The silver and purple of House Molester has long been the least
welcoming sight to an Iron Born Raider, and anyone who makes the
Ironborn think twice about the things they do is someone you
want on your side in a fight or just in general.
This is a house as proud as houses get, but it's a different
kind of pride. It's the pride of
accomplishment, the kind of pride you earn.
The kind of pride we can look back on your family history and
say, yeah, we've been doing it right.
Not the kind where you just feel and act superior just because
your ancestors were powerful and or rich.
Well, to be fair, there's some of that too.
But that first part I think is a big difference maker.
Like a lot of houses, we get to explain and or consider their
position in history throughout a number of eras, right?
And, but unlike a lot of houses, they're pretty different from
the rest in their respective region.
It's difficult to disrespect housemaster.
Many accomplishments, few scandals, frequent honors, rare
failures. But I will be drawing a lot of
comparisons in this episode about how they're really not the
same. They're different than a lot of
other river ranch houses and, and in a lot of ways they would
fit better in a different region.
Something we'll delve into. How did they get this
reputation? Why are they held in such high
regard? Why do I think they might fit
better elsewhere? Well, they're above the rest,
that's their motto, and they do live up to it quite well.
So that's going to be a big part of this.
Though their past is rich, we have A Song of Ice and Fire to
discuss as well. This is a house that has managed
to conserve most of their strength throughout the War of 5
Kings. That positions them to do things
where whereas other houses might be a bit incapable, they're
they're spent. There's been no change of
lordship with House Mouster during the series, and the man
in charge is as strong as he is capable.
Looks to me like George's. Yeah, he's got them in mind for
some end Game of Thrones action or something along those lines.
And they're close, very close geographically to the Twins.
They've got a problem with Black Walder right now.
He's kind of holding them captive in their own castle.
Now. What do they think of Euron?
I mean, that's they're supposed to be all about fighting the
Ironborn, and they got this kind of new breed Ironborn that
frankly doesn't really care about them too much.
So what do they think of him? And what about Patrick
Mallester's friendship with Theon?
That's a most unusual connection.
Does that mean anything? Is that going to play out some
way? And the Mousters know who Rob
named as heir. They were involved in his will.
Does that mean they might go north at some point to fight an
even more dangerous enemy? All that and more on this
episode of History of Westeros Podcast.
Hello and welcome. It's time to talk about House
Maluster, the Silver Eagles with their purple background above
the rest, all proud and cool like that.
Every Sunday, just about, we're here at 3:00 PM Eastern live
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But we're also ad free if you check us out on Patreon.
A big shout out to our friend Nina.
She had some excellent additions to this episode.
It's also her birthday week, so shout out.
Happy birthday to Good Queen Alley.
Good queenalley.tumblr.com is where you can find her on the
Internet. And the current post over on her
blog is discussing discussion, discussing the clans of the
veil, what future they might have.
And she actually expands the answer to include some of the
other clans outside of the veil to take a, a bigger look at the
whole thing. It's a good answer.
You're gonna want to check that out along with the rest of her
posts. This is Topics Moot 2026,
episode number 2. Thank you all for voting for
this. Those of you who participated in
Topics Moot, we got 12 topics voted on this year that will be
made. This is the second one.
House Fossaway was #1 and I really enjoyed thinking through
Maoist or history, just like I did Fossaway.
Very different experiences, a few things in common, but quite
a lot not so much. So I'm very happy that I get to
do that and and use my imagination and think it all
through. If you have questions for us or
think we missed something or just want to give us a shout out
or have something you want to say, hit us up at
westeroshistory@gmail.com or hit us on any of our socials.
We're pretty much everywhere. You can find us where you can
find everywhere. You can find us everywhere you
can find social media platforms. You should be able to find us
our trivia question for the day. The answer's going to be at the
end as usual. The 3rd house mentioned in all
of A Song of Ice and Fire in book 1 is the Mallester's name.
One or both of the two that get named before Mallester?
That's right, there are two mentioned before Mallester in
that their prologue. What are they?
This episode actually has a lot of sections, more than usual,
partly because there's just a lot of different things that Mao
stores are involved with. Most of these are shorter
sections, so we'll be doing Tidbit here, tidbit there, but
they're all linked. They're very consistent.
That makes for very fun comparisons across eras and
makes the exceptions all the more exceptional.
So we'll get started with first dimension and 1st appearance as
we so often do. Then the Andal Eagles, the Cape
of Eagles, Sea Guard, Mallister culture, old stones housed,
Justman had the Storm Kings, the phrase in the crossing, the
eagles in shame. Then we get to Eagles under the
Dragons. Eagles can dance to the Last
Reaver, A tragic friendship, A song of ice and Fire and Eagles.
Jeffrey Mallester, Lord Jason Baylon's Rebellion, The
Whispering Wood and the Battle of the Camps, The Kingdom of the
North, The Pallbearer, The Witness, the Red Wedding,
Mallester versus Pike under Blackwalder, and finally, where
Eagles dare to finish it all off.
Like I said, a lot of short sections, a bunch of different
things that the Mallester's were involved with here and now.
So let's get to it with that first mention.
I told you with the trivia question.
The third ever house mentioned in the Song of Ice and Fire is
House Malester. Obviously that means the
prologue, right? We're not sitting around waiting
for several chapters before these names get dropped.
Let's have that quote where they're mentioned.
Here it is. Will had been a hunter before he
joined the Night's Watch. Well, a poacher in truth.
Malester Free riders had caught him red handed in the Malester's
own woods, skinning one of the Malester's own bucks, and it had
been a choice of putting on the black or losing a hand.
No one could move through the woods as silent as Will, and it
had not taken the Black brothers long to discover his talent.
This is something you might pick up on reread.
Not all houses slash Lords would offer the wall as a penalty,
that's just that's fallen off. Certainly in the North it's
common still, if not ubiquitous, but elsewhere not so much.
I mean, there's still a lot of Lords that offer the the black.
But I mean, look at what happened at the end of the Dance
of the Dragons. Until one person thought of it,
no one had even brought it up. One one of the Kings guards,
like I'm going to take the black and a bunch of other people
like, Oh yeah, it actually wasn't the Kings guard.
It was Perkin the flea. I think it was.
And I bet all of a sudden when the idea was floated, a bunch of
other people said, Oh yeah, I want to take the black.
That's a great idea. Let's do that.
It just goes to show how that's kind of falling off.
But the Mallester's very traditional and Dennis Mallester
is the commander of the Shadow Tower.
They they literally have a representative in the nearly at
the top living there and giving an example of a different type
of service, different type of duty.
That's actually something we'll get into later.
How the wall and fighting against Ironborn Raiders.
There's a lot they have in common there.
And of course the Maisters by extension, would have a positive
view of such a thing. People whose job it is to defend
the realm against Raiders. Well, that's what they do,
right. So the nights watch sea guard
already. You've got something very, very
central in common there. Duty defense, right.
And this sentence passed on will it would have been passed by
Lord Jason Mallister himself. You can't have stewards and
administrators sentencing people to the wall that is for the Lord
and only the Lord or maybe the heir, right.
You don't have like maesters and yeah, like imagine Vine Poole or
Sir Roderick. They can't, you can't do that
unless you're appointed castellan.
And even then they're right. They wouldn't, they didn't want
to execute sentence on on who they thought was Reek.
It was actually Ramsay, of course, but they couldn't hang
him because that's for Rob to do.
It's not their purview. They don't have the the
authority to pass sentence like that.
But of course, in this moment, Will is only thinking about the
Maoisters. He's not seeing them or they're
not present. By the way, nice little joke
there he is caught red handed. I'm sure his hands were actually
bloody. He was skinning a buck.
There you go. That's about as red handed as it
gets. Anyway, let's let's move on to
their first appearance. It's Catlin's point of view when
we see them. It's a good place to start
because she is the daughter of Hoster Tully.
Catlin knows the Maoisters well. Hoster was the Maoisters Liege
Lord for a long time, now it's Ed Muir.
They would have gone to River Run plenty of times.
And we know Catlin's been to Sea Guard.
She remembers. Well, she doesn't remember being
there. Well, I'm sure she does, but
it's not what we hear about. The memory we get is her on the
way to Sea Guard. So we know unless something
happened, they went the rest of the way.
Her memory is actually pretending to be Jenny of Old
Stones, because they stop at Old Stones on the way.
And of course, young Peter Baylis pretends to be Duncan the
Small. How dare he?
At least he, at least he was small.
That part's accurate. When we actually meet Lord Jason
in this Catlin chapter, the circumstances are nothing like
her going to visit Sea Guard as the daughter of the Liege Lord.
It's very different. Here we go, quote.
They followed the sounds around a lazy bend of the road and saw
them, a column of armed men noisily fording a swollen
stream. Catlin rained up to let them
pass the banner. In the hand of the foremost
rider hung Sawdon in limp, but the guardsmen wore indigo
cloaks, and on their shoulders flew the silver eagle of Sea
Guard malicesters. Sir Roderick whispered to her as
if she had not known. My Lady, best pull up your hood.
Catlin made no move. Lord Jason Mallister himself
rode with them, surrounded by his Knights, his son Patrick by
his side, and their Squires close behind.
They were riding for King's Landing in the Hands tourney,
she knew. No word on Patrick, but Lord
Jason actually does pretty well in the tournament.
I don't think Patrick actually competed.
He's not Sir Patrick. So yeah, it's generally maybe
he's a couple years away from being ready for that, even
though he was ready shortly after this to be 1 of Rob's
personal guard. Either way, we don't get a full
accounting of how the tournament goes.
It just sort of skips ahead. At some point we know that Lord
Jason beats Sir Aaron Santegar, and then it's just then it came
down to 4, The Hound, the The Mountain, Sir Jamie and Loris
Tyrell. So yeah, at some point Jason
loses, but we don't know if you're thinking about Ashford
Meadow, which a lot of us are, because whenever a tournament
comes up, that one pops into my head.
There weren't any malasters at Ashford Meadow.
They do like tournaments. They're they're frequent
attendees to tournaments, as this example shows us.
But interestingly enough, that was maybe a wise move on their
part to not beat the tournament. Not that it would have been such
a big deal to take a few weeks off or whatever, but around the
time of Ashford Meadow, not long after is when Dagan Greyjoy gets
going. And that might have been a lot
of effort for the malasters, although it's it's also possible
Dagan Greyjoy just kind of avoided them.
We'll see. We'll get to that part in good
due time here. This next paragraph, still
sticking with this Catlin chapter, is pretty significant
as well, because we actually get a description of Lord Jason, the
Lord of Sea Guard. Here it is quote.
She studied Lord Jason boldly. The last time she had seen him,
he had been jesting with her uncle at her wedding feast.
The Malicester stood bannerman to the Tullys, and his gifts had
been lavish. His brown hair was salted with
white now, his face chiseled gaunt by time.
Yet the years had not touched his pride.
He rode like a man who feared nothing.
Catelyn envied him that she had come to fear so much.
As the writers passed, Lord Jason nodded A curt greeting,
but it was only a High Lord's courtesy to strangers chance met
on the road. There was no recognition in
those fierce eyes and his son did not even waste a look.
This is followed by some dialogue where sure, Roderick is
surprised that they weren't recognized, especially Lady
Catlin not recognized. But she responds that that's
just how it is. They're not going to bother
looking at peasants. That's what they saw.
They see peasants, they're not going to.
The last thing in their mind is I wonder if that's a a high born
person in disguise, You know, it just does not cross their mind.
But that's interesting too that Jason is the example here.
It's not because there's something wrong with him.
This isn't an an insult to him, right?
Like I just made the point, you know, it would be pretty weird
for him to be curious about that about random peasants on the
road. There's nothing there's no,
there's nothing bad about it, right?
It's just it's just normal, right.
And you know, I don't pass people on the subway and wonder
if there's someone in disguise, you know, so, and this is
important as early set up because there's a lot of
characters who go around and disguise not just PO VS but
other people and including Catlin's own daughters, right?
We got Cat and Elaine. They are Incognito using her
half of her name, right? Cat and Elaine, Cat of the
Canals. And this is neat, how she and
her daughters are experiencing these different things and
making use of it in the same way, allowing this to work for
them, allowing the fact that nobles don't bother to look at
peasants, using that to their advantage.
Lord Jason is somewhere between older than he looks and has aged
well, right? This is the presentation of a
man leading a house with a proud warrior tradition.
George isn't trying to be too subtle here.
He's he looks like the man he is.
Like the description sort of matches the character here.
That's not always the case, but in this this time, it is.
These are guys who defend against the worst of the worst.
That's their entire life, their entire tradition, their reason
to attra why they're there, right?
To do what you are. To be a defender against the
Ironborn means constant vigilance, toughness, you know,
bravery. You got to be training.
You got to be in shape. Yeah, I mean, that's a tough
job. So this is something I'm going
to get out off and on this entire episode.
This is a house that's very proud, but they have a very good
reason to be proud right there. They have a tough job.
They've done it well. And it's one of the most
esteemed things you can be in Westeros is a good fighter, but
someone who doesn't use that for evil or for villainy or for for
undue gain, Right. So Lord Jason, Yeah, he looks
like he looks the part, right? He's a chip off the old Eagle
Block. He looks like the avatar of what
a Lord of Sea Guards should look like.
I'm not as sure about Patrick Mallister, though.
We'll, we'll come back to him again.
We're we're trying to go chronologically here.
This is just our intro. But yeah, Patrick, he doesn't
quite come off the same as his father.
I didn't say he's young, so maybe he'll change.
Maybe he's more of more of a chip than I'm saying.
But yeah, like I said, we'll come back to that now.
There may have been First Men Mallisters, but they weren't
noteworthy. If so.
Doesn't seem like it though. They they really just come off
like and all nobility that has been and all nobility for a long
time. That is their vibe that's
through and through. They come off that way.
What's a little unusual about them is that they were kings.
So that gives them a little extra measure of pride, maybe a
big extra measure of pride. But they weren't first men kings
and they weren't kings right away when they and all like
that's what happened with the and dolls.
A lot of and dolls came in, became kings, took over a lot of
these kingdoms. The Mousers became kings after
that, like a lot of them, and dolls have moved in.
The Maosters became kings during that period, after a lot of the
other Andal warlords had already been established.
That's a little unusual, but also it was because they're good
at fighting, and it was also because they didn't fight
against other Andal warlords. They fought against the
Ironborn, which you know that that means they're not getting
involved in conflict with their own people, so to speak.
Now eventually the Maosters submitted to Greater Andal
Kings, but I'm not sure it was through force.
They may have just marriage alliance style.
Like who wants to take on in a campaign the house that is made
their whole life beating the ironborn.
Like that's not such a pushover house.
Of all the houses in the Riverlands, the the Maoisters
are one of the least ones that I'd want to tangle with because
if like it's all they do is fight ironborn, right?
Like these guys are good at fighting good against fighting
against people who are really good against fighting too.
The Andal Eagles. The idea that the Maoisters
began as an Andal house makes a lot of sense beyond what I've
already said. During the intro, I pointed out
that they don't necessarily fit in the Riverlands in a certain
way. Like in certain ways they fit
perfectly. They are crucial to the
Riverlands existence the way it is like if they without them, I
don't know, Ironborn might have had a lot more success against
the Riverlands and the Riverlands might be a much
different place today. But if I said that they were a
Veil house or they originated in the veil, which they didn't as
far as I know, but if they said they were a veil house, they
would it would fit they would be perfect fit for that, right?
Don't they seem like a a great match for like a Bronzeon Royce?
That kind of value system that like proud, upfront,
straightforward, not mincing words, no intrigue, right, just
solid, right. And with the all the, the pride
and the, there's no lack of, I mean, there's no examples of
things that normally come from the first man Riverlands houses
like the Brackens and the Blackwoods, their ancient
rivalry, right? It's just there's the sea guards
rivalry is against the iron board, right?
And going back to the Blackwoods in a different way, the history
of first men blood means things like skin changing and other
supernatural things, connections to the old gods.
Mousers don't have any of that. That's just not their bag.
They're they're a nightly house, which again, that's the the veil
is the heart of nightly houses that have no connection to
supernatural. The reach is where the other
seat of chivalry is right, But the reach has all these
connections to Garth Greenhand and these semi legendary, if not
mythical figures. There's a lot of supernatural in
that background. Mouse just don't have that.
Eagles were supposedly at the command of Sir Artis Aaron.
That fits better, right? It sounds like they belong
there. Eagle's nests get made really
high. They're called eeries, for God's
sake. An eagle's nest is called an
eerie. Like the eerie.
So, yeah, you see where I'm going with this?
Sea Guard, in a way, could be like the bloody gate of the
Riverlands. It's maritime rather than
orogenous. Yes.
Orogenous meaning to do with mountains.
Yeah. Fancy word there.
Cape of Eagles. On the other side of Westeros,
the eastern side, there's the fingers, right?
The Cape of Eagles is kind of like a thumb or maybe some other
appendage pointed directly at the Iron Isle, as if to say
that's who we care about. Like this is pointing this way.
Well, yeah, see right over here, pointing at the Ironborn this
way and then on the map that way, pointing the thumb that
way. It's a full time job, right?
You can't just casually take care of the Ironborn.
So the, the name Cape of Eagles implies that eagles live there
probably in good numbers, which also implies that there's some
hills or mountains there at the Cape of Eagles, which is another
thing that's different, right? The Riverlands isn't known for
its mountains, but eagles need high places.
That's where they live. So that's another thing that's
more feels more germane to the veil, right?
Again, that comes up hills maybe, though also definitely
forests. We know the Cape of Eagles is
forests. It's not a highly populated area
probably, but surely people do live there.
This is probably where the eagle sigil came from.
This is why it's kind of notable that, you know, a lot of houses
came with a sigil already or they adopted a new one.
They did house where this is just very clearly tied to the
area where they were became established.
I'd be quite a coincidence of otherwise like, hey, we're the
maesters. We've just come over from
Angelo's. Where do the Eagles live in this
country? Let's go later.
We're going to go there wherever they are.
We're going to go meet up with our mascots.
So these are probably sea eagles, by the way, that hunt
fish off the Cape there. There's a lot of different types
of eagles. It's it's kind of a loose term
eagle. I doubt Westeros is particularly
deep on the science there. So it's just whatever looks like
an eagle to them is an eagle, but still close enough.
And yeah, eagles do fishing there.
I love a lot of maosters do fishing too.
And they got to watch out for those Ironborn.
It was none other than Torgon Gray Iron AKA Torgon the late
Comer, the one who missed the King's moot and then contested
the Sea Stone chair because he missed the King's moot unfairly.
He won and was a powerful king and his descendants follow him
without having to win King's moots of their own.
But he could not hold the Cape. He could not hold the Cape of
Eagles despite being capable and strong ironborn King.
It was the Maesters who took it from him, and after his reign
they claimed the rest. They took most of the Cape of
Eagles from him during his reign, and then the rest, I
suppose, in the next rain or two.
And that's when they became kings.
And so again, they didn't incur any enmity from other Riverlands
houses because they didn't say, hey, I want your land.
Then they said, no, we're going to come in here and take land
from the Ironborn and make a Kingdom out of that that's
respectable. A lot of other Riverlords would
be like, ah, cool. Not only when they respect that,
but they'd just be like, hey, these guys just set up a
defensive position between our lands and the Ironborn.
Hell yeah, that's great. What a windfall.
These these guys have just decided to set up and fight the
Ironborn. That's great for everyone.
Why wouldn't you like that if you're their neighbors?
So they came in as the best neighbor possible, basically
like, hey, I'm not going to. I'm going to come in here, be
friendly to you and fight your enemies.
Hell yeah, right. That's great.
So I, I suspect that it was one of the more welcome additions to
the Riverlands, if not the most welcome, because they weren't
trying to fight any of the other first men or and alls.
They were just trying to fight Ironborn.
Technically Ironborn are first Men and and all, but you get
what I'm saying. Different, different religion,
different culture, it's all that.
So I and I suspect the Cape of Eagles and maybe a little more
to the north was their domains when they were kings, because
South of their domains is where there was a lot of established
power already from talking about how they were able to expand
into previously uncivilized or ironborn held areas where
they're not going to expand S because that's where old stones
was. That's where king the kings of
House mud were. And of course, to the east,
there's Bracken and Blackwood and Tully to the southeast and a
lot of other very powerful Riverlands houses that the
Maisters apparently never had any major long term wars with.
I'm sure there's been some issues.
I'm sure it wasn't just all perfect all the time, but for
the most part, they're a great neighbor and they're not going
to be picking on you and you don't want to mess with them
because they're so good at fighting.
Like who picks on the Mousers other than Ironborn?
Even the Ironborn avoid them a lot of times, as we'll see.
So the Cape of Eagles is a perfect example, right?
It was a real accomplishment taking that from the Ironborn,
but not just taking it, holding it, right?
It's not, it's the constant depredations and raiding and
striking as if from nowhere that make places like this unlivable.
So I suspect the mousters, well they just can't defend every
inch of coastline. There's no ports on the Cape of
Eagles, nothing big anyway, so I suspect they just just adapted
and said, hey, y'all, stop fishing, go hunting, go inland,
farm, do things that the Ironborn can't get so easily to
your lands. Let's live in like a couple
miles inland where they have a harder time raiding us, you
know, things like that. Natural adaptations rather than
you can't just fight everything, you know?
So the Ironborn have their advantages and you can't give
into that. You have to set your Kingdom up
or your region up in a way that makes it harder for them.
Fishing is life for a lot of people, so you got to protect
against that. So you have to also defend the
coasts, but you also have to make it that every single
fishing village, well, you can't defend them all, so you got to
do something about that. Of course, I mentioned earlier
hunting instead of fishing. Well, don't do that in the
Mallister only woods or you'll end up in the end up like Will.
Well, probably not as a white, but on the wall.
Yeah. Sea Guard itself.
Let's keep the map in mind here as she has got some nice
different versions of our our favorite maps to show you what
we're looking at here. Siguard isn't actually on the
Cape of Eagles. It's like right below.
It is, if you use my earlier example of it, like a thumb.
It's like the base of the palm, like the final knuckle, not that
far from the neck, which is a good thing.
The neck isn't bothering them and they're not bothering the
neck. It's like the phrase or the
phrase or antagonistic towards the Kranigman.
There's no evidence or history that we know of where the
mousters would pick a fight with the Kranigman or vice versa.
And why would they? It's silly.
Why would you want to fight them then?
Why would the Mausers want to fight anybody else when they're
so busy with the Ironborn? So I think they probably just
left each other alone. They may have even been friendly
neighbors. But then, you know, nowadays the
phrase have since moved in. I mean, that was 600 years ago,
but in ancient times there was there weren't any phrase.
And it may have been more of a Direct Line between Kranigman
and Malusters, but I don't know what that would have looked
like. Still, it's a defensive minded
castle. They're not interested in swamps
and bogs, right? It's not probably as extreme as
Castle Black. Sea Guard is where Sea Guard is
where Castle Black isn't defended.
Defencible from the South, which was kind of intentionally
designed that way. I'm sure Sea Guard is somewhat
concerned with their eastern neighbors, even though the
Ironborn are their main thing. They this the coastline in
general South of Sea Guard is very fertile.
I suspect they controlled less of it in ancient times, maybe
even more of it now, because old stones would have ruled a lot of
that. And now there's just nothing
there. Old stones is just a ruin and
there's no one really has a lot of sway over those lands.
So I think malice or by default have a lot of that.
Now they have something called the the booming tower, which is
the a big, a really tall tower like it sounds in in Sea Guard
that has a huge bronze bell within it.
And they ring it whenever long ships are sighted.
It's probably really high up because you would want to be
able to see the ships from as far away as possible.
And you want the sound travel as far as possible too.
It's probably pretty high up there, right above the rest.
And this is not a job for random guardsmen.
I feel like, yeah, I'm I'm a using my imagination here.
Maybe this is a stretch, but I think this is probably close to
what it looks like. It's a job.
It's a dutiful, important job. It's a honor to be a watchman at
the booming tower. It's the whole purpose of this
place's existence, just to guard against the Ironborn.
And this is the first line of defense.
This isn't the kind of job where you fall asleep on watch, for
one thing, because I doubt it's just one person.
I bet it's a group, maybe a squad of 12, where you got a
captain, couple of lieutenants, or a second in command, a
Sergeant, something like that. And you got people who are
constantly just looking out in all directions and they're proud
of that job. And if someone is not good at
it, they get sleepy, they become not, they become they're not
vigilant enough. Well, you get replaced, you
know, you find someone else who's willing to do that job and
is good at it. And and given the vibe of the
Malusters, hundreds, if not thousands of years of fighting
the Ironborn, you got young people probably signing up for
that job. It's probably a legitimate
honor. You might get a special badge.
You know, maybe it's like something like a lot of nations
in the real world and or whatever or whatever have had
compulsory military serve. I'm not just talking about
drafts, but that is a version of that.
Plenty of countries where you have to serve in the military
for a few years. I wouldn't be surprised if
that's the case with the malusters.
Well, we're a military region. We have fighting is our
business. We have to we're defensive
culture here. So I don't know if they're
forcing people in. They might be, but more it's
very likely a lot of people are proud to join it, even if even
if they are forced. But I'm guessing that they might
not need to force people that people just join because they
want to, because they want to be.
They want to wear the silver and purple.
They want to have that eagle on them.
They want to be part of the thing that this culture, this
local region is most proud of. People would sit back in the
Tavern and reminisce about their two to three years of duty on
the Booming Tower, and it's like they'd all have something in
common. We all did that.
Two to three to four years of service there.
Maybe there's a lot of other bells, like at what?
What besides the booming tower? Is there more, right?
If the booming tower goes off, that probably sends a signal
elsewhere. There's probably other towers,
lesser bells that ring in concordance with that to spread
the word. I don't know if one bell is
enough, right? Let everybody know.
Not at the entire Malister region won't hear this bell.
Maybe the ones you know farther inland don't need to hear it,
but they probably do. You want to rush and defend it,
right? This is something Fred is all
hands on deck without the deck kind of moment.
So and you they have their patrol ships out there too.
Like these ships would be looking for long ships.
And if they see one, I bet they have Ravens.
Just let a Raven go. It goes back to Sea Guard.
And there's no way the Ironborn can stop that message from
getting there. It's a great system of warning.
I think that sounds like really efficient, really effective.
I'm sure they'd rather use eagles than Ravens, but it
doesn't work that way. Now.
Lord Jason currently says during the War of 5 Kings, he tells Rob
that he has two warships and six long ships.
Not a huge fleet, but I bet prior to Aegon's conquest, when
the Ironborn had free reign, I bet the Lords of Seaguard kept
larger fleets. Maybe not huge, nothing like the
Arbor, but more than two warships and six long ships.
Because once Aegon conquered the Ironborn and the rest of
Westeros, well, he put an end to the old way.
Obviously it wasn't completely ended, there's always people
here and there, but it was no longer a state sponsored
activity and that's a big, big drop off in so that Sea Guard
would have a little bit less to do.
They seem to have a lot of longbowmen.
That's the thing we see. We hear of Maostril Bowman a
couple different times throughout the War of 5 Kings
and that really makes sense. If you got ships coming to shore
to attack you and you see them come in, well that's one of the
best things you can do before they land is shoot at them.
You know, longbows are something you can train maybe people who
aren't as brave as everybody else.
You know, you're shooting at a distance.
Not everybody is capable of charging with a sword and
fighting Ironborn hand to hand. But you can put the bow in the
hands of a lot of different people and they can be effective
without having to come into close quarters standing on top
of a wall shooting down. Yeah, you don't need to be super
brave to participate in the defense on those terms.
So we don't know what it looks like, Seaguard.
I picture the interior as a chronology of Malester heroism.
Again, a warrior defensive minded culture is going to take
pride in its success in that on those terms.
How many Malester Knights and Lords and a few kings personally
slew Ironborn champions? Well, we know of one in recent
times. What we'll talk about.
These are the sorts of stories in a place like this that never
died. These are the things you would
make tapestries of paintings that when Lord Blankety Blank
Mallester killed Bloggity BLOB Greyjoy in single combat, that
would be a day to remember. And they would make sure it was
remembered with poetry, with writing, with maybe even
performances, plays, things like that.
Definitely ornaments on the wall.
Like that was his shield. That was the sword that slew
this, this iron borne reaver that put an end to this raid or
the King Greyjoy himself was slain by.
Yeah, there's got, I mean, we're talking to eon the history.
There's got to be a substantial amount of, well, think about,
you know, who comes to mind here?
Sir Eustace Osgre, a man who lives in the past because he has
no present and no future. That's what the Maosters would
be if they didn't still have a purpose.
Most likely they would be their current Lord would just be a sad
man looking at the looking at the past, cleaning the Shields
of warriors who died 300 years ago.
He only he remembers their stories.
Maosters aren't faced with that because the iron border still
threat. They're not going anywhere.
They still have that purpose and they aren't faded glory.
They're not a relic of the past. They still have a purpose.
And that is huge. If you don't have a purpose,
well, in the real world that's a big problem too.
A lot of people are very aimless or lost or do act out because
they don't feel like they have a place in this world.
Mallister's don't have that problem.
Lord Jason Mallister would have fought for Hosker Tully and
Robert Brathian on the Trident. 3 of Rhaegar's bannermen were
slain by Lord Jason. More on that later.
So you'd have these kind of things, these are the kind of
things that would be the captured banners captured, you
know, axes, swords, bows, just whatever all over the walls of
Sea Guard. And, and by the way, if we're
looking into the opposite way, it would be the thing.
This would be a thing too. And what I mean by that is, you
know, the Ironborn or even more about taking things from people
and using them, right? Like the Maoistor might kill a
Greyjoy, but they're not going to wear his helmet.
But a Greyjoy might kill a maluster and show off that he
killed a maluster by wearing an eagle helm and be like, oh you,
that's the iron price right there.
A purple maluster club. That's probably very prized by
Ironborn rager because that means you beat someone whose
entire purpose is to defeat you. That is, that's an
accomplishment. If you're Ironborn, you killed
some malusters. Like we, we literally see a, an
Ironborn captain under Euron wearing a Lannister breastplate
and everybody's like, look what he did.
That's a that's a captain's breastplate.
That's in terms of a culture that respects the iron price.
That was a high price in iron. You paid for that one and
malusters would be the same thing.
And you're not killing a maluster easily.
That's a good segue for our Next up subtopic, which is maluster
culture. The malusters, in part because
of geography, are above the rest in the Riverlands when it comes
to feuding. A look through their a general
overview of their history shows very little getting involved in
politics and intrigue and taking sides and blood feuds unless
it's against the Ironborn. That's who they focus on and
they try to stay out of everything else.
And that's, that's respectable. I got to say, in terms of
Westerosi standards, they they fight, but they fight
defensively. They're tough, but they're not
tough about pushing other people around, right.
There's, like I said earlier, there's no Brack into their
Blackwood, no bolts into their Stark.
They're not associated with madness or magic.
Yeah, the Ironborn, other cultures have dedicated
themselves to fighting the Ironborn either out of necessity
or otherwise, like the Mormons. But the Mormons in the Mousers,
like they don't have that much in common culturally.
Again, skin changing is a big Mormont thing.
They have a lot of that going on their their land.
The Bear Island is so very different than sea guards
territory. Bears versus eagles.
Oh my right. And we got first man origin
versus and all origin. It would be pretty sweet to have
a Maoist or eagle skin changer, even though I'm down on that
possibility. Iron more would never sneak up
on that. Let me tell you.
Or El, the eagle on the side of the maosters, that kind of
thing. No, that's just not their thing,
though, really. Nightly virtues, honors,
chivalry, fighting attorneys, that's their bag.
And that does not. That's that.
Again, it just sounds like the Veil.
And let's remind ourselves that Sea Guard is not far from the
Veil. It might be like, wait, really?
Yeah. The Veil ends right at the tip
of the Neck there. There's like a almost like a
three-point border where the Neck and the North or the North
and the Veil and the Riverlands kind of all come together.
They're near the Twins. So actually there is a
connection to the Veil in terms of nearby geography.
It's not a well traveled region there, but it is.
It is there. Yeah.
So other houses that have a little bit in common elsewhere
with the Maoesters would be the Shield Islands, right?
They're a Marshall tradition, fighting the Ironborn nightly.
They might be the closest, the most similar to the Maoesters in
that regard. The Dornish marches would be
another good example. Houses that are very proud,
they've fought the Dornish for a long time.
And it's a one way relationship. What I mean by that is the
Ironborn raid the Riverlands. Maosters don't raid the
Ironborn. The same thing is mostly true
for the Dornish. Dornish marches relationship.
Yes the the people the marches do sometimes attack into Dorn,
but it's usually Dornish Raiders invading the Stormlands or the
Reach or well those places really.
And because you just don't want to chase the Dornish back into
darn, you don't want to fight the Dornish in the desert,
That's a suicide. Similar reason why you don't try
to fight the Ironborn at sea. The Mousers don't even bother
with that. They know it's giving up the
advantage. Don't fight them on their terms.
So let them come and then we'll use our defensive advantages
when they're foolish enough to fight us.
When they come and fight us head on, we'll we'll beat them.
If they're going, if they're going to avoid us, well, so be
it. If they're going to go attack
the Shield Islands, then well, hopefully the good luck to you
Shield Islanders. We're focused on our territory,
only we're not going elsewhere. So it's defense, permanent
defense. There's no end game to this,
right? If the Ironborn keep coming,
they will keep fighting back. Now, you might think, as I said,
using the example of sure, Eustace Osgre, how they might
have been on the verge of not having a purpose anymore, right?
300 years. Hang on, the Conqueror ended the
old way. They didn't forget, just like a
lot of the Marcher houses haven't forgotten about what
Dorn is capable of. They're still proud and warlike
and work hard at the business of knighthood.
Right? And as if to remind them or us
or Westeros that just because all that time passed doesn't
mean the Ironborn have been civilized.
If the Ironborn were gone, it'd be something else.
Like back to Eustace Osgre, there just isn't a threat of
landster invasion in the in the in the West or from the West as
there used to be. And the border isn't even where
it used to be. And the Osgres aren't powerful
anymore. So even if that border came
back, would the Osgres even be the ones that's in charge?
I don't know, but this has this has not happened to Seaguard.
They even after all the old way being banned.
Well, what happened 10 years before the Song of Ice and Fire
started? Bailon Greyjoy's Rebellion Sea
Guard was attacked by the Ironborn.
The bell rang. It hadn't rung in 300 years, but
they kept that vigilance. Bailon probably thought they had
gone LAX. She's probably like, ha, ha,
they haven't. They haven't fought us in 300
years or so. They're probably slack, wrong.
And that just proves to them they can remember that they can
say, look, we didn't really have to deal with them for a while,
but they still attacked us 300 years later.
That proves that we cannot be slack.
If that happened, it can happen again.
They have strong evidence that maintaining vigilance is wise.
The phrase would argue that the Kranigman maybe are in that
category of Raiders who you can't follow back into their own
land. But I wouldn't necessarily
agree, 'cause I feel like the phrase kind of started all that.
But I don't know, maybe not. Either way, the phrase want that
counted, but I don't count them. So yeah, that's why their pride
is maintained for so long. That's why it's a confident sort
of pride rather than a toxic pride where they just feel like
they deserve it. You know, this is earned, as
they keep saying and will probably keep saying, they stand
for too much. They don't have a lot of
scandals. They're good at fighting.
And that is the bedrock value of Westerosi society, being stout,
immovable, defensive, strong, and virtuous in a world of Aryan
Targaryens. They are the Sir Humphrey
Harding of houses. They just quietly kick ass and
don't back down, you know, keep, keep your nose clean.
If if someone brings you into a fight, fight it, but don't be
the one to start that fight. And they don't need to talk
loudly because their actions speak so loudly.
And they look cooler than House Harding.
Honestly, Purple's a royal color.
So is silver. They just, they're upscale.
I mean, diamonds are pretty upscale too.
But you know, I, I prefer the, I prefer the, the eagle sigil.
Even their men at arms are probably cooler looking than
most 'cause it's just a Marshall culture, right?
You want your, your warriors to be proud.
They want to feel, they want to be included.
They want to be part of that something that, that proud
tradition of defense, standing for something, standing for
justice, standing for good, standing against depredation,
standing against evil, right? Like that's something to be
proud of. So old stones, let's talk about
old stones. In ancient times, old stones
ruled over the Riverlands as the mud Kings.
Proximity means a lot amongst the nobility, right?
Just being nearby gives you FaceTime with Lords.
And. And that's why I bring this up
because when the Muds ruled the Riverlands, the Maoisters were
their neighbors. It's not the same as the
Maoister when the Tullys rule. The Maoisters aren't neighbors.
Or the Tullys. I mean they're not super far
away but I mean right next door the the adjacent sub region
there. I bet there were a lot of
marriages between Mallester and Mud Muddister and this cause and
and they would have a a relationship.
You'd think that would function pretty well 'cause the
Mallester's focus West on defending that border of the
Kingdom and the old stones, whatever its original name was.
We don't know what the name of the castle was.
The Muds could focus on administering the Riverlands.
They they turn their focus E Mallester's West together.
That works pretty well. You're right, it's aggressive
defense. Offense is not the best defense
in their minds. Just hold it to the it's like
protection but not the mafia style protection.
But they would get reward and acclaim and high status and high
standing in this Kingdom of the Muds because of their role,
which in those days was a lot more important because the
Ironborn were their own Kingdom. You know how they were.
They would like, that's their goal, to inflict this harm, to
do the old way. And the the more powerful the
foe they defeat, the more proud they are.
And that's, that's the Mausers. That's who they want to knock
off the top. So I think that could have been
a very powerful relationship, a very good working relationship
between the Muds and the Mausers. 1 protects the
shorelines, the other rules the rest.
How's Justman? Well, that's who came along
after the Muds, when the Muds fell after the Christopher and
as we heard from Rob and Catlin when they were at his sepulchre,
there was a 30 year campaign by Benedict Rivers, who was a
Westeros's Romeo and Juliet love child because his mom and dad
were a Bracken and Blackwood and they were, he was a bastard.
They weren't married so, but this was a really capable guy.
He formed a 300 year dynasty that ruled over the Riverlands.
Now, just like under the Muds, the Ironborn are going to keep
doing their thing. There's no reason for them to do
ACT differently here. They're going to keep raiding
the coasts up and down and trying to carve out holdings or
conquer more of the mainland or not just doing their thing.
You know, they were there, which depending on which Ironborn
King's in charge at that time. Either way, the Maosters would
have to stay focused. So if the some sort of internal
conflict is happening, not only can they not afford to get
involved, not only do they not want to get involved because
these things have a way of snowballing and of moving beyond
a single generation. Bracken and Black was the most
extreme example. But like they want to do
anything they can to avoid that sort of long term entanglement.
Because what would they have learned after thousands of years
of defending against the Ironborn?
They would know a lot. They're rather experienced in
this. They know when the Ironborn like
to attack. They know the types of
opportunities that the Ironborn like to seize on, and a very
obvious one is civil conflict. If the Riverlands is fighting
itself, the Ironborn are like, yes, let's do that.
And that's the time when the Maoisters might be most needed
to join the civil conflict. That's the time where they have
to be strong and firm and say no, because if we join this war,
the Ironborn will attack. And that's worse than whatever
the outcome of this war is probably going to be.
So we're going to stay here with most of our soldiers and you
guys know, we're not just saying that you know it's true.
Like it would be an easy excuse to make and maybe a few malice
or Lords have used that excuse when it wasn't really true.
But for the most part, it's a fact that if you send your
soldiers inland to deal with other things happening, the
Ironborn will take note and seize that opportunity and
attack. And before you know it, they'll
have run off with a bunch of effectively slaves, right.
You know, that's not what that. And that's what I'm saying.
These men, these defenders of Sea Guard have something to be
proud of is that's the fate they're saving people from.
It isn't just loss of property. And loss of property can be the
difference between life of life and death.
Like what if they burn your fishing boat?
That's it. What do you do for a living Now?
What if? But what if they carry off your
wife or your daughter or both? I mean, yeah, these are things
that people really need, really don't want that happening.
So, and in fact, this is proven almost this, this point about
the malice for saying, no, we're not getting involved.
We got to be vigilant here. It was the Ironborn who ended
the Justman line after all that. Even after this wariness, it was
still the Ironborn who brought it all to brought it all to an
end, a bloody end. A large battle between the two
kingdoms, between the Ironborn and the Justman kingdoms
resulted in defeat for King Bernard the 2nd.
And he had to send his sons, all of them, to Pike as hostages.
Yeah, it didn't go well. King Cored Horror murdered them
afterwards. And King Bernard launched A
hopeless like, he was just like late with his taxes, like a
little bit. And so he just killed all of us.
It was really like, whoa, that is really heavy-handed.
And King Bernard launched a campaign of revenge, which was
referred to as hopeless. And indeed, it was he, but he
didn't give up. He couldn't go.
He couldn't give up. He was just too distraught in
grief. And his Kingdom went with him.
The maleisters probably saw it coming.
They're like well this guy is going to attack the Ironborn on
their own shores. Like or attack them when we're
under manned. They would know as well as
anyone how hopeless that was. But they're also honor bound to
fight till the end. This is what Tywin Lannister
predicted in the War of 5 Kings that the the maleisters wouldn't
be a big problem because they lack the strength to be of huge
issue for the Lannisters on their own, but they wouldn't
give up easily because of honor. So this is the Tywin was is very
good about that, about knowing how each Lord is going to react
to certain. One of the few times he was
wrong was Robb Stark, and he was wrong several times.
But in general, he knows these Lords quite well and is able to
predict their actions. Sometimes it's very easy like,
well, Lord Frey is not going to join that guy only joins when
he's winning. Easy call Mallister similar.
It was similar for him. Like, yeah, Jason Mallister's
not going to give up easily, but he's not stupid either.
And that was pretty much right. So it was a gruesome end to the
Justman Kingdom, and it became gruesome afterwards too, because
the Ironborn, without a contiguous solid Kingdom and
just sort of a bit of anarchy in the Riverlands, that's exactly
the state of affairs where the Ironborn most thrive.
Now, what happened 100 years later was hell, House Teague
made themselves kings of the river lands.
But like I said, it was still anarchic because they weren't
able to have full control and they were constantly putting
down rebellions or fighting to regain this or that.
It was never very well held. And that of course, meant plenty
of Ironborn opportunities. As I said, the Mallisters may
have just kind of sat back through all that because again,
well, we're defending against the Ironborn and they're rather
active. And during this time there was a
final battle called the Battle of 6 Kings, which was the end of
House Teague's pretensions for the Kingdom and end of House
Teague in general. It was also a moment of
opportunity for Blackwood to regain the high seat.
They lost that too. The Mauser don't seem to have
been involved in any of this, which is a good part of my basis
for the continued strategy of them to staying out of things
like this, but there was certainly a change.
Regardless, all this anarchy did resolve in the Storm Kings
moving in. Yes, House Durandan were now the
overlords of all the Riverlands. At least it wasn't Ironborn.
The Mousers would have really hated that.
In fact, they might not have even cared that much that they
were ruled from Storm's End rather than old stones.
Or we don't actually know where the Justman Castle was or the
Tegues or anything like that. It's, I mean, they're nightly,
they've worshiped the Seven. It might not have been such a
bad thing. And Sea Guard is really far from
Storm's End. It's the extreme West of the
Riverlands and Storm's End is in the extreme east of the
Stormland. So that might have been a decent
situation for them. They might not have been asked
for much. They might not have the Storm
Kings might not have pushed much on them because of the
difficulty in bringing them to heal.
If they were a problem. Also, they would be like, yeah,
you guys just keep taking care of this Ironborn.
That's just keep doing that. We're we're cool with that.
The Stormlands would get it too. I mean, they don't live over
there, but they've got their own coasts.
The Narrow Sea is full of pirates and slavers.
So yeah, they're not, they would understand even if they don't
deal with iron more directly, they deal with their ilk.
So yeah. Now this is something we
discussed in the context of our Fray history episode as well,
because it was during the rain of the Storm Kings in the
Riverlands when the frays first appeared.
And the frays are important here because they are as soon as they
appeared, they became the closest lordly neighbor to the
malasters, at least as far as major houses go.
So let's go talk about that. The phrase and the crossing.
It's a neighbor of consequences, right?
Whereas before the area was kind of loosely governed, lesser
nobility, most, like we said, it was probably just kind of
sometimes the Mousers collected taxes from the peasants there,
maybe other people dead, but it was just kind of far out there,
kind of ungoverned. I don't know.
The phrase took over the area, made it into something.
Of course, at first it was just two wooden tower houses and a
wooden bridge. No big deal, not they're not
very powerful. Our at the time, we theorized
that maybe the phrase were originally a house from the
Stormlands because it was a storm.
Kings were ruling the area at the time and they might want to
put one of their own in place. And Sea Guard might have even
liked it because, hey, they put a bridge over that.
Maybe they use that bridge where the Sea Guard's like, hey, we
get more. We get more goods coming
through. It's easier for us to order
supplies. And we're we're more connected
to the rest of the Kingdom this way.
That might be that might have been a positive.
They might have even paid. They may have been very willing
to pay the toll quite often. Like, yeah, you guys are doing a
good job here because, again, they're not looking for trouble.
And the phrase aren't what the phrase are now the early, early
phrase. Yeah.
OK. These guys built a bridge.
That's cool, right? What's what's wrong with that?
Maybe as the phrase gained more power and maybe the maybe things
became more touchy later as they started to enforce their own
borders and maybe border disputes between Frey and mouse
or started to become a thing. I doubt it was ever that bad
because again, even the phrase aren't dumb enough to pick on
the mouse. There's like who who fights a
house that's all about fighting, you know?
You just don't do that lightly. Definitely dummies at the top
who make that call, but they aren't going to be super common
either. The eagles in shame.
Yeah, I said when the Storm Kings ruled the Riverlands.
At least it wasn't the Ironborn. But that did happen afterwards.
Right? After 300 years of Stormlands
rule, Harwin Hard Hand, King of the Iron Isles, landed his fleet
of long ships only 40 leagues South of Sea Guard.
I wonder if that was just too big for them to handle, or maybe
they had grown slack, or I don't know.
I doubt they could have stopped it in any case 'cause this is a
whole fleet this isn't. I don't think Seaguard could
handle that by themselves. This is a guy who came in force
to conquer the whole Riverlands, so that does definitely implies
a big army. He did win.
He pushed out Storm King Ark Durandan.
And how bad is this? That's why I say this is the
Eagles in shame. There's a century of blood
right? That came the year after the
Doom. This is a century of shame for
the Maosters. What's worse than being an anti
Ironborn house? Your entire existence is built
on that and you're ruled by the Ironborn.
Terrible, right? And it was a century long.
That's why I call it that. So it must have been excessive.
The depredations, they probably felt, they probably faced all
sorts of insults, mockery. You can just hear the jeering of
an Ironborn Lord or a group of them below the above the rest,
calling them below the rest as they were drowned, you know,
drowning a mouse holding his head underwater, as you say,
below the rest. Yeah.
It writes itself, doesn't it? We're told Harwin spent most of
his reign putting down rebellions.
I mean, go figure. The Riverlands didn't want to be
ruled from Pike, and the Maoisters were probably a big
part of that, both in the rabble rousing and in the actual
fighting. They were probably watched.
I mean it doesn't doesn't take a genius to know that the anti
ironborn house is probably going to be a problem for you as an
ironborn king. It's almost a maybe it's even a
miracle that they survived, that they weren't made extinct.
Might maybe just because it would have been too much of a
problem to do that it would have been too difficult.
And maybe it would have been something they eventually did.
Obviously Harwin, not him, because his descendants didn't
do it either. But maybe if Herron the Black
hadn't been knocked off the top, maybe if they had been able to
establish themselves after Herrenhall, he would have taken
a step like that. But Nope, the kings of the black
line, the horror kings, they didn't re establish the old way.
It was kind of a new way, but not that different from what the
Maoisters were fighting against. It was still it's still being
ruled by the very people they pledged to defeat.
Their entire existence is about so it's it's like a permanent
state of defeat and shame. It also did mean an end to their
purpose, right? They Sir Eustace Osgre example
comes back once again. Who are you supposed to fight
against when you have no enemy anymore?
It's worse when your enemy is 1 and rules you though that then
they're legally allowed to do the things they're doing to you.
Yeah, legally in quotes, right. So, but, and but I'm not, can't
go too far with that because, well, the Ironborn, not they,
they rule you. So there is something to fight,
right? It's it's, they're not gone.
Your purpose, in fact, maybe even is even higher now.
Not just defending against them. It's getting them out.
You lost time to make good on that time to reverse that
situation. Real a real tough timeline for
them to stomach a real test of their virtues.
It's it's, it's good that they made it out OK from all that.
I bet it's literally the worst century in Mao's history.
You know, like there might be a special section of their records
where like the that's these books are locked down.
You know, they don't necessarily want a lot of people reading
that stuff, but when the chance so when the chance came to end
it all, when there was finally a real movement towards
overthrowing the black line, they were very ready to help.
Eagles under the Dragons, the Malasters rose with the Tullies
to fight against Heron. They were second after the
Blackwoods in terms of the role of houses mentioned.
They were ready to help. Of course they were very ready
to help. Now it's just a the order that
they're listed doesn't necessarily mean anything, but
they're still they're mentioned prominently.
I doubt anyone even had to ask. It was like, yeah, the Malusters
are going to help us for that. What for sure, We don't even
have to send a message. Just let it just tell them we're
about to go to war with the with the Ironborn and they'll be
ready. And Herron was deeply unpopular
Despite that. Like he could have been from the
Riverlands and everybody would have hated him anyway, but it
was worse because he was an Ironborn worshipping the Drowned
God. So Egg and the Conqueror shows
up, burns Harrenhal. Like I said, the Tullys and the
Malusters and all the others join quickly.
And then Aegon went to the Iron Isles as well, brought Blairin
with him, showed them what they were up against, made a
demonstration, burned a few things that hey, you guys want
to cause problems, well, you're going to have to deal with this
and you can't deal with this. Despite the Ironborn penchant
for self ruin, they were not foolish about this.
They saw Blairin and were like, yeah, even we aren't stupid
enough to go up against that. So the old way didn't die, it
just became more exclusive. It became harder, right?
Because to Raven raid and loot and gain glory, you could still
do that. You just couldn't do it in
Westeros anymore. You had to sail all the way to
the Step Stones, or to Sothorios or the Basilisk Isles, or even
farther. That's harder to do that.
Just the journey alone might kill you.
So it takes a braver, bolder Ironborn.
And the ones who do that and succeed are all the harder to
kill, all the more difficult, all the more experienced.
And while that's happening, whilst this new class of
exclusive, more elite Ironborn are out there making themselves
great at fighting Sea Guard, I mean, they're training, they're
maintaining their vigilance, but they're not actually fighting
real opponents. That's like that's probably made
some Lords of Sea Guard a little nervous.
It's like our guys aren't being tested other than the things we
can do with training here. Whereas their Ironborn Raiders
are going out there and fighting all over the world and gaining
acclaim and confidence. And I don't like that, you know,
they're more seasoned than we are as it's not a good state of
affairs there. Even though the Ironborn were
held in check by the Dragons, Mallister is looking back.
But like, well, this is thousands of years we had to
fight the Ironborn are is this really the end of that?
Is it really gone forever? Are we really not going to see
them as a problem? Of course they're not going to
think that way. They're like, Nah, as long as
the Ironborn still exists, they could attack.
And that's the right attitude. That is the right.
That is the way the Ironborn think.
And really, how can they count on the Dragons when Dagan
Greyjoy came around? No, I mean, the Dragons were
dead by then, but the Targaryens didn't even do anything at
first. So, like, there'd be a lot of
reasons to think, yeah, this new king on the Iron Throne, are
they really going to come to our aid if the Iron Born do their
thing? I don't think they believed
that. I think they're like, no, we're
going to have to continue to do what we do.
We can't count on the Iron Throne.
Who knows about these Targaryens.
Like what? Magor the Cruel, when he became
king, did they really count on that?
We're like, Dad, we can count on him.
Amys, maybe even less, right? I don't know.
Joharis, maybe. Yeah.
That one they might have felt comfortable with.
In fact, there's a maester on record as complimenting Joharis.
It's like, this guy is going to be a good king.
But other than that, I don't know.
Like a lot of just no, we're on our own here, and we can't rely
on other people. That's how they've always been.
That's how they're going to keep it.
So tradition carries forward. And as much as we talked about
civil conflict within Westeros or within the Riverlands being a
reason for the Maoisters to say, actually, this is the time that
we most need to not get involved because again, when everyone's
fighting, the Ironborn take their shot.
That's just as true when you're looking at Westeros as a whole.
It doesn't have to be just the Riverlands.
So whenever the Iron Throne has civil conflict, the Mousers have
a tough decision. Eagles can dance, too.
A certain Lord Lyman Mallester defeated Kristen Cole in the
same tourney where Kristen beat Damon in that famous Maiden pool
melee. So quite a win for Lord Lyman
here. And of course, war came to the
Riverlands during the Dance, as it so often does.
It's the heart of the river, heart of the Westeros.
The Riverlands is the center. The Mallesters are, as usual,
somewhat drawn in. But because they're not in the
center of the center, they're off on the West Coast.
There, they can sort of stay out of it.
They. They can limited engagement.
They did rise for Rainier. They were blacks.
And of course, who would have been less surprised than them
that the red Kraken took his chance during the Dance of the
Dragons? They've been like, oh, yeah,
obviously that happened. Yeah.
But what could they do about it? He wasn't attacking them.
He attacked the West. He attacked the Lannisters.
So they're like, all right, well, good luck, y'all.
We don't want you to lose, but you're our enemy in the Dance.
So we kind of do want you to lose.
Just maybe just you guys hurt each other.
Maybe no one wins and you'd both just lose.
Yeah. So a Lord, a certain Lord Jorah
Mallister brought his men, probably not all of them, given
what we keep talking about, to the Riverlands, the center where
they fought in the final battle of the Dance, the Muddy Mess,
AKA the Battle of the Kings Rd. That's where Lord Boros
Baratheon led his men bravely despite the odds against them.
Despite his forcibly conscripted Crown lands host turning on him
from behind, he didn't give up. He decided to go down fighting
and before he died he took on Lord Jora Mallister and won.
Unfortunately for Lord Jora Mallister, he was slain by Lord
Boros. Lord Boros also killed Lord
Derry and a bunch of other Knights.
Probably some of probably some Balusters men were among those
other Knights. I doubt just the Lord of Sea
Guard falls and no other men of Sea Guard try to do anything
about it. You know, they would be want to
get an answer. They would want to get Lord
Boros for doing that or at least kill some other Baratheons.
So not a lot of detail there, but it would have been, well, it
was a muddy mess. Lord Kermit Tully avenged them
both in the end, right? He's the one who actually killed
Lord Boros. And I guess he would have
attended the funerals of of both Lord Derry and Lord Mallister
there, which we'll see the reverse of that cause.
Lord Jason is one of the seven chosen at Hoster Tuller's
funeral. And Speaking of, I wonder what
Maoster funeral customs are like.
Maybe they're buried up on the Cape of Eagles, you know,
somewhere up high above the rest, right.
That would, that would make sense.
A sky burial of sorts. They get, you know, a flock of
eagles to pick the body up and fly it to the highest peak.
It's really something to to see. I pictured a Flock of Seagulls
and you said that, you know, like with those with those
outfits, like the band, a bunch of dudes dressed up like that.
Carry off the Lord. Yes, it's very, it's very
upscale, very, very noble. Not that it has anything to do
with the mousters, but one last bit about the Dance of the
Dragons. The aerial acrobatics of
Tessarian and Sea smoke are described like the flight of
eagles. Whereas when the larger Dragons
like Vegar are fighting in the air, it's it's nothing like
that. They're not nearly as
maneuvable. They're like big turn slowly,
the last Reaver during the reign of King Aries the first on the
heels of the Great Spring Sickness and the drought.
And of course, let's not forget the continuing lack of Dragons
in this era. The Ironborn had another
opening, particularly large opening because of all the above
that I just listed. And the king was kind of LAX in
Aries the First. He was very bookish.
And because the Lord Reaper of the time was this guy, Dagan
Grazer was very capable, very smart.
We have Bloodraven as hand to the king, who's a lot more
concerned with the east, what bitter steel is doing.
And so this problem got left undealt with.
Now Sea Guard defends its own shores.
It doesn't. As we said, they're too busy
with that to go defending other people's shores.
It strikes me that not all the Lords of Pike are dumb enough to
just go, hey, let's fight Sea Guard.
Let's go fight the people that are designed to fight us.
Like that's their whole purpose of existing and fight them on
their terms. Like that's suicidal.
That said, it's what a lot of Lords of Pike have done.
We've got a great example coming later.
Still. Dagan was actually successful
for a long time. So given his success, I have to
think that he probably wasn't doing the dumb things that
Ironborn do sometimes and how they pick their targets.
So he may have been smart by just avoiding Sea Guard
altogether. Just picking on the Lannisters,
maybe the Reach. In fact, we're told that the
direwolf and lion's tails were tied in knots.
So he also was a menace to the starch.
We know that for sure because at least one Lord Stark died
fighting them. That's Baron.
So this would have been a thing the Mallisters were at least
concerned with, if not something they were actively trying to
work on. Maybe they're maybe they were
among those petitioning the throne to take a greater
interest in this. A Mallister represented the Lord
of Secar may go all the way to the Red Keep to be like hey
Bloodraven, we'll do The Dirty work, just send us some extra
ships and men, we'll lead the assault or whatever needs to be
done. But this Dagon has got to be
stopped now. We're not sure how Dagon was
actually stopped. This is something George has
kept close to the chest. We believe that Makar likely had
something to do with it, but the Maoisters very likely did too.
Like if you're going to go fight the Ironborn near their own
territory, doesn't it make like 1000% chance to involve the
House? That would be just champing and
chomping at the bit to get out. Like the bit, whatever beak,
whatever bit an eagle wears, that's they're chewing through
that thing ready. I mean, that's why Seaguard
exists, to fight against men like Dagan Greyjoy.
So I think it would be is likely to assume they were involved.
And if Makar didn't include them, then you're silly.
Makar, what you doing now? Here's an example from the other
side of the coin. However, as much as Dagan
Greyjoy was a huge menace, a foe to all who are not Ironborn, we
have a tragic friendship that we're not sure when this
happened. It definitely happened during
the Iron Throne era. It's not pre Aegon's Conquest
because it's Lord Laurent Greyjoy called Laurent the Bard,
not your typical Lord Greyjoy the Bard.
Yeah. I mean they do like their
reaving songs, but it's not usually like the the Lord who's
the guy making the songs, right? It's some scald or poet or
whatever. And I know they don't use the
term scald, but it's the equivalent, right?
But we know that they love reaving songs like what's his
face, cleft jaws, a big fan, for example.
But he was friends. And I put the section is a
tragic dot dot dot friendship because there's maybe some
implications here beyond friendship.
Lauren Greyjoy the Bard friends with Sir Desmond Mallester.
Huh. Now, earlier I mentioned the
Romeo and Juliet aspect of Benedict Justman's parentage.
This sounds similar, possibly including the romantic part.
Obviously it's not a Romeo and Juliet.
I mean more like Romeo and Romeo, but great friends, when
it's in the historical context written by academics, is often
code for a romantic relationship.
George knows this. That said, it is not a
guarantee. Would it?
That doesn't mean they were lovers.
It's just on the table is a strong possibility.
And part of the reason I think this way is besides these clues
is the subtext is would it really be tragic if they were
friends? I mean, it might be a problem,
it might cause friction, but tragic.
I mean, maybe if they had to fight each other I could see it.
Can be a friendship that is is is thrust against each other
just like it could be family, you know?
Yeah, but. Why would if he's the Lord, why
would he have to attack? You know what I mean?
Yeah, I think it's just more fun.
It's more interesting, it's more meaningful for them to have been
lovers. It's different, yeah, but.
It's still like 2 two friends thrust apart from each other.
Is is certainly tragic and meaningful.
Yeah, and exactly what we might be faced with when it comes to
Theon and Patrick Mauster. Theon and Patrick Mauster are
buddies. There's no there's no romantic
relationship there. They're not banging.
In fact, they go off and sleep with women together.
So they're not banging yet. Yeah, so maybe they would have
got they're like, you know, why don't we need a woman?
Why don't we just we don't need a third.
Let's just see what's up here. Yeah, so, so definitely doesn't
have to be that. Like, there's definitely other
things on the table here. But yeah, if they were more than
friends, if they were, if they did have a romantic
relationship, what they should have done is the Carl the maid
plan. Carl the maid suggested to OSHA
like, screw this Westeros. We our relationship is a problem
for other people. Let's just leave.
Let's go to Essos. We can go over there where our
our relationship would be accepted, if not tolerated at
the very least, you know, and these are people with means like
we got Sir Desmond Mallister and Lord Lauren Greyjoy.
These guys aren't broke. I guess it just wasn't meant to
be. But maybe one day we'll hear
what the real tragedy behind that was.
Pretty compelling idea if you are someone who is willing
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History of westeros.com, that's where it's at.
Dornish Dave says lots of transferable skills.
Defending Sea Guard to defending the Wall.
Yes, absolutely. Maybe part of why Dennis joined.
Also yes, I I grief completely. Equating the Ironborn with
wildlings would definitely contribute to how Dennis sees
Cotter Pike. Also yes.
And by the way, I agree with calling them wildlings when
they're Raiders trying to steal. That's where I've landed.
If they're just if we're just talking about them as a whole,
they're the free folk. But if we're talking about them
in the context of stealing people, then they're wild things
because they're Raiders. And I'm not going to give them.
I'm going to be nice about that group of that subset of them,
because those are the bad ones anyway, even if that's even if
some of them are decent folk. Besides that, without behavior,
not good. Real quick, the name Jason.
It's worth a very quick discussion.
George prefers to, you know, one letter switch, right?
It is often how he tweaks a name, but some of them he
doesn't tweak at all. You know, Jason, there's several
Jason's, Joanna Lannister's father, Jason, and the Lord of
Castle, the Rock during part of the Dance.
And yeah, like Joanne is another example.
That name is spelled the same way as it's spelled in the real
world. Obviously there's other examples
like Joffrey instead of Jeffrey. I guess Joffrey kind of is a
real name too, but maybe that's not the best example.
But it is an example of one that's slightly different.
I think having him named Jason and they're being Lannisters
named Jason also like emphasizes the pride and arrogance and
status of of the Malnisters. Lannister and Malister, very
similar names. Yeah, I'm just like, yeah, Jason
is is a proud and a strong name. Yeah, absolutely.
In our Greek Game of Thrones series, there's a very important
character named Jason Fierai. Fierai for the straight guy, as
I call him, and. And Fierai's in Thessaly and
he's named after Jason of Argonauts fame, who was also
from Thessaly. All right, a minute on actual
eagles here. They are hardcore.
Real eagles are really hardcore, man.
A lot of species of eagle just lay 1 egg, but some of them lay
multiple eggs. And what happens is the larger
chick just kills the other one and the parents watch it.
They just let it happen. Like, yeah, well, that's how
it's got to be. We've only got room for one.
Also, eagles are the only species that has No Fear of
other avian predators. And the way biologists and avian
avian specialists. I don't know, I've noticed this
is B is via OK. Even birds of prey that strike,
they they do their attack, they, they plummet, fall real fast,
hit their target. Even birds that do that look
behind them. They make sure no one's coming.
They look back like anyone coming to get me as I'm doing
this is someone striking me as I'm striking them.
It's like a instinct. Eagles don't do that.
They're just so not worried about it.
They're like, no one's going to do that.
We're the biggest. No bird of prey attacks us.
We are the, we are the alpha. We are above the rest.
Danny would like that. Eagles don't look back.
They might have Dragons. We're around Dragons is a world
with Dragons. They might be like, OK, there is
something out there that's a problem.
Yeah. Apart from that, eagles are
rather important in John's story, right?
And John's versus Orrell and Orrell hating and John even
after he's dead and all that. Yeah.
Eagles are also associated with sphinxes in the story of a song
wise. And in real life, eagles, eagles
wings are what tends to be the wings on a sphinx rather than
even in Westeros, Right. You think it might be Dragon's
wings, but no, it's eagle's wings.
Which might mean for real that Valyrian blood mages included
eagles in their experimentation with hybrid species, right?
I mean, if you can combine wyverns, wyverns, and fireworms
to make Dragons. Well, if you're making combining
Dragons and lions and eagles to make sphinxes or what have you.
If you've done the first, the second doesn't seem like a
stretch anymore. Of course, being eagle wings
also points to eagles proliferating somewhat in Essos,
right? That's true.
And and that's, that tracks with the real world.
Eagles are, like I said, eagles are very kind of a generic term
that is sometimes misused. It doesn't matter.
We're not getting that deep into it, but it's misused in part
because there's so many species that get thrown into the eagle
category because there's so many around the world.
And arguably bald eagles, the symbol of America, aren't
actually eagles. Some people consider them not
true eagles, but we're not getting into that.
Maybe the maisters would get into that sort of thing.
What is and isn't a true eagle? But we don't have time for that.
Let's instead delve into the Chronicles of A Song of Ice and
Fire as they pertain to House Malester in order to set up what
we think is coming. First, the character who
straddles the line between history and A Song of Ice and
Fire relevance. Jeffrey Malester.
Does that name ring a bell to y'all?
Or you're like, wait, who's Jeffrey Mills?
That was one of Brandon Stark's companions who rode to the Red
Keep demanding Liana, only to beat, well, demanding Rhaegar
come out and die, actually, only to be executed.
So this Jeffrey might have been Patrick's older brother.
Nina and I talked it out. We think it's more likely
Jason's younger brother than Patrick's older brother.
And he may have. But this Jeffrey may have been
heir at the time. It may have been before Patrick
was born, before Jason had any children.
And that tracks with who Brandon's companions were.
They were mostly heirs. Like he was the heir.
Elbert Aaron was the heir to the Ari, right?
So yeah, that was just kind of his his gang there.
So this would have been around 282 when Jeffrey Malicer was
killed by the Mad King. And of course, Robert Rebellion
broke out shortly afterwards. This is a house that might not
have easily risen against House Targaryen, right?
Because, well, they, they stay out of things.
As we said, they still probably would have because their Liege
Lord did. And that, that is even more of a
consideration. And in these times maybe there's
less worry about the Ironborn. I don't know if they would have
actually made that decision because Baylon had tried to
rebel 10 years prior. And guess what, he did it again.
They, well no actually back up. Baylon hadn't rebelled yet.
This is Robert's Rebellion, he would be rebelling in about 8
years. I'm sure the malice were still
even wary at that point. And of course they he tries
again during the Song of Ice and Fire.
Anyway, all that aside, it doesn't matter what the
Malusters would have done without this provocation.
There was this provocation. A maluster was murdered.
That is not your normal hey we can stay out of it type
situation. Not not to mention Brandon was
murdered too like his friend. They were buddies.
Like this is a big provocation and the Malusters were probably
among those who believed like Brandon did that Rhaegar
kidnapped Leona rather than enlopement.
So this is multiple infractions by the Iron Throne against them
and their closest friends and allies.
So there's really not much question that they're going to
get involved, even with their attitude of trying to hang back
when possible or when it's prudent.
Lord Jason himself. All right, let's focus on him a
bit. He's been quite a part of the
episode, but let's take a little microscope here and take a look.
He became Lord somewhere around the year 278, roughly around the
defiance of Duskindale. Just after that, he was at the
double wedding of Catlin and Lysa when just before the war
broke out and when all the arrangements were being made for
who the allies would be. He gave Catlin remembers lavish
gifts from the Malesters from Jason specifically.
She also remembers him Jason joking with Blackfish, which
should we consider Sea Guard as a possible place for Blackfish
to go seek refuge? More on that in a bit and and
the answer in my mind is absolutely possible, yes.
But going back to this timeline, right around the rebellion,
Robert Trebani and how deeply was he connected to the Great
Northern Conspiracy, if such a thing happened or whatever you
want to call it, whatever there was some kind of conspiracy.
We don't know exactly what it involved or what the plans were,
but we do know that there was an alliance of North and Riverlands
and other Lords that were concerned about what was going
on in the Iron Throne. So I imagine they were pretty
confident in his help and his being solid and being who he is.
But I don't know how deeply he was involved in any planning or
plotting. It's more like a guy like, yeah,
when things break out, we can count on him, but let's not
bring him into the let's not bring him into the cellar to
discuss the plot because that's maybe that's not his bag.
So Callan notices how proud and fearless and strong he looks and
remembers that he is quite accomplished in battle.
Imagine when he was in his prime, which is around this time
during the Robert Rebellion. He already had tournament wins
to his name and a bunch of deep runs like he lost to Barristan.
It really deep in a tournament once he lost to Jora
Atlantisport, the one that Jora won, the really famous one.
Jora won when he quote UN quote won Lyness Hightower alongside
his wreath. Yeah, it was Jason was one of
the people he beat there and that was a notable name amongst
the notable names he defeated. He was like, oh, he beat Lord
Jason Mallister. That's a big one.
He didn't. He'd be a lot of big names, that
being one of them. So except De Bourdain tells
Sansa that Lord Jason killed 3 of Rhaegar's bannerman on the
Trident, which implies that the Battle of the Trident he killed
three different. Well bannerman has is kind of a
loose term. Like does he mean the Lord of a
certain crown of Crownland's houses, Lords of the Narrow Sea
houses that were sworn to Dragonstone, or just Knights
that were in Rhaegar's service? It's because the term is like I
said, it gets to use a little. Either way though, that is
badass. And he he's going to cut a
striking figure in the battlefield with his eagle
winged helm and his purple and silver, cutting down whoever's
in his way. This is a dangerous dude.
He nothing nothing is speaks like skill, and he's clearly
that. Honestly, I'll be a little
disappointed if we don't get to see him in action.
You know, this is a guy. He's he's he's ever since the
early parts of the first book, it's like this guy's a secret
badass. This guy has accomplished.
He's just waiting to unleash his sword on somebody, you know?
Will he fight against one of the other claimants?
Will he fight Lannisters? Will he fight Ironborn?
Maybe he'll go North. Maybe he'll fight at Winterfell.
That's not the kind of character I would have been included in
the TV version of this. But why do we care about that?
It doesn't tell us anything about the book.
Not this, anyway. Other plot line, maybe not this,
definitely not Malice were pretty much not on the TV show
at all. So I think that's an entirely
possible outcome that he will he will go north either to go to
the wall or to Winterfell to help fight the worst invaders of
all of all. Right, something one of the few
things that's worse than Ironborn is undead.
But we're still not there yet. Before current times, there was
another major event that Sea Guard would have been very
involved with, which is Bailon's rebellion.
Now, earlier I said, hey, a lot of Lords of Pike, you're smart
enough to just not fight the Malusters.
Why do that? You can gain glory and loot and
acclaim and the Iron price by fighting the Lannisters or just
people who aren't literally dedicated to fighting you, you
know. But we also pointed out that
some Lords of Pike really did want to do that.
They must really hate the Malusters.
They want to prove that Malusters are weak.
They want to strike at them and say, hey, look, if if then we
can kill the Malusters, we can defeat the Malusters.
Everyone's going to be afraid of us because the the house that is
designed to beat us couldn't beat us.
Everyone's going to be afraid of us.
I think that may be what was what Baylin was thinking because
he did go right at Sea guard. Well, he sent his son right at
sea guard kind of aiming. We'll do what Aegon the
Conqueror did like a reverse, you know, beat up the biggest
guy in prison as soon as you get there kind of thing.
Aegon didn't pick off the smaller king as he went right at
Heron, the big one, the partly because he was also hated and he
knew people would join him to do it, which is not the case for
Baylin. Baylin is not going to get help,
but Baylin did think that others wouldn't get help.
His plan was, hey, I don't think Robert has a lockdown on this
country yet. So I've here's my opportunity.
He was wrong, but you can kind of get the thinking because it's
the kind of things Ironborn look for.
That's the kind of opportunity they're looking for.
He was a little ahead of himself on that.
So Bailon was banking on that and he said he burned the iron
fleeted anchor. That was Euron's idea.
And then he immediately sent his heir, Roderick Greyjoy, with a
fleet to attack Sea Guard. And they tried to storm Sea
Guard and they got part of the way in.
I think that their initial efforts were a success.
They got inside the castle. So it it, it had some, it had a
chance of succeeding. Maybe the bell rang.
That was the one time that the bell had rang in 300 years.
Lord Jason reminded Patrick not to get too close to Theon.
Remember we talked about that and this is that moment.
This is then Theon and Patrick discussing it afterwards about
why. Hey son, Mallister Greyjoy, this
isn't a good look for us. You being friends with him.
I don't know about that man. And here, here's Patrick and
Theon discussing what Lord Jason said to him.
Never mind that the bell has been rung just once in 300
years, Patrick had told Theon the day after as he shared his
father's cautions and a jug of green apple wine.
Green apple wine. Yeah, right.
Believe that when my brother stormed Seaguard.
Theon said Lord Jason had slain Roderick Greyjoy under the walls
of the castle and thrown the Iron Men back into the Bay.
If your father supposes I bear him some enmity for that, it's
only because he never knew Roderick to the castle.
He slew them under the walls of the castle.
So, yeah, they didn't quite get that far.
And which reminds us of my original point, which this was
kind of dumb. It was bold.
I mean, if it had worked, it really would have sent a
message. But I don't think it had a very
good chance of succeeding, and it doesn't look like it did.
Jason killed Rodrick personally. Again, nice.
Like, well done. Like that's like that's his job,
it's what they're the Mousers are supposed to do.
He took the lead, he killed their leader and that seemed to
end it. Like as soon as Roderick was
killed, the attack stopped. Apparently they fled back to
their ships and back to Pike. And with the bad news for Lord
Balon. Sorry bro, sorry Lord Greyjoy.
I mean King, if that's what you want to call yourself.
It's not going so well, but it feels like he was getting ahead
of himself. Why not gain elsewhere, destroy
things that are easy and then take on Sea Guard?
I think he just had a that too. He he was thinking of the the
reward and not the difficulty, which is Baylon's methods,
right? What was Baylon's long term plan
for capturing the North? Was he going to how was he going
to hold? That wasn't a very good plan,
was it? Asha had the right of it.
We're not going to hold on to that.
We're never going to keep the North.
It's too bloody full of northmen.
She said correct. You might have it for a while,
but you're not going to hold it. So yeah.
So this is this is Baylon. This is right in line with how
he thinks he goes for it all and bites off more than he can chew.
And and part of why I think it's a such a bad idea too is because
Segard wasn't a threat to his independence.
So he could strike it land as poor, strike a little other
places. Segard's not going to attack
him. Segard's only going to defend
against him. So he could have just ignored
them for a while or entirely. But again, that's why they say
Bailon is mad. You're on is madder.
He was. There's some of that evidence
that Bailon was mad. Yeah.
A true believer in the old way. Like, crush the enemies of the
old way, you know? So, you know, I think some
people, probably on his side, probably appreciated that
sentiment. But just, again, too much.
He aimed high, but you can't aim that high when someone who's
above the rest, they're too high.
Just too high. Repeating an earlier point, he
probably thought they had grown LAX since the bell hadn't rang
in almost 300 years. But he was wrong.
It was a misread. Lord Jason was personally very
ready. Among other things.
What a legendary moment, really. Like I told you earlier about
what kind of stories they would write down, what kind of Arc,
what the archives and the annals of malisters would have.
That one got added for sure. Lord Jason killing Roderick,
that is a classic legendary moment.
That is one that's gone down for all time.
So the glory that Bailon intended for himself and his
son, he gave it to Lord Jason. That's not what he wanted, but
that's what happened. Yep, and that was the end,
effectively of the rebellion, that once it started going bad,
it went bad, and Baylin was too stubborn to give up, so Maron
died in the collapse of the walls.
That was Theon's other brother. And like, yeah, Baylin should
have probably been to me before that.
We know that Robert got things together and they invaded Pyke.
We don't hear about the malisters there, but I would be
extremely surprised if they weren't part of the invasion.
Yeah, maybe Jorah got through the Wall 1st and then Thoros
Admir, but I bet some malasters were right there too.
While it's true the entire purpose of Sea Guard is to fight
Ironborn, it's not just the whole idea of Patrick and Theon
being friends. It's it's it's kind of unseemly,
right? Like in terms of noble society,
but also like if you're aiming high, talk about aiming high.
Laura Balon was aiming for the ultimate victory there.
The best thing that could ever happen for the world of Westeros
would be that if there really is long term peace between the
Ironborn and the Malusters, the Malusters could some of them
could rub off on the Iron Born, Maybe not the other way around
so much, but making them the more civilized people.
And that could start with something like this.
A friendship between the two Lords or the 2, two powerful
nobles of the two most powerful houses there.
Yeah, a military wind over Seaguard would be big.
But if we're looking ahead to a truly positive future, that's
the kind of thing you'd want. The rewards of peace, the things
that Asha talked about like this isn't something that's
completely out of nowhere. People in Lesteros have for have
looked at this possibility. It might seem pretty
unrealistic, but it isn't so unrealistic that it is out of
mind because it's like I said, Asha brought this up.
She's like, yeah, the rewards of peace, the words of friendship
with the northerners. He she's talking about the
Northerners, but it would be concept is the same.
Friendship with the Riverlanders is not that different.
The point is working together, benefiting, you know, everybody,
your sons grow up and get to marry and and have good lives,
you know, that kind of thing. And your what your daughters get
to have good husbands and and be are protected and they get to
have good lives too, etcetera. This is what Asher was pushing.
Obviously the Ironborn weren't weren't moved by that, but
plenty of people would have been plenty of non ironborn would
have like, yeah, that's that sounds great, and they would
have hoped the Ironborn go in that direction.
But you can also understand why Lord Jason would be very
pessimistic about that possibility.
We're like, bro, it's been like this thousands of years.
You really think it's going to change now?
Is it really that is this, is this moment in time really that
big of a change? The Iron Board are still right
there. They're still.
They're just as many of them. They still got their ships.
Yeah, they got this weird Euron guy.
But when Euron's gone, they're just going to be who they are
again. He's certainly not leading them
in a positive direction. So, yeah, I guess I hate to say
it, but I think I'm with Lord Jason here.
I just don't think that Theon is not the guy to reform the
Ironborn. And Patrick isn't necessarily
the the maluster that's going to stand tall on that either.
Now, these guys are, Yeah, they're Theon and and Patrick,
they hang out, they drink and they go off chasing women.
This is not that's not really who you look to for reform.
I don't think Theon's different now.
A lot has happened to him since his hanging outs with Patrick.
But yeah, honestly, for the the we talked earlier about Desmond
and Lord Lauren, the Bard, the malice or might be the person
who doesn't belong in the equation.
If we're looking for a parallel, it might be Theon's friendship
with Rob that was the tragedy there.
You know, like that was kind of a tragedy in a way more more for
Rob, but also for Theon. Theon feels extremely guilty
about what he did, and he's suffering in more ways than
guilt, too. Theon and Patrick as well.
Take us into the War of 5 Kings because this is when they were
riding together. They were fighting together at
this point. And that makes for some
interesting points here. The Whispering Wood and the
Battle of the Camps. After Rob splits his army at the
Twins, sends his infantry east towards the Green Fork and
dashes hard S with his cavalry to break the siege of River Run,
Lord Jason joins. Jason wasn't at the Twins.
He rides S to join them as they're heading in that
direction, and he has an immediate impact During the
Whispering Wood. He captures Lord Gowan
Westerling. Yeah.
Rob's wife's dead, he captured
Lord Guywin and Patrick Mallester is one of Rob's
personal guard at the Whispering Wood.
Now how perfect is that? Or how I mean the the house
that's known for defense, for guarding people.
Of course Patrick belongs when Rob's personal guard.
That's where a Mallester belongs, right?
I'm not sure where he was when Torin and Eddard Karstark was
slain by Jaime Lannister and the Hornwood kid, Darren Hornwood
was killed there too. Theon was there too.
And he didn't. He said I almost crossed swords
with the with the Kingslayer. Patrick, I guess he could have
said the same thing. I almost crossed swords.
He almost died then, because Patrick doesn't really.
I don't know. He doesn't really come off as
anything special warrior wise. Maybe he's better than he seems
and he was given this position, but I don't know.
He just maybe seems like he's not quite his father and that's
something to think about. Maybe Jason dies and if Patrick
becomes Lord Mallister, that could send them in a whole
different direction, a whole different trajectory.
But again, younger man, probably only like 17 or 18.
Theon's age, only a little bit older than Rob, who was 16.
So the fact that he's not a knight, you know, don't read too
much into that. Although Lord Sir Dennis
Maluster was a knight by 18. So Jason also fights in the
battle of the camps as well. It's a knight attack and they
attack and and caused great chaos.
No word if Lord Jason rode through that Lannister camp
making eagle sounds because that would have been pretty cool.
Like cutting people down, yelling like an eagle like a
madman. Doesn't really seem like
something he would do, but I picture it anyway.
Let's talk about the Kingdom of the North and how the Malusters
fit into that. After the initial battles and
the initial success, Lord Jason joined Rob's war council.
Seemed like it was a foregone to the conclusion that he would
belong there. Like, of course, this guy
belongs on the there's no question of his ability or a
seniority. He had little hesitation.
He was one of the first people to say, yeah, crown him crown
Rob He and he immediately called for a defensive posture as a
malice or would right. He's like, all right, let's
let's let's fortify the Riverlands, deny Tywin's
supplies and make things difficult for him that way
rather than direct confrontation, you know, but
that's not what they did. But that's that Lord Jason would
say that when it was time to send an envoy to Bailin Greyjoy,
Cat was like, send Jason, send Jason and Nah, Rob Syntheon
mistake. It would have been would have
been pretty interesting if that's who showed up.
It's like, yeah, the Mallister showed up to talk to you Bailin,
Like I don't want to talk to him.
So Theon actually went to Sea Guard with Lord Jason to take
ship to go to Sea Guard to go to Pike, which is part of why Lord
Jason wasn't there for some important things at the Battle
of the Fords. Lord Jason is back by then and
he is the commander of four of the defending of four of the
Fords and drives back all the attacks, kills Lord Fleming
Bracks in the process. Although arguably Fleming killed
himself by getting on a crappy raft in full armor and drowning.
Yeah, he he gets half credit for his own death there.
Next up, we have Lord Jason as one of the pallbearers, meaning
he was one of the seven Lords chosen to give Lord Hoster his
Tully River funeral, send off great honor for a Lord of the
Riverlands. And it seems again, like a lot
of other things, like of course, Jason's included in this.
There's just not a lot of other Lords of the Riverlands that
could there aren't 12 Lords in the Riverlands that are more
outstanding than him that have higher, more seniority or pride
or whatever or, or standing. They were former kings too.
So yeah. And let alone, you know, 7.
So he would have been subordinate to Lord Hoster for a
long time. Hoster was Lord of the of River
Run before Jason was Lord of Sea Guards.
So, yeah, this is the guy would have been kind of the guy, his
leads, Lord, during his father's time, maybe even his
grandfather's time. This would have, this is a big
change at the top. He would not have shown any
because he's a proud and honorable guy.
He wouldn't have, like, smirked or frowned or grimaced when Ed
Muir kept missing with his shots.
He would have probably kept a stone face, but he would have
felt the shame, probably. Yeah.
The witness Lord Jason is at Sea Guard when the Miraham returns
from the Iron Isles with news of Balon's death.
So in in Clash of Kings, Theon takes the Miraham from Sea Guard
to Pike, and then months pass, Balon dies, and in the chaos of
Balon's death, the Miraham escapes back to Sea Guard,
brings news to Jason. Jason immediately brings the
Captain to Hagsmire, where Rob's army is, where Rob signs his
will. Jason's one of the the
witnesses. Not only is he one of the
witnesses, but he's part of the plan, the plan to deal with,
well to deal with the Ironborn in the north, which of course
we're going to include Jason in that.
So his plan was to send 2 long ships into the neck flying Rob's
banner so that the Craning men would know who they are and how
and Reid would would know hey allies and would, you know, flag
them down. One of those boats would have
Lady Mage, the other would have Lord Glover, Galbra Glover, and
the ships are Jason's. It's Jason's long ships that are
doing this. And the plan was also for after
the Red Wedding was for Caitlin to spend the rest of the war at
Sea Guard where she would be safe.
Caitlin did not like that idea. Jason was very polite about it.
But Canton's like, you're just sending me a way to be out of
the way and not be a part of things.
To be fair, Catlin had just, you know, set Jamie free and people
weren't exactly happy with her decision making at that point.
So that was that was part of it. But of course, none of that
ended up happening. That's why Jason was not at the
Red Wedding because he had to go to Sea Guard to carry out those
orders with the long ships. He had to launch their ships,
give the give the commands in Rob's name and do that sort of
do all that. So kind of worked out for him.
But Patrick still went to the Red Wedding.
But by the time of the Red Wedding, since Theon's not
around anymore, who's Patrick's new drinking buddy?
Ed Muir. Tully, that makes a little more
sense. You got these are the air to
River Run or now the current Lord of River Run.
The the funeral has already happened with the next Lord of
Sea Guard. Yeah, that's makes a little more
scenely of a relationship than with Theon Greyjoy.
And again, it's the same type of friendship, though Ed Muir is a
known purveyor of sex workers. And of course, Theon and Patrick
would do similar things. They would go out and drink and
find women together. Yeah, maybe they eat, man, that
that kind of thing. So on the night of the Red
Wedding, he wasn't drinking because he's one of the guards,
right? But that hardly mattered.
I mean, they were the enemy was too well prepared for a for some
not drinking to make a whole lot of difference.
In fact, it backfired. And in terms of the Great John,
his drinking made him harder to deal with.
But like Great John, Patrick was on the short list of men they
had no intention of killing because they didn't want Lord
Jason to be fully unrestrained in coming after them with
Patrick as a hostage. Then Jason's got to sit out and
go. I can't.
Well, yeah, they're going to kill my son.
I want to help. But.
And of course, the friends knew that even a honor bound man like
Lord Jason's not going to go so far as to get his own heir
killed. It worked.
So the, the Maosters had to kind of sit out for a bit there.
Now, what was Lord Jason's reaction though?
He wasn't there. He'd, I'm sure, he's sure he
would have been really mad, really distraught, because he
wouldn't have known at first that Patrick survived until he,
he was probably received word that, hey, your son's a hostage
of ours. Do what we say.
Or else that would be a very mixed message.
He'd be like, well, screw you and your demands, but sure glad
my son's alive and he would understand why they were like,
yeah, that kept my son as a hostage to keep me in check.
And well, damn it, it's going to work for now.
I'm sure he'd be trying to find a way out of that.
But in the short term, not much you can do about it.
In fact, while Patrick and Lord Jason were fighting for Lord for
Robb Stark, another Malester was getting ready to lose an
election to Rob's heir. So let's head north for a
Segway, then we'll return to these doings in the War of the
Five Kings and Lord Jason and Patrick and the phrase this
part's called maluster versus Pike.
I I just love how very maluster Sir Dennis Maluster is.
This guy is possibly the most extreme example of, you know,
old proud guy, but not the kind of proud that I dislike.
I I like Dennis Maluster and we'll we'll go through why.
Here's Sam approaching him. He's fibbing a little bit.
He's trying to do his magic with the election, trying to get
people to vote for John. He's doing his thing.
It's pretty clever. Here he's pretending to
represent Maester Eamon's wishes.
Quote. Sam took a sip of wine and chose
his words with care. Maester changed and sworn it
would not be proper for him to be seen as.
Having influence the choice of Lord Commander, the old knight
smiled. Which is why he has not come to
me himself. Yes, I quite understand Samwell.
Eamon and I are both old men and wise in such matters.
Say what you came to say. So forward, so up are you.
Can't even be subtle about intrigue I.
Think that you're supposed to be subtle.
Like, yes, I understand we're speaking, we're reading between
the lines here. We're Speaking of things that
shouldn't be said. I get it.
Do you? I love it.
He just can't. Like, no, this is he has to be
polite. He has to be who he is.
He is a master. He he's proud about everything.
And Sam knows that. Sam knows who he's dealing with.
He knows that pride, this particular form of pride, it's
not the pride. It's not the toxic masculinity
pride. I want to draw that distinction
here. This is the kind of pride that's
earned. Maoster has a good reason to be
proud. It's not just because of where
the family comes from. It's because the family comes
from has earned who they are too, for the most part, right?
It's not the unearned confidence of, hey, I'm a Lannister, you
should respect me. No, this guy's done things
right. He he's he isn't just a
maluster. He's a maluster who worked at
it, who did his duty, who did his job, who has defended the
realm for 50 years or more. I mean, let's give the guy some
credit, right? I mean, yeah, he's a he's a bit
of a goofball. He's funny in the way he talks
and he's over the top. George is doing that on purpose.
Like I said, I think he's the most extreme example of this
sort of character. The the the over proud older guy
who's genuinely proud, not just he's not just puffed up.
And I think that's important and that's part of why I like him.
So Sam knows, like I said, Sam knows what he's dealing with.
He's egging Sir Dennis on a bet. He knows exactly what he's
doing. He's trying to bring up Cotter
Pike in order to present Jon Snow as a better alternative.
He's like, I'll I'll present the unpalatable option and then hey,
what about this guy? So here is I love Sir Dennis's
next line. It's more of the same about him.
Just like, yes, I get it. I'm the I'm blah, blah, blah.
I'm wise and understand here we go.
Let's let him do it. Quote.
We are the sons of great Lords, you and I, We.
Know the importance of birth blood and that early training
that can ne'er be replaced. I was a Squire at 12A, knight at
18, a champion at 2 and 20. I have been the commander at the
Shadow Tower for 33 years. Blood, birth and training have
fitted me to deal with kings. He's not entirely wrong.
I mean, again, these are fair. These are.
Good accomplishments on night 18, that is.
That is impressive. Even with his birth, that's
impressive. A champion at 22, he's even more
impressive, right? Like that's legit.
He really looks like a master too.
I mean, he's silvery from age. He's upright.
His you know, his spine is straight.
He's correct. He's as polite as can be.
He changes words to the more correct polite version of the
word. You know, he's repeating
somebody else. He's got arrogance, sure,
definitely arrogance, but he's a good person, right?
He's a good guy. Ultimately, this is a guy that
would that would die for you. He would die to defend the
realm. So like, I'm not going to say
too much negative about a person like that.
And he's done so for so long, dedicated his whole life to it,
never complained. Dennis probably assumes a lot
about Sam that he assumes about himself.
Because, yeah, the Tarly's are a marcher house.
They have also a war like tradition.
They are proud Marshall. So Dennis is like, yeah, we are.
We are cut from the same cloth. He's not.
He's right too. Like Sam isn't.
Sam is using that against him to get a result.
But he knows what he's doing. One of the dragon seeds during
the dance was a guy named Silver Dennis who claimed he was a
descendant of Megor. To me, this is the real Silver
Dennis though. Or at least Silver and Purple
Dennis, right? This isn't a man who is unsure
of himself, so he's saying things to make himself seem more
confident. He genuinely is this confident.
There's no chip on his shoulder. He doesn't have things to prove,
which is why when he he is willing to yield to Sam, he's
like, yeah, I like, I don't need this.
I don't need to be Lord Commander to feel whole.
I don't need it to for my career as a person to feel successful.
I don't need that honor. I don't need that job.
It's it's it's kind of like a Stannis thing where he's like,
I'm the best guy for the job. He sees it plainly.
There is some arrogance in that, but it's also pride.
And he's got a point. He does have a shit load of
experience, right? And again, he's a maluster who
was raised in a tradition of defending the realm in a place
where they're defending the realm.
That's their whole purpose of being there.
And it's the West Coast of, of the wall right there.
That's when they have on both coasts on the wall, they have
Raiders who get on boats, little rafts, sometimes nothing too
fancy, but still they, they skirt around the wall.
And that's kind of the thing that the malusters have to deal
with too. So it's, it's really familiar.
It's not a soft life. You know, you face Raiders that
are out to kill you and steal people.
It's yeah. It's not exactly how Stark, but
House Mouser probably has more voluntary nights watch joiners
than most houses, especially houses outside the North.
I, you know, we obviously don't have numbers on that, but I
would feel comfortable betting on that.
It's just too similar, right? It's like, hey, I can go do this
job up there and I can rise higher here.
I, you know, I, I can't be the Lord of Sea Guard.
Dennis could never be the Lord of Sea Guard, but he was this
close to being Lord Commander and Commander the Shadow Tower
is still very honorable. That's a great career.
I mean, again, he doesn't need to be promoted again to feel
like his, his life was a success.
He's like, well, I could take another step up.
I'm the right man for the job. But if not, I will serve whoever
is elected and I won't be petty about it.
I respect that. Yeah.
So he is a little bit, you know, like, I wonder if he is a little
bit like John in that sense, without the grand destiny.
In other words, someone who was a bit naive about the Nights
Watch. Maybe he thought it was a little
more nightly, a little more virtuous.
But this is a guy that doesn't seem to be bitter about that.
He's still a very much part of the program.
He might look down on Cotter Pike, but he doesn't act like
Cotter Pike doesn't deserve to be in the Night's Watch, Right.
And this is one of the, which is, by the way, one of the
really cool things about the Night's Watch is that you can
have a malicester, a bastard of, of Pike, the same team, you
know, and maybe they don't love each other and maybe it's smart
to separate them. Have one at the Shadow Tower and
one of these watch, but they're still that's a, that's a feather
in the cap of the watch, an eagle feather in this case, I
suppose. I wonder too.
Well, you know, Dennis Mallister, we don't know when he
joined the watch clearly after age 22, because he was a
tournament champion at age 22. A little bit of, like I said, a
little bit of maybe a Jon Snow not knowing really what he's
getting into. Maybe a little bit of Sir Waymar
Royce. You know, Raymar Royce obviously
didn't last and was even younger.
But I used the Royce as an example before of a house that's
kind of a a veil comparison, you know, a house that's very
Marshall, very upfront, very upright, very proud of who they
are. Their lineage is relatively
clean of scandal and conspiracy and rebellion, things like that.
You generally they do the right thing.
I I wonder what Dennis thought of Balon's rebellion.
You know, he's like, oh, damn, for once I wish I was down
there. You know, I want to fight the
Iron Borne. This would have been a chance.
He probably would have heard what Lord Jason did and would
have been like, Yep, that's what we do.
That's what malice tours do. Killing that heir to Pike. 2
thumbs up. It's also no wonder that Sam is
up up against a lot here and he has to use deception.
I mean he's he's trying to manage a situation between a
Maoister of Sea Guard and an ironborn bastard.
They're really the most opposite you could have in terms of
people who are somehow on the same team.
And I love this too. One final quote from Dennis.
He's more quotable than Jason or any of these other Malinsters.
I love it even when he's prejudice, he's proper.
He changes words to the more polite version.
Here we go. This is I love this line quote
hike. Well, did you hear him this
morning asking if his? Grace would wipe his bottom.
Samwell, it is not my habit to speak unkindly of my brothers,
but let us be frank. The Iron Born are a race of
pirates and thieves, and Cotter Pike was raping and murdering
when he was still half a boy. Maester Harmoon reads and writes
his letters and has for years. No, loathe as I am to disappoint
Maester Eamonn, I could not in honor stand aside for Pike of
East Watch. Did you hear him this morning
asking if His Grace? Would wipe his bottom.
Of course. That is not the phrase Cotter
Pike used. He said he used the term arse.
Obviously. This is so funny and you know I
don't agree with what he's saying here, but Cotter Pike was
raping and murdering when he was still half a boy.
Because that is what the Ironborn teach a lot of their
people, but they're not a race of pirates of thieves.
That's not true. There's a lot of them.
A lot of them are that, but it's still a relatively small
percentage. This is the ones that you've
dealt with all your life and your family has the most of them
are just, you know, fishing or trading.
Still, it's still funny. It's I love this.
I love this exchange. Sam's conversations here with
him and Cotter Pike are really entertaining.
And you can see how Sam is able to get through to Sir Dennis by
bringing up John's qualities. He's like, yeah, John's a
bastard, but he's the son of Winterfell.
He was chosen by Lord Commander Mormont.
He's related to the 1st Ranger. He's the brother of a king.
Like, that speaks to a man like Dennis.
Like, yeah, actually, that's a pretty good list of connections
and birth and stuff, you know? And and it's enough.
It's enough. Like Sir Dennis again, he wasn't
like, I have to be the Lord Commander or I'm a failure or,
and I'm going to be ashamed if this young man is promoted above
me. Nah, that's not how he feels.
He's his pride is legit. It's it's earned and it's
sincere. So it's not going to be touched
too much by this, by this, by John being promoted over him.
He handles it. He's like, you be a good Lord
Commander. I'm here to support you.
But you know, we're not going to forget that you're a young man
and need advice. That's basically his reaction.
And I, I respect that. Again, it's a good example of
non-toxic masculinity. Yeah, he's arrogant.
He talks down to people, but he backs up everything.
He's earned it. You know, he's he's done his
job. People who do their job get
should get some credit, right? And his job is hard.
You know, he he he's a very privileged man, but he worked at
that privilege. He made the most of it, right?
He's not a guy who sat back and was like, I was born rich.
I'm going to slack off and live that way now.
This guy, this guy worked, so I don't, so it's hard for me to
find negative things about him, even though I did say some
negative things about him. I feel like if a Sandor Clegane
grew up with Sir Dennis as a brother instead of Gregor, like
he would be proud to be Sir Sandor.
I think, you know, And it makes me wonder why people like
Victorian, what if Victorian had born a maluster?
Is is this a real like nature nurture kind of thing?
Like, if he had been brought up in that culture, he might have
been the biggest terror of against the Ironborn instead of
one who is a terror of the Ironborn, Right?
I made the same point in talking about Victarion in our ballerina
series. Like, what if Victarion was born
a Stark? He seems just like too bought
into whatever he's in to change. So if he was born a Stark of
Winterfell, he would be all about it, you know?
But he's a great joy. That's that.
So let's leave the Black brothers for Black Walder, a
character whose personality you will not find me praising,
unlike Sir Dennis. But I definitely want to know
what he's going to do next. He's an interesting character,
that's for sure. Under Blackwalder.
Blackwalder put Sea Guard under siege after the Red Wedding and
rode there with Patrick Mouster threatening to hang him.
Real contrast to what the phrase did at River Run.
The phrase threatened to hang Edmure Tully and Blackfish
called their bluff. Good example of knowing who's
bluffing who isn't. Lord Jason is a tough man, but
when he saw Blackwalder with his heir threatening to hang, he's
like that guy will go through with it just to prove he will.
I can't allow him to. I can't do that.
He's going to do it. I, I, I, he.
Blackwalder knows his own reputation.
Blackwalder knows that if he doesn't follow through with a
threat, then his reputation's he's no longer as scary.
He doesn't want to hang Patrick, but if he's got to do it to
maintain his reputation, he won't think twice.
Unlike the frays who were bluffing and Jamie called them
out on that after Blackfish did be.
So Jason's not going to test Black Walter's reputation
because someone else already dead and he knows what's going
to happen. Interestingly, there's a Wendell
Frey at Sea Guard serving his page.
This is a son of Lord Walter. This is not a grandson, great
grandson, whatever. This is the 19th son of Lord
Walter with his most recent wife, Anara Fairing.
Wendell is 14 years old, but rumors have it that Black
Walter's his actual father. So Blackwalder is holding this
castle by force and his own maybe his own son is there as a
page and see, notably, Lord Jason knew better than to say,
well, if you kill Patrick, I'll kill I'll kill this Wendell
Frey. He knew that wouldn't work.
That'd be one way to just get his son killed and then be like,
now I got to follow through with this threat.
I don't want to do that. That's that's not very
honorable. So of course he's not going to
walk down that road again. Mallister's very practiced at
not getting in too deep. You don't even don't even get
started. Don't even take one step down
that path because next thing you know you'll be 10 steps down
that path and 20 and then next thing you know, that's your
family reputation. So as things stand right now,
Blackwalder is ruling Sea Guard with the maesters as prisoners
like Jason and and Patrick are. They're just prisoners are in
their own castle and and they're near the twins, right.
I remember we talked about that earlier.
This is close by. You saw that on the map, most
likely. If you didn't, well, you can see
at any any time. Maybe a shade will put it right
back up here. All right, there you go.
See. Look how close that is.
So Black Walter could bring more men fairly quickly if he needed.
He can communicate back and forth with the twins pretty
quickly. But Nina reminds us that only
Edwin Frey, not the most competent, fearsome man even
among Frey's, and maybe little Walda, are the only two in his
way to being direct heir of the Twins.
If those two are out of the way, and Little Walda arguably
already is, because I don't think a little girl's going to
inherit the twins would have been like Black Walders around
then. It's all set up for him.
And Black Walder obviously wants to rule the crossing.
His family seems to know that. We know that.
So if something happens at the Twins, Blackwalder may have to
leave Seaguard in a hurry in order to take his shot to grab
the title. He wouldn't just abandon it, but
he might have to leave in a hurry, leaving a subordinate
there, which might be the opportunity that the Maoisters
need to break free. Which brings us to where Eagles
Dare. Thanks to Matt Reeves for
reminding me to use this phrase. It's also a really good Iron
Maiden song. It's sort of a World War 2
reference, among other things. Earlier in the episode, when
discussing the lay of the land, among other things.
Like it. Yeah, it's a it's a great song
discussing the lay of the land. We pointed out that the twins
are not far from Sea Guard. Of course, we keep bringing that
up. It's being used against them
right now being that proximity to the twins is a bad thing
because of the nearby extra bad guys.
But let's see how that could change really quickly.
Again, Blackwater could be pulled to the Twins for reasons
of succession or opportunity, but it could also be because of
our projected slash theorized on eventual Red Wedding. 2 point O.
If there's a wedding at the Twins, Black Walter might just
miss it. He might just stay at Sea Guard,
but probably not because it's so close.
He probably goes to it while bringing his hostages with him.
You know, have them attend as well.
And if something goes wrong, if the Brother without banners, if
Blackfish, if Arya, if, who knows, if all the different
players that are against the twins in this area, if they rise
up and cause bring justice, slash revenge to the
proceedings, Malice might be right there and just get freed
in the middle of it all in time to join the bloodshed.
Perhaps that could be like a reverse of the Red Wedding where
Patrick and Jason's hands were tied.
Well, Jason wasn't even at the Red Wedding, but they're his
hands were tied immediately as if he was they could be
unleashed in the midst of it. That would be really cool.
This, by the way, could be more than enough for them to reclaim
the rule of their own castle, let alone what else might
happen. You know, the chaos of of that.
Like how is Blackwald we're going to hold sea guard when the
twins is just in chaos, right. And that might even allow them
to move on. The Lannisters.
The Lannisters have all sorts of problems happening.
Jamie was captured. Cersei's not doing so well.
The Young Griff is on his way, you know, so that's potentially
an opening to move there. The again, as I pointed out very
early in the episode, I believe in the intro, the Maoister
strength has not been spent. They haven't lost a lot of
soldiers in the War of 5 Kings. They are perhaps one of the
Riverlands houses that has the most remaining strength.
Big deal, which is part of why it's going to be hard for the
phrase to hold them in check and part of why the phrase might be
at risk from the Maoisters, because that strength is just a
few miles away or a few leagues away, however far.
Not far. Yes, I remember what I said
before about Lord Jason jesting with Blackfish at Catlin's
wedding. That may have been a way to show
a connection between those two that could bear fruit later.
Such as in this scenario. For all we know, Blackfish and
Lord Jason have already been in contact.
Maybe not because of the whole, you know, Black Walter ruling
Sea Guard and all, but that's a guy he would want to hook up
with. That's a natural team right
there. You know, I'm sure that both
both Blackfish and Jason want to get justice for what was done to
Rob and beyond what the phrase did.
Well, it wasn't just the phrase, it was the Bolton's, it was the
Lannisters. It it doesn't end with Walter,
it doesn't end with lame Lothar and and the rest, it ends with
Lannisters and Bolton's. Speaking of Bolton's and the
North, let's not forget Lord Jason knows that Rob's heir is
Jon Snow. He's one of the few.
He has presumably told Patrick by now they're just chilling in
captivity in their own castle. May as well talk about that and
other things. So there's a couple of
possibilities there. They go north to fight the
others. They go north to deliver the
news to Jon Snow. They do both.
They go north to deliver the news of Jon Snow to bow before
him as their new king. And they're still up there when
things break loose in the wall. A lot of possibilities, but a
lot of reasons that could draw them N especially because if
their main job is to fight the Ironborn, I mean, Euron is
doesn't give a crap about them right now.
Euron is, he skipped them, he skipped Flandisters, he went
straight to the Shield Islands and then went around there and
attacked the Arbor. And now he's sending the Iron
Fleet with Victorian to get Dragons.
He could care less about Sea Guard.
So I think Sea Guard can say well all the Ironborn in the
world are either on the Shields or in Slaver's Bay.
Actually, we can leave our castle for a while for once,
that us leaving won't give them an opportunity because they're
not there. The Ironborn aren't at Pike.
The Ironborn aren't on the Iron Islands.
Most of their military strength is in the field or in the sea or
at the yeah, not at Pike, not on the Iron Isles.
So Sea Guard is unusual in the unusually positioned to say,
hey, actually, for once, us being needed elsewhere, we can
actually go do that. And I think that somewhere is,
yes, there's things to do in the Riverlands, but I think more
longer term. Malistor is in the North.
That's my that's my simpler prediction morphs.
If I want to get more specific with it, I'll say yeah, Lord
Jason and Patrick fighting against the fighting against the
undead at Winterfell. Now, what about what happens if
Lord Jason doesn't make it like that will change a lot.
That's a big pivot point here, I think.
I think yes, despite my prediction that they go north, A
thing that could change that would be the death of of Lord
Jason, because I don't know that Patrick is again cut from the
same cloth. He likes to drink, he likes to
chase women. Now maybe Jason Mallister did
that too when he was younger and maybe becoming Lord will mature
him a bit. It wouldn't be the strangest
thing ever. But this is not a guy who's got
war experience. He hasn't fought a whole lot.
He's got a little bit. He did fight at the Whispering
Wood battle camps, all that. But has he even killed a man?
I don't know. I don't know that he has.
So it's a definite, it would be a very different outlook if if
Patrick is at the top. That said, this is really the
only of two possibilities. There's Jason leading, Patrick
leading, or maybe they both die and the house is just off page
for a while because they can't do anything without a leader.
I doubt that. I doubt George set them up this
way to just kind of do nothing in the long term.
It's it would be easy enough to include them.
There's a reason he saved them and their strength is still
there. From a meta perspective, I think
George has plans for them. I think all of this suggests
that very strongly. It's hard to be too sure about
what, but they're deeply involved in both the intrigue
and the succession in the North and have the military strength
to do the fighting in a number of different places.
So there's a lot they could be involved with, a lot they should
be involved with. So I have pretty high
expectations. Y'all trivia question.
Let's see here. The 3rd house mentioned in all
of A Song of Ice and Fire is Malester.
The question was to name one or both of the first two.
I didn't actually name them during this in that context,
although they're both the names were mentioned.
Usually I reveal the answer during.
I didn't actually do that this time.
It's Royce and Mormont. Of course.
Royce because way more Royce. Mormont may be less obvious, but
he gets mentioned because of Lord Commander.
You might have guessed Targaryen cause of Amon Eamon's name is
stated but not Targaryen, just Eamon.
And you might have guessed Baratheon because he's the King
and Waymar Royce does a shout out Robert's name but doesn't
say Baratheon, it says for Robert and actually that comes
after the name Mallister anyway. So there you go, Royce and
Mormont and Mallister, the first three houses mentioned in all of
A Song of Ice and Fire. Other episodes that you might
want to check out that have relation to this one, the Battle
of the Trident, the abduction of Lyanna, Brendan Blackfish
episode, he's got a whole 1, The Riddle of Rob's will.
Of course, the Mousers involvement in that we've talked
about and this is a couple different looks at it.
A little more extensive coverage there and of course not super
related to the Mousers, but it was their first mention and we
did talk about how their connection to the Nights Watch
is something a little different. That would be Aziz versus the
prologue. We have an episode where I just
discussed the prologue and break it down and it's pretty good if
I do say so myself. Thanks everybody.
Appreciate you hanging out with us today.
Whether you're catching this live or you're catching the
edited version on whatever platform you happen to be
catching it on, we certainly appreciate you listening.
We appreciate your feedback. Our feedback is a big deal to
us. It helps drive engagement and
it's motivating. We we, we like it when you all
comment and tell us the parts about the episodes you like the
most. And hey, if you got some
negative feedbacks and negative criticisms, we'll take that too.
You know, that's how we make the show better.
Thanks again to Nina for her great takes, her notes and
suggestions and thoughts. I have a lot of times I just
talk things through with her. It isn't always things she just
puts directly in the document, you know, just I bounce ideas
off of her. Again, happy birthday Nina, and
don't forget to check out good queenalley.tumblr.com.
Also thanks to Joey and Jesse for our intro music and outro
music. And thanks to Michael Klarfeld
for our video intro. It's so very cool.
We love it. And the maps that you saw during
the episode, some of them anywhere, are Michael Clarfeld's
maps too. So there you go.
Not all of them, but some of them.
You can get his maps from at claradox.de.
You can just download the file and go take it to a Kinko's or
something like that, Get it printed in whatever size you
want. That's what we did.
That's where these came from. Pretty.
It's cheaper than you think, most likely.
On behalf of Ashea, I'm Aziz. We'll see you next time for
more. You know what to do.
Until then, Valari Ritas.