What do you think Skagos and the skagosi are like ?

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight9]

The island of Skagos, sometimes called Cannibal Island, is without a doubt the most mysterious and feared and dreaded region of the North, inspiring fear in other northmen and foreign sailors alike, due to the history and reputation of its inhabitants as savage cannibals.

This reputation, as well as other mystical legends about the island and its inhabitants, such as the presence of licorns here, is most surely in part why Osha decided to take Rickon Stark and Shaggydog here after the burning of Winterfell, and why Wyman Manderly decided to send Davos Seaworth here to find and retrieve Rickon here. 

What do you think that the skagosi are truly alike, as people and as a culture ? How do you imagine life on Skagos ? 

What should be skagosi's attitude toward strangers, and their current relation with the Starks and rest of the northmen, as well as of the Free Folks beyond the Wall ? How much deserved is their reputation as barbarians and cannibals ? 

Also how do you imagine they reacted to Osha, Rickon and Shaggydog and accepted them here ?

[Craving Peaches]

I think they could look similar to the Thenns in terms of social/leadership structure.

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight9]

3 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

I think they could look similar to the Thenns in terms of social/leadership structure.

But how advanced do you think they are ? 

Do they live in tents, woodens houses and castles or stone buildings ? 

 

[James Arryn]

I kindof imagine it as ~ Satsumon bunka, with maybe some broch culture, where they aren’t just typical first men. Although there are exceptions…usually in extensive archipelagic regions rather than relatively discreet ones as Skagos seems to be…island cultures tend towards sedentism quicker/more often than mainland cultures, even if they otherwise retain aspects more often identified with developed hunter gatherer eras longer than most. Subsistence level is probably pretty fine, and it’s probably an even more martial culture than the North or wildlings due to the lack of alternative conflict resolutions.

So I’d think wooden homes at least, possibly even a higher rate of stone homes/communal dwellings than typically far north. Social leadership structure is a bit harder to predict because it might be greatly affected by religious variation from standard Northmen, but if that’s not too distinct I’d think a hybrid of wildlings and northern clans with possibly a greater degree of human sacrifice/war leader rulers. But GRRM is fond of throwing curveballs for fun, so it could be something like a matriarchal society or an Iroquois confederacy or w/e, just to paint in different colours. 

[Craving Peaches]

1 hour ago, Terrorthatflapsinthenight9 said:

But how advanced do you think they are ? 

Do they live in tents, woodens houses and castles or stone buildings ? 

I'd say wooden houses and they probably also have stone structures, though maybe not the same design as other castles.

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight9]

Based on what Roose Bolton said about Skagos, that only heart trees know half of what's happening on Skagos, there might be at least several weirwood on the island, and there may also be at least one skinchanger or greenseer on Skagos, perhaps distantly linked to the Three-Eyed Crow and who could act as a teacher to Rickon. 

If skagosi are really that close to Wildings and to the original First Men then a skinchanger as gifted as Rickon with a direwolf will be something that they'd respect and take very seriously.

[The Lord of the Crossing]

Cannibals.  People eaters.  Primitive people living in isolation.  Take the North and bring their development back a hundred years and that is Skagos.  They are what the North was. 

[TheLastWolf]

8 minutes ago, The Lord of the Crossing said:

Cannibals.  People eaters.  Primitive people living in isolation.  Take the North and bring their development back a hundred years and that is Skagos.  They are what the North was. 

not one of your hate threads, understandable confusion though, half the active ones are. 

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight9]

3 hours ago, The Lord of the Crossing said:

Cannibals.  People eaters.  Primitive people living in isolation.  Take the North and bring their development back a hundred years and that is Skagos.  They are what the North was. 

It's true that Torrhen Stark and Cregan Stark were primitive people and cannibals, and that Winterfell was made of wood and tents until the Blackfyre Rebellions. 

[Craving Peaches]

3 hours ago, The Lord of the Crossing said:

Cannibals.  People eaters.  Primitive people living in isolation.  Take the North and bring their development back a hundred years and that is Skagos.  They are what the North was. 

Firstly, we don't know whether any of those things said about the Skagosi are actually true, and secondly, if they are all those things you'd have to go back more than a hundred years to find the North like that, the North may never have been like that.

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight9]

1 hour ago, Craving Peaches said:

Firstly, we don't know whether any of those things said about the Skagosi are actually true, and secondly, if they are all those things you'd have to go back more than a hundred years to find the North like that, the North may never have been like that.

I do think that there some truth in it, though more that cannibalism happened during very dire winters where food was too scarce for the skagosi, and that while more clanic and less advanced than most northern ethnicities they aren't that backwater and savage compared to the rest of the North, kinda like the mountain clans.

[Lady Misery]

On 9/9/2022 at 9:33 PM, Terrorthatflapsinthenight9 said:

But how advanced do you think they are ? 

Do they live in tents, woodens houses and castles or stone buildings ? 

 

I'd say pit or turf houses not too dissimilar to the ones you can find on Iceland. 

And as to the cannibalism, i think it's probably something that only happens in the worst of winters, but it does happen. We already know that the North has a tradition of the elderly going to die in the cold so the food stores last longer. From that it is not much of a stretch to just eating the dead.

[Aebram]

On 9/9/2022 at 10:49 AM, Terrorthatflapsinthenight9 said:

This reputation, as well as other mystical legends about the island and its inhabitants, such as the presence of licorns here, is most surely in part why Osha decided to take Rickon Stark and Shaggydog here after the burning of Winterfell

Really???  Why do you think so?

To me, it seems like a terrible choice of destination for a woman traveling with a small child and a direwolf while trying to remain incognito.  I gave my reasons in a recent post:

    

 

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight9]

8 hours ago, Aebram said:

Really???  Why do you think so?

To me, it seems like a terrible choice of destination for a woman traveling with a small child and a direwolf while trying to remain incognito.  I gave my reasons in a recent post:

    

 

It's one of the last places where enemies of the Starks would go to look for them. The island and its people's reputations are more than enough to scare people away as seen during Davos and Theon's chapters. 

Also Osha may have thought that much like her people and the Crannogmen, Skagosi are much than just the savage barbarians other see them as, and that they may have a similar reverence for skinchangers and greenseers to the Free Folk and Crannogmen's and as such that Rickon who is both a skinchanger and a greenseer would earn their respect. 

[Roswell]

They look at strangers like a hungry man looks at a Chinese buffet.  I look at them as a threat.  They have a big role to play.  It might be those unicorns who will push the Others back to their part of the north.  Unicorns are a magical creature and those horns may be the key to unlocking the secret of the Others.  Dragon horns are large and majestic things but they are not of the north.  Their fire magic spells and charms may weaken in the cold of north.  Unicorn horn is as native to the north as it can get.  Their magic will be more suitable to what needs to get done in the north. 

On the small chance that cannibalism is a scare tactic to keep strangers away.  What would they hide from outsiders?  They don't want buttheads like Ramsay hunting their unicorns?

[Ring3r]

Honestly I suspect a lot of their reputation is really just from xenophobia.  Osha clearly wasn't too scared of them.  Maybe they're just isolationist and not very welcoming.

[Tyrosh Lannister]

I imagine they share blood of the ibbenese and Thenn

[StarkTullies]

First, I don't think it is likely we will see Skagos except as a brief description from the memories of Davos.  Since Davos disappeared in the first half of ADWD and the battle of Winterfell is now upon us, there isn't time for Davos's story in TWOW to start in Skagos.  I think he will already be back on the mainland with Rickon the next time we see him.

That said, I think the stories about Skagos are just as unreliable as the southern perceptions of the "Wildlings".  Exaggerated rumors based on the worst of the inhabitants, with plenty of likeable people in the mix.  The Ironborn all seem like monsters from the POVs who don't really know them, but after a few POV chapters taking place in the Iron Islands... I dislike their culture and there are plenty of bad people who have been corrupted by that culture, but plenty of likable characters too.  Tris Botley and "the Reader" are awesome.  I think it is the same in Skagos... and any other place in George Martin's world.

As far as how "advanced" their society is in regard to architecture and technology, I suspect not at all.  A sub-society living in complete isolation is probably much the same as it was thousands of years ago.