Faith of the Seven Part 2: From the Rhoynar Conquest to the Dragons' Conquest

[SaffronLady]

The Age of Myth has ended. The old gods have faded into the background: the new gods come to the fore, in a new Westeros whose religious landscape has been completely changed. Many are the places where great weirwoods once stood, only clusters of stumps remain. The carved trees bleeding bloody tears linger only in the backwater that is the North, perhaps also on the Isle of Faces too.

From the Trident river to the Summer sea, the new gods reign supreme.

Well, at least until a fleet of women, elderly and children wash up on the coast of Sunspear, with their foreign arts and gods, that is.

Sub-topics including but not limited to:

• Why did the Rhoynar immigrants under Princess Nymeria mostly abandon their own Mother Rhoyne beliefs? Why do the orphans cling on despite persecution from Princess Nymeria and her House? Potential clues into how much thought GRRM gave pre-exile Rhoynar society possibly included.
• How the Rhoynar Conquest interacted and influenced the Faith of the Seven in the region. "The deal for the paramours", my working title for the issue is.
• The Faith, as a supra-regional unifying and mediating factor amongst the warring states of Westeros ... or not?
• General lack of "Crusader" and "New Jerusalem" movements in general, reasons?
• Complete lack of schisms and heresies. Possibility the Fot7 is not an organized religion but an animist faith masquerading as one.
• The Ironborn conquest of the riverlands, and their impact - or lack of - on the Fot7 in the region.
• When and how House Targaryen converted to the Fot7, and what that meant for their dragonlore ... or lack of it.

 

[SaffronLady]

Dornish Conquest - the Deal for the Daughters

Dorne akshually follows the Faith, in case their 60's hippie attitude on sex, gender and inheritance caused anybody to not notice that.

But that is obviously, a problem for the Fot7. I mean, assuming the Fot7 is actually an organized religion, think about what Nymeria's conquest looks like to the Starry Sept:

Foreign conquerors, with a foreign religion and foreign inheritance laws, have taken over all of Dorne, a land whose majority faith is the Fot7. Not only are the faithful in the region threatened, but so is all the potential recruits and incomes going to the Starry Sept from Dorne.

Yet now, Nymeria converted to the Fot7. Perhaps it was a regional deal she made with a conclave of the Dornish Fot7; perhaps it was a deal with the top, i.e. a direct exchange with the Starry Sept. I have seen fanfiction speculating on what exactly were the specifics between House Nymeros Martell and the Fot7, but alas I have not found canon text corresponding to what this exactly means for the Starry Sept.

Just in case people aren't catching up, I'm using "Starry Sept" in the "Vatican" sense. Palace of top admins for referring to the top people.

But we know the results. In return for instituting absolute cognatic primogeniture (or, the eldest child inherits regardless of gender), the Rhoynar leadership officially converted to the Fot7. The Rhoynar tolerance of paramours and bastards aren't that easy to point down, because culture is not an institution, unlike a top-down forced change of succession law. 

I'd imagine House Dayne wasn't exactly pleased the daughter of a dead (compared to the Daynes) nobody inherited rule over all of Dorne, instead of a son with blood ties to their House. Perhaps GRRM wanted us to conclude yes, the Rhoynar forced inheritance change upon Dorne. Or he just wanted to "spear the sun" with a Sword of the Morning.

[Gilbert Green]

Inheritance laws are a Secular concern, not a religious one.  That was true historically, and see no reason to assume the Fot7 is any different.

A decadent aristocracy is just that - a decadent aristocracy.

If everyone were a free-loving hippie, the society would destroy itself with an epidemic of disease and fatherless children.  Realistically, if the aristocracy can get away with this nonsense, it is only because most others behaves themselves.

Sir Garin (IIRC) was not entirely down with the free love nonsense.  If he could not have Arianne's hand in marriage, he did not want to be her paramour.

Neither was Quentyn.  He could think of reasons "why not"; and kept his pants zipped.

Edited January 19 by Gilbert Green

[Aebram]

On 1/19/2024 at 12:45 AM, SaffronLady said:

• Why did the Rhoynar immigrants under Princess Nymeria mostly abandon their own Mother Rhoyne beliefs? Why do the orphans cling on despite persecution from Princess Nymeria and her House? Potential clues into how much thought GRRM gave pre-exile Rhoynar society possibly included.
• How the Rhoynar Conquest interacted and influenced the Faith of the Seven in the region. "The deal for the paramours", my working title for the issue is.
• The Faith, as a supra-regional unifying and mediating factor amongst the warring states of Westeros ... or not?
• General lack of "Crusader" and "New Jerusalem" movements in general, reasons?
• Complete lack of schisms and heresies. Possibility the Fot7 is not an organized religion but an animist faith masquerading as one.
• The Ironborn conquest of the riverlands, and their impact - or lack of - on the Fot7 in the region.
• When and how House Targaryen converted to the Fot7, and what that meant for their dragonlore ... or lack of it.

You ask a lot of questions! Here are a few thoughts.

We don't know much about the Rhoynar religion, but we do know that the river itself was considered sacred. When they moved thousands of miles away from the river, and raised generations of children who never even saw it, it seems natural for them to be drawn into the local religion. None of the religions we've seen in the story seem to be of the extreme type that regard other faiths as evil and try to punish the believers.

We discussed schisms and heresies in another thread. The consensus was that they weren't necessary to the plot, and never spontaneously sprouted in the George's creative "garden." But I think we may see one soon; the way the High Sparrow is running things in King's Landing, I won't be surprised if a rift develops between him and Oldtown.

I would say that the Fot7 is clearly an organized religion. They have a hierarchy of clergy, and a headquarters with a ruling council. The religion of the ironborn, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have any organization. It's apparent.y just a collection of wandering priests, who may have some authority in special occasions, such as calling a kingsmoot. When they ruled the Riverlands, they may have regarded the "soft green-lands men" as not worthy of joining their religion.

[Gilbert Green]

12 hours ago, Aebram said:

We discussed schisms and heresies in another thread. The consensus was that they weren't necessary to the plot, and never spontaneously sprouted in the George's creative "garden." But I think we may see one soon; the way the High Sparrow is running things in King's Landing, I won't be surprised if a rift develops between him and Oldtown.

GRRM, IIRC, has vaguely compared the Sparrows to the Protestant Reformation.  Which of course started as a protest before it became a schism.

Religious schisms prior to the Protestant Reformation were not of such great relevance that they would be very likely be mentioned in a handful of books of Western Literature not particularly concerned with Church issues.   The "argument from silence" depends on the premise that if schisms had happened they would have been mentioned.  And that is just not true, if real world books are any indication.

[Universal Sword Donor]

On 1/21/2024 at 8:53 AM, Gilbert Green said:

GRRM, IIRC, has vaguely compared the Sparrows to the Protestant Reformation.  Which of course started as a protest before it became a schism.

Religious schisms prior to the Protestant Reformation were not of such great relevance that they would be very likely be mentioned in a handful of books of Western Literature not particularly concerned with Church issues.   The "argument from silence" depends on the premise that if schisms had happened they would have been mentioned.  And that is just not true, if real world books are any indication.

I’d push back a bit on the relevance of those. Some obviously were smaller (eg waldensians, lollards) but there was entire crusade to wipe out catharism in France, which included multiple kings and 20 years of nonstop warfare.

[Hugorfonics]

On 1/20/2024 at 8:36 PM, Aebram said:

We discussed schisms and heresies in another thread. The consensus was that they weren't necessary to the plot, and never spontaneously sprouted in the George's creative "garden." But I think we may see one soon; the way the High Sparrow is running things in King's Landing, I won't be surprised if a rift develops between him and Oldtown.

I would say that the Fot7 is clearly an organized religion. They have a hierarchy of clergy, and a headquarters with a ruling council. The religion of the ironborn, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have any organization. It's apparent.y just a collection of wandering priests, who may have some authority in special occasions, such as calling a kingsmoot. When they ruled the Riverlands, they may have regarded the "soft green-lands men" as not worthy of joining their religion.

I suppose an Oldtown split is possible, I think it'd be more Agincourt then protestant like, as in more political then religious because for all we can say about the Sparrow, he does seem devout. But I don't really get why they would be against him either when he's been the most efficient HS since Aegon.

The faith is mad bureaucratic, way more then the Drowned is, but pre cersei it was toothless. Like there is a board of directors but it seems like all they can do is decide the color of the drapes.

Aeron on the other hand is able to influence lords and captains, he also seems to stand above the other priests which does imply some sort of organization.  

It doesn't really add up that ironborn would dissuade their subjects from their religion, because that'd go against thralldom which was like the go too for ironborn. Although maybe not, I mean Harren ruled something of an empire so idk, either way we do have to rationalize the RL not being patrons of the drowned. It could be the faith in them was strong and like the rest of the Sunset history, post peace treaty,  religious tolerance was accepted but it could also be that seafaring culture is what keeps their religion strong, Theon and Asha both fret about dying far from the sea. Or it could be that it was a thing but that was 300 years ago.

What I find bizzare are the red priests who do have an organized bureaucracy that send priests to convert Robert and later Stannis/ save the world, and then get excited over Dany without checking back with their agents. Not to mention that one who was sent to drink with Robert is a legit miracle maker but he doesn't seem bothered to tell his high priest that

[Gilbert Green]

4 hours ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

I’d push back a bit on the relevance of those. Some obviously were smaller (eg waldensians, lollards) but there was entire crusade to wipe out catharism in France, which included multiple kings and 20 years of nonstop warfare.

Except the Cathar Heresy / Albigensian Crusade is not once mentioned in NOTRE DAME DE PARIS by Victor Hugo.  You could easily fill an entire bookshelf with volumes that meet this criterion.

[Hippocras]

@SaffronLady

I have been looking into the name Alyssa on the First Names thread and that led me to Queen Elissa/Dido, which led me to Pygmalion. I will not get into the details, but this struck me as possibly relevant to your investigation here:

Pygmalion (mythology) - Wikipedia

In particular this part:

"According to Ovid, when Pygmalion saw the Propoetides of Cyprus practicing prostitution, he began "detesting the faults beyond measure which nature has given to women"."

This seems relevant to the misogynistic tendencies of the Faith of the Seven, as well as to the story of Alyssa (see other thread). 

It is also interesting that the Dido/Pygmalion reference ties in the sculpture of Alyssa Arryn at the Eyrie, her "stony" reaction to the death of her family, the possibility of a tyrant brother and a marriage against her will, the passing over of females in succession (Dido was joint heir of her father but was passed over) etc.

[Universal Sword Donor]

21 hours ago, Gilbert Green said:

Except the Cathar Heresy / Albigensian Crusade is not once mentioned in NOTRE DAME DE PARIS by Victor Hugo.  You could easily fill an entire bookshelf with volumes that meet this criterion.

I wasn’t aware that notre dame was the definitive book of notable French religious wars. Fairly lacks anything about Charles Martel, Charlemagne, or Vikings either. 
 

[Gilbert Green]

19 hours ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

I wasn’t aware that notre dame was the definitive book of notable French religious wars. Fairly lacks anything about Charles Martel, Charlemagne, or Vikings either. 
 

So what?  That makes it a perfect analogy to such volumes as THE TALES OF DUNK AND EGG, A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, books 1 through 5, THE WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE, and FIRE & BLOOD, PART !.

None of which claim or purport to be definitive books focused on certain Westerosi religious wars that may or may not have happened 300, 700, 1200, 2000, or 4000 years earlier.

Edited January 24 by Gilbert Green

[Universal Sword Donor]

On 1/24/2024 at 1:58 PM, Gilbert Green said:

So what?  That makes it a perfect analogy to such volumes as THE TALES OF DUNK AND EGG, A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, books 1 through 5, THE WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE, and FIRE & BLOOD, PART !.

None of which claim or purport to be definitive books focused on certain Westerosi religious wars that may or may not have happened 300, 700, 1200, 2000, or 4000 years earlier.

I guess I’ll just read the contemporary epics written by the troubadours about this particular pre Protestant schism 

[Gilbert Green]

4 hours ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

I guess I’ll just read the contemporary epics written by the troubadours about this particular pre Protestant schism 

Read what you want.  Some books mention them.   Far more do not.  Which is why the argument from silence does not work.

[SaffronLady]

On 1/20/2024 at 1:07 AM, Gilbert Green said:

Inheritance laws are a Secular concern, not a religious one.  That was true historically, and see no reason to assume the Fot7 is any different.

Inheritance was very much a concern of the Church, which it intervened directly (granting claims, ruling between claimants), indirectly (regulating how close of kin was acceptable for marriage), and sometimes as a secular party (accepting Matilda of Tuscany's property).

Secular concern or not, the Church was highly active in the question of inheritance, and there are some reasons to assume the Fot7 is different, but not enough to rule out that at least on this subject, real life writes the setting.

On 1/20/2024 at 1:07 AM, Gilbert Green said:

A decadent aristocracy is just that - a decadent aristocracy.

If everyone were a free-loving hippie, the society would destroy itself with an epidemic of disease and fatherless children.  Realistically, if the aristocracy can get away with this nonsense, it is only because most others behaves themselves.

Let me rewrite the line in question:

On 1/19/2024 at 3:39 PM, SaffronLady said:

Dorne actually follows the Faith, in case their abnormal (by Westerosi standards) tolerance of paramours and bastards, and less rigid views on sex, gender and inheritance caused anybody to not notice that.

There. Changes in bold.

On 1/21/2024 at 9:36 AM, Aebram said:

When they moved thousands of miles away from the river, and raised generations of children who never even saw it, it seems natural for them to be drawn into the local religion.

I refer you to this particular bit of lore, then. Four to six generations in, House Nymeros Martell still had to actively prosecute their own countrymen for speaking their own language and worshipping their own gods.

On 1/21/2024 at 9:36 AM, Aebram said:

The consensus was that they weren't necessary to the plot

This was actually the source of my "animism" jab because factionalism within the One Church™ should be important (yes, not necessary, though) for the plot. 

However, if the Fot7 was actually an animist faith, this would make sense because ... I mean, seriously, when was the last time you heard of an animist faith undergoing a religious schism? They aren't even organized enough to undergo a schism, so the silence is perfectly explained, lol.

On 1/21/2024 at 9:36 AM, Aebram said:

When they ruled the Riverlands, they may have regarded the "soft green-lands men" as not worthy of joining their religion.

Ah, interesting angle. I have not considered rivermen conversion to the squisher cult prior to seeing your comment - I was more thinking of how the Fot7 under ironmen rule was largely not mentioned. If Harren the Black could mobilize the riverlands to build Harrenhal, did he do that by making use of the Fot7 as collaborators? Or did HtB kill septons and burn septs to clear the way for ironmen settler-colonizers?

On 1/23/2024 at 7:34 AM, Hugorfonics said:

I think it'd be more Agincourt then protestant like

Avignon. Agincourt was that Bri'ish-French battle.

On 1/25/2024 at 2:58 AM, Gilbert Green said:

THE WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE,

Objection. If your setting has a One Church™, the world book is where schisms should be mentioned. Even in passing, "schisms/quarrels/divisions once rocked and split the Faith".

We don't see even that. I'm not asking for chansons de geste and page upon page of details of who is who and what their quarrel was, but no mention at all is as abnormal as GRRM actually writing a multi-tome History of the Faith.

On 1/23/2024 at 9:50 PM, Hippocras said:

@SaffronLady

I have been looking into the name Alyssa on the First Names thread and that led me to Queen Elissa/Dido, which led me to Pygmalion. I will not get into the details, but this struck me as possibly relevant to your investigation here:

Pygmalion (mythology) - Wikipedia

In particular this part:

"According to Ovid, when Pygmalion saw the Propoetides of Cyprus practicing prostitution, he began "detesting the faults beyond measure which nature has given to women"."

This seems relevant to the misogynistic tendencies of the Faith of the Seven, as well as to the story of Alyssa (see other thread). 

It is also interesting that the Dido/Pygmalion reference ties in the sculpture of Alyssa Arryn at the Eyrie, her "stony" reaction to the death of her family, the possibility of a tyrant brother and a marriage against her will, the passing over of females in succession (Dido was joint heir of her father but was passed over) etc.

Though I need to think more on this, thanks for the pointers.

[Universal Sword Donor]

On 1/25/2024 at 9:10 PM, Gilbert Green said:

Read what you want.  Some books mention them.   Far more do not.  Which is why the argument from silence does not work.

But the argument from non silence does!

[Gilbert Green]

9 hours ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

But the argument from non silence does!

Right.  But nobody is arguing that the Cathars/Alibensians didn't exist.  My position is that they DID exist.

And by analogy, given that the Fot7 is loosely based on the medieval Christian Faith, it makes sense to me to assume that the Fot7 has also been involved in innumerable religious conflicts that the text does not have time to mention.

This is the point where those who disagree with me resort to the argument from silence.

Edited January 27 by Gilbert Green

[Gilbert Green]

On 1/25/2024 at 10:19 PM, SaffronLady said:

Inheritance was very much a concern of the Church, which it intervened directly (granting claims, ruling between claimants), indirectly (regulating how close of kin was acceptable for marriage), and sometimes as a secular party (accepting Matilda of Tuscany's property).

Secular concern or not, the Church was highly active in the question of inheritance, and there are some reasons to assume the Fot7 is different, but not enough to rule out that at least on this subject, real life writes the setting.

If you are so right, why are your examples so completely irrelevant. 

The Church accepted Matilda's property.  Why not?  Most people do accept gifts.  Or did you have something very specific in mind?

If anything, the alliance of between the Church and Matilda suggests the Church had no principled objections to women holding power or property.  Why should the Fot7 in Dorne be any different?

You say the Church "indirectly" influenced inheritance by (for instance) saying one could not marry one's sister.  Yes, but so what?  What does this have to do with Dorne?   The Fot7's conflict here was not with Dorne but with the Iron Throne.  And the sticking point of the controversy was not whether children of incest were forbidden to inherit.   The sticking point was that the Royals, descendants of incest though they already were,  continued to practice incest.  Inheritance was not the issue.  Sinful behavior was.

On 1/25/2024 at 10:19 PM, SaffronLady said:

Let me rewrite the line in question:

There. Changes in bold.

I don't see the point of your changes.  Some people have thought that the French aristocracy were decadent.  Some people have thought that some of the Latin races, regardless of rank, were "hot blooded" or something like that.  I have no desire to debate whether these stereotypes are true.  My only point is, nobody, whether they believed such stereotypes or not, ever thought this proved they were not Catholic.

 

 

 

[Gilbert Green]

On 1/25/2024 at 10:19 PM, SaffronLady said:

Objection. If your setting has a One Church™, the world book is where schisms should be mentioned. Even in passing, "schisms/quarrels/divisions once rocked and split the Faith".

We don't see even that. I'm not asking for chansons de geste and page upon page of details of who is who and what their quarrel was, but no mention at all is as abnormal as GRRM actually writing a multi-tome History of the Faith.

TWOIAF is only about 100k words long.  That alone makes your objection ridiculous.

TWOIAF is shorter than A SHORT HISTORY OF THE WORLD by H.G. Wells.  It is shorter than THE STORY OF MANKIND by H.W. Van Loon. 

Neither Wells' book nor Van Loon's book mention (for instance) "Cathars" or "Albigensians".

Wells' book mentions the word "schism" only once, in the context of the "Great Schism" of 1378-1417, which was mainly a political conflict not involving much in the way of faith and morals.  By curious coincidence, TWOIAF also contains the phrase "great schism" in reference to a decades-long conflict between the Faith and the Iron Throne, supposedly won "forever" by the Iron Throne, and which DID involve a matter of faith and morals (incest), which we know remains disputed by the Faithful of Westeros to this present day, as well as a more political question (the right of the Faith to bear arms), which it turns out is not entirely a dead issue either.

TWOIAF mentions that Septon Murmisson got excommunicated by the High Septon for performing/blessing an incestuous wedding.  But Septon Murmisson continued to work for the Iron Throne, until he got murdered.  What was that if not a "quarrel or division that once rocked and split the Faith"?

TWOIAF mentions that, after the prior High Septon died under mysterious circumstances, a new High Septon was appointed who ordered the Faith Militant to disband.  Whereupon some (but not all) of the Faith Militant refused to disband.  Leading to much bloodshed.  What was that if not a quarrel or division that rocked and split the Faith?

From TWOIAF:  "His own sons were raised in the Faith, or King Harmund's own peculiar version of it."  What is that if not an admission that it is indeed possible for the Faith of the Seven to come in different "versions"?

 

 

Edited January 27 by Gilbert Green