the Last of the Whents

[EggBlue]

House Whent seems like a pretty impressive house...becoming from smiths to a noble house marrying a daughter to the lord paramount of the Trident.

but, they are also pretty much died out and as I always tend to be sympathetic towards houses on losing sides -especially the less significant ones  , I wondered what will become of this house and their family "home" in the future...

at the start of the asoiaf , there are apparently only two Whents left that we know of: Lady Shella Whent and lady Winaferi Frey.

the ruling lady (Shella) ran away from Harrenhal, leaving it to be the huge house of horrors it usually gets during wars of Westeros and left it for the likes of Janos the Martyr , Roose the Good , Vargo the lenient , Galent Gregor and Saint Peter. later on , there is a report to Littlefinger claiming that Shella is dead.

if there's any truth to this report ,it leaves the only alive Whent to be married to a Frey and it seems not a bright one at that ..What the hell is happening? Are Freys going to get as many castles in Riverlands by the end of the story? Darry has already gone to the Freys ... or is there any optimistic outcome for this family? and what will happen to Harrenhall? will the Holy Hundred finally rid it of its curse? (I certainly hope so..)

[Groo]

The Stark children all have Minisa Whent as a grandmother. Do they count? If one of them, perhaps Sansa, inherits Harrenhall would that count as a victory for the Whent family?

[Lord of Oldstones]

Whents weren't really smith. They were like sworn knights but likely very low in noble totem pole before elevation. Very strange to have  someone like Hoster to select nouveau riche House like Whents. Perhaps she was very attractive. 

[EggBlue]

10 hours ago, Groo said:

The Stark children all have Minisa Whent as a grandmother. Do they count? If one of them, perhaps Sansa, inherits Harrenhall would that count as a victory for the Whent family?

it would certainly save the bloodline, but would it save the house from extinction? I don't think so.. if anything, name is a bit more important than blood and none of them can be counted much if there's no loyalty or affection to the house's values. so , Jon Snow (a bastard) could win victory for house Stark and Tommen Baratheon ( a lannister from mother's side) could win victory for house Lannister the way Sansa Stark (a blood relation with no association with the house)  could never do for house Whent. I sure hope there is some Whent we don't know about

[Springwatch]

22 hours ago, Lightoftheast said:

Whents weren't really smith. They were like sworn knights but likely very low in noble totem pole before elevation. Very strange to have  someone like Hoster to select nouveau riche House like Whents. Perhaps she was very attractive. 

Likely it was the king, not Hoster. But still, good point.

ETA

22 hours ago, Lightoftheast said:

Perhaps she was very attractive.

Perhaps she was! I checked. Sansa is beautiful because she inherited her mother's fine high cheekbones. And Cat, she got those fine high cheekbones from her mother, Minisa Whent. Brynden says it directly: You have her face. I can see it in your cheekbones, and your jaw...

[Daena the Defiant]

13 hours ago, Groo said:

The Stark children all have Minisa Whent as a grandmother. Do they count? If one of them, perhaps Sansa, inherits Harrenhall would that count as a victory for the Whent family?

That always seemed to be too significant of a little factoid to have no importance - GRRM seemed to have buried that deep. 

[Nathan Stark]

The Whents will be joining the Lothstons, the Strongs, the Towers, the Harroways, the Qoherys and the Hoares in the long list of families that died out while ruling Harrenhal. The moral of the story is to stay away from Harrenhal. 

[EggBlue]

4 hours ago, Nathan Stark said:

The Whents will be joining the Lothstons, the Strongs, the Towers, the Harroways, the Qoherys and the Hoares in the long list of families that died out while ruling Harrenhal. The moral of the story is to stay away from Harrenhal. 

I hope H curse gets to Peter B as soon as possible then.

[Brynden"Bloodraven" Rivers]

On 11/29/2021 at 5:11 PM, EggBlue said:

House Whent seems like a pretty impressive house...becoming from smiths to a noble house marrying a daughter to the lord paramount of the Trident.

but, they are also pretty much died out and as I always tend to be sympathetic towards houses on losing sides -especially the less significant ones  , I wondered what will become of this house and their family "home" in the future...

at the start of the asoiaf , there are apparently only two Whents left that we know of: Lady Shella Whent and lady Winaferi Frey.

the ruling lady (Shella) ran away from Harrenhal, leaving it to be the huge house of horrors it usually gets during wars of Westeros and left it for the likes of Janos the Martyr , Roose the Good , Vargo the lenient , Galent Gregor and Saint Peter. later on , there is a report to Littlefinger claiming that Shella is dead.

if there's any truth to this report ,it leaves the only alive Whent to be married to a Frey and it seems not a bright one at that ..What the hell is happening? Are Freys going to get as many castles in Riverlands by the end of the story? Darry has already gone to the Freys ... or is there any optimistic outcome for this family? and what will happen to Harrenhall? will the Holy Hundred finally rid it of its curse? (I certainly hope so..)

After the Rebellion, Hoster should have betrothed Brynden to Shella Whent and given Brynden Harrenhal. The only problem I see with this is neither Brynden and Shella are fertile so this House will die out with them.

[HoodedCrow]

I don’t think the Blackfish wanted to be married. 

[EggBlue]

2 hours ago, Brynden"Bloodraven" Rivers said:

After the Rebellion, Hoster should have betrothed Brynden to Shella Whent and given Brynden Harrenhal. The only problem I see with this is neither Brynden and Shella are fertile so this House will die out with them.

they were both young enough back then (probably thirtyish or so) but the biggest problem was neither wanted to get married... Blackfish didn't seem to like the concept of marriage; while we know that Shella couldn't even bring herself to save her castle from becoming a ruin 15 years after her husband and sons probably died at the war. so, I'm guessing she wasn't going to remarry at all, surely not for political reasons at that.

 

by the way, do you guys know which side the Whents fought for? they were related to Tullys but if the tourney was Rhaegar's doing then Shella and her husband must have been loyal to Rhaegar.

[Curled Finger]

On 11/29/2021 at 6:11 PM, EggBlue said:

House Whent seems like a pretty impressive house...becoming from smiths to a noble house marrying a daughter to the lord paramount of the Trident.

but, they are also pretty much died out and as I always tend to be sympathetic towards houses on losing sides -especially the less significant ones  , I wondered what will become of this house and their family "home" in the future...

at the start of the asoiaf , there are apparently only two Whents left that we know of: Lady Shella Whent and lady Winaferi Frey.

the ruling lady (Shella) ran away from Harrenhal, leaving it to be the huge house of horrors it usually gets during wars of Westeros and left it for the likes of Janos the Martyr , Roose the Good , Vargo the lenient , Galent Gregor and Saint Peter. later on , there is a report to Littlefinger claiming that Shella is dead.

if there's any truth to this report ,it leaves the only alive Whent to be married to a Frey and it seems not a bright one at that ..What the hell is happening? Are Freys going to get as many castles in Riverlands by the end of the story? Darry has already gone to the Freys ... or is there any optimistic outcome for this family? and what will happen to Harrenhall? will the Holy Hundred finally rid it of its curse? (I certainly hope so..)

I'm sorry.   Something in the way you composed the OP made me flash on all the powerful, exotic and mysterious women who have resided or are associated with Harrenhal; Whent women not the least among them.   Think about it.  Harrenhal has hosted queens and witches, The Knight of the Laughing Tree, Elia Princess of Dorne and Ashara Dayne to name only a few.  Queen Rhaneys retired there and if rumor is true Rhaeneyra may have had a grand child hidden in those halls.  Harrenhal is a bitchen place and though no doubt cursed, perhaps a place of higher magic too.   All that mystery and history and ambience is utterly wasted on a tool like Bonifer Hasty.  His presence there smacks of the theme I read in your OP:  Extinction.  Sorry if I read too much into it, but the words had a flow and this is where the tide took me.   Seven Save the Whents!

[EggBlue]

2 hours ago, Curled Finger said:

I'm sorry.   Something in the way you composed the OP made me flash on all the powerful, exotic and mysterious women who have resided or are associated with Harrenhal; Whent women not the least among them.   Think about it.  Harrenhal has hosted queens and witches, The Knight of the Laughing Tree, Elia Princess of Dorne and Ashara Dayne to name only a few.  Queen Rhaneys retired there and if rumor is true Rhaeneyra may have had a grand child hidden in those halls.  Harrenhal is a bitchen place and though no doubt cursed, perhaps a place of higher magic too.   All that mystery and history and ambience is utterly wasted on a tool like Bonifer Hasty.  His presence there smacks of the theme I read in your OP:  Extinction.  Sorry if I read too much into it, but the words had a flow and this is where the tide took me.   Seven Save the Whents!

wow , I liked your way of thinking.

personally, I don't think Bonifer will be anything more than a temporary guest at Harrenhall .. especially with God's Eye ( old gods') so close , it feels to me Harrenhall would reject the Andal Holy Hundred. yet, I do hope the curse of Harrenhall dies with them; though when I think about it, destruction of Harrenhall that has mostly seen death and war wouldn't be such a bad ending for this stone beast.

this also reminded me that Sansa might be the rightful Whent heir to Harrenhall in a matrilineal primogeniture system:) now , she wouldn't be the savior of my precious poor Whents (!) the way I have explained in another post in this thread  but it's still something .  we don't know Minisa's exact relation to the Whents but I'm guessing she was neither Shella's nor Walter's sister. I think Minisa could be Shella's aunt. ( Catelyn mentions Lady Whent in the crossroad inn as her father's vassal , she would have probably mentioned it if Shella was also her aunt. while, if Walter and Oswell were Cat's uncles, it would have been a little bit weird that Ned didn't seem to regret killing his wife's honorable uncle.. albeit in a fair fight... ) on the other hand, Winaferi Whent is probably not an immediate family member to Shella who seemed so desperately alone and lost in grief. so , on the magic level of the story Sansa would be a good candidate to take over Harrenhall considering her winter queen possible persona. not to mention the political layer that seems to set Sansa as lady of the North, Vale and even possibly Riverlands for the time of winter.

 

p.s. Rhaeneyra may have had a grand child hidden in those halls? when was this? which of her children was ever there?

[Curled Finger]

54 minutes ago, EggBlue said:

personally, I don't think Bonifer will be anything more than a temporary guest at Harrenhall .. especially with God's Eye ( old gods') so close , it feels to me Harrenhall would reject the Andal Holy Hundred. yet, I do hope the curse of Harrenhall dies with them; though when I think about it, destruction of Harrenhall that has mostly seen death and war wouldn't be such a bad ending for this stone beast.

this also reminded me that Sansa might be the rightful Whent heir to Harrenhall in a matrilineal primogeniture system:) now , she wouldn't be the savior of my precious poor Whents (!) the way I have explained in another post in this thread  but it's still something .  we don't know Minisa's exact relation to the Whents but I'm guessing she was neither Shella's nor Walter's sister. I think Minisa could be Shella's aunt. ( Catelyn mentions Lady Whent in the crossroad inn as her father's vassal , she would have probably mentioned it if Shella was also her aunt. while, if Walter and Oswell were Cat's uncles, it would have been a little bit weird that Ned didn't seem to regret killing his wife's honorable uncle.. albeit in a fair fight... ) on the other hand, Winaferi Whent is probably not an immediate family member to Shella who seemed so desperately alone and lost in grief. so , on the magic level of the story Sansa would be a good candidate to take over Harrenhall considering her winter queen possible persona. not to mention the political layer that seems to set Sansa as lady of the North, Vale and even possibly Riverlands for the time of winter.

 

p.s. Rhaeneyra may have had a grand child hidden in those halls? when was this? which of her children was ever there?

Sansa could indeed be the heir, but would she want it?  The relationship between the North and Riverlands is storied historically at this point.  Riverrun stood until AFFC in the name of Robb Stark.   Wow.  The North rallied a great deal of support due to families ties of families now decimated and disposed of by war.  What can the North do for the Riverlands?  Are these regions to remain separate or will the Riverlands rally the last of its meager force once more to the North's aid?  Still I hope Sansa is the key to somehow stabilizing the Riverlands.  Perhaps her people in other places will stir a call of duty in her.  Ah I like that!  

Alys Rivers ran Harenhal during the Dance of the Dragons.  I misremembered.  She claimed to have married Rhaenyra's brother not son--Prince Aemond Targaryan.   I always liked that bit.  

[three-eyed monkey]

I think the Whents will die out like the Strongs, Lothsons, etc. The curse will endure, everyone who has ever held the castle even briefly will meet a grizzly end, and for the survivors of the Long Night the castle will remain as a bleak reminder of the cost of the game of thrones, which is something the characters must first realize if there is to be any survivors.

21 hours ago, EggBlue said:

Sansa would be a good candidate to take over Harrenhall considering her winter queen possible persona. not to mention the political layer that seems to set Sansa as lady of the North, Vale and even possibly Riverlands for the time of winter.

I can see the Long Night devastating Westeros. I imagine the climax with the Others will take place in the Prince's Pass, and as such the North, Vale, and Riverlands would be lost to Winter. She might rule in Spring tho.