The World of Ice and Fire

[Elheru Aran]

Robert's failure to suppress the cult of the Drowned God is also a significant contributing factor. Speculatively, Aeron Damphair seems to have nurtured a desire for the Iron Islands' independence within the faith.

[Aasharu]

In the beginning bits, when discussing the Andal invasion, they mention how the Andals attempted to force worship of the Seven on the ironborn, but the ironborn wouldn't have it, allowing the faith to coexist with the Drowned God; in time, even the Andal houses converted to worship of the Drowned God. If the drowned god is an actual entity, then maybe there's something about Iron Islands themselves that is to blame.

[Elheru Aran]

General theory is that the Drowned God is basically the Westeros version of Cthulhu. If he's physically present and he can endow his priests with certain powers that seem to have held true for the most part while the magic goes away in the rest of the world... well, it's no wonder the cult would have stuck it through.

There does also seem to be something about the Iron Islands that keep them close to the Drowned God. Most likely it's just their geographic isolation and general stubbornness, though.

[Guardsman Bass]

I'd add their religion as well. The Drowned Priests appear to be both politically active and decentralized, so they serve as focal points of resistance to outside religions and overseers while being extremely difficult to root out or suppress.

[Simon_Jester]

General theory is that the Drowned God is basically the Westeros version of Cthulhu. If he's physically present and he can endow his priests with certain powers that seem to have held true for the most part while the magic goes away in the rest of the world... well, it's no wonder the cult would have stuck it through.

There does also seem to be something about the Iron Islands that keep them close to the Drowned God. Most likely it's just their geographic isolation and general stubbornness, though.

Either theory is credible.

Aeron Damphair may have some degree of... supernatural bolstering, let's say. I forget what the supporting evidence for that. But there's certainly precedent for monotheistic religions in Westeros (and Essos) empowering their priests and allowing them to 'cheat' even when the military and political odds are against their followers. R'hllor and Melisandre come to mind, obviously...

[Kingmaker]

I finally managed to get my hands on a copy.

-There's a ton of Lovecraftian allusions, from the Drowned God to things like the mazemakers in Lorath, "squishers", a 'yellow emperor' in exile in Carcosa, the island of Leng, etc... Sort of gives the impression that the Others are just one of many hazards to civilization.

-There are some contradictions, e.g. in the novels I believe it is stated that Winterfell has never been successfully taken by force, but this is contradicted by the section on the history of the North, since it appears the Bolton Kings did so at least twice. Though Winterfell actually appears rather tame by the standards of the great fortress of Westeros.

-The Starks opposed the creation of the New Gift, on the grounds that the Night's Watch had neither the interest nor ability to administer and protect it (and also because they didn't want to give up land), but the Targaryens overruled them. Turns out the Starks were right.

-The premise that the Targaryens brought peace to the Seven Kingdoms* appears to be total bullshit. Major rebellions seem to happen at least once a generation, though they are obviously unsuccessful for the most part.

-Theon Stark sounds like a weapons-grade badass, but the North also appears to have reaped enormous benefit from their comparative unity. The First Men of the south spent as much time fighting each other as the Andals, and there are several instances of petty kings inviting Andal warlords over to help against their rivals. This appears to have pretty much uniformly backfired.

-On that note, we hear about Torgold the Grim, an ancestor of Dolorous Edd.

-I find it kind of odd how little religious conflict there is in Westeros at present. In the novels, Old Gods vs the Seven seems to be more like rival sports teams than anything else, and there's not much indication about what happened to mellow out the relationship.

-I'm also a little surprised that the North never tried to declare independence before Robb Stark was acclaimed king. Cregan Stark was extraordinarily well situated to do so (the rest of the realm in ruins, dragons dead, etc...), and arguably had cause after being snubbed on the marriage deal he brokered with Aegon III.

-I'm still left wondering where the hell all the Starks went. Even after the Skagosi rebellion and Raymun Redbeard's invasion, you still have the main line plus Artos Stark's branch.

-"King Lucifier of House Dryland, Last of His Ilk, King of the Brimstone, Lord of Hellgate Hall".

-Grover, Elmo, and Kermit Tully.

*I've seen this floated as a defense of the Targaryen dynasty in numerous places.

[Simon_Jester]

-There are some contradictions, e.g. in the novels I believe it is stated that Winterfell has never been successfully taken by force, but this is contradicted by the section on the history of the North, since it appears the Bolton Kings did so at least twice. Though Winterfell actually appears rather tame by the standards of the great fortress of Westeros.

Perhaps treachery was involved? It usually was when major medieval castles fell.

-The Starks opposed the creation of the New Gift, on the grounds that the Night's Watch had neither the interest nor ability to administer and protect it (and also because they didn't want to give up land), but the Targaryens overruled them. Turns out the Starks were right.

True. Although they might not have been right except for the gradual decay of the Watch, which wasn't entirely the Targaryens' fault, though it was to an extent.

-The premise that the Targaryens brought peace to the Seven Kingdoms* appears to be total bullshit. Major rebellions seem to happen at least once a generation, though they are obviously unsuccessful for the most part.

*I've seen this floated as a defense of the Targaryen dynasty in numerous places.

That level of violence is pretty normal for a medieval society. Personally I don't think the Targaryens need a defense as such, they were little or no better or worse than the average line of medieval dynasts. Now, a specific argument might be made, say, that having Rhaegar on the throne in 300 AL would be better for Westeros than the current massive multisided civil war that has devastated the continent on the eve of what's shaping up to be the worst winter anyone can remember.

But that's a statement in favor of Rhaegar's competence, not a generalized blank check for the Targaryens.

-I find it kind of odd how little religious conflict there is in Westeros at present. In the novels, Old Gods vs the Seven seems to be more like rival sports teams than anything else, and there's not much indication about what happened to mellow out the relationship.

One thing the Targaryens did do was "press pause" on internecine warfare between the seven kingdoms. So each kingdom's religious affairs were basically left up to the locals. In the North, the Old Gods had a strong enough position to resist missionary incursions, which kept them institutionally strong enough that they couldn't just get swept away entirely, and hung on to varying extents in some small enclaves in the South.

-I'm also a little surprised that the North never tried to declare independence before Robb Stark was acclaimed king. Cregan Stark was extraordinarily well situated to do so (the rest of the realm in ruins, dragons dead, etc...), and arguably had cause after being snubbed on the marriage deal he brokered with Aegon III.

It's not clear to me exactly when Cregan died; if he died shortly after the civil war ended, he may never have gotten the chance. Dunno.

[Guardsman Bass]

There's an interview about the artwork in the book that has some interesting information about how "canonical" some of the images are-

. . . . .

George offered brief remarks on many images, but there's two sets of images in particular where his involvement was much more substantial. First and foremost, George worked hand-in-hand with Ted Nasmith on his depictions of castles and other places of note. We have a series of email exchanges between them—Linda and I were asked to help out by providing Ted whatever concrete details existed in the books about these various places—where George provides some detailed descriptions of the places as he envisioned them. So Ted's castles are really as “canonical” as they're going to get, unless George takes some art classes.



One of Ted's last pieces was, of course, his depiction of Valyria before the Doom. That was one where we shared what little we had—the “topless towers” line from Catelyn, the magically sculpted stones of Dragonstone—and suggested some ideas. The initial sketch was amazing, but when George saw it he felt it was much too “elvish” . . . and so what followed was a brief essay from him describing Valyria as you see it in the final painting: canals of lava, sculpted towers reaching far above the heat, dragons flitting between them. It was jaw-dropping.



The other place George had some very specific commentary was Aegon the Unworthy's mistresses. Magali Villeneuve's initial sketch was very good, but George pointed out that he had a number of very specific ideas about how each of the women should look and Magali revised accordingly. Long ago, George said he had a notion of a novel about Aegon the Unworthy (after ASOIAF is completed, of course) and I suspect that that was why he was so particular.

So in other words the Valyrians weren't just mining the Fourteen Fires - they were actually channeling their molten lava through Valyria, presumably for enhancing their sorcery.