Discrepancy with the Northern mountain clans?

[Floki of the Ironborn]

In ADWD, Jon Snow speaks of the mountain clans to Stannis Baratheon. He tells Stannis where these clans are, how to win them over, and how many men they might be able to muster.

But in ASOS, we know that the mountain clans sent men south with Robb Stark. Lots of them, in fact, to the point that they make up a bulk of men slaughtered at the Ruby Ford by the Mountain. Moreover, a member of House Norrey is in Robb's personal bodyguard and dies at the Red Wedding.

Jon has a very good idea of how many fighting men the clans can provide to Stannis, but how does he know that number so well? Did he know how many men left the mountain clans to join Robb, and how many were still behind?

[Groo]

Jon tells Stannis that the clans could muster two or three thousand fighting men. That's a general estimate not a precise count. Also, no one sent all their men south with Robb. Everyone has been able to come up with more men even if they have to resort to older men or younger boys. It would be important for any ruling house, like the Starks, to have a very good sense of the actual strength of each of their bannermen. Jon might have known the overall strength of the mountain clans and been able to make an educated guess about how many would have gone south with Robb.

[Floki of the Ironborn]

38 minutes ago, Groo said:

Jon tells Stannis that the clans could muster two or three thousand fighting men. That's a general estimate not a precise count. Also, no one sent all their men south with Robb. Everyone has been able to come up with more men even if they have to resort to older men or younger boys. It would be important for any ruling house, like the Starks, to have a very good sense of the actual strength of each of their bannermen. Jon might have known the overall strength of the mountain clans and been able to make an educated guess about how many would have gone south with Robb.

That still raises questions, though. It's been determined that more than 6,000 men were killed, captured, or driven away to become broken men, and it's said that the majority of these were men from Houses Burley, Locke, and Norrey, with a scattering of White Harbour knights. That's potentially a number of clansmen dead which equals Jon Snow's guess about their total fighting force. 

Either Jon is wrong about the number of men to be found in those mountains, he's talking about their numbers AFTER the casualties they've already had (which makes me wonder how Jon knows them), or GRRM screwed up.

[Groo]

7 hours ago, Floki of the Ironborn said:

It's been determined that more than 6,000 men were killed, captured, or driven away to become broken men, and it's said that the majority of these were men from Houses Burley, Locke, and Norrey, with a scattering of White Harbour knights.

I don't remember this 6,000 number. Was it mentioned in the books? Also, what about all the Karstark men running around the Riverlands? Are they included in the 6,000?

[Free Northman Reborn]

12000 men gathered at Winterfell.

2300 were from House Karstark.

The majority of the 4000 that returned from the South were Boltons, even after losses suffered, so 2500 Boltons seems a minimum to start off with.

House Umber had a significant position in Robb’s host, so one would imagine they sent at least 1500-2000 men.

House Glover, Mormont, Tallhart, Hornwood and Cerwyn surely sent at least 500-1000 each.

Then you have House Stark themselves. I’d imagine they had easily 2000 men from their own lands.

 

All of these numbers are guesses, but it would seem that there were very few clansmen in the original host. Perhaps 500 or so, at a guess.

[Mithras]

Regardless of how many they sent for Robb, the ones with Stannis are majority old men that are seeking to die in order to spare food for their young for the winter. Same is true for the Umbers. They are stretched so much to their limits that they are arming old men and teenagers. Most people ignore such glaring signs in order to create some 10-20k fresh troops for Stannis (or the supposed GNC). The truth is that the North suffered too many losses and they have no way of replenishing those numbers in the near future. This is not random. This is by design because GRRM needs this to happen. There is no GNC or the Night Lamp in TWoW. In the books, Battle of the Bastards will happen and it will take more than half of TWoW to setup and resolve.

[Frey family reunion]

16 hours ago, Floki of the Ironborn said:

Jon has a very good idea of how many fighting men the clans can provide to Stannis, but how does he know that number so well? Did he know how many men left the mountain clans to join Robb, and how many were still behind?

While the Night's Watch is the first line of defense for whatever lies north of the Wall, the Mountain clans may be the second.  My guess is that when Jon became Lord Commander he reached out to the various Mountain Clans to find out what their available strength was in case he needed to call on their assistance.

[direpupy]

26 minutes ago, Mithras said:

Regardless of how many they sent for Robb, the ones with Stannis are majority old men that are seeking to die in order to spare food for their young for the winter. Same is true for the Umbers. They are stretched so much to their limits that they are arming old men and teenagers. Most people ignore such glaring signs in order to create some 10-20k fresh troops for Stannis (or the supposed GNC). The truth is that the North suffered too many losses and they have no way of replenishing those numbers in the near future. This is not random. This is by design because GRRM needs this to happen. There is no GNC or the Night Lamp in TWoW. In the books, Battle of the Bastards will happen and it will take more than half of TWoW to setup and resolve.

the Umbers yes they are down to the old and the young, but the Mauntain Clans? just because two of there leaders are old does not mean that all of them are old, or very young for that matter apart from Hugo Wull and Torghen Flint the two old leaders all the clansmen we see are grown men of fighting age.

I do agree that there is not going to be 20K fresh men but i do not agree that the North is depleted of men of fighting age, those who think that are just as deluded as the people who believe in the 20K fresh men. If ony because we know Manderly kept most of his troops back and Lady Dustin send as little as she dared so she has fresh men and places like Skagos have not been tapped for men at all.

[Julia H.]

I think ravens come and go with current news more often than we realize.  Also, human messengers or just travellers can bring news from other regions, and the mountain clans are not so far away from the Wall. In normal circumstances, the NW is not isolated from the rest of the kingdom, and it makes sense for them to want to keep up-to-date with what is going on in the realm.

[Universal Sword Donor]

15 hours ago, Floki of the Ironborn said:

That still raises questions, though. It's been determined that more than 6,000 men were killed, captured, or driven away to become broken men, and it's said that the majority of these were men from Houses Burley, Locke, and Norrey, with a scattering of White Harbour knights. That's potentially a number of clansmen dead which equals Jon Snow's guess about their total fighting force. 

Either Jon is wrong about the number of men to be found in those mountains, he's talking about their numbers AFTER the casualties they've already had (which makes me wonder how Jon knows them), or GRRM screwed up.

"It's said" is such a weasel word construct. The fighting at the fords involved ~1500-2000 men -- Roose "left 1/3 of his men behind and 600 men to prevent the Lannisters from crossing; has ~3500-4000 at the Twins -- and we know of four houses involved: burley, norrey, locke, manderly. The rearguard for any army is going to be one of the strongest components, especially in this case as Wylis is directly commanding them, because they are guarding the entire army from attack while crossing the trident.

Locke and Manderly are actual Lordly houses versus the mountain clans. However even if you divvy the remaining forces into quarters, it's only half the remaining force, not the majority. It is highly unlikely that the mountain clans lost more than a 1000 men and the number is likely far less.

[Loose Bolt]

Do the mountain clans have access to any maesters?

After all without maesters they cannot be summoned by ravens. Or to summon warriors of mountain clans Robb would have had to sent somebody riding to their homes and he would had to wait long time for them to call their own men at arms if he really wanted their men with him. But he did not had time to wait for them and instead marched to south as soon he could.

So I assume that Robb took very few clansmen with him and so most warriors of those clans should still be in the North.

[Floki of the Ironborn]

6 hours ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

"It's said" is such a weasel word construct. The fighting at the fords involved ~1500-2000 men -- Roose "left 1/3 of his men behind and 600 men to prevent the Lannisters from crossing; has ~3500-4000 at the Twins -- and we know of four houses involved: burley, norrey, locke, manderly. The rearguard for any army is going to be one of the strongest components, especially in this case as Wylis is directly commanding them, because they are guarding the entire army from attack while crossing the trident.

Locke and Manderly are actual Lordly houses versus the mountain clans. However even if you divvy the remaining forces into quarters, it's only half the remaining force, not the majority. It is highly unlikely that the mountain clans lost more than a 1000 men and the number is likely far less.

I re-read the wiki, and yes, you're right, I misunderstood. 6000 was the total number of Roose's army by then, not the number who were casualties. My bad.