Jump to content

It's likely that whoever holds Harrenhal is the most powerful secondary riverlands house, not the Freys.


The Frosted King

Recommended Posts

Cursed as well.. If the Frey were an important, wealthy and respected family then Walder would only be a paranoid freak.. instead they are really a not so important family, despite being in a strategic position.

I amnot sure that the last family holding Harrenhal was all that rich though, there must be reasons for that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Harrenhal switched hands so many times. I believe under the Lothstons they were likely quite powerful. But I don't think the Whents were all that powerful, at least not more powerful than the Freys.

They had to rich to host the greatest tourney of them all or something presumably.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, of those three reasons, the second is the only practical one.




Harrenhal is a vast, ruined castle, remember. Useful to garrison in times of war, but probably infeasible for a large number of people to live there permanently, so it won't become the permanent seat of a major house.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Seat of a king.

Extensive, fertile lands.

They held the tournament of the era.

The Freys have a bridge.

The Frey lands seem to be quite large with not that many other nobles around to butt heads with.

Piper, Bracken, Blackwood and Tully are all fairly close in the center of the Riverlands

Harrenhal is close to the lands of House's Roote, Cox and Darry.

Other renowned Riverland Houses like Butterwells, Goodbrook and both the Vances all seem to be located in the South.

Malliisters, a coastal power and Charlton(a noble vassalage to Frey) seem to be only ones near the Frey territory. Now if you think that in between the Twins and Riverrun lays the location of Oldstones, the ancient Kings of River and Hills, a significant population must have lived there.

Also in the 300 years of peace the natural borders of the 7 kingdoms, like where the Freys inhabit, would become more populace down to the lack of infighting it makes sense why the Freys have got such a large population to draw from.

Cat mentions a Storm of Swords: "the Lord of the Crossing remained the most powerful of Rivererrun's bannermen"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Frey lands seem to be quite large with not that many other nobles around to butt heads with.

Piper, Bracken, Blackwood and Tully are all fairly close in the center of the Riverlands

Harrenhal is close to the lands of House's Roote, Cox and Darry.

Other renowned Riverland Houses like Butterwells, Goodbrook and both the Vances all seem to be located in the South.

Malliisters, a coastal power and Charlton(a noble vassalage to Frey) seem to be only ones near the Frey territory. Now if you think that in between the Twins and Riverrun lays the location of Oldstones, the ancient Kings of River and Hills, a significant population must have lived there.

Also in the 300 years of peace the natural borders of the 7 kingdoms, like where the Freys inhabit, would become more populace down to the lack of infighting it makes sense why the Freys have got such a large population to draw from.

Cat mentions a Storm of Swords: "the Lord of the Crossing remained the most powerful of Rivererrun's bannermen"

At that point doesn't Harenhall belong to Bolton/Hoat and therefore not count among "Riverrun's bannerman?"

I mean, TC's point wasn't that the Freys were weak, just weaker than the holder of Harenhall

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, of those three reasons, the second is the only practical one.

Harrenhal is a vast, ruined castle, remember. Useful to garrison in times of war, but probably infeasible for a large number of people to live there permanently, so it won't become the permanent seat of a major house.

This. Harrenhall is a logistics nightmare because it's so big.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The curses do not exist, LF is wealthy enough with all the gold he stole (probably :)) to destroy it and construct something more usefull. The frey haves 5000+ men but most will die in the battle of Ice and the riverlanders are just waiting for someone to raise his hand and be their lord to overthrow the freys. They may hold Riverrun and the Twins, but LF is their Overlord and will be happy to destroy them just to win Sansa's trust.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

At that point doesn't Harenhall belong to Bolton/Hoat and therefore not count among "Riverrun's bannerman?"

I mean, TC's point wasn't that the Freys were weak, just weaker than the holder of Harenhall

the word she used is 'remained', as in before the War they were also the most powerful and at the moment in time remained so.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can sort of agree with the topic.



Harrenhal has a great strategic location - better than Riverrun in some respects. I do not think Black Harren chose badly for his wannabe capital.



Riverrun and the Twins fight each other - and most likely neither Tully nor Frey can prevail over both.



Meanwhile Harrenhal + Lord Paramount of the Trident is actually a tremendously powerful combo. Lord Baelish is coy when speaking about it, but I think he knows it. This is why he is so quick to downplay its worth - if others realized what they had given him, they would quickly move to take it away. If the man can combine de facto control over the Vale with that, he controls the center of Westeros all the way from sea to sea.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Anyone holding harrenhal should be the 2nd most powerful house in the riverlands. They Whents were very powerful during Arey's Reign. They lost all their heirs in the battle of the Trident. Lady Whent was a weak ruler.I recon if their was a lord at harrenhal with a couple of heirs things would have been completely different as they wouldn't have meekly submitted to Tywin. They would have kept decent number of men-at-arms to defend Harrenhal. And speaking strategically i would have called up all of my bannerman hearing the lannisters are advancing to harrenhal. The Whents could have inflicted serious casualties if tywin decided to storm harrenhal. If Tywin decides a siege than another battle of the camps could have happened!!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Twins are "just a bridge" in the same way the Panama Canal is, "just a body of water".

Twins are only important to North. Most armies and people go through Kingsroad and cross the river at Ruby ford. There's better roads, less Freys and more cities. Only reason Frey Bridge was important to grand startegy was the fact that Tywin held Ruby Ford. Under other circumistaces Freys wouldn't be hat powerful.

Riverlands are full of people. They just couldn't be moblized fast enough during the war - Freys could, because no one attacked their territory. They are on of largest minor houses, but not that powerful after all.

kept decent number of men-at-arms to defend Harrenhal. And speaking strategically i would have called up all of my bannerman hearing the lannisters are advancing to harrenhal. The Whents could have inflicted serious casualties if tywin decided to storm harrenhal. If Tywin decides a siege than another battle of the camps could have happened!!!

It was said in GoT that Whent's didn't have enough men or gold since keeping Harrenhal was damn expensive. The castle was just too damn big to be effectively defended without sufficent number of men.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As partially said before. Harrenhall is almost IMPOSSIBLE to garrison or keep up. Yes you have a huge castle, but will never have enough men or people to fill it, nor enough coin to spend purely on upkeep of the whole castle.




Harrenhall was meant to be the Kings Landing of the Iron Islanders kingdom. It was built in scale and size of a capitol in a huge kingdom. Unfortunately, it became a seat to a Lord that commanded a mere fraction of what that kingdom was supposed to be.





However, I do think Harrenhall may be used as a base/ refugee center when things with the White Walkers get bad


Link to comment
Share on other sites

It really does seem that after the great and awesome tournament of Harrhenhall, the Whents... went broke. Perhaps they came down on the wrong side of Robert's Rebellion, and their power-base shrank accordingly afterward? Hoster was renown for burning and pillaging everything resembling a royalist amongst his own bannermen's holdings, and likewise the royalist houses tended to suffer lost lands and incomes after the rebellion.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

It really does seem that after the great and awesome tournament of Harrhenhall, the Whents... went broke. Perhaps they came down on the wrong side of Robert's Rebellion, and their power-base shrank accordingly afterward? Hoster was renown for burning and pillaging everything resembling a royalist amongst his own bannermen's holdings, and likewise the royalist houses tended to suffer lost lands and incomes after the rebellion.

Hard to tell, Hoster's own wife was a Whent so Cat and Edmure/Lysa are half Whent.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...