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Which bloodline is older?


Mario Seddy

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4 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Not addressing all of the above right now, but just pointing out that you have the Age of Heroes wrong. It didn’t end with the Long Night. It ended with the Andal conquest. The Long Night was in the middle of the Age of Heroes. So Brandon certainly didn’t live at its end.

It is never said it ended with the Andals. And to be sure, all heroes from the Age of Heroes we know about lived before the Long Night, not afterwards. What kind of 'heroic stuff' took place after the Long Night isn't clear. Perhaps the Night's King is still part of the Age of Heroes ... perhaps not. But if you look at TWoIaF then the Age of Heroes is the stuff that took place before the Long Night - that's why the chapter 'The Age of Heroes' comes before the chapter 'The Long Night'.

But even if I'm wrong there - and the Age of Heroes lasted much longer than the Long Night - then this doesn't make Brandon the Builder as old as the Hightowers, Daynes, and Gardeners.

I mean, take the stories about Brandon of the Bloody Blade as an example - they have him fight Children and giants in the Reach, meaning chances are good that he would have lived very early in the Age of Heroes or even in the Dawn Age ... like his father, Garth Greenhand, if he existed, while nobody should have fought Children or giants around the time the Builder lived since both peoples were rather instrumental in the building of the Wall - not to mention the role the Children played in the fight against the Others.

1 hour ago, TheLastWolf said:

Since the Gardeners no longer exist and their blood via the Reach is too diluted given their high population and their blood via the Starks (if Brandon the Builder was a bastard son of Garth Greenhand and not the Opal Emperor, half bro to Bloodstone and Amethyst) is practically non existent since millennia have passed, does their ancestry and who came first matter? 

Nobody says Brandon the Builder was a bastard of Garth but rather a descendant of Garth's son Brandon of the Bloody Blade. Lann was allegedly a bastard of Florys the Fox or Rowan Gold-Tree.

And that's not really important because magical blood nonsense, but just because it is an interesting question in and of itself.

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2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

And that's not really important because magical blood nonsense, but just because it is an interesting question in and of itself.

Exactly the answer I was expecting! 

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Nobody says Brandon the Builder was a bastard of Garth but rather a descendant of Garth's son Brandon of the Bloody Blade

Thanks

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Lann was allegedly a bastard of Florys the Fox or Rowan Gold-Tree.

Hmm

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4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

It is never said it ended with the Andals. And to be sure, all heroes from the Age of Heroes we know about lived before the Long Night, not afterwards. What kind of 'heroic stuff' took place after the Long Night isn't clear. Perhaps the Night's King is still part of the Age of Heroes ... perhaps not. But if you look at TWoIaF then the Age of Heroes is the stuff that took place before the Long Night - that's why the chapter 'The Age of Heroes' comes before the chapter 'The Long Night'.

But even if I'm wrong there - and the Age of Heroes lasted much longer than the Long Night - then this doesn't make Brandon the Builder as old as the Hightowers, Daynes, and Gardeners.

I mean, take the stories about Brandon of the Bloody Blade as an example - they have him fight Children and giants in the Reach, meaning chances are good that he would have lived very early in the Age of Heroes or even in the Dawn Age ... like his father, Garth Greenhand, if he existed, while nobody should have fought Children or giants around the time the Builder lived since both peoples were rather instrumental in the building of the Wall - not to mention the role the Children played in the fight against the Others.

Nobody says Brandon the Builder was a bastard of Garth but rather a descendant of Garth's son Brandon of the Bloody Blade. Lann was allegedly a bastard of Florys the Fox or Rowan Gold-Tree.

And that's not really important because magical blood nonsense, but just because it is an interesting question in and of itself.

The wiki explicitly states that the Long Night occurred in the middle of the Age of Heroes.

The Dawn Age stretched from the arrival of the First Men until the signing of the Pact. With the Age of Heroes then covering the duration of the Pact until the Andals ended it.

As for the legendary heroes - the timing is all over the place. You say Lann is rumoured to be a bastard of one of Garth Greenhand’s daughters. Well Uthor Hightower is said to have married one of Garth’s daughters, and he in turn commissioned “either Brandon the Builder or Brandon’s son” to build the Hightower. Placing Bran the Builder either as contemporary to Uthor, or as living a generation BEFORE Uthor. Meaning contemporaneously with Garth Greenhand himself.

The point is - these early tales are clearly bogus, and far removed from what actually happened. Most likely the time before the Long Night is almost completely unknown, with any attempted chronology being wildly off the mark.

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On 11/29/2020 at 12:13 PM, Free Northman Reborn said:

The wiki explicitly states that the Long Night occurred in the middle of the Age of Heroes.

There is one line in the books actually supporting that idea. But the historical narrative we get in TWoIaF doesn't really reinforce that.

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The Dawn Age stretched from the arrival of the First Men until the signing of the Pact. With the Age of Heroes then covering the duration of the Pact until the Andals ended it.

The latter isn't confirmed. If the War for the Dawn didn't end the Age of Heroes we have no idea when it ended. It could have been the arrival of the Andals, but we really don't hear much about heroes running around after the Long Night. There are some larger-than-life kings, to be sure, like Theon Stark and such, but not the kind of heroes you get in the times before the Long Night.

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As for the legendary heroes - the timing is all over the place. You say Lann is rumoured to be a bastard of one of Garth Greenhand’s daughters. Well Uthor Hightower is said to have married one of Garth’s daughters, and he in turn commissioned “either Brandon the Builder or Brandon’s son” to build the Hightower. Placing Bran the Builder either as contemporary to Uthor, or as living a generation BEFORE Uthor. Meaning contemporaneously with Garth Greenhand himself.

That all would depend on how long these people lived. I mean, if they lived a very long time then they would have fathered children for centuries, meaning one of Brandon's sons certainly could have worked for an older Uthor ... and Brandon the Builder himself could have been centuries younger than Uthor.

But I certainly concede that the stories about Brandon the Builder being everywhere are a stretch ... which is why I prefer the version where Brandon wasn't in the south at all and is at best descended from Brandon of the Bloody Blade by several generations.

The overall idea of Garth Greenhand being a major ancestor of First Men nobility isn't a bad narrative framework in my opinion.

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The point is - these early tales are clearly bogus, and far removed from what actually happened. Most likely the time before the Long Night is almost completely unknown, with any attempted chronology being wildly off the mark.

No, because even there are differences. There are families who have origin stories ... and then there are the Daynes and the Hightowers who are too old to have even such stories. This certainly sends the message that people know or believe they know that there are families too old for legends. Whereas the younger families do have garbled versions of mythological founding heroes. And then there are founding figures - like Garth Greenhand - who are clearly older than the others. And, of course, George himself has gone on record that Brandon may not have existed - meaning he is not likely to ever answer that question.

But we are going to get the Green Men as characters in this story, and thus also 'the truth' behind the story of Garth Greenhand. Just as what Melisandre revealed about Storm's End in ACoK definitely confirmed that there is some truth to the story of Durran Godsgrief and Elenei. Storm's End is a genuinely magical place.

That the Starks are newcomers in the North is also made pretty evident by the story of the First King who allegedly was the King of all the First Men in his days and led the First Men to Westeros. He is supposed to be buried at the Great Barrow. Chances are, if he existed, that he was a king leading the First Men to settle in the North and not a king who came from Essos and then led his people up north instead of settling in the south.

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4 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

The latter isn't confirmed. If the War for the Dawn didn't end the Age of Heroes we have no idea when it ended. It could have been the arrival of the Andals, but we really don't hear much about heroes running around after the Long Night. There are some larger-than-life kings, to be sure, like Theon Stark and such, but not the kind of heroes you get in the times before the Long Night.

 

Their probably were hundreds of houses that were founded after the long night. Although those founders probably aren’t as significant as lann the clever or Duran gods grief.

You can safely say the age of heroes carried on but to a lesser extent. Not something as grand as those heroes of old.

7 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

That the Starks are newcomers in the North is also made pretty evident by the story of the First King who allegedly was the King of all the First Men in his days and led the First Men to Westeros. He is supposed to be buried at the Great Barrow. Chances are, if he existed, that he was a king leading the First Men to settle in the North and not a king who came from Essos and then led his people up north instead of settling in the south.

According to legend, the neck was made a swamp because the green seers attempted to flood the neck (same as they did to the arm of dorne). But it failed and instead they got a land full of marshes and swamps.

It is safe to say that the first men didnt attempt to settle that land due to the dangerous swamps. Plus the north was cold and less fertile than the south.

So my guess is that after a time the barrow king gathered some supporters and attempted to traverse the dangerous swamps. Maybe they found a causeway to lead them to where moat Caitlin is today.

it makes sense that the barrow king decided to create a settlement where barrowton is. It is further south with good farming land.

Maybe the barrow kings built moat Caitlin themselves. To serve as fortifications against the kings of the riverlands.

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16 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

The Neck was made a swamp after the Towers at Moat Cailin were built - by humans.  So it was well after the North had been settled.

Oh yeah. Just remembered that children’s tower was named because that’s where the supposed children of the forest cast their magic to flood the neck. 

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The Age of Heroes most certainly extended long after the Long Night. Basically, it covers the entire period before written records. A few quotes:

“Four hundred years old it was, and as sharp as the day it was forged. The name it bore was older still, a legacy from the age of heroes, when the Starks were Kings in the North.”

“And so she rode behind him, beneath the shadow of the Bloody Gate where a dozen armies had dashed themselves to pieces in the Age of Heroes.”

“Oh, very well," Luwin muttered. "So long as the kingdoms of the First Men held sway, the Pact endured, all through the Age of Heroes and the Long Night and the birth of the Seven Kingdoms, yet finally there came a time, many centuries later, when other peoples crossed the narrow sea.”

“Only strength keeps such men in their place. The moment they smell weakness . . . during the Age of Heroes, the Boltons used to flay the Starks and wear their skins as cloaks." 

“I found mention of dragonglass. The children of the forest used to give the Night's Watch a hundred obsidian daggers every year, during the Age of Heroes.”

Clearly the above refer to events after the Long Night. The Age of Heroes stretched until the end of the Pact, which coincides with the start of written records after the Andal conquest.

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