House Words Wednesdays: House Manderly
Happy May, everyone! (And Happy Star Wars Day)
Recently I started a feature on the Tumblr called House Words Wednesdays. Each week, I take a House without known canon or semi-canon words and present what I think could make sense as that House’s motto. You’re free to suggest more as well, if your favored House has not yet been suggested; take a look at this link to see what has already been suggested, and shoot me a tweet or ask through Tumblr if you have another House you’d like to see.
Last week we talked about House Darry, and I came up with “We Reap As We Sow” for the plowmen. This week I move to what I would say is one of the most popular secondary Houses in Westeros, House Manderly of White Harbor. Wyman Manderly is not merely the Starks’ richest and possibly most powerful bannerman, but also one of the mostly fiercely loyal: while pretending Bolton sympathy, Manderly has secretly plotted the restoration of House Stark, and vengeance against the Freys and Boltons for the treachery of the Red Wedding. Yet for their Northern devotion, the Manderlys are not originally of Northern blood. Somewhere in the Reach sits (or once sat) the castle of Dustonbury, probably near the river which bears the Manderlys’ name, and which housed in ancient days House Manderly, bannermen to the Gardener kings.
The story of the Manderly exile is a familiar one for anyone who has read A Dance with Dragons. Sparring with their Peake rivals for generations, the Manderlys were finally ordered out of the Reach by King Perceon III Gardener, and their castle given to House Peake of Starpike. The Manderlys fled North and threw themselves onto the mercy of the Starks of Winterfell. The wolves took pity on the expatriate reachers and swore a solemn oath: they would support and defend the Manderlys as Lords of White Harbor, and in return, the Manderlys would always be devoted vassals of Winterfell. For a thousand years the Manderlys have held to that promise.
I have seen a number of suggestions for the words of House Manderly, but nearly all I’ve seen tend to focus on their post-exile life - assuming that the Manderlys took up a new sigil and words when they were given control of White Harbor by the Starks. I’m not saying this could not have happened - the author certainly has not said one way or another - but to me, it’s more interesting to craft Manderly words that could fit both their life by the Mander and their life as guardians of the North’s greatest (well, only) city.
The Manderlys have one known tie to water: the great River Mander was named after the family, and I presume their seat was somewhere important along this waterway. It might also be the case, as someone once suggested on this Tumblr, that the Manderlys, like their reacher neighbors, count one of Garth Greenhand’s semi-mythical children as their ancestor - in this case, Owen Oakenshield, who drove the selkies and merlings into the sea and conquered the Shield Islands for the Reach. With a merling connection for Owen, it would make sense that, if the Manderlys are his mythical descendants, they might honor that conquest with a merling as their device.
So being namesakes and possibly guardians of the Mander, with a possible sea-based conqueror for their ancestors, the Manderlys might well have water-themed words. To this end, I like Steadfast Through the Tides. The mighty Mander doubtless has some fierce tides, so on a literal level this motto works well, to show that the Manderlys will survive any torrent. Owen Oakenshield remained steadfast in beating back the tides of sea creatures from the Reach and Shield Islands, and so would his Manderly descendants. It’s also a robust set of words for any House, particularly one located by a notable body of water: we will stand firm through whatever trials we face, whatever changes occur in the political sphere.
But what I particularly like about these words is that they also apply after the Manderlys are exiled. Once again, their home was by a notable body of water - in this case, White Harbor, the North’s only great seaport, where tides would come and go. Moreover, the Manderlys pledged to the Starks that they would remain loyal to the wolves of Winterfell in return for protection and a home in the North, and so they would remain steadfast for a thousand years. The motto connects very nicely to Wyman’s current attitude: he may feign conciliation toward the Baratheon-Lannister regime and its Bolton Northern overlords, but secretly he remains steadfast in his loyalty to the Starks, and has a plan in the works to restore them to their seat. They have not forgotten their promise to the wolves; the Manderlys rise and fall with the Starks, their loyalty remaining true and strong no matter what conditions they might weather.
Let me know what you think - if you like these words, if you have even better words for the Manderlys, I want to hear. If you liked a House with deep Stark loyalty, good news! There’s another coming next week!
The Queen Regent (NFriel)
