Surprising Lannister ancestor?

[Hardstone]

Some nutcase is making up characters when we've already got thousands to contend with! I've edited Damon so Gerold is listed as his son.

[Salt 'n' Gravy]

My crackpot theory: Tytos's wife was a Humble of the Iron Islands. They supposedly run to twins, according to the one-armed guy at Moat Cailin. Lannisters of this generation also have a tendency for twins: Cersei and Jaime, Willem and Martyn. Even though they are supposedly descended from thralls and salt wives, Tytos Lannister was his father's third son, so, it might not matter too much at the time the match was made that his bride came from a very inferior house.

OK, now the real theory: the Lannisters are descended through the female line from Lannister the Clever, so the surprising ancestor will be the man who married one of Lann's daughters? Granddaughters? and began the House of Lannister.

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

I have no idea where Gerion came from.. It should have read Gerold all along..

[Hardstone]

I have no idea where Gerion came from.. It should have read Gerold all along..

Someone added a "Gerion Lannister (suitor)" on the Wiki which was linked to other entries (Damon, Tybolt, Rohanne). Easy mistake to make when it has been presented that way.

I requested it for deletion yesterday.

[donalnig]

Someone added a "Gerion Lannister (suitor)" on the Wiki which was linked to other entries (Damon, Tybolt, Rohanne). Easy mistake to make when it has been presented that way.

I requested it for deletion yesterday.

ya thats where i got the damon being tybolt and gerions father from! when i went on the wiki i saw that it had gerion(suitor) there but i gave away my dunk and egg volumes so couldnt check to see what the actual name was and remmebered tybolt's brother's name starting with a G

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

Someone added a "Gerion Lannister (suitor)" on the Wiki which was linked to other entries (Damon, Tybolt, Rohanne). Easy mistake to make when it has been presented that way.

I requested it for deletion yesterday.

Yes, I saw, and your request had been declined with the words "there is a Gerion Lannister, read TSS". So I've started a talk-page there insisting that there is absolutely no Gerion in the Sworn Sword. I personally checked using the search function. If nothing has changed tonight, I'm deleting that page myself.

[Mithras]

I think that we can't really tell, right now. Tybolt is called "young" in 212, but only when contrasting him to his father, "the old Grey Lion".

In 211 his younger brother Gerold was more than six feet tall, an "advisor" to his brother and a potential suitor to 25 year old Rohanne Webber. That suggests that, if Tybolt and Tytos were brothers, the age difference would be very big (20-30 years).

But as said, Damon fathering a Tytos as an old man the year he died (perhaps from a second wife), and Tytos fathering Tywin when he was 35 it's quite possible.

Possible but not the most plausible option.

Still, there are plenty of open possibilites:

• Damon being the father of Tybolt, Gerion and Tytos.

Damon fathering Tybolt, and then Tybolt fathering two sons+Tytos

Damon fathering Tybolt, Tybolt fathering X, and X fathering two sons+Tytos

The first option is possible but that would make a lot of stretch which we do not see so often in Westeros. The third option is even more unlikely than the first. We have Young Lord Tybolt in 211 but his son have to have a grandson at 244. That is still possible if both Tytos and his father were married at 16 and managed to father a son immediately. I don't see it very likely. The second option is the most plausible option where we do not stretch things too long or too short.

The appendices of the novels list Stafford/Joanna, Damion, and Margot Lannister as cousins to the main line. Of them Stafford/Joanna are the closest, then comes Damion and his line, and at the very end Lady Margot Lannister, who is married to Lord Titus Peake (which could become important in the future - 'friends in the Reach' and stuff).

My take on that always was that Joanna/Stafford were the children of Tytos' younger brother, Damion the (grand)son of one of the younger brothers of Tytos' father or grandfather, and Lady Margot an even more distant cousin.

Tywin marrying a first cousin would also reflect his desire to emulate the Targaryens as well as underline his thinking that he considered the Lannister to be a very noble (and self-containing) family. It would also foreshadow the later incest, and add another layer to the whole thing (Jaime/Cersei enacting what Tywin most likely unconsciously desired to do).

I remember reading the SSM on Tywin's marriage years ago, and always took that as confirmation that they were first cousins.

I found that SSM but it is not very helpful.

We see marriages that are almost always between families seeking to ally themselves to one another. Given this context, it always seemed strange that the marriage of Tywin Lannister was to a first cousin, and even stranger when you consider how pragmatic and ambitious Tywin was. Or was it truly a love match?

Noble houses usually make marriages of convenience to build alliances. As a matter of fact, it's a common practice not only among the noble class, but also among the middle class and even among peasants: If somebody has a piece of land, he marries his daughter with somebody who has an even bigger piece of land, in the hope that all that land will belong to his grandchildren some day.

About Tywin......Probably.

It could be love, but there is another clear motive, which is to reinforce the family's bloodline. The Targayren are the extreme example of that policy: they only marry within the family to keep the purity of the blood, and that way you avoid the problem of having several candidates for the throne or the rule of the family. If you have a generation of five brothers and each of them has several children (sons?), after two or three generations you could find yourself with thirty potential heirs: there could be thirty people named Lannister or Frey, and that produces confict, because all of them are going to get involved in hereditary fights for the throne. That's what originated the War of the Roses; An excess of candidates for the throne, all of them descendants of Edward III. Lacking a heir (like Henry VIII) is just as bad as having too many of them. If you have five sons and you want to avoid that kind of problem, maybe it's not such a bad idea to marry the firstborn girl of the oldest son with the third son (or with the firstborn of the third son?), and that way you avoid fights and the bloodline remains united, so maybe that was the purpose of Tywin's marriage. Maybe it was Lord Tytos' idea, or maybe even Tywin's grandfather's idea, it depends on which was the exact time in which the marriage alliance was brokered, but I would have to check my notes because I can't remember.

GRRM does not correct the question so it can be said that Tywin and Joanna were first cousins. However, he also confesses he does not remember it and he has to check his notes.

We know that there are plenty of Lannisters, even a cadet branch at Lannisport exists. Proceeding with the most plausible option, which is Damon > Tybolt + Gerold > son + son + Tytos + possible sons and many unnamed daughters; and also considering that Gerold made a marriage and he has living issues as well; there must be a lot of possible heirs to the CR. (Question: Is Gerold Lannister the founder of the Lannisters of Lannisport? We know that Raymun Fossoway in THK founded the Green Apple Fossoways. Maybe Gerold fought well against Dagon Greyjoy and he was rewarded as such.)

The bolded part has to be somewhat related to what bits GRRM remembered about the Lannisters during the interview and should have elements of truth. Perhaps Tytos had 4 brothers. But I don't think Joanna was at a higher position in the succession line than Tywin because that would make Stafford the head of the House.

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

The first option is possible but that would make a lot of stretch which we do not see so often in Westeros. The third option is even more unlikely than the first. We have Young Lord Tybolt in 211 but his son have to have a grandson at 244. That is still possible if both Tytos and his father were married at 16 and managed to father a son immediately. I don't see it very likely. The second option is the most plausible option where we do not stretch things too long or too short.

Just to correct the little details: Tywin was born in 242 AC, not 244 AC.

Further, we don't know if Tybolt was still childless in 212 AC. If he's in his early thirties there, it's very possible he already had a child around the age of +10 (as I demonstrated in my calculations in an earlier post here). That child would only be a few years away of getting married and having three sons. That would Tytos between 15 and 20 when having his first born son. Nothing weird or out of universe about that.

So the third option is still a good option and should not be forgotten.

[Lord Varys]

I always thought that the (various) Lannisters of Lannisport were a rather old thing, something that may very well go back to the times when the Lannisters were the Kings of the West. Littlefinger establishes such distant cadet branches for the Arryns in Gulltown and elsewhere in one short quote in AFfC, so there is really no need to assume that the Lannisters of Lannisport descend from a younger scion of the Lannisters of Casterly Rock.

If Gerold ever marries, he could be Damion's and/or Margot's ancestor.

My gut feeling tells me that Tywin chose his bride himself. He fell in love with Joanna, he wanted her, and Tytos didn't object (or if he did, Tywin eventually wore him down). Tytos married Genna to Walder Frey's second son because he wanted to please Lord Walder, so I'm pretty sure Tywin also got his leave to marry his first cousin. I'd be surprised if Tywin's grandfather was alive long enough to see much of Tytos' firstborn son. Lord Tytos died when Cersei and Jaime were one year old, which suggests that Tytos was not exactly a young man when Tywin married Joanna. He was already Lord of Casterly Rock when he promised Genna to the Freys, and the Reyne/Tarbeck thing also happened before Tytos' death.

[ChrisJM89]

I reckon Tywin might have been old enough to see his grandfather, just so he can make the comparison between a "good" Lannister ruler (Tybolt) and a bad one (Tytos). The Genna match was when Tywin was about 10 (was it?) so if ol'Tybolt died when he was 7-8, it would have given Tywin something to look at and emulate.

Tybolt may well have betrothed his granddaughter Genna to the Reynes instead and after dying, Tytos failed to follow through with it, hence the Red Lion stomping out in anger when the betrothal was announced.

[Mithras]

I'd be very surprised, by the way, if Lord Tybolt did not have any children by the time of TMK. His brother Gerion is still unmarried, but the fact that Rohanne considers him to be more interested in political power behind the scenes (as Tybolt's brother), rather than in marrying a young and attractive Lady with rich lands suggests to me that he is no longer a teenager, but a bachelor in his early/middle twenties. And we don't know if he is Tybolt's second or third brother, or how much younger he is.

Bloodraven's 'young Tybolt' quote could be a hint to a personal encounter between the two, say, during the Blackfyre rebellion, when Tybolt was actually young. Ser Maynard's lines are full of hidden hints, some could be clever ploys to his relations to Lord Viserys Plumm as Bloodraven.

I think this might be the case. We know that

During the Blackfyre Rebellion Fireball killed Lord Lefford at Lannisport and sent Lord Damon Lannister back to Casterly Rock when he came out to confront him.

No mention of Tybolt in the war. It is likely that he was too young to fight in 195 and was kept behind as the heir but turned out to be a formidable jouster in 209.

[SamwellTarlyLordofHornHill]

The theory I think has the most credence is that Tytos married a lowborn, or someone of a far lesser house, although I think Genna's betrothal to Emmon Frey would have been less of a disgrace than it was let on to be if that were the case. And I think anyone could be a possibility, GRRM has sidetracked regarding the ancestry before. There's a quote from Renly in a Clash of Kings which suggests that any Targaryen connection to Robert and his brothers was distant at best, yet in a Feast for Crows, Master Aemon says hie niece was definitely Stannis' grandmother. GRRM could easily bring up something like that out of the blue. Honestly, I think the kinslayer thing is more of an issue to Northmen and a few others, not to Tywin's inner circle. Rickard Karstark calls the Starks out for kinslaying when his 64th cousin cuts his head off. And I'm pretty sure that most houses don't care, only someone as honourable as Rickard Karstark would see an action like that as kinslaying. Yes, Rickard murdered children, but that was because he had a strong conviction in "an eye for an eye." And apart from Barristan, or anyone we know to be genuinely compassionate in this series, child murder is fine. The honour system probably isn't as strong in the Westerlands as you'd think, Tywin killing the Red Lion, who could have been his uncle was probably not as unprecedented as you'd think for Westermen as it would be for Northmen or Cronwlanders or Stormlanders. Plus, Tywin is easily one of the scariest individuals in Westeros. Aerys called for his cousin Robert's head and no one called him a kinslayer, want to know why? Because he was a psychopath. Tywin lives in far to realistic a world to let kinslayer phase him. Also, the Reynes were exterminated forty years ago, if anyone cursed him as a kinslayer it would have been then and not now. Also, Stannis practically killed Renly and most people know or strongly suspect, even Davos, and they choose to ignore it. Why? Because in their minds desperate times call for desperate measures. Therefore, I think the Reyne or Tarbeck theory is highly likely. More likely Reyne since they seem to be more prominent.

[Bael's Bastard]

My impression is the great houses often marry with their banner men. So I think there are likely Reynes and Tarbecks in the ancestry of the current Lannisters. That wouldn't be surprising to me. Personally, I am not sure about Reyne or Tarbeck for Tywin's mother, as total destruction of your mother's house seems extreme even for him.

[Mithras]

Spoilers from the notes in ConCarolinas reading.

Lady Rohanne Webber?

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

Spoilers from the notes in ConCarolinas reading.

Lady Rohanne Webber?

Yep

[Bael's Bastard]

If that is it, I don't think it's that surprising, especially considering marriage with a Lannister is already part of the discussion in D and E.

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

If that is it, I don't think it's that surprising, especially considering marriage with a Lannister is already part of the discussion in D and E.

It would be surprising in the sense that Rohanna got married at the end of TSS. So we would expect that she would remain married for quite some time.

History of Westeros twittered that we had already seen the surprising Lannister ancestor, and during the reading itself, Gerold Lannisters wife was confirmed to be named Rohanna.. both Tywin and Joanna descend from Gerold and Rohanna, and earlier we had learned the ancestor was a relatively recent one.

She really seems to be it

[The hairy bear]

She's the one, without doubt

Kudos to Ran for giving us a mystery to solve that no one (I think) was able to guess.

The history behind her "disappearance" will surely be explained in a future D&E novella, sometime in the next decade... What a tease!

[Maia]

She's the one, without doubt

Kudos to Ran for giving us a mystery to solve that no one (I think) was able to guess.

He-he! I did guess it, but not to the extent that she actually married Gerold:

http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/88203-surprising-lannister-ancestor/page-10#entry4965290

Let me gloat :)!

[The hairy bear]

Wow Maia, congratulations! You didn't get the details correctly, but you have earned your right to gloat!