The idea of an indigenous mesoamerican look for the ironborn is killing me rn........

All the headdresses and the jewelry and the gold. The island to tiny island variation in customs, fashion, ethnicity. Tupi Harrens and Gê Botleys. Lords of House Farwynd in beautiful outfits of seal with scales of steel, while those of Lonely Island cover themselves in feathers and pelts and hint at the islands beyond they have found. The Iron Islands are cold and dreary; in its cliffs, they wear Inca mantles and use mountain animals for beasts of burden. They sail the rivers and straits in pirogas launched from their longships. They can't see the sun, so they tell the time of day be regular raining.

#culture #headcanon #house botley #house farwynd #asoiaf

ironbornsource reblogged

asoiastarks

cold wind. stormy, freezing yet humid days. salt and the sea smell. damp stone and wood. the sinking feeling of being watched. being so small and insignificant in a world of ships and definitely no more than a spec to what lingers under the surface. isolation. reverence for the depths and the ocean. fear. freedom. the sea is a cruel master. be weary. salt stinging. twisting, swirling, changing world, the unknowable.— this is what the iron islands feel like to me.

#edit #headcanon #ironborn #culture #asoiaf

ironbornsource

Viking vs. Ironborn Thralls

George R.R. Martin is famous for claiming to draw inspiration from real life history and cultures for his world building in the Song of Ice & Fire and associated spin offs. Although he never comes out and says it, the ironborn are clearly based on the Vikings. They are both, after all, seafaring raiders with a history of elected monarchy using longships to capture thralls. In this essay, I’ll be comparing real Viking thralls to ironborn ones and discussing the implications.

Submitted by redrikki

#culture #history #asoiaf #meta

ironbornsource reblogged

dontbotherwiththepronunciation

Triggered by a conversation between mutuals that I wasn't able to partake in because I read it when it was already over but it still left me with a feeling of wanting to talk.

Many of my recent issues with this series and some of the characters in it come from coming to terms with the fact that people like me were never the intended demographic for it and thus many of my expectations and beliefs are unrealistic. I'm very much aware that every person who ever reads a text will understand it differently based on their experiences and emotions, we can see the most clear examples of it when it comes to the eternal debates on whether Jeyne & Sansa really bullied Arya or whether Catelyn's treatment of Jon should be considered abuse, but at least in my case the projection is based more on political situations that have strongly affected me and my loved ones and that are difficult to talk about in the open without feeling like my concerns are exaggerated and are also ruining other people's fun.

This is a fun series that has given my solace written by a white usan democrat who writes orientalist tropes and gives no real personality to any of his fully-canon-not-up-to-interpretation characters of colour and uses a half assed excuse to not have any of the main characters be a not-up-to-interpretation character of colour.

An example that is lighthearted and makes me chuckle could be my perception of the Vale. To me Mya Stone wears heavy colourful ponchos while Myranda wears a sanq'apa, Domeric Bolton played not only the harp but also the charango, maté is a common drink, and at least some of Sweetrobyn's lacking health comes from soroche. None of this is contradictory to the canon but I know that if I were to meet grrm and tell him of these concepts, he would probably think I'm on crack but would smile in false sympathy while Liiiiiiindaaaaaaaaa (and some readers, fans and tumblerinas) would just straight up tell me to go read something from my shithole country instead of tarnishing the beautiful and perfect European-based world of ice and fire./sar

And I am aware that the ironborn are perceived by most and are somewhat intended to be perceived as pseudo-historic "vikings but in the late Middle Ages" but I read these books when I was 12 and still thought that vikings were just a Hollywood invention, like the orange filter they put on Latin America or white saviours.

With this long introduction here are some random headcanons regarding ironborn lore and culture that aren't contradictory to canon but would probably clash against the more common fandom-built conceptions (many of which I do not like), sometimes accompanied by explanations and reasoning, often sentimental or based on personal experiences.

dontbotherwiththepronunciation

I have been enabled so here are a few more:

#Asoiaf #headcanon #religion #culture #fan thoughts

ironbornsource reblogged

cealtrachs asked:

If you’re so inclined, tell me about Theon’s favorite foods: Iron Islands recipes that can’t be replicated at Winterfell, which snacks he would sneak up to his room, etc.! The more self-indulgent and headcanon-y, the better.

thank you, this was very fun to think about!

unfortunately we never are shown theon enjoying a meal… we get a sense that he knows how to have fun in various ways but we never see him enjoy his food. the only time he eats with some enthusiasm is raw rat when he is starving. but what might he like?

in the iron islands, food seems to be a constant issue, characters are described as lean or even gaunt, the soil is said to be thin and poor, and while the climate would have been less cold-cold than in winterfell -- theon might have never seen snow before being taken north, possibly -- with the wide lands and woods surrounding it, plus the glass gardens and hot springs, i imagine in winterfell there was a greater quantity and variety of food than on the islands.

#theon greyjoy #asoiaf #meta #culture #food

ironbornsource reblogged

[hair study] the Iron Islands and Free Folk

#asoiaf #art #fashion #culture #headcanon

ironbornsource reblogged

docpiplup

Previous: Jousting

The King's Moot by Levi Pinfold

Listen to the waves! Listen to the god! He is speaking to us, and he says, We shall have no king but from the kingsmoot!

The Prophet, A Feast for Crows

#asoiaf #art #culture #religion

ironbornsource reblogged

turtle-paced

Anonymous asked:

I know next to nothing about boats but how do the iron born go on such long journeys on their longships? Googling longships and they don't look to have much going on in space/storage but Euron and Asha have mentioned sailing their ships all over the place..

Also they look small and flat enough to tip over in bad seas. I dunno I'm dumb about boats but I don't understand how they manage long journeys in them.

turtle-paced answered:

Wikipedia's usually a better first stop than a general googling - they have a pretty lengthy page on Viking longships, plus footnotes, further reading, and more online resources. Buried in there are the answers to a couple of your issues. Sea chests provided both seating and storage; the ships are wide enough to be stable.

Worth remembering is that ships are always bigger than you think they are, and a lot of early European sea travel sticks to the coasts (and that's relevant in this case as the inspiration for Westeros). It takes time to go places, there might be multiple stops to resupply, but long journeys are perfectly feasible in longships.

#meta #asoiaf #worldbuilding #culture

ironbornsource reblogged

THE IRON ISLANDS lived in the past; the present was too hard and bitter to be borne

#aesthetic #asoiaf #graphic #geography #culture #edit

ironbornsource reblogged

agameoftragedy

Women of the Iron Islands

Trying and failing to sleep, thinking about ASOIAF characters and their lives and it strikes me - and will not leave me alone - where the hell are the women of the Iron Islands?

Yes, yes, we have Asha. We hear of their mother Alannys and a maternal aunt, but other than that I am not sure I can even think of any others. Possibly an old woman who works at Pyke who Theon asks to ready his room? I’m reaching.

Basically the entire Greyjoy family is male. There’s no discussion of potential ironborn brides for Theon or Victarion (if you don’t count Asha >.<’), everything is about the sons of this house and that house. Asha never mentions having any female friends. I don’t think there are any women at the Kingsmoot (except Asha) and I don’t think that’s ever even explained, though I would assume it’s because the women aren’t allowed to vote as they’re almost never Captains, but if that’s the case and it doesn’t even have to be mentioned…!

All that I can recall that we know of the Iron Islands and its opinions of women:

- Iron Island women ‘rock wives’ > all other women ‘salt wives’/thralls

- Women don’t have to have paid the iron price for jewellery, unlike men

- Insinuations that some things are more womanly and some things more manly; the men go off reaving, the women stay home with children (I guess?)

This is all so typical that I guess that’s why I didn’t question it sooner. Macho culture does not value women, except in rare cases where women (have to) slide into the male role and excel at it, as per Asha. Except that women do exist by necessity and I cannot believe that they are all just effectively chained inside their houses/castles.

Do the drowned men not have avid female followers (real life religious figures sure did)?

Even if they couldn’t vote, were women not trying to overhear/see what was happening at the Kingsmoot that could massively affect their lives?

Do Victarion and Theon not have other families trying to marry their daughters off to prominent Greyjoys?

Do the noble women not communicate between castles for some goddamn female company if they are for some reason incapable of leaving their homes?

Or has Cthulu’s influence somehow affected ironborn sperm so that only like one in ten babies is female?!

I don’t really understand how this is just happening. I basically cannot imagine the life of a (noble) ironborn girl, except transplanting any other Westerosi girl onto the Iron Islands, but surely their norms are not identical, are Ironborn girls allowed to have martial training? If they are, how is it basically just Asha out on reavings? I guess there’d still be needlework and maybe music, etc, but the (current) Ironborn seem so disdainful of such things that I just don’t know.

And this leads to the big question, and my one main hope of how this could end well: what happens when what seems to be so large a proportion of the male Ironborn population sails off with Euron? Like, my brain was first picturing the Iron Islands being almost empty.

Except the women are still there. They can finally emerge from wherever the hell they’ve been hiding. Realise how absolutely terrible it has been under the men and decide ‘fuck that shit, we can rule this place better’. Whoever remains to straggle home after the clusterfuck that is Euron’s plans for the Ironborn finds that the women are in charge now. Perhaps they’ve even released the thralls and agreed peace and trade agreements with the mainland. If they decide they want/need a Queen or Lady Paramount, it is Asha. The men can be stuck in their homes never to be heard from again now.

This is the only answer and subversion I am now willing to accept as to why I don’t even need the whole of one hand to list off every Ironborn woman I can think of, despite having four Ironborn PoVs, one of whom is a woman.

#asoiaf#meta #culture

ironbornsource reblogged

nobodysuspectsthebutterfly

cassassandra-blog asked:

What is the population of the Iron Islands? They seem so barren yet apparently they have enough people to have a formidable navy. I'm rereading SOS and they've got a hold on the stoney shores AND pose a threat to Lannisport, Casterly Rock and Highgarden.

nobodysuspectsthebutterfly answered:

As far as I can see, there are no stated populations of any of the regions of Westeros. But we do know that the Iron Islands have more people than Dorne (Doran, AFFC: “Dorne is the least populous of the Seven Kingdoms”), so size isn’t everything.

We also don’t have any stated measure of the size of the islands. But based on the fact that the Wall is 300 miles long, we can estimate from the maps that the Iron Islands are about 15000-20000 square miles. Using this really cool medieval demographics calculator, you can see that even giving the islands a really crappy population density of 20 people per sq.mi., that’s still a population of 300000-400000 people. And if you raise it up to 40 people per sq.mi. (22% arable land), that’s 600000-800000 people. What percentage of those are fighters… since the Ironborn are a warrior culture, let’s give them a minimum of 5%… so, anywhere between 15000-40000 men available for their navy. That’s just based on estimates and calculations, mind you, the real numbers could be much greater.

Now, GRRM says that each of the major lords can command at least 100 ships. Longships, mind you, not big dromonds like in the Lannisport or Redwyne or King’s Landing fleet – and a longship can hold from 20 men to over 100. (let’s give an estimate of 50 men per ship.) We know the Iron Fleet itself is 100 of the larger ships – that’s about 10000 men. And I’m not sure how GRRM defines “major”, but assuming that’s at least Harlaw, Blacktyde, Saltcliffe, and Drumm, that could be another 400 ships and 20000 men. The Oldtown captain who speaks to Sam in the last chapter of AFFC refers to “hundreds” of ships afflicting the coast, so that works out.

Oh, let me see, is there anything in those ASOIAF RPG books I acquired a while back… ok, note this is not precisely canon, but probably more canon than my estimates:

The Iron Islands can call upon an estimated 20,000 swords. The island fleet is the largest in Westeros, greater than the royal fleet and far larger than nearly every other navy. The islands can probably float about 500 longships or more — many of these might dip no more than 20 oars, while a handful dip more than 100.

– A Game of Thrones RPG, Deluxe Limited Edition

So, hey, looks like my numbers weren’t so off after all. :) Anyway, if you want to see more debate on the matter, there’s a thread here on w.org, probably more elsewhere if you search for it.

#meta #culture #politics #society

ironbornsource reblogged

warsofasoiaf

Anonymous asked:

Do the ironborn never marry non-ironborn people or were they only taken as salt wives? Thinking that while Balon was obviously clinging to old traditions, that doesn’t necessarily mean his vassals did, does it? Some sort of trade must’ve taken place or at least traveling for fun that led them to meet other cultures?

warsofasoiaf answered:

They do plenty of times, though they did less commonly when they followed the Old Way, as they held that a rock wife must be ironborn. In the era after Aegon's Conquest, we see it happen more frequently. Quellon married a Piper. Harras Harlaw's mother was a Serrett. Lelia Lannister was even Queen of the Iron Islands, married to Harmund II Hoare, the Haggler, called as such because he promoted trade. That leads nicely into the second point: trade happened plenty of times, too. Harmund Hoare was literate and promoted trade. Qhorwyn Hoare traded and used the wealth to triple the strength of the Iron Islands.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

#meta #culture #history #asoiaf

ironbornsource reblogged

aegor-bamfsteel

Anonymous asked:

Do you think the more lowly and newer Houses on the Iron Islands (Codd, Weaver, Humble, etc) have a Maester designated to their respective seats?

aegor-bamfsteel answered:

“Every great lord has his maester, every lesser lord aspires to one. If you do not have a maester, it is taken to mean that you are of little consequence. The[y] read and write our letters, even for such lords as cannot read themselves…” —ADWD The Prince of Winterfell

Despite the ironborn’s distrust of Maesters and general disdain for academic learning (see the insults directed at Rodrik the Reader), they still see them as useful; some of the Greater ironborn houses have them (Greyjoy, Blacktyde, Goodbrother) and there seem to even be ironborn who became maesters (Cerrick, Theron Pyke, possibly Kirth considering his writings), and those not of high birth. The ironborn also don’t place a lot of prestige on stewardship (they’re the only kingdom with consistently smallfolk women stewards, as seen at Harlaw and Pyke), so it’s unlikely the stewards could also do the maester’s job of reading and writing letters. The likelihood of all the Codds, Weavers, Humbles being able to read is low considering ironborn culture. So at the very least, I think the lesser Iron Islands houses have at least one maester to keep the ravens and send written messages, probably smallfolk ironborn men who’d like to serve in their home kingdom.

#culture #asoiaf #meta

ironbornsource reblogged

katiazamolodchikova

GOT Meme ↳4/6 Locations: the Iron Islands

#culture #geography #game of thrones #gif

ironbornsource reblogged

lady-0f-the-wood

Moodboard - Cold As The Oceans Spray - By me ♡

#aesthetic #geography #culture #edit #asoiaf

ironbornsource reblogged

agentrouka-blog

tartheanmaid asked:

could you elaborate more on your predicted endgame for the ironborn?

agentrouka-blog answered:

Well, it's not an elaborate theory.

The liftestyle of the ironborn is unsustainable. Their islands are crumbling and cannot support their people, they reject trade and agriculture, and what little natural resources they have are mainly worked by slaves. The way they treat women is among the worst of all the cultures we have met. Their ideal occupation is raiding and raping. "We do not sow" is the motto of their royal family.

It's a horrible way of life with no future. It's adapt or die.

Asha knows that, she tries to convince her people to choose something different, to accept the deal she made with Sybelle Glover to settle the Stony Shore, but they reject it. Asha wants Sea Dragon Point because the resources there enable ship-building. She has ideas. But they reject it.

In the spirit of choosing life over death, I'm pretty sure we are going to see all the predatory cultures (wildlings, Vale mountain clans, Dothraki, ironborn) examined in terms of what drives them, and then faced with the choice to make peace or not.

In almost every case, their prosperity lies in a lack of trade. The wildlings can't trade because the Wall is inadequately manned, relations are hostile and they cannot peacefully cross the border back and forth. The Vale clans are starving when they could be trading valuable goods like pelts, and simply live in quaint isolation like the Northern mountain clans, if not for the ancient hostility. Both types or wildlings are primarily poor, not predatory. They can make peace and coexist fairly easily, if only both sides tried.

The ironborn and Dothraki are different in that they themselves reject trade, and rely on theft and slavery to give them a measure of wealth. They will need to undergo dramatic changes. Dany is likely to force those changes when she returns to Vaes Dothrak. How well that goes remains to be seen, but I suspect their culture will be forced to restructure around its women, if Dany makes off with most of the male warriors.

The Ironborn will also face massive losses with whatever catastrophe Euron is leading them towards, and the rest may finally be open to a new start, as well. If Asha and Theon prove good allies in the apocalyptic threats facing Westeros, I think it's not unreasonable to consider that Sansa would pull another House Manderly move and allow them to resettle, and I think she might be willing to grant them independence in the bargain, and not force them to kneel.

"He's been a hostage half his life."

"For good reason," Catelyn said. "Balon Greyjoy is not a man to be trusted. He wore a crown himself, remember, if only for a season. He may aspire to wear one again."

Robb stood. "I will not grudge him that. If I'm King in the North, let him be King of the Iron Islands, if that's his desire. I'll give him a crown gladly, so long as he helps us bring down the Lannisters."

(ACOK, Catelyn I)

I know it's a stretch of the imagination that the North would willingly part with some of its lands for a former enemy, but that's the solution that makes the most thematic sense to me.

#meta #culture #asoiaf #headcanon

ironbornsource reblogged

a-song-of-art-and-fire

Ironborn, Reavers of the Isles

"You may dress an ironman in silks and velvets, teach him to read and write and give him books, instruct him in chivalry and courtesy and the mysteries of the Faith, but when you look into his eyes, the sea will still be there, cold and grey and cruel."

A simple ironborn reaver, the salt of the... well, not earth... certainly salty though. I wanted to capture that most of the ironborn wouldn't be full-time professional soldiers in the livery of their houses, but ordinary people gone a reaving. As such he's mostly in neutral leathers and muted tones, with a bit of blue/green for thematics, and a worn black cloak as his only sign of loyalty to House Greyjoy.

I'll generally be giving the ironborn a more First Men look as I think they're related, but like the Dothraki I think they have such a history of slavery, kidnapping, and imperial conquest that they'll be a bit of a hodgepodge of genetic backgrounds, and I wanted that classic Scandinavian Viking blonde plaited beard for my first one.

#art #asoiaf #culture