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House Banefort


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As you can tell, when I joined this site, I chose a very obscure house from the Westerlands for my username. I liked House Banefort's sigil, and was intrigued by the tidbit about them being the closest seat to the Iron Islands.

Which leads me to this question: how has House Banefort managed not to get invaded by reavers, when they're in such close proximity to the Ironborn? Throughout the main series and supplementary material, we're told that the Ironborn have invaded Kayce, Fair Isle, Lannisport, the Arbor, Seagard, Bear Island, Deepwood Motte, Torrhen's Square, etc. But as far as we know, never Banefort. Maybe there just isn't much there to loot, although I doubt that there's much more on Bear Island. They could just have a highly-fortified castle, but I'm wondering if this is something that was instead prevented by marriage alliances. If Banefort had family ties to some of the Ironborn houses, especially on Pyke, that could explain why they haven't been attacked by reavers. 

What are your thoughts?

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27 minutes ago, Brandon Ice-Eyes said:

They probably have it's just not mentioned. It’s proximity to the Iron Islands makes it basically impossible that it hasn’t been raided throught Westeros’ history.

Yeah, pretty much. We just don't know all that much about the Baneforts nor the territorial issues between the Westerlands and the Iron Islands before the Conquest.

The vibe one gets is that the hold of the Ironborn on the West was never very strong. The Lannisters would have been very powerful very early on, and this would also have gone for many of their bannermen.

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1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Yeah, pretty much. We just don't know all that much about the Baneforts nor the territorial issues between the Westerlands and the Iron Islands before the Conquest.

The vibe one gets is that the hold of the Ironborn on the West was never very strong. The Lannisters would have been very powerful very early on, and this would also have gone for many of their bannermen.

It just seems like such a weird omission to me, especially since the app mentions its close proximity to Pyke. (I don't understand how it's decided what is and isn't included on the app. Daemon Targaryen isn't on there, but Banefort is).

I once saw someone speculate that the Baneforts are Ironborn-lite, since the Hooded King had thralls, but like you said, we really don't know anything about them post-Conquest. 

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Well as you know we know very little about events before conquest , and after conquest the old way of ironborn come to end, they were no longer allowed to raid like before. So we can´t say for sure.

Another thing is that ironborn are raiders , their strength is their navy they rely on attacking other ships  , ironborn don´t wear armour and carry siege weapons which makes them not that great against enemy hiding behind strong walls . Only examples of them attacking castles is when they go all out like during Greyjoy rebellion and during war of 5 kings when they wanted to expand their kingdom by absorbing parts of North and just now with Euron desire to conquer all Westeros with dragons like Aegon did.

Why would they attack  Banefort castle , its too hard and human loses would be too big, not worthy the loot most likely , its better and less risky to attack their ships , thats were their strength lies and what they do best.

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Another possibility is that there are no easy access to Banefort from sea. Or that castle had lost that access from some reason.

In here Raasepori was one of major castles in Finland during middle ages until sea route to that castle was lost during late 15th century and that castle became totally landlocked and that was major reason why it was totally abandoned during early 16th century.

So if Baneforts were house of seafarers but they for some reason lost that ability then that would explain why ancient family of petty kings has became nobodies.

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15 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I once saw someone speculate that the Baneforts are Ironborn-lite, since the Hooded King had thralls, but like you said, we really don't know anything about them post-Conquest. 

During the times of Hooded King having thralls was widespread in all of Westeros, not just on Iron Isles. But this tradition went away across Westeros (except for the Iron Isles) even before Andals came and Baneforts probably aren't an exception.

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1 hour ago, Putin said:

ironborn don´t wear armour

The ironborn in the Greyjoy chapters wear mail and boiled leather (and Asha and Victarion have plate). 

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They were clutching swords and spears and axes, but nine of every ten wore no armor, and the tenth had only a shirt of sewn scales. These are no ironmen, Victarion thought. They still fear drowning. (AFFC The Reaver)

 

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Ironically, if there were even one prominent Banefort in this story, that person would automatically be a top contender for the Hooded Man in Winterfell, since that's there sigil and ancestor. Since there aren't any (I'm not counting the current Lord of Banefort, since he doesn't speak and we know nothing about him), I'm going to chalk this up to GRRM just liking to write about spooky men with hooded capes. (When I first read ADWD, I had thought it was an hallucination of Theon's, but most people seem convinced that the HM in WF was a real person).

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https://georgerrmartin.com/world-of-ice-and-fire-sample/

This is the unabridged Westerlands chapter from TWOIAF on GRRM's website.

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Many and more great houses trace their roots back to this golden age of the First Men.  Amongst these are the Hawthornes, the Footes, the Brooms, and the Plumms.  On Fair Isle, the longships of the Farmans helped defend the western coast against ironborn reavers.  The Greenfields raised a vast timber castle called the Bower (now simply Greenfield), built entirely of weirwood.  The Reynes of Castamere made a rich system of mines, caves, and tunnels their own subterranean seat, whilst the Westerlings built the Crag above the waves.  Other houses sprang from the loins of legendary heroes, of whom tales are told to this very day; the Crakehalls from Crake the Boarkiller, the Baneforts from the Hooded Man, the Yews from the Blind Bowman Alan o’ the Oak, the Morelands from Pate the Ploughman.

So the Baneforts are First Men.

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Lann the Clever never called himself a king, as best we know, though some tales told centuries later have conferred that style on him posthumously.  The first true Lannister king we know of is Loreon Lannister, also known as Loreon the Lion (a number of Lannisters through the centuries have been dubbed ‘the Lion’ or ‘the Golden,’ for understandable reasons), who made the Reynes of Castamere his vassals by wedding a daughter of that House, and defeated the Hooded King, Morgon Banefort, and his thralls in a war that lasted twenty years.

King Morgon was supposedly a necromancer of terrible power, and it is written that as he lay dying, he told the Lannisters who had slain him (amongst them three of Loreon’s own sons) that he would return from the grave to wreak vengeance upon them one and all.  To prevent that, Loreon had Morgon’s body hacked into a hundred pieces and fed to his lions.  In a grisly aftermath, however, those selfsame lions broke loose two years later in the bowels of Casterly Rock, and slew the king’s sons, just as the Hooded King had promised.

They sound more than a little Othery.

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On 3/29/2020 at 9:25 PM, Lollygag said:

https://georgerrmartin.com/world-of-ice-and-fire-sample/

This is the unabridged Westerlands chapter from TWOIAF on GRRM's website.

So the Baneforts are First Men.

They sound more than a little Othery.

Good find. If we get even a small bit of additional information about House Banefort in the upcoming books, I will be glad for it.

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On 3/30/2020 at 2:25 AM, Lollygag said:

They sound more than a little Othery.

I think it sounds like a Melisandre type thing, like with her blood magic indirectly causing the deaths of Robb, Joffrey and Balon. Priests of R’hllor like Thoros can also raise the dead, and the Hooded King was a necromancer. Maybe those ‘thralls’ were people he resurrected as wights and controlled.
Except we have yet see ‘red’ or ‘fire’ imagery surrounding the Baneforts, and everything I said relating to R’hllor could probably also be attributed to the Others, especially since Baneforts are First Men so would have a deeper connection to ancient Westeros.

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On 3/30/2020 at 11:40 PM, The Bard of Banefort said:

Good find. If we get even a small bit of additional information about House Banefort in the upcoming books, I will be glad for it.

I'm expecting that. We're going to see Casterly Rock in TWOW and I think the Westerlands in general will be a big part of that. GRRM has 3 Lannister POVs and he's laid out so much detail and history from that area that we don't see in other places so it looks like a build-up to something.

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19 hours ago, McGuv19 said:

I think it sounds like a Melisandre type thing, like with her blood magic indirectly causing the deaths of Robb, Joffrey and Balon. Priests of R’hllor like Thoros can also raise the dead, and the Hooded King was a necromancer. Maybe those ‘thralls’ were people he resurrected as wights and controlled.
Except we have yet see ‘red’ or ‘fire’ imagery surrounding the Baneforts, and everything I said relating to R’hllor could probably also be attributed to the Others, especially since Baneforts are First Men so would have a deeper connection to ancient Westeros.

Yeah, I also see connections between the old gods and R'hllor.

If Mel is BR's daughter and she feels stronger at the Wall, that's something. Beric was raised by Thoros and presumably R'hllor, but he hangs around weirwoods and Beric was Ned's proxy leading Ned's army in the Riverlands and Beric was overwhelmingly compelled against all logic to raise Ned's wife. Weirwoods look like trees on fire with the perennially red leaves. Weirwood roots are described with the same terminology as dragons (snakes). Sounds like there are small dragon skeletons in the caves with Bran who calls them bats which are also how dragons are sometimes described. Don't have any idea what it all means though.

House Banefort's sigil does have flames.

https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/House_Banefort

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On 3/24/2020 at 9:48 PM, Brandon Ice-Eyes said:

They probably have it's just not mentioned. It’s proximity to the Iron Islands makes it basically impossible that it hasn’t been raided throught Westeros’ history.

Perhaps so.  Most of the history that we know are post conquest.  The Targaryens were able to keep the ironborn in check most of the time.  Prior, yes, that house must have been raided regularly by the squids. 

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