The lack of care for the Iron Islands

[frenin]

Why the Iron Throne did so little to bring the Ironborn to the fold?? The only one who ever cared about them and we know visited them was Aegon I, the Targs made great efforts to bring Dorne to the Realm and bind the North closer to them, the Iron Islands however was outright ignored, the one time Jaeharys mentions them is to say that it would be a very stupid idea bring an Ironborn to court, as far as i can see, Westeros only cares about them in war time,  either because they need  their fleet or because they are being attacked by them.

With that lack of interest, how cannot people like Balon rise to prominence??

[867-5309]

The Ironborn have historically been a threat to the mainland of Westeros.  People remember the dominance of House Hoare and its cruelty in the River lands.  They are not trusted.  None of the great houses could stop the Ironborn until the mighty Dragons came to the rescue during the Great Conquest.  They were kept from building back their strength since then.  I presume because they could not raid the mainland for resources.  The Greyjoys are a shadow of what the Hoares were. So Robert was able to beat them.  But an iron people at the same level as the Hoares will be hard to stop. The return of Euron brought back some of the strength and he has been unstoppable in the south.  They are not invincible on land but it took underhanded trickery from the Boltons to root them out of moat cailin. 

[Adam Yozza]

On 12/22/2019 at 10:20 PM, 867-5309 said:

 

They are not invincible on land but it took underhanded trickery from the Boltons to root them out of moat cailin. 

More due to the the Moat and the northern losses in other conflicts than the ironborn themselves and i'm sure an open battle would have gone Roose/Ramsey's way but it would have been needless losses.

[The Lord of the Crossing]

On 12/22/2019 at 4:05 PM, frenin said:

Why the Iron Throne did so little to bring the Ironborn to the fold?

The Ironborn were/are a difficult people. They refused to sow.  What else can you do with them? Pinning them down to keep them from causing too much trouble was a good thing. The monarchs could have done better but they would have had to destroy the culture in order to change the minds of these stubborn people. The Targaryen way was let people be as long as they bent the knee. It would take tearing down Pyke with dragon fire to change the culture and then slaughtering the men and the older boys to kill the culture.

[frenin]

5 minutes ago, The Lord of the Crossing said:

The Ironborn were/are a difficult people. They refused to sow.  What else can you do with them? Pinning them down to keep them from causing too much trouble was a good thing. The monarchs could have done better but they would have had to destroy the culture in order to change the minds of these stubborn people. The Targaryen way was let people be as long as they bent the knee. It would take tearing down Pyke with dragon fire to change the culture and then slaughtering the men and the older boys to kill the culture.

That's an excuse for not even trying?? We know how good it goes, Targs wantedto get the realm closer and both Jaeharys and Alysanne made great efforts to get that,  with some of them clearly backfiring.

They didn't even try.

 

[The Lord of the Crossing]

Just now, frenin said:

That's an excuse for not even trying?? We know how good it goes, Targs wantedto get the realm closer and both Jaeharys and Alysanne made great efforts to get that,  with some of them clearly backfiring.

They didn't even try.

 

Trying and effort is a matter of perspective.  They ended the line of Harren and that is quite an accomplishment considering no other was able to do that.  The reason they didn't pursue more radical changes was they had their eyes on the south.  Distance also had to have been a factor.  It takes effort on both sides and the Ironborn were not interested in building cooperative relations.

[frenin]

22 minutes ago, The Lord of the Crossing said:

Trying and effort is a matter of perspective.  They ended the line of Harren and that is quite an accomplishment considering no other was able to do that.  The reason they didn't pursue more radical changes was they had their eyes on the south.  Distance also had to have been a factor.  It takes effort on both sides and the Ironborn were not interested in building cooperative relations.

??? They submitted the Iron Islands, nothing else nothing more and did you read FaB?? The northmen and especially the Starks caerd little and less for the Targs and yet Jaehaerys and Alyssane worked hard to bind them to their rule. 

They quite literally made no attempt to do the same thing with the Iron Islands and the Islands are closer than Winterfell. They simply didn't care.

[Hrulj]

They are cursed by their location within 7 Kingdoms. On their own and independent they have unprotected shores to raid from wall to the Dorne. However as part of 7 Kingdoms they are too far from any action. They can't raid in Westeros, and they are on the opposite side of the continent to play important roles in things like Blackfyre rebellions or Dances of Dragons, If they switched places with Dragonstone for example they'd be much more important and it would be a highly important matter for kings to keep them placated. But they are where they are so the duty of kings is to keep them contained. 

[James Fenimore Cooper XXII]

3 hours ago, Hrulj said:

They are cursed by their location within 7 Kingdoms. On their own and independent they have unprotected shores to raid from wall to the Dorne. However as part of 7 Kingdoms they are too far from any action. They can't raid in Westeros, and they are on the opposite side of the continent to play important roles in things like Blackfyre rebellions or Dances of Dragons, If they switched places with Dragonstone for example they'd be much more important and it would be a highly important matter for kings to keep them placated. But they are where they are so the duty of kings is to keep them contained. 

Yes

The north and the iron islands are the backwoods of Westeros. 

[The Lord of the Crossing]

On 12/25/2019 at 6:50 PM, frenin said:

??? They submitted the Iron Islands, nothing else nothing more and did you read FaB?? The northmen and especially the Starks caerd little and less for the Targs and yet Jaehaerys and Alyssane worked hard to bind them to their rule. 

They quite literally made no attempt to do the same thing with the Iron Islands and the Islands are closer than Winterfell. They simply didn't care.

They did care. It was a plot hole or an area that the author did not care to expand on. 

[frenin]

5 hours ago, The Lord of the Crossing said:

They did care. It was a plot hole or an area that the author did not care to expand on. 

Nothing in the books make it likely.

[The Bard of Banefort]

This has always bothered me as well. Daeron II made the connection that making marriage alliances with Dorne would quell their antagonism, yet no one ever thought to try that with the Iron Islands apparently. The lack of marriage alliances between the Iron Islands and the North is also odd.

The Ironborn live very difficult lives, so trying to do something to help would have probably gone a long way in forging a greater sense of loyalty to the Iron Throne. You would think this would have been right up Alysanne's alley, but again, for some reason she never did. (Then again, the complete lack of female Ironborn outside of Asha has always annoyed me).

 

[Vaith]

17 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

This has always bothered me as well. Daeron II made the connection that making marriage alliances with Dorne would quell their antagonism, yet no one ever thought to try that with the Iron Islands apparently. The lack of marriage alliances between the Iron Islands and the North is also odd.

The Ironborn live very difficult lives, so trying to do something to help would have probably gone a long way in forging a greater sense of loyalty to the Iron Throne. You would think this would have been right up Alysanne's alley, but again, for some reason she never did. (Then again, the complete lack of female Ironborn outside of Asha has always annoyed me).

There is that one instance of Rhaenys arranging a Tarth daughter to marry a Harlaw way back when. 

The problem might have come from the ironborn. Quellon's third wife was a Piper but when Aeron thinks of her, she's a little looked down upon for her "greenlander" ways.

Quote

"Urri," he muttered, and woke, fearful. There is no hinge here, no door, no Urri. A flying axe took off half of Urri's hand when he was ten-and-four, playing at the finger dance whilst his father and his elder brothers were away at war. Lord Quellon's third wife had been a Piper of Pinkmaiden Castle, a girl with big soft breasts and brown doe's eyes. Instead of healing Urri's hand the Old Way, with fire and seawater, she gave him to her green land maester, who swore that he could sew back the missing fingers. He did that, and later he used potions and poltices and herbs, but the hand mortified and Urri took a fever. By the time the maester sawed his arm off, it was too late.

Dorne is mindful of keeping its own ways, but there's not really as much aminosity towards Myrcella and Arys in Dorne as the contempt the ironborn seem to have for mainlanders.

The neglect compared to Dorne also comes from the fact that Dorne took a long time to join the Seven Kingdoms, never being conquered. As it was absorbed 2 centuries into the Iron Throne's history and through marriage, a lot more effort would be put into its integration than a backwater like the ironborn, who were notorious and despised by the other kingdoms but had more or less remained under the Targaryens' rule for such a long time.

[frenin]

21 minutes ago, Vaith said:

There is that one instance of Rhaenys arranging a Tarth daughter to marry a Harlaw way back when. 

The problem might have come from the ironborn. Quellon's third wife was a Piper but when Aeron thinks of her, she's a little looked down upon for her "greenlander" ways.

Dorne is mindful of keeping its own ways, but there's not really as much aminosity towards Myrcella and Arys in Dorne as the contempt the ironborn seem to have for mainlanders.

The neglect compared to Dorne also comes from the fact that Dorne took a long time to join the Seven Kingdoms, never being conquered. As it was absorbed 2 centuries into the Iron Throne's history and through marriage, a lot more effort would be put into its integration than a backwater like the ironborn, who were notorious and despised by the other kingdoms but had more or less remained under the Targaryens' rule for such a long time.

But only the Conquerors  are ever shown to give the Iron Islands a thought, the only time Jaeharys talks about them is to say it would be crazy to call one of them to court.

[Vaith]

1 minute ago, frenin said:

But only the Conquerors  are ever shown to give the Iron Islands a thought, the only time Jaeharys talks about them is to say it would be crazy to call one of them to court.

Sure, and the same amount of time had passed since Daeron II before Aerys II was on the throne, someone who disliked his own granddaughter "smelling Dornish."

Dorne got some TLC from being a new part of the Iron Throne. The Iron Islands couldn't get that as their integration was concurrent to the other realms north of Dorne making up a united Westeros. So I suppose after Aegon and his siblings, it was easy to neglect the isles.

[frenin]

2 minutes ago, Vaith said:

Sure, and the same amount of time had passed since Daeron II before Aerys II was on the throne, someone who disliked his own granddaughter "smelling Dornish."

Dorne got some TLC from being a new part of the Iron Throne. The Iron Islands couldn't get that as their integration was concurrent to the other realms north of Dorne making up a united Westeros. So I suppose after Aegon and his siblings, it was easy to neglect the isles.

But they didn't neglect the North, in fact we see how much  Jaeharys and Alysanne effort to win over the North.

[OberynBlackfyre]

I actually very much agree. 
 

I think it’s strange that the Iron Islands have such mystery and autonomy given just how thorny they’ve been to much of Westeros, and for how LONG it’s been.  There is something strange going on with the Iron Islands that makes it seem unclear as to whether it’s supernatural or if it’s simply that many Lords believe that they are nothing but a backwater place with savages. Akin to Skagos. 
 

 

But I find it VERY strange that the North keeps no boats or specific Keeps/Lords that are meant to be a bulwark against them Ironborn. Even Bear Island seems to be indifferent.  I think the North relies too much on the power and loyalty of House Stark to muster men and keep Nationalistic sense of well-being as their priority. We saw what happened when a Stark Lord had his priorities and power in the South. 

[OberynBlackfyre]

On 12/30/2019 at 10:55 AM, Vaith said:

Sure, and the same amount of time had passed since Daeron II before Aerys II was on the throne, someone who disliked his own granddaughter "smelling Dornish."

Dorne got some TLC from being a new part of the Iron Throne. The Iron Islands couldn't get that as their integration was concurrent to the other realms north of Dorne making up a united Westeros. So I suppose after Aegon and his siblings, it was easy to neglect the isles.

I think Jah and Alysanne are probably the ONLY Targ royals who actually gave the North it’s due.  They are some of the only Targaryens who actually had warm relations with the Starks in terms of how much time Alysanne spent at Winterfell, visited the Wall, etc.