos is a Valyrian colony and not a Valyrian conquest - if that were the case, the Valyrians would have been obligated to garrison the countryside to some degree.  See how that works?

No, not really.

The Flatlands must have been filled with castles of Andal lords.

What became of them?

Burnt down by dragonfire with Andal nobles in them?

Or left to rot when the Andal nobles moved to the city of Pentos, and the castellans they left were too lowly to maintain the castles for them?

9 hours ago, cpg2016 said:

Yandel gives a counterpoint, and then gives his evidence for why the bias in that source renders it untrustworthy.  That is the kind of responsible scholarship that should incline us to trust Yandel on this issue, not the reverse.

Yandel is too full of absurdities to trust.

Gessio specifically mentions Lorath as another Free City that yielded on terms. In that case, Yandel has a detailed story expressly inconsistent with this, specifying how the whole isle of Lorath was depopulated of Andals and stayed depopulated until resettlement - about 1500 years before conquest.

Yet Yandel calls pre-Valyrian history of Pentos "mysterious". Absurd! Writers in Vale should have been much nearer to pre-Valyrian Pentos than to pre-Valyrian Lorath.

 

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Yet Yandel calls pre-Valyrian history of Pentos "mysterious". Absurd! Writers in Vale should have been much nearer to pre-Valyrian Pentos than to pre-Valyrian Lorath.

I disagree. The Andals supposedly originated in the Axe, and they were a seafaring folk at some point at least. Those that stayed were integrated into the expanding Valyrian empire, but those that left were likely driven north and then across the sea to the Fingers. Pentos is well to the south of those hills, while Lorath lies between the Axe and Braavos. The Andals would certainly have settled on Lorath coming from the Axe on their way west to eventually reach the Vale, while they would have had to travel significantly farther south out of their way to reach Pentos. It seems likely that some of them did travel that far south, but it is likely that they got there much later and in fewer numbers than Lorath.

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11 minutes ago, Syl of Syl said:

I disagree. The Andals supposedly originated in the Axe, and they were a seafaring folk at some point at least. Those that stayed were integrated into the expanding Valyrian empire, but those that left were likely driven north and then across the sea to the Fingers.

Nobody "drove" Andals from Vale to Riverlands, Reach, Iron Islands. They went to "promised land by guidance of Seven" - they went because they could, because their iron arms and knightly training and organization outmatched First Men and ironmen.

11 minutes ago, Syl of Syl said:

Pentos is well to the south of those hills, while Lorath lies between the Axe and Braavos. The Andals would certainly have settled on Lorath coming from the Axe on their way west to eventually reach the Vale, while they would have had to travel significantly farther south out of their way to reach Pentos.

They also reached Oldtown, Stormlands, Dorne. To reach Pentos, they had the choice of going overland or hugging Braavosian Coastlands; to reach Stormlands they had to cross open Narrow Seas somewhere.

11 minutes ago, Syl of Syl said:

It seems likely that some of them did travel that far south, but it is likely that they got there much later and in fewer numbers than Lorath.

And? They did get in significant numbers to Dorne. And early.

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Also, on the point of castles near Pentos. I don't think the Andals were really great builders of castles. Anyway, we know that the Eyrie was built after an Arryn traveled Westeros and became inspired by the ancient castles of the First Men, so I don't think they brought much knowledge or craftsmanship in building of castles with them from Andalos. At least not compared to what the First Men were capable of. The Andals seemed to have adopted the feudal system of the First Men after coming to Westeros and assimilating with the First Men natives. The Andal invasion seems to be inspired at least in part by the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain. I imagine that the Andals as they were in Essos lived a lifestyle much more like that of the Viking and Germanic tribes of northern Europe, before they came and settled in Britain.

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Just now, Syl of Syl said:

Also, on the point of castles near Pentos. I don't think the Andals were really great builders of castles. Anyway, we know that the Eyrie was built after an Arryn traveled Westeros and became inspired by the ancient castles of the First Men, so I don't think they brought much knowledge or craftsmanship in building of castles with them from Andalos. At least not compared to what the First Men were capable of. The Andals seemed to have adopted the feudal system of the First Men after coming to Westeros and assimilating with the First Men natives. The Andal invasion seems to be inspired at least in part by the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain. I imagine that the Andals as they were in Essos lived a lifestyle much more like that of the Viking and Germanic tribes of northern Europe, before they came and settled in Britain.

Yes, quite possible.

Note that only one high kingdom of Westeros was founded by Andals. Vale of Arryns.

Before ser Artys, the Andal invaders of Corbray, Grafton etc. were independent petty kings. In Riverlands, an alliance of 7 Andal kings overthrew First Men Mudd high king, and promptly fell apart till Benedict Justman. In Stormlands, Reach and Westerlands, Durrandon, Gardener and Lannister First Man high kings survived the Andal invasion. Dorne had petty kings before and after invasion.

In Essos, we hear that petty kingdoms were the normal habit of pre-Valyrian Andals, and the isle of Lorath had 4 before united by Qarl the Great. Qarl built a great castle... of wood, not stone.

If the Andals of Andalos were split to petty kingdoms and built wooden halls even after the Andals across the Narrow Sea in Vale had united into Arryn kingdom and built great stone castles, then the wooden castles of Andalos could promptly have rotted after the nobles moved to the city of Pentos.

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Nobody "drove" Andals from Vale to Riverlands, Reach, Iron Islands. They went to "promised land by guidance of Seven" - they went because they could, because their iron arms and knightly training and organization outmatched First Men and ironmen.

Huh? I thought we were talking about the Andals in Essos. Are you suggesting that the Andals had a huge Empire in Essos at the same time they were arriving in Westeros? Everything Martin has written about the Andal invasion suggests that they came to Westeros because they were fleeing Essos.

Also, the history says that the Andals came to Westeros, conquered the Vale and then spilled out into the Riverlands. But by the time they get to the rest of Westeros, places like the Stormlands and the Reach, this is many generations later and the process of assimilation with the native First Men had been well on its way. To talk about Andal culture as it exists in Westeros is very different from whatever it was in Essos.

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10 hours ago, Jaak said:

And yet Gessio, and several historians trusting him, simply say it was not unprecedented for Valyria to "subsume" existing communities as Free Cities.

Quote, please.  And when you "subsume", you force the indigent population to assimilate into your culture, not visa versa

10 hours ago, Jaak said:

No, but my point is that whether the Andals of Flatlands were forcibly enslaved or did bend the knee voluntarily as Gessio claims, they ended up being culturally assimilated the way Andals of Westeros were not.

Right.  Who is arguing against this?  The poster I was responding to was questioning whether there is a still-extant "Andal" culture.  The answer, as you and I are both agreeing on, is that there is not.  Any indigenous Andal culture has long since been assimilated into the dominant Valyrian culture.  Case in point: Pentos was (until very recently) a slave city, just like all the other Free Cities save Braavos.  We know Andal culture is explicitly anti-slavery.  We hear very little about worship of the Seven in Pentos.  I am sure that there are some Andal influences, both culturally and demographically, in Pentos.  How could there not be, when presumably a large part of the population can trace itself back (over thousands of years) the Andals the Valyrians initially conquered?  But the Andalos that the Seven Pointed Star would refer to, does not exist any more.  As you say, and that other poster didn't seem to understand, is that Westeros is a much more pure expression of "original" Andal culture than Pentoshi culture is.

11 hours ago, Jaak said:

No, not really.

The Flatlands must have been filled with castles of Andal lords.

What became of them?

Burnt down by dragonfire with Andal nobles in them?

Or left to rot when the Andal nobles moved to the city of Pentos, and the castellans they left were too lowly to maintain the castles for them?

Riiiight.  This was my point.  You could make an argument either way.

And the whole "castellans they left were too lowly to maintain the castles" isn't a thing.  That doesn't happen.  Landed nobility is extremely invested in maintaining the productivity of their lands, for obvious reasons, even if they aren't physically present.  A huge portion of the corpus of our primary source documentation for epochs as varied as Republican Rome to the medieval period concerns absentee landlords berating their stewards for not paying enough attention to their charge.

11 hours ago, Jaak said:

Gessio specifically mentions Lorath as another Free City that yielded on terms. In that case, Yandel has a detailed story expressly inconsistent with this, specifying how the whole isle of Lorath was depopulated of Andals and stayed depopulated until resettlement - about 1500 years before conquest.

But why should we trust Gessio over Yandel?  That's my point.  Yandel says that the Valyrians wiped out the native Andal population, and that the island was uninhabited for a century (not 1500 years).  This makes sense, because otherwise, the followers of Boash wouldn't have been able to establish themselves so easily.  The story of how the city overthrew the priests and became a merchant republic is one that is very likely to be independently verifiable in the present day, since it would certainly be an extremely important and well-remembered event in the city itself.  So we can trust that Yandel is right in the broad strokes of his account.  He can be biased, but with something like this, where there is a verifiable fact out there, he's unlikely to be wrong.  And there is no way to explain away a small group of religious exiles dominating a city unless they themselves founded it, which unsurprisingly tracks well with the origin stories of Norvos and Qohor.  In other words, there is a great deal of strong circumstantial evidence to suggest that Yandel is right about his account of history, and that Gessio Haratis is wrong.  The one place we can come close to verifying, or at least applying a test of logic and reason, Haratis' account falls short in a way Yandel's does not

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Yandel´s assertion that the history of the Valyrian conquests and the people conquered by Valyria was lost in the Doom is also suspect.

Certainly Volantis is a major city even compared to Oldtown. Identifies as Eldest Daughter of Valyria. The elite claims to be noble.

I should expect the libraries of Volantis to hold a lot of copies of books written in pre-Doom Valyria.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 3/28/2019 at 6:31 PM, cpg2016 said:

And the whole "castellans they left were too lowly to maintain the castles" isn't a thing.  That doesn't happen.  Landed nobility is extremely invested in maintaining the productivity of their lands, for obvious reasons, even if they aren't physically present.  A huge portion of the corpus of our primary source documentation for epochs as varied as Republican Rome to the medieval period concerns absentee landlords berating their stewards for not paying enough attention to their charge.

Productivity of lands, yes.

There have been multiple politically motivated campaigns to destroy castles. England had one under Henry II, one under Cromwell, and one under Attlee. Other countries have had theirs. I don´t see anything odd about Flatlands of Pentos having had such.

It may have been dragonfire. Or it may not have been as direct. If the lords were making a decision to stay in Pentos and not come back, they might have actively ordered their castles demolished and only basic accommodation for lowly estate stewards left. Or they may just have refused to authorize the expenditure to repair and replace their wooden halls as they rotted.

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