House Frey

There are a fair amount of villainous houses in Westeros. Houses that are hated by other houses, or by readers and or by readers. I should say. House Frey is near to or at the top of that list. They are the main party responsible for the most infamous event in all the stories so far, the Red Wedding. They are simultaneously numerous, insular, and prone to infighting. Lord Walder is like a mafia boss running a huge family, literally, that he intimidates

into working together. But Despite that, they fight each other as much as they fight other houses. A common descriptor of House Frey is that they are upstarts. They are new blood rich, but uncouth. They're frequently disrespected despite their wealth and power because of this new status that they have. It's like they're members of the Country Club, but few of the other members actually want to be seen golfing with them. And when they do, it's because they were paid right.

There was some sort of arrangement. Not that they're bribing them to golf with them, but because they've come to some arrangement, some sort of deal. Basically, the money is flowing one way. Think how Roose Bolton chose to marry the heaviest Fray girl because Walder offered a dowry in silver that matched her weight. Dowries on aren't common, but that story is, and it serves to show us that the frays are buying their way into high society.

They haven't been accepted yet or maybe ever, and it is expensive, but they can't afford it. This is an overarching undercurrent of House Fray. They've been trying to fit in since they were first founded, which was only quote, only 600 years ago, which by Westerosi noble standards isn't that long. Of course, in in real life, that's extremely long. But hey, you know, cultures work differently there. There's nothing they can do to Fast forward that, right? The years just have to tick

away. But they sure have tried to Fast forward that. They've done a lot of different things to move up and it's had mixed results. A pattern we'll go over today is how the phrase have repeatedly tried to climb the power ladder by cozying up to new regimes, new potential kings or power blocks, and usually failing. Rob Stark wasn't the only example. That historical trend for House Frey is very prominent.

Because of the Rob Stark example, it's they're willing to join the new Kingdom of the North and Rivers, but only if a Frey is queen. In other words, they're willing to take the risk, but it has to be worth the pay off. In his efforts to win respect for his house, Lord Walter's pride may have had the opposite impact that he's aiming for. There may not be a single house that's more despised in world.

There was a few that we could throw out there as examples, but they probably aren't as powerful. Certainly in the fandom, they own a special place in the disliked category. That in itself is a feat though by George RR Martin. He's written a lot of characters that we love to hate. This is some of his best work in that regard. It's almost an entire family, and I say almost because there's a few phrase who are decent people or likable and there's plenty more that we just don't

know. We can't just assume the 40 plus unknown phrase are all terrible, although I would guess that a large percentage of them are. And the ones that we do see, even though there's so many of them, they're pretty well fleshed out, right? Again, the ones we've seen

there's so there's too many. Some haven't even been on screen yet or may never be. And that for them to stand out so much is hated and hateful, admits so many other choices, is a testament to Georgia's skills and a powerful statement on the importance of House for a in Westeros in A Song of Ice and Fire and most certainly more stories to come. And that is a statement itself. Lots of phrase are hated by other houses thanks to the actions of Lord Walder and his

most prominent sons. But there are so many relatively or completely innocent ones. And then when we're talking about them today, that's going to be difficult. It's going to be a tough subject because we find a lot of that Gray here. George is coloring his stories with that color quite often. Some of these phrase do deserve a harsh fate, but others might get it without deserving it. And that just is that's what how George rolls, right?

Even the bad guys, even punishing the bad guys sometimes has collateral damage, and that's because they're powerful, prominent and wealthy. It's not easy to do anything to them, but they are perhaps spreading themselves too thin while gaining even more hatred. Perhaps George made so many phrase just so he could turn it up to 11 by killing every last one of them. Maybe all that and more on this episode of History of Westeros podcast. Hello and welcome. A huge house like that, like

this deserves A lengthy intro. So I gave you that just now. We are here every Monday, Monday. Why did I say Monday? We're here every Sunday and not even every Sunday. Most Sundays at 3:00 PM Eastern on YouTube, live streaming after the fact. You can catch the episode as an edited video up on Spotify or as a edited podcast up on anywhere you find podcasts. You can also listen ad free if you join us on Patreon, patreon.com/history of Westeros. Big shout out to Nina.

Lots of help from her in this one in particular. Several years ago she drew up a full Fray succession chart. It's really long, as you might guess. And I mean, she put the entire order through. So stay tuned because at the end of this episode, you're going to, we're going to go through that a little bit. And it's just amusing how big it is and where some of the characters fall in the succession.

If you have questions for us, hit us up live at [email protected] and ask us whatever you like. We're going to do a mailbag episode sometime this year. So we would love to get some questions loaded up ahead of that. And we'll put out a big call for that when it comes at the end of this episode. I'll mention some other ones that relate to this one, of course, as I always do, 'cause you can stay immersed that way. And I'll also give the answer to this trivia question.

This one's for you Beavis and Butt Head fans out there. The word bunghole appears four times in The Song of Ice and Fire. Yes. Can you bung? Leave it? Four whole time said by 4 different? Yes. Four whole time said by 4 different characters. Lord Walter is the second one to use it. Name one of the other 3 characters to say the word bunghole in A Song of Ice and Fire. Yes, three other characters. So it's really you could get 3 up to three correct answers

here. But none of them ask for teepee. None of them ask for teepee. It's true. Not one. Toilet paper doesn't exist in Westeros. What a horrible thing. Can you believe it? Yes, you can believe it. You can, Bung. Leave it. All right, let me read you all the episodes section headers as I am won't to do these days. We have our founding in history, then neighbors. Oh, before that we have first mention. Of course, we always have the first mention. We have Rain of the Storm Kings.

We have under the Ironborn. We have Phrase and royalty. We have under the Dragons, which has a bunch of subsections. Aegon's Conquest under Anis and Megor under Jaheris and Alsan Dance of the Dragons era under Darren the second, under Aries the first and then later Rains. Then we can move on to House Frey in A Song of Ice and Fire, and that's parsed by book. We have A Game of Thrones, the Clash of Kings, the Storm of Swords, the Feast of Crows, the Dance of Dragons, you know the

book names. Then we'll have our quote of the week. Then we'll have Outlook and Succession where we toss around a few theories, some ideas of what might be in store for House Frey in the future, and then our outro and that'll be it. Let's get to it now. In the beginning, I said, I say all that and more, you know all that and more in this episode. But this episode is actually the longest episode doc we've had in a while, maybe since Valari read us. It's 29 pages.

This document that I'm reading you, I'm reading from today. It we of course don't have time for a deep dive into each important phrase. You all probably know that I just got through saying the succession is many pages of of names. But if you have favorite phrase or side stories that you want us to focus on at a later date, it's an entirely possible thing that will do that, because there are so many other stories that we can't cover because we can't focus on the characters that much.

Here we have so many phrase. So you let us know what you'd like us to focus on if and when we return to this subject someday. First mention the first we hear of Lord Fray and the twins, and the house comes when Catelyn is travelling Incognito with Sir Roderick to King's Landing. She's thinking about worst case scenarios and it served as an introduction to several of the River Lords with our subject

placed prominently. Catelyn knew them all, the Blackwoods and the Brackens, ever enemies whose quarrels her father was obliged to settle. Lady went last of her line, who dwelt with her ghosts in the cavernous vaults of Harrenhal. Irascible Lord Frey, who had outlived his seven wives and filled his twin castles with children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren, and bastards and grandbastards as

well. All of them were banner men to the Tullys, their swords sworn to the service of River Run. Catlin wondered if that would be enough if it came to war. Her father was the staunchest man who'd ever lived, and she had no doubt that he would call his banners. But would the banners come? The dairies and rigers and moutons had sworn oaths to River Run as well.

Yet they had fought with Rhaegar Targaryen on the Trident, while Lord Frey had arrived with his levees well after the battle was over, leaving some doubt as to which army he had planned to join. Theirs he had assured the victors solemnly in the aftermath, but ever after her father had called him the late Lord Frey. Something that actually didn't occur to me while we were writing this episode is Lord Fray showed up in person at that spot. That's.

I mean, he would have been like 78 or something because he's 92 now. 78 Yeah, he was. Spry and making babies still. He was still making babies. You're not wrong. So I guess if he can make babies, he can, you know, go out on campaign, you know, it's not that far away to try it in from the fray or from the twins. So yeah, anyway, the first time we hear this guy, we hear that he's just unbelievable with the wives and children and and untrustworthy besides.

And this serves to make him sound cautious. But as I said in the intro, he's not actually cautious. He just doesn't take unprofitable risks. The bigger the risk, the more he needs to be paid out. He took a big risk joining Rob, but the payoff would have been big. And then, of course, he, you know, backed out of that and got a different payoff from the

other side. I also want to throw out this early mention of Catlin and Rob discussing his plan and Lord Walder, because it's pretty important. It's it's a pretty early quote. It's not the first or second, but it's it's it's pretty close. We hear of House Frey also before they meet him, when he's explaining his plan to his mother. Rob is the plan to split his army, you know, to trick the Lannisters and break the siege of Rivera. Let's hear it quote.

There's no crossing on the green fork above the Ruby Ford where Robert won his crown. Not until the twins all the way up here and Lord Fray controls that bridge. He's your father's bannerman, isn't that so? The late Lord Fray Catlin thought He is, she admitted. But my father has never trusted him, nor should you. I won't. Rob promised. Whoops, he didn't. Actually not. It's not so simple as Rob did trust him. He kind of did, but we're not here to talk about the Red

Wedding in detail. It's just one of the most most important events. But you knew it was foreshadowed early on. This is really early on. To be fair, this isn't foreshadow anything specific. It just foreshadows betrayal at some point, or at least suggest the possibility. It does tell the reader and Rob not to trust this man, but what ends up happening is he he doesn't trust Walder, but he just has to make concessions to

Pride to win the man back over. But that turned out to be bait, but also cause of a manpower shortage and Ed Muir's planning. But more on that later. Let's start with where it started before the Twins became one of the most impregnable castles in the realm, ruled by one of the most irascible and certainly most progenitus. What's the word for having lots of children anyway? This next section is Founding and History. Here's a basic description from

the World of Ice and Fire quote. They had risen to prominence some 600 years ago, their line originating from a petty Lord who raised a rickety wooden bridge across the narrowest part of the Green Fork. But as their wealth and influence grew, so did the crossing, and soon the castle grew from a single tower that overlooked the bridge to two formidable towers that bracketed the river between them. These two keeps, now called the Twins, are amongst the strongest

in the realm. Let's take a look at where the twins are located, as this location is of course crucial to their origins. That bridge is everything, right? And not only the bridge, though, but the value they created from it and how far away it is from the rest of the river lands. They're actually closer to parts of the West, the North, the Vale and the Iron Islands than much of the other Riverlords. It's kind of like their own

little corner there. And that's always been a facet of the Riverlands, that it's next to so many other things. But the phrase are unusually close to so many other kingdoms, even though they're up in a corner there. White Harbor looks about as close as River Run to the Twins.

Now, in actual travel time, it would take longer, but the point is that their placement is really interesting and it's easy to miss who some of their neighbors are and just the interesting position they have in the region. There's a lot of ramifications of being close to so many

borders. So a surprising thing here is that the petty Lord in question, this first Lord Frey, he would have been given these lands almost certainly by a Durandon, a Storm King, because 600 years ago when this bridge was built, when the first Lord Frey got his land grant, it was the 1st century of the three century occupation of the Riverlands by the Storm King. So it was kind of in the when they were new, which tells us a lot.

In that era, of course, there was no Heron Hall, no Kings Road, and the Twins would be the newest castle on the block and would thus not be much of A player. I mean, especially given the early description as just a petty Lord who built a rickety bridge, you're not going to be getting involved in too much when when that's your setup. But over time, and it sounds like overtime wasn't that long, the toll and tax revenue really piled up and that money was

reinvested. It was a smart thing to do. This was a place where a bridge was really needed, but no one had done it yet. Maybe there weren't enough people with the skill to do it. Maybe it was really difficult. I mean, this is a really a deep part of the river, fast flowing. So it was probably quite a challenge. And we do hear that it took multiple generations, so that adds up. So it was quite an undertaking. So that that helps us understand why no one had done it before.

It sounds like the Fraylords and ladies have been for the most part of one mind about the goal of their house and the source of its power. The crossing is valuable, and they always adhere to that. They know that. They realize this is what matters to them the most. It's the source of everything for them.

Now, Nina points out, this doesn't make the phrase on a general level any better or worse than any other aristocratic family in Westeros. In a world of constant geopolitical scrambling, the control of natural resources, barriers and roads just places to go it of course, this is a a relatively expected basis for a family's wealth or status or

authority or all of the above. The phrase aren't like less noble or more ambitious than the leopards with the golden tooth or the errands with their bloody gait or the wills in the storm in in the stone way. Big difference being though that all those houses have been established for so much longer. Should that matter? Personally I don't think so, but it clearly does to Westerosi nobles and you can see how that has an impact in the real world as well.

Not quite as much, because families aren't so old in most cases. Now here's Catlin's view of the Twins itself. The castle, not just the house spray, which is the first time we see it in person in A Song of Ice and Fire quote. The Green fork ran swift and deep here, but the phrase had spanned it many centuries past and grown rich off the coin men paved them to cross. Their bridge was a massive arch of smooth Gray rock, wide enough

for two wagons to pass abreast. The water tower rose from the center of the span, commanding both road and river with its arrow slits, murder holes, and portcullises. It had taken the phrase 3 generations to complete their bridge. When they were done, they'd thrown up stout timber keeps on either bank so no one might cross without their leave. The timber had long since given

way to stone. The Twins, 2 squat, ugly, formidable castles, identical in every respect with the bridge arching between, had guarded the crossing for centuries. High curtain walls, deep moats and heavy oak and iron gates protected the approaches. The bridge footings rose from within stout inner keeps. There was a Barbican and portcullis on either bank, and the water tower defended the span itself. Quite a description.

It's really formidable, really well designed, really intelligently made in terms of accomplishing its purpose. And yeah, like, how could you attack that? It's difficult. If it weren't for our experience with House Fray and Song of Ice and Fire, like everything we already know about them are are prejudgement, it would be a lot easier to look at this story positively. Enterprising person, builds bridge, improves the trade and prosperity of the region, increases connectivity between

communities, tames nature. This is good. It's not mining. It's not something environmentally harmful, right? Like, that's not the worst thing ever, but on scale it can cause a lot of damage. There's just no real inherent violence or harm in this endeavour, unlike some of the other examples that have made other houses powerful. It's one of the most basic things that almost every citizen of every nation in the real world has ever felt about their government.

When your government spends money on bridges or infrastructure, you generally are OK with that. That's like one of the good things. It's one of the best things you can spend money on right As a as tax revenue. But by that same token, a government that builds a bridge or a highway can turn around and charge exorbitant fees, right? That can turn a good thing into

a bad thing pretty quickly. I've seen in my own lifetime a toll booth installed here in Atlanta that was made to pay for a highway and it was actually taken down after those millions were collected over the years. It was surprising you would actually expect them to leave it there and continue racking up the revenue. I shan't pretend like this is super common, but it would be even less common if the roads were privately owned, which is exactly what we're dealing with

here. This is like a big highway owned by one family, and they can charge whatever they want, whenever they want. They can charge based on your ability to pay. They can charge based on their whims. Change in such cases can only come at the whims of the owners, which is almost always driven by the bottom line. It's not quite the same with governments, right? It's a little different. Again, though, the phrase aren't uniquely bad. This is a negative element to them, but it's not a uniquely

negative thing. Lady Weber and Sir Eustace fight over the checky water. Wyman Manderly wants to dam the White Knife and and petitions robbed for that. There's plenty of examples that are somewhat similar, so the phrase definitely aren't unique that way. It's just something about this is a lot more transferable to the real world because tolls and bridges, we have those now, right? We don't really have people

fighting over river rights. Isn't really like governments do that, you know, maybe some arrangements between communities, things like that, but it's not very common. You certainly don't have castles making these arguments or our houses, right? So it's kind of unique even even with the the other examples being somewhat similar. That's definitely what we're dealing with in the case of the phrase, they've got money by collecting tolls. They have to be tough about it too, right?

Because you're collecting all this money. There's people who are going to be like, no, I refuse to pay. Early on, they may have had to just let some people cross because they couldn't say no. Like let's say the Lord Castley Rock, Lord of Castley Rock shows up and he's like, you want me to pay how much? I'm not doing that. Are you going to try to stop me? If it was in the first, say, 50 to 100 years of the twins existing, then they'd probably just like, OK, dude, you can pay, you can pass.

And they might just remember that and charge them double next time. But early on, they might have had to just, OK, you're too strong for us. Go ahead. You can pass for free. Now, I'm not saying that's what the Lord of Castle Rock would automatically do. He might pay because he's the Lord of Castle Rock. He's rich as hell. And he wants to make he wants, wants to demonstrate that as the one that seemed cheap, right? Who knows? It just depends on the personality.

But now all that's gone. Now it's you. It's literally their way or the highway or the long way in this case, all those positive ideals fulfilled by building a gridge or sacrificed for one human shortcoming, Greed. And that greed is insured by the only power that can insure it in Westeros, Marshall power. They have lots of soldiers. The phrase are very equipped. They have spend a lot of that tax revenue, a lot of that toll revenue on soldiers. Nina says it's also no pun intended.

I disagree. I intended the pun. She may not intended the pun, but I do a two way St. She says the phrase can only act in so far as they know. They have the backing of a powerful overlord. Their bridge is a powerful bargaining chip, but it doesn't completely isolate them from the geopolitics of the Riverlands or Westeros generally. Yeah, like if everyone ganged up on them or, or the king ordered them to make changes, they might have to, you know, either risk that or losing their charter or

land of forever. Still, I want to return to the point I made at the beginning in the intro, that this is a lot like mafia, like the way Wilder runs his family and the way they run the bridge and the twins in general. And I think that's part of why he wrote the house this way, George, that he wrote them like a a large family, like a mafia family and Lord Walter like a godfather. They like real mafias. They take the proceeds from their initial money making ventures and invest in new ones.

The area around the twins is fertile. It's full of farms. But if it had always been that way, then there would have been a Lord ruling the region before. There's no way a fertile, useful region had no Lord in it for thousands of years, right? That just doesn't really make much sense, does it? Especially in an area where there's so many people and stuff happening.

So it's very likely the frays are responsible for developing land that wasn't developed into something fertile and prosperous, that it didn't start that way, and that in turn would see another significant increase in population and trade and thus more tax revenue from their peasants and merchants and more people crossing the bridge. Unlike most of the riverlords who are steeped in ancient history and in many cases ties to the old gods and maybe even some other supernatural arenas

here and there. Not the phrase right? Many houses in the Riverlands either had their heart tree chopped down or did it themselves. Frasier's never had one in the first place. They're way past that era. So that also is maybe part of the reason why they're a little separate, why they're a little looked down on. They just don't. Their history is different. They don't have that connection to the region in a way that a lot of the ancient houses do.

And that's also another thing unique about them is that they grew over time. There's a few similar examples out there, but most castles are built in what is mostly their final form, or at least something substantial.

Very few castles of Westeros started out as a wooden keep and eventually became multiple stone keeps and a third tower added on and all the other stuff that's unusual Winterfell was added to over the years, but it started big casterly rocks, sure OK they add tunnels here and there but the main stuff has been done for a long time. One example I suppose is the Aegon for it, but that was just torn down entirely and the Red

Keep started from scratch. That wasn't an improved building, it was just let's do away with this and start over. So there's not many examples that I could really come up with at all that are similar in terms of improving a a existing structure. Like Storm's End is another one, but that was it just kept getting destroyed and rebuilt. That's not the same as improving it gradually. It was basic and grew into something larger as their means grew along with it. Now, surely some of the nearby

Lords saw what was happening. They could see what the phrase we're doing and they could understand, perceive that over time this was going to become a very powerful neighbor. That income they're earning from that bridge is significant. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out. In fact, it's very basic, very simple.

The revenue that would flow forever like like the green fork itself is like, they're just going to keep collecting those tolls and it's just going to keep stacking up and they're just going to keep getting richer and richer. And, and there's physical evidence the, the money, you can assume the money's coming in and then you see the castle improve and the stone towers go up and the would be swapped out and all that. So it's absolute proof that

their income is substantial. And of course, as I said, it's not just the castle, but their army and their influence. So let's consider their neighbors. Their sworn vassals are House Hay, House Charlton, and House Ehrenford. Charlton is the most interesting of those three because they predate House Frey. So at some point in House Frey's ascension, they dominated House Charlton, whereas they started off lesser. That may have been after Aegon's conquest.

Maybe Aegon rearranged a few things after, you know, Heron the Black was defeated, but it may have happened earlier under the Storm Kings. And there's a lot of potential there because if they were actual Stormlanders themselves, if they were a Lord brought over from the Stormlands by the Durandans, then they would want to have loyal vassals installed.

And, you know, bringing in someone that's loyal to you because you gave them a lordship is a lot different than trying to win over the dairies or the the malasters or all these other houses that have been established for thousands of years and and have their loyalties are pretty set already. Now, we know pretty well that the phrase don't get along with the chronic men. And that probably has been the case since the beginning. The phrase are much newer to the area.

It could be that the first Lord Fray kind of colonize an area that was lived in by Chronic Men. Just guessing though. I'm not really sure. They certainly would have viewed the growing power of House Fray as a negative development matter what. And it's also possible that they tried to expand into places where the Chronic Men really already held sway, and there may have been some fighting or some bad blood, or both.

And for these frontiers, these borders are not exactly well established, especially in a swampy area like the Neck that is hard to define in the 1st place. But it certainly would have made the chronic men nervous and and not at all pleased with this development. We see the prejudice against them here. It's actually kind of funny how over the top the young phrase express their beliefs. But this is apparently what how's Frey teaches their children quote.

Mud men, answered little Waldor disdainfully. They're thieves and cravens, and they have green teeth from eating frogs. A few minutes later, he says. Frog eaters don't smell like men, Frey insisted. They have a boggy stink like frogs and trees and scummy water. Moss grows under their arms in place of hair, and they can live with nothing to eat but mud and breathe swamp water. I don't think so.

I don't think so. Walter, this might be better seen as like a boogeyman type story, the kind of story they tell their kids when they're young and when you're older, they don't actually expect you to believe that. You know, I'm not sure, but it's certainly over the top. And like I said, kind of funny. To the east of the twins, there's very little other than the Kings Rd. which we'll speak of in a moment. And of course, reminder, it wasn't there when the Twins were founded.

To the West is Sea Guard, which is of course the first line of defense against the Ironborn. They've been there a long time. To the South is the ruins of Old Stones. Old Stones and the Twins never coexisted. Old Stones was long a ruin before the Twins was built. So ultimately the sentiment for many of their neighbors amounts to denigrating comments like upstarts and toll collectors.

They believe toll collecting, this kind of endeavor to be beneath the nobility, even though a lot of them do it in a different way. You know, they still collect money. They're, oh, taxing. That's so much more noble than collecting tolls. Yeah, that. But still, you know, the nobles have their peculiar beliefs. They think that such thing is is a is a business of the merchant class.

Perhaps This is why we don't see more fortified bridges in Westeros. I mean, Nina did point out, and I agree with her, that there's plenty of other houses that just make their bank off of controlling a certain area. But there's not many that have bridges. There's, you know, there's Bitter Bridge and a few others, but that's not a fortified bridge. That's just a bridge, right? So this is different.

This is kind of unique. But still, the point is build a fortified bridge and charge lots of taxes and you get shunned at the parties of the rich people. So it's kind of the what Nina calls the inherently unwinnable politics of the Westerosi aristocracy. To be in trade of any sort is to be inherently less than by the aristocracy, no matter how rich

it makes you. It's like you have to get wealthy at a very specific way for them not to look down on you have to be your house has to be old enough. You have to collect your money in a very specific ways. You have to behave certain ways. It's just very strange and inconsistent and blah. It's meh.

Combine the aristocratic horror of the mercantile life with the similarly classist horror of a family that is relatively much younger than the First Men, blue bloods who have been ruling Westeros for the better part of 8000 years, and you get even more reason for this resentment against House Freya. They all look down on them for certain things, but also look down on them for being richer and like they shouldn't be richer than us. We should be richer.

We're more noble. We've been around longer. It's wrong. It's against the natural order of things for this house to have more money than us. So it's just like even their success makes people look down on them. And it's wild how this gets translated into other places. Even like Dunk, who is a hedge knight looks down on them because other people do.

It's like that. It's like the trickle down effect of of hatred or of of shame or or resentment or whatever you want to call it just ridiculous. Just these beliefs get passed down and they have no look at me defending the phrase. Let's move on rain of the storm

kings. Given that the Durandans ruled the region when the House Ray was founded, again, we're working on the assumption that that particular Durandon who conquered the, the storm, the, the the Riverlands was the one who granted him the first Lord Fray these lands. Now, that could have come a little later, you know, but that's a safe assumption, or at least a reasonable guess.

And it might have been like a request, like an upstanding, ambitious visionary who's like, Sire, grant me this land and a small amount of gold and I will turn this gold into lots more gold and you'll get tax revenue out of it. You give me this investment and it's going to pay off big time. He was may have been convincing, charismatic, make a made a good case. Maybe he had some experience already. Again, we talked about the bridge building isn't like such a big thing in Westeros.

So he might have had some special experience that he gained maybe overseas. Maybe that's how what got him the land grant in the 1st place. His his ability as an architect or an engineer, terms that obviously don't exist in Westeros, but we can use the use them to approximate what's happening. And of course, this would be highly appealing to the Storm King. You're like, yeah, I get to install a vassal who's going to be loyal to me and give me money and, you know, leave my mark on

the region. And yeah, you've got all these conquered nobility around you. You want somebody that's kind of in your pocket that you can count on. That's not one of them. And the phrase, as we've been talking about throughout most of this episode already, are not one of them. Even now, they're kind of outsiders within their own region. So back then, it must have been even more so. Now remember too that it wasn't the Kingdom of the Stormlands and the rivers. No, it was just the Stormlands

is much bigger now. He just we just conquered it all and added it to the Stormlands. It was not like when Rob said this is the Kingdom of the north and rivers or or back when the various kingdoms of the Riverlands were Kingdom of the hills and rivers or Kingdom of the rivers and this or that. Yeah. No, this is the Stormlands version was just the Stormlands is a lot is a lot larger now.

The Neck would have been kind of the border there and again, a, a kind of undefined border, but that's like potentially 1000 or more miles away from Storms End. That's really far to to manage. So you can kind of understand why they weren't able to hold it, though they did hold it for quite a while. 300 years is pretty substantial. They also would want to consider keeping a barrier between the North and the Riverlands.

If you're the Storm King, you might consider that the Riverlands is still steeped in Old God's worship. And of course, the North is the biggest hotbed of such. What's to stop the Riverlands from making an alliance with the North, like what happens in the Song of Ice and Fire, and pushing away the Stormlands, pushing the Storm King's rule away? He probably considered that, or at least one of his descendants did.

And that's a good reason to put the phrase right there in between the Neck and the rest of the Riverlands to as a block, as a check against the possibility of the North and the older Riverlands uniting. So yeah, it, it, we said it's hard for the Stormlands to hold the Riverlands. And it was it, it's not just like theoretical. There were, there were rebellions almost every generation or so for 300 years. So yeah, it, it was difficult.

There was lots of sending troops there, lots of difficulties. Now we're told the bridge was finished by the grandson of the first Lord Frey. I remember 3 generations of building that bridge and it just in its first form, just in the wooden form. How many generations it took to upgrade it to stone, who knows, but it may have been vulnerable

in the earlier times. That's why maybe the Storm Lords or the Storm Kings were helping, providing assistance, riding troops, providing protection or giving more money so they could pay for that themselves. The river Lords in the area may not have liked it. They may have seen it as a threat. And so they may that might have been why some protection was needed.

But the Riverlands may have. It's also possibly just shrugged at it. They just like, So what he's building a bridge is, is that a threat to us? It might be good and it may be because they're looking down on them like the nobility tends to do, like, well, these are just tax collectors. These are just bridge building tax collectors. Why should we? Why should we ancient nobility be threatened by that?

Yeah. Their own short sightedness, their own highfalutin pride might prevent them from seeing the threat. And especially before the Kings Rd. because the the back and forth wouldn't have been as dangerous. The the control of that region wouldn't have been as valuable. But there's not as much traffic, you know. Also, it wasn't a united 7 kingdoms. Once Aegon comes, which we'll be talking about shortly, all the kingdoms were had more

connectivity. But at this time there was a strict border between the North and the Riverlands and a strict border between the Stormlands in the West. And those borders were a lot more likely to turn violent than after Aegon's Conquest, when turning violent meant the consequence potentially of facing Valerian. So we can't be sure how long the twins relied on Storms End to get them going, but we doubt it was that long because the phrase

we're just making such bank. And like we said, reinvesting and things were going seemed to go well for them. So they probably could handle it on their own. And the more they got to handle it on their own, the more they probably started thinking about independence and thinking, well, we don't need Storms End anymore. And when new leadership came along, they were able to make their own choices regarding what was best for their house. They no longer had to consider the Storm Lands, or anyone

really. They could just look out for themselves under the Ironborn. As we said, the Twins are surprisingly closer to certain other regions important areas than they are to places in the Riverlands, but also to Storm's End, which is really far away. The twins are closer to the Iron Isles than they are to storms in by quite a bit. The Ironborn came to conquer the Riverlands 300 years after the storm Kings when the twins were about 200 years old. So 200 years is pretty established, right?

That's not super established, but it's they're no longer with the rickety wooden bridge. They're several Lord Fray's in. They've got some money. They'd be even more looked down on. They're even more upstartish only 200 years in, but again, they probably already had formidable wealth which 'cause them to be looked down on in a different way by the nobility cause of jealousy. So their truest loyalty would be to themselves.

And as they had became more powerful and had more of an identity that's going to increase as each successive Fray Lord ascended, they'd feel less and less indebted. So when Harwin Hardhand made himself King of the Riverlands, they did not have divided loyalties. Let's take a look at the map as we're talking about this part. This is fun. Harwin's forces landed South of Sea Guard and carried their long ships over land on foot to drop them in the Blue Fork and then sail downriver.

So they bypassed not only Sea Guard, the first line of defense against the Ironborn in the Riverlands, but they bypassed the new twins. They just said, hey, we don't care about them. We don't need to attack that. That's not the. Important part, these are just

upstart bridge toll collectors. That's not the center of power here in the Riverlands. So most of the Riverlords fought with the Ironborn, ironically, because they saw it as a chance to throw off the Storm King. They're like, hey, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. But of course, Harwin sort of duped them. He intended to take it for himself, probably all along, certainly, if not all along.

He did by the end. Most of the Riverlord's vests were caught off guard and weakened already when Harwin turned on them. We don't really hear about the phrase here in this conflict. They aren't mentioned as having contributed to the host that was defeated by Harwin, and they certainly were powerful enough to stand on their own despite the strength of their castle. I suspect they paid a hefty tribute to Harwin to leave them alone.

He probably needed money because he's, hey, he's launching an invasion of the Riverlands. You need a lot of money for that. And it probably worked, especially if it came with a pledge to continue those payments. He's like, hey, yo, we're a constant source of revenue. Don't mess with us. You win. We'll just keep. We'll send the taxes to you. No reason to come for us, man.

It probably worked, right? Harwin was said to have ruled from the saddle because like the Storm kings the Riverlands is, he found it hard to keep them in line. They were constantly rising up. And he was vicious and ruthless. And it still wasn't enough. They still fought back, but presumably the twins kept sending revenue and that would have kept them from getting targeted by heart when he would

have just ignored them. You know, he would have said, OK, well, they're not a problem, they're sending me money, I don't need to go punish them. But it is possible he would have had to do something. Maybe they tried to hold out, but they might have been wise enough to realize that the Ironborn are a different animal in terms of stopping them because they could actually sail long ships down the Green Fork and and and and maybe mount an entirely different type of

assault than just from land. I'm not sure about that, but it's an interesting question. So with these few examples in the in the book so far, let's talk about the pattern that's happened under the phrase for many hundreds of years, basically since their existence, which is they their pattern of trying to get in good with the royalty, maybe as a means of moving past the noble prejudice that they face. Like, well, if we can just ascend even farther, they won't

be able to laugh at us as much. It's nothing like getting back at someone for looking down on you, then getting above them and looking down on them in turn. That's that's like a fray vibe that we should get. They're so tired of being laughed at and looked down on and they're so they use that as motivation to flip the, to switch the table, turn the tables and hey, now we're looking down on you. You who's the upstart now? You know, that kind of thing.

So of course they couldn't have cozied up to the Storm Kings even if the Storm Kings installed them because the Storm Kings were established thousands of years prior. They already had connections with so many other ancient nobles that go back so far. It's really hard to break into that club. There's this is an Andal Kingdom conquering another Andal Kingdom, 7 worshippers

conquering 7 worshippers. There's there's marriages between the Storm Kings and say the Conningtons and other houses in the storm lines that come back thousands of years. Like you just can't compete with that as new blood. There's no way for a Fray Durand in marriage to really happen. But the Frays might have taken their shot at offering the Ironborn kings some marriages, right?

It's a bit of a chintzy game to play with the Ironborn though because of they don't follow the same marriage laws as the rest of the Seven Kingdoms, they have a penchant for taking wives and relegating them to lesser status. That doesn't mean a Fray Lord wouldn't be willing to do that

though. I mean, plenty of Fray Lords, Walder Frey included, is the best example of just treating his daughters like resources, not people, which again, very common in Westeros. Not something unique to Walter Frey, but it was an interesting consideration. Maybe the phrase offered some marriage alliances to house horror, thinking that, hey, this could, this is what the way the

wind is blowing. We're already not that established as river Lords. The other river Lords already looked down on us. This won't hurt our status. If somebody like the especially the Maoisters, tried to marry into the Ironborn, it would be shocking and would ruin their reputation, perhaps forever. But the phrase are already looked down upon. That reputation's already bad, so they can within that they have a little more room to move around. Now again, there's no proof or

evidence that this happened. It's just a reasonable possibility. Nina. Nina tends to doubt it just because of the for the same reason I suggested that the religious differences are perhaps too large. You know, the wives would be just as likely to be considered enslaved. And I don't know that he would want to do it either. I, I, he's a conqueror. He doesn't want to legitimize his conquest with marriages, He wants to legitimize it with further violence. That's really the more the

Ironborn way. So yeah, there's some arguments against it, but but it's possible. It's possible. Another scenario I'm fond of is the idea that they cozied up to the invaders even more than was necessary for self preservation, right? It's so important. Like just like Lord Walder in the Song of Ice and Fire timeline and his father before him, they just try to attach themselves to royalty. It's just such a common thread here.

Obviously, Robb Stark, that's one of the first ones that we learn about, even though chronologically it's the last one. We are introduced to them as a man of extreme caution, the late Lord Fray, right? But again, he joined right away once the issue of Queen, Queen Fray, when that was put on the table, he's all for it, right? He's willing to take all kinds of risks for that.

The Fray Queen would have been like the Riverlands, half representative of the new Kingdom of Northern Rivers, like the like poster child for this new regime. Then, of course, they switched to the Lannisters. But you know, you can't get in with the Lannisters. You can't marry that high in the Lannister families under these circumstances. They got, you know, Joy, they got what which very not Joy. Joy married the the Westerlings, but they they haven't gotten their Lannister bride yet or

their Lannister marriage yet. But it's going to happen. It's on the schedule and more on that later. It's it's basically our our building up to the possibility of the Red Wedding too. Point so Lancel. True, true. Well, that hasn't actually happened yet either. But but you're right, They they arranged that. Yeah, you're totally right. They want some. Of their you know, they want some other Lannisters. They want the Davin Lannister marriage. That's the big one.

That's the big set up. But you're right, it's not the only one. That's a good call. Now, before that, they tried to get in on the ground floor of the second Blackfyre Rebellion, not actually marrying the Blackfyres. It was a fray frayed, a Butterwell wedding and the Butterwells were the host in the primary movers of all this. The movers and shakers the wedding and tournament was that was the cover.

Not that this got remotely close to succeeding, but had Damon the second become king, the phrase would have been like small council. Other rewards on top of that money new lands like they would have been definitely ground floor investors in the new regime and would have gotten paid hugely. Had that come to pass. A quick and mighty rise it would have been but and that's what they were aiming for. They missed, but that's what they were aiming for. And the fact that it wasn't even

close is part of the point here. They were willing to take a big risk again, even though they sometimes have this reputation as being risk averse, But they're not. They just want to be sure that the payoff is big enough. This is a huge risk, but so was the payoff. And they're really good at risk mitigating because they know that they can buy their way out of it. They can hold up in their impregnable castle and negotiate and say, look, let's come to an arrangement.

We'll agree to be punished, but it's probably not going to come to them being full blown invaded and and everyone having their heads cut off because that would be so hard to pull off. So many men would die taking the twins, so they think they have this as a fall back, right? Nina says.

I think the phrase would have been most likely to simply stay out of the internal politics of the Riverlands in these early days, especially under the Ironborn, because Heron was trying to treat the Riverlands like a mass forced labor resource, especially Heron, Nina says. But probably Halleck and Harwin as well. They actively encouraged infighting, right? They rather than their method of keeping their vassals from rebelling against them was to encourage them to fight each

other. I don't know. The phrase would have been down for that and they wouldn't have needed to be. Like they don't have the old grudges like the Blackwood and Bracken going against each other. The Ironwood could sit back and laugh at that, but there is no like rival for the phrase to get embroiled with. Like, what are they going to go fight the Kranigman? I mean, like, that is really what the Ironborn had in mind, you know?

Another final example of how they cozy up, at least in the area of current Walder Frey, is the names in honor of other famous families. There's a Tito's Frey, like Tywin's father and a Tywin Frey. There's a Cersei Frey and a Jamie Frey. There's an Amy's Frey and his sons are Aegon and Rhaegar and there's another Aegon, right?

There's a Jingle Bell. So there's, there's a, there is Aegon Battleborn or Bloodborne, the the one who's like a bandit or a Brig and that we've never even heard of or seen. He's only mentioned the appendix. So yeah. But there's even more examples of the cozying up. I haven't mentioned any of the Targaryen examples yet. So let's do that.

Let's move to under the Dragons. So quick math, very simple math, it's roughly the year 300 now as things stand in the Song of Ice and Fire, and it was 600 years ago when House Freya was founded, or at least when they became historically relevant. So 300 years prior to Aegon's Landing and 300 years after. So there's half of the time phrase existed was before the conquest, and half of the time they've existed after. But of course we know far more about the after.

There's just it's just a more documented period, it's more recent, etcetera. So the phrase were big enough players by the conquest to start to be mentioned frequently. They pop up a lot in the World of Ice and Fire and in Fire and Blood a bit. So let's play in the historical sandbox for a bit, shall we? Aegon's Conquest, though the late Lord Fray is a stand out example of this concept.

It's very common for noble houses to wait to see who's winning before joining, but sometimes it's easy to tell before things really get going. Right when the Tullys and nearly every other Riverlands house turns on the horror dynasty, it's an easy choice. It's not like it's not hard to see. Well, let's see what happens. It's like, no, it's everyone is joining. We should join too. You don't want to be the one

house left out. That's if you're trying to get accepted by the other river Lords. It'd be a bad time to sit out. Everyone hated hair in the black. You got to be you got to get in on that. And there's the valerian factor. You don't want to be against that either. So this was pretty easy. There's nothing to be gained by staying loyal to Heron. As far as we could tell. He wasn't rewarding his vassals, you know, he was just expecting it. So yeah, really, no pay off

there. And again, new regime, opportunity to cozy up to the Aegon and the Targaryens, the sisters and all that. That's a new ground floor situation to maybe get in on. It didn't work though. Ultimately the phrase didn't make much headway under Aegon. Not Aegon, but later. They made some progress, just not under the Conqueror. And they knew that they they must have understood that it's still the dawn of a new era. We've got an entirely new system.

The Iron Fern united the entire Kingdom. There's going to be other opportunities. There's going to be more Targaryens. We'll take our shot later. Here's a quote about House Tully's relative strength compared to the rest of the big names in the Riverlands. And it's a little bit surprising

quote. House Tully was unique amongst the great houses of Westeros. Aegon the Conqueror had made them the Lords Paramount of the Trident, yet in many ways they continued to be overshadowed by many of their own bannermen. The Brackens, the Blackwoods and the Vances all ruled wider domains and could field much larger armies, as could the upstart phrase of the Twins. Let that sink in for a second. Even the history books are shading the phrase for being

upstarts. Like the maesters are doing it too. Like you want to see what I mean about the trickle down effect? Like people, they just can't help themselves with all the other nobility looked at them, so we should too. It's weird, but it's it's very human. It registers as something that people do right. So the Fraser mentioned among the four houses here that have the largest armies that could field the largest number of men. And that's also a statement on

their wealth. River men are said to have made-up a bulk of the of Aegon's army at the Field of Fire, which means it's very likely that a bulk of that riverman contingent were phrased because the phrase or something like in current times. Well, we'll say before the war started and when before, you know, when it was a time of peace, the phrase was something like 20 to 25% of the entire

Riverlands forces. So back then it may not have been quite so large, but it clearly was already among the top four or five in terms of size. So they were pretty big even then. And and if anything, they would have gotten larger by that by now, not smaller. Maybe they're roughly the same size, but I don't think they're smaller.

So while Lord Walders pride is enormous, yeah, he's not wrong that other houses look down on them and historians and Sir Duncan the tall and just yeah, it's he's not wrong. He's completely right about that. So these Frey men who fought the field of fire, they would return home with these great stories or horror stories, mostly good stories because since they were on the winning side of Valerian and Moraxis and Vergar of a victory of a type never seen

before or again, right. So the the phrase were included in that. And you wonder maybe there's some some artwork, some some homages to the phrase who fought in that famous battle. They would want to associate themselves with such an important event in history, given their desire to place themselves in the pantheon of Westerosi nobility and not be seen as upstarts. Like, hey, look, we were there at the Field of Fire. That's an important event. You know, that's a big deal for

them. You know, they, they can't say they were at the pact of the signing of the pact or fought in a long night or, you know, many of these other long ago events that would be a point of pride. But they were in this one, and that's a big one. The unification of Westeros into a single polity was most likely a good thing for most people.

For nobles and commoners alike. Surely there's there's definitely examples such as people who died during the unification of it because of it. But as a whole, the populace of Westeros benefited from additional peace, cross Kingdom trade, all that sort of thing. Which for the phrase if wartime, they can profit off of wartime if people need to pay them to cross the bridge like we see in the fungal ice and fire.

But generally speaking, it's probably better for them in peacetime because there's just a lot more people are going to be going back and forth paying those tolls during wartime. People staying home, they're afraid to go out. You don't want to get your caravan absconded with by a travelling army that needs supplies. So they would very much have benefited from the unification of Westeros. Just way. And people are doing longer trade routes, they're able to

cross the borders. You don't have to like petition to enter the North going from one Kingdom to another. You can just do it. It's just all one now. I'm not sure they had such things, but it would have been simpler once the Iron Throne was established, and for the first time ever, probably for the phrase, it would be a time of relative political stability. They'd never sworn fealty to an actual native Riverlands overlord.

They were independent, either sworn to the Storm Kings or to the Ironborn. And so once Aegon took over, they were actually sworn to another Riverlands house for the first time in their 300 years, so 300 half of their existence. They were not a vassal of another Riverlord's house, which is a pretty big deal, so they'd never been in that position before. And it speaks to again their separation, their difference, and why they're just their values as a house. Their cultural upbringing is

just different. Not to mention the massive value gained by the new capital of the entire continent, King's Landing, that was built under Aegon and started to grow pretty quickly, maybe at a speed the phrase will be familiar with given how quickly their castle develops. So having the capital, the entire nation relatively close by, that's good for them too. So just lots of really good things for the phrase that came under the Iron Throne.

Nina says it's interesting to speculate whether the phrase featured in early Targaryen cross country matchmaking given their strategic position on the Riverlands N border. It may have happened. We hear about a lot of those cross-border marriages arranged by Visenya and Rainey's, and there were examples given in the in Fire and Blood and a few more in the World of Ice and firefighter call correctly.

The phrase weren't mentioned, but it's it was explicitly stated that there were a lot of these that were unmentioned. They just didn't want to list them all, you know, So that's entirely possible. And the phrase are important. There would be a compelling reason for the king and Queens to discard or push away or negotiate past old grievances. And it's not good for, you know, for the river lines to have the phrase and other houses and like not liking each other.

So they may have been some arrangements to try to get these houses to get along better to be more of a unit to be. I mean, the Riverlands wasn't under united under itself. So they're kind of reforming that that grouping that they were after being conquered for so long under Anise and Magor. Quite a lot happened in the Riverlands after Aegon's death. It was a hotbed of rebellion and discontent as Anise proved to be

a weak ruler. But we don't actually hear anything specific about the phrase being involved. Lots of things happened in Harrenhal. There was, you know, Harren the Red running around. There was the invasion of King's Landing itself, the attack on the Red Keep. Not really sure what the phrase we're doing then. But they may have just been holed up waiting for things to die down. Not much profit in getting involved in a lot of that stuff,

right? They did March with Aegon the Uncrowned against Magor when Magor obviously usurped the throne after Anis's death from Anis's son and daughter, Aegon and Reyna. Reyna was of course the elder, but of the the crown was expected to go to Aegon anyway. And that's yet another example the phrase rather than siding with the powerful existing king, they took a shot with the upstart. Even though Aegon was the true heir, he was clearly in a weaker position.

I mean Magor had the capital, he had Valerian right? And he was a a warrior king. He was already very formidable, so the phrase were on the losing side, but managed to, you know, not get well. They weren't extirpated. Magor didn't kill them all, so that's something. He did supposedly come down with a heavy hand on the rebels, though. Visenya encouraged him to not go too far, which maybe isn't saying much when Visenya is the voice of reason about brutality or extra violence.

I don't know. The bars, yeah, the bars are not very high there. The phrase may have just done what they always do, though. They're like, hey, you can fall back on our great wealth and say, hey, we'll just send you lots of money, maybe some hostages to make amends to Megor and Visenya. And let's talk about that a little more. Because a lot of houses are wealthy because they own valuable things like land and castles. But that doesn't mean you have a

lot of cash, right? You have wealth and money aren't the same thing. Like wealth is owning valuable things. It doesn't necessarily mean you have a lot of. Millions of dollars in the bank or lots of stocks you can sell quickly for money. It's not always works, doesn't always work that way. So the phrase would always, though, have a lot of cash on

hand. The phrase would be one of the few houses that could say, yeah, we always have cash on hand because there's a constant supply of coins coming in from the toll collections, right? They would always have cash. Some houses even occasionally sell land when times get desperate. They're like, well, we have to. We can't make ends meet. Our castle's falling apart. We got to do this. We got to do that. They sell land. It's the one thing, it's the

last resort. The phrase are much more likely to be sniffing around, like looking for opportunities to buy land from people who are desperate then to be the ones that are forced into selling. I can't. I just really can't imagine the phrase being in that position unless something massive changes under G Harris and Alice Anne. Remember that George quote where he kind of wonders about Aragorn's tax policy? Well, let's talk about that a little bit here, but not Air Gorn.

Of course, the Kings Rd. This would have also been really beneficial to House Fray. And of course, the Kings Rd. was built under Jaharis and Al San. Any traffic coming South Down

the Kings Rd. prior to or before there was a road there, they would, they had the option of staying to the left, coming down South and just heading towards well, there was no King's Landing, but heading down that road that before it was the Kings Rd. But now you can do the peacetime version of what Rob did, take the crossing and then had head South to River Run. Otherwise, to get to River Run, you have to go all the way to the crossroads.

Shay's going to put the map up. This is very informative and illustrative. And then head W. It's extremely inefficient to come down from the north and go all the way to the crossroads and then go all the way West around and then back up north to the River Run. If you can look at the map, if you're able to pull the screen up here, even just for a minute, you can see what I'm talking about or take a look at the map later.

It's a really inefficient, but if you just cross at the Twins, you can get to River Run in like a third of the time. It's way different. And it the benefit doesn't end there because this River Rd. which is an extension of the King's Road. After River Run, the road goes all the way to Casterly Rock and then Landisport, and then Highgarden and then Old Town. It's a great route for a

merchant. A merchant could start at King's Landing, head all the way to White Harbor, and then turn around and head back down South. But instead of going back to King's Landing, they could cross at the Twins and then go river on Casterly Rock, Landsport, Highgarden, Old Town, and then back to King's Landing. It's a super long journey, but nearly the entire trip is on the King's Road or one of its tributary roads. Thus, you would never have to leave the highly traveled safer zones.

It's an increase in safety, a reduction in travel time, which means more goods going back and forth, which means more tax revenue. Toll collection for the phrase so much about that. Fewer bandits, fewer spoilage of goods, weather is less of a factor. Just pile up that tax revenue. You all that's this is all very good for them. They're very well positioned to capitalize on the prosperity brought by the Iron Throne in

the dance of the Dragon's era. A certain fool Fray, AKA Forest Fray, he earned that mocking nickname by proposing marriage to Rainier in the year 112. And he'd say, well, why is he full Fray? Isn't this kind of like embarrassed in the bold type stuff? Why wasn't he like Forest the bold? I couldn't come up with something there. Forest the fast, I don't know. Well, because he was a younger so he wasn't even in line to inherit the twins.

So it's like, is Rainier really going to marry a second or third son of, you know, a medium house that's kind of an upstart besides being really young. So yeah. Anyway, that nickname didn't really stick, though, because he actually turned into a Poissant knight. He became quite formidable. Now, if you're not entirely familiar with Poissant knight means, Arthur, King Arthur is described as a Poissant knight. Lancelot as well.

It just means you're really good at fighting, really good at the stuff that Knights do. Poissant, if it's attached to a different like a Poissant king, you know that means you're a powerful king rather than a great fighter, although it can mean both. Anyway, Forrest Frey instead of Rainier since she turned him down.

He married Sabbath of Vipron and then he but he actually did, ironically enough, inherit the twins even though he wasn't in line to because his elder brother or brothers, we don't know how many there were, died without issues. So Forrest became Lord of the Twins, Sabbath of Vipron, Lady of the Twins, and even though Rainier rejected him, he didn't take it personally. They supported Rainier's side

when the dance came. It's said that a sabatha is sharp featured and sharp tongued and ruthless and yeah, interesting, interesting character for sure. Now she greeted the winter's wolves as they passed SA. Little bit like what we saw in the TV show, vaguely like that. Forrest Frey helped Damon take Stonehedge and he brought 200 Knights and 600 infantry to the battle by the Lakeshore, AKA the fish feed, where he died too in the very bloody, very watery

battle. So his young son with Sabatha became Lord of the Crossing. But he was a young son, way too young to rule his own right. So the ruthless grasping, as we're told by the history, Lady Sabatha took over and she was quite competent, quite formidable. She sees Harrenhal when Amond abandoned it, but that almost backfired literally on her 'cause Amon suddenly returned and torched a bunch of her soldiers.

She managed to hide in a Privy and avoid being killed, which was you got to do what you got to do right. She had even captured Alice Rivers at that point but lost her. During this incident. She did escape and make it back to the twins with her surviving

men. Sabatha was later joined by her father and brothers in forming a new host which joined the Second Battle of Tumbleton. The full size of the army was 4000 but we don't know how many of those were phrase and and vibrons, but definitely a large number you would think. Though several of the Black leaders were killed, they lost less than 100 soldiers and Lady Sabatha was among the survivors. She also LED her contingent at the Battle of the Kings Rd.

AKA the Muddy Mess, which was the final battle of the Dance of the Dragons where the Stormlands army was defeated by the River Lords and the Darklands who switched sides and attacked the Stormlanders in the back. That helped a lot. She may be the only woman who has LED Frey armies.

She's definitely the only woman that we know of to lead Fray armies, but there's enough missing Fray history that it's entirely possible some other ruling lady frays have existed, though that doesn't mean they existed during times of war, so we just don't know now. Sabbath also LED her victorious army, along with the rest of the River Lords, into King's Landing as victors, and they were greeted with cheers the the the common folk. The people of King's Landing

were happy to see them. She never did remarry, but she probably had a relationship with Black Alley before Black Alley moved N they probably stopped seeing each other at that point, but they had their time together I suppose. She also was one of the few to hold widows fairs which was a very clever move. She held them at the Twins.

There were widows fairs held elsewhere, and the point of the widows fairs, if you case you don't remember, was to find new husbands for the many widowed river women. And a lot of those husbands were the northern veterans who came S with Roddy the ruin. A lot of them survived. Well, not a lot of them survived, but enough of them survived. I'm not actually, it wasn't just the ones who came S with Roddy, but some of the ones who came S with Kragen. And they never got to fight at

all for them. So some of them just stayed in the South and said, hey, I'll start a new life here in this nicer climate. Give me a wife who already has a household. Yeah, that's that's a pretty good result for dudes who marched S expecting to die. It's also an interesting way to show us how the old Gods had a little bit of a resurgence there because these are northerners

moving in and these are the men. So they're probably, you know, in charge, you know, dominating their households in a lot of cases. So a lot of Riverlands houses would restart their worship of the Old Gods. I mean houses, I mean, you know, home like individual homes, not noble houses. And that would, that's interesting. You know, I don't know what effect this had on the phrase, but it would because they have no old connection to the old gods.

But it's an interesting consideration there that might, that might make them more open to it because even though they don't have the connection to it, it's like, yeah, sure, we'll do that. We don't care. But they might be strict about the seven in some cases.

A couple years after the war, three years after the war, we'll say in the year 134, there was a succession crisis in the Veil following the death of Lady Jane, the formerly known as the Maiden of the Veil. Robert Rowan, who was the son of the Hand of the King at the time, Thaddeus Rowan, was sent to lead an army to restore the King's peace. 600 Freys were

sent by Lady Sabatha to join. Not entirely sure why what their connection was here what maybe Sabatha was just trying to be a A player and was just showing throwing her might around a little bit and getting involved in things.

But 1/3 this was a 9000 man army that these 600 phrase were part of and it went badly in the veil because of well because of the veil the the conditions they marched along the High Road got hit by snow mountains, Klansmen 1/3 of that 9000 which would be you know 3000 died along the way. Rough math of 1/3 of the phrase died that's 200 of them.

Maybe This is why the phrase didn't help Catlin at the end of the crossroads after she sees Tyrion, because they tell the stories about what happened to the phrase in the Veil, you know, 150 years before are still remembered. They still tell those stories. They talk about the field of fire, but they also talk about starvation in the Veil. Like, yeah, we we shouldn't be going back there. Let's not do that. You could say they were right,

too, right? Like, how hard was it for Catlin and Tyrion and the rest of them to get through the Veil to get to the Erie? It was very difficult. If they had had 20 heavily armed phrase with them, the Klansmen might not have even attacked them. So there's that, as there is another way to look at it. The phrase were important enough to be included on the planned royal progress for Aegon the Third, but when Aegon the Third came of age, he famously cancelled that royal progress,

so it didn't happen. Now, we're not sure when Sabatha died, but it's likely she was still alive when her son came of age, because we're only talking about 8-9, ten years of waiting before he became 16. Given how influential and successful she had been, I bet he relied on her a lot, got a lot of advice from her, at least early on.

But but who can say for sure? We know nothing about this boy or the man he became, except that he was a fray, which according to Wyman Manderley, is a bad thing to grow up as. And it's hard to disagree under most cases. Under Darren the Second, No mention of the phrase in the first Black Fire rebellion of 196? We can guess given what we've learned about them in their patterns so far with some confidence that they either sat out entirely because there's no clear winner.

There's no obvious like where's our where's our angle here? Where's our edge? There's no new regime to get in with in terms of the loyalists and getting in with the black fires. Chin see as well, because they're they already had so many close allies. Bitter Steel did, however, rally much of the Riverlands, so it's possible the phrase were included in that. The Lostons, for example, joined, but they bailed or

switched sides. We're not clear which, but certainly there was some sort of betrayal by the Lostons at the last minute. But we don't hear anything about the phrase here, so there's a good chance they just weren't involved. They said hep, we're staying out of it. But they were definitely a part of the second Black Fire rebellion. And a lot of the second Black Fire rebellion participants were people who fought on the losing side in the first one.

And this is the phrase we're so deeply involved in this second Black fire, quote, UN quote rebellion that does somewhat argue that they were one of those losers of the first time around, but certainly not by any. There's no certainty here. It could be that the phrase fought for the loyalists and were annoyed at how little reward they got for it. That's possible too. This is also an issue or this is also the era in which the Starks were having succession issues and perhaps infighting.

So they may have been worried or concerned about what happens in the North. Like they're right on the border there and maybe this, this stark violence spills into their territory. Dunk actually notices A Frey banner at the Ashford Met attorney and Sir Franklin Frey competes in it. That's the year two O 9. Of course, there's no more to it than that.

But you know, when we see some expansion in the TV show, the Duncan Egg show that's coming, we might get the a little more of the phrase in in Ashford because they're a familiar face or familiar house anyway. And we have already predicted that they'll be, you know, more banners and more, a little more activity from some of the other fringe. It's going. To be the most hated toddler on TV. That's right, when he appears in the third one. Oh my goodness, everyone.

'S going to be like I hate this kid and I'm like, what do you mean that's literally a baby? I hate this baby under Aries the first, not the Mad King. Aries the first. This is the year 212, three years after the Tournament of Ashford Meadow, the third Dunkin egg story. So of course, this is where the phrase are very prominent. This is the second Black Fire rebellion, and they're very prominent. So Lord Fray arrived in force is Lord Fray. We don't know his first name.

He's the family of the bride. He represents the family of the bride. His daughter was 15. She was being married off in a hurry because she had been caught fooling around with a Scullion. Caught by the current Lord Walder Frey when he was 4. See, we hate this baby. That's right, he ratted out his own sister. What a little crappy kid. Anyway, Lord Frey brought his son as well.

This 4 year old Lord Walder and his well regarded brother Sir Franklin. The same one that competed at Ashford plus his cousin Sir Adam and his other 3 married daughters with their husbands. So a large group of people as to what we're used to seeing a lot of phrase showing up right like they they travel in force. So the purpose was to marry that 15 year old girl who got caught with a Scullion to Lord Butterwell himself. He had lost his previous wife.

He already had kids but his wife had died. It's mentioned interestingly, that is the Butterwell gold and the Frey swords. That's telling because we've talked about how it seems like the phrase are very rich, although they definitely invest a lot of their money in swords and that's true here. But the fact that the butter wells were considered the richer of the two is, is pretty significant, right, Because their money comes from cattle and the the phrase comes from toll collecting.

But I guess the butter wells were not as big on investing in their military. Now they're not big on investing in anything because they don't really exist anymore. But Bloodraven in the guise of Sir Maynard Plum, it says something that's probably getting familiar to you all by this point in the episode quote. He ought to take a swollen utter for his arms. These butter wells have milk running in their veins and the phrase are no better.

This will be a marriage of cattle thieves and toll collectors, one lot of coin clinkers joining with another. One of many clues that the man speaking is higher born than his disguise would indicate. I mean, this is a hedge knight. He's like, ah, I'm a hedge knight, but this is a marriage of cattle thieves and Tolk coin clinkers. The he's looking down on them big time. And he's he's just a a man who doesn't own anything more than

he's carrying on him. But in reality, he's quite higher born even though he's a bastard. So that just tells you a lot here. Yeah. So the phrase fled the wedding tournament when egg bluffed that an army was on the way. But an army was actually on the way bluffed without knowing that he was right. So the phrase were caught by Bloodraven's men, but then he dismissed them, saying they would speak later. Or maybe they were caught in

quotes. Maybe they pretended to be caught because somehow the phrase escaped serious punishment here, seemingly. And it's very suspicious, frankly, when we're presented with the scene of the phrase in the butter wells facing Bloodraven butter wells on his knees, Frey is on a chair with a cup of wine. Butterwell lost his whole castle and 9/10 of his wealth. Frey lost question mark. We don't know. It's so little that he may not have. He didn't lose anything that we can even speak to.

Crazy, right? That's suspicious, isn't it? There's also the matter of Lord Frey's toasts. When he toasted, he was toasting the crowd. You know, he was he was neutral. He wasn't like to the the Black Fire King or the king be on the water or anything like that. He just said the king, you know, and. Yeah, he also, you know, he which this is the daughter that is quote UN quote spoiled, right?

Soiled, right? Obviously we don't look at it that way, but they do. So he can act like he was just trying to get rid of one of his daughters, Like, oh, I'm, I was just trying to find a, a bride for my unwanted daughter. This is the only one who would take him. Well, what am I supposed to do? So he was clearly hedging the whole way, right? Going in to this plan with the possibility of ejecting and maybe stronger than we think. Maybe the frays were playing a double game much earlier.

At some point it seems like they reached out and said, hey, Blood Raven, come get them. And the reason they did this is because they could see it wasn't going to work. Like we have gotten involved in a conspiracy that's going to get us all killed. Let's betray our allies so that we can get out of this alive. Nina 100% agrees. She believes Lord Fray sold out the second Black Fire rebellion. When they realized it was going poorly. It was always a selfish motivation.

It was always an ambition. Ambition on the Lord Fray's part here that was motivating him. And when that motivation turned sour, when the ambition, when that road appeared closed, when the brown dragon is sitting there in the mud and the egg isn't hatching and all these other things just go really poorly. Yeah. Eject seat or the ejector button is hit the Fraser like, Nope,

never mind. And they were ready for it because they they almost certainly went into it like this with this plan to back out or to take that option. They didn't go into it with the plan of backing out. They went in with that possibility. They were prepared for multiple outcomes. So probably Frey was Blood Ravens informant. He probably snuck a message off one of his many on many, one of the many people in his entourage. It's one of the benefits of bringing, you know, 100 people

with you. You can have one of them sneak away and no one will notice necessarily. If there's only 10 people in your group and one of them's missing, people can be like, hey, where'd that other person go? What's going on there? But if you have that many and no one's going to notice. So it's very easy for him to sneak a message off, even though would have been even easier if you'd known Blood Raven was

actually already there. Either way, it's somehow they found out really quickly, sooner than you would think. And yeah, it looks like the phrase turned and that's why they avoided some of the punishment later ranks. After the second Black Fire rebellion. We don't actually hear much from them for several decades until the time of A Song of Ice and Fire. The third Black Fire abound is just a big unknown in general. They may have helped with some troops in the 4th and 5th, but

we just don't know. At some point in this era for sure, Walder ascended to Lord Walder. Two 50s in the latest probably I'm guessing was around the 2 four years or so. And the reason for that is that in 251, Emin Frey went to Casterly Rock to marry Jenna Lannister. Emin Frey as Walder's second son, Tywin. This is the infamous moment when Tywin, who was only 10 years old, spoke out against this marriage. He was the only the son of of he was on the heir to Castle Rock at this point.

Emin Frey's been afraid of him ever since, even though Tywin was only 10 at the time. Although he's not afraid of him now since he's dead. But you know, Emin has other problems now that he has river run and many people don't want him to have river run now also. Lyanna defeats a Fray night at Harrenhal right before Robert Rebellion.

We're not sure which one that is, probably Jared, but it could have been Danwell or one of the other ones during Robert Rebellion. Of course, he did nothing besides show up late and earned that corresponding nickname. A name he hates even though he most certainly deserves it.

Walter actually claims to have hosted 3 different kings at the Twins. Our best guess is Robert Aries and Egg on the 5th, meaning Egg. Jerry's the second would be the other possibility, and he's pretty unlikely because he's the shortest, reigned, and was of ill health for part of it, so there's just not. The window is really short there. I can imagine that the food he served to these kings was a lot better than the food he served at the Red Wedding, but we can't know for sure.

That would be pretty funny if he just he's so petty that he served Robert bad food. Robert probably just eats it anyway, but Harry's the second. I don't know, maybe not him. This is probably the toughest time of year for us as a show. We're it's been a while since there's been ATV show and it's a while before there's another one. There obviously hasn't been a book in a while and it's there's like a a natural waxing and waning within this fandom of

interest. You know, when when there's ATV show on the air, it's obviously the time when people are most interested and consuming a lot of our content. And here in these times, it's, it's less. So we still have a, a very healthy following here, but it definitely, it's like the slow season for us. So this is a time where your support for us really matters more. We certainly appreciate it more because, well, there's less of it.

And we're still putting out episodes just as frequently, whether it's the, the good times or the slower times. And I mean, this is the longest episode we're probably going to put out in a while, at least the way it's going so far and based on the size of the episode document. So we're still, we're still out here churning, we're still doing our best. We're still diving deep into Westeros with regularity, still trying to bring you the best content we can here in these leaner times.

So if you want to reach out and support us, spread the word about us. If you can tell your friends or sign up to support us in one of the many ways that's possible on Patreon. As a Spotify supporter, you can go to our website, peruse our sponsors or our links there.

There's a lot of ways to to help out and we appreciate any of those ways You take up historyofwesteros.com, patreon.com/history of Westeros, or just look us up on social media or hit us up at our Gmail, [email protected]. What did I say? What, what did I say? Oh, our e-mail is [email protected], isn't it? You're right. Thanks for the correction. Over on Twitch, we just finished a Fray campaign. Several weeks of playing the

phrase was pretty darn fun. Every once in a while the game gets a big update and you have to restart, and that's what we had to do. But those replays are available if you go to our YouTube channel and find our CK2/CK3 playlist. All those episodes are available now. We're playing House Ozgre during the Century of Blood, and if you want to catch those live, that's every Friday at six on twitchtwitch.tv/history of Westeros. Divine Charika says today is my birthday, and you guys really

chose my least favorite house. I find the phrase intriguing, though, so let's go. Ha, yeah, a lot of people's least favorite house, but we love to hate them. That's kind of the fun part, right? Yeah, well, a happy fray. A happy birth fray to you and to anyone else whose birthday is today or recently, we we

definitely appreciate y'all. Brian Valco says Manuel Maroon, who owns the Ambassador Bridge over the Detroit River between Detroit and Michigan and Windsor, Detroit, MI and Windsor, ON. Manuel Maroon has spent crazy amount of money to keep another bridge from being built. Oh, what a jerk. OK, so there you go. That's exactly what we're talking about. This, this is this is the this is one of the big flaws with with with capitalism is that people it's like, oh, just

compete. It's like, yeah, but what about anti competition? Right? Like, I mean, this is really a flaw in any system. But other people can spend money to stop somebody else from living their life and making their decisions and their progresses. But yeah, good example, a bad example. No good example. Good, bad example. Brian Valco, thanks for that. I know that there's mixed feelings about Roy Dautrese voicing all of us on Ice and Fire.

I don't know anyone who thinks he shouldn't do any of it. The most common complaint I hear is that if you just have a woman doing all the female voices then it would be vastly better, which I agree with. But his Walder Frey is amazing. That's a voice that's perfectly in line with his skills. It's one of the most memorable voices. He does his Emin Frey waving his paper, his deed to River Run around. He does that one really well too. And so does his Cleos.

So another shout out for for the audio version of the book. You can get the the audio downloads on our website if you've never checked them out before. There's also a quick minute here to to discuss a a loose influence here. The Norse God Frey, sometimes called Freyr, twin brother to Freya, is probably a bit of an influence here. And George knows his Norse myths. They're very popular. It's hard for him to not know this one. Frey is one of the chief gods of the Norse pantheon.

He's associated with kingship, peace, prosperity, fair weather and good harvest. The phrase are certainly fertile and prosperous, not so peaceful perhaps, but definitely fair weather friends or fair weather allies, right. The association with kingship is the phrase constantly trying to get in with the kings and Queens. And you know, even though that doesn't really succeed, it's an

association. Adam of Bremen, who wrote one of the oldest surviving written pieces on pre Christian Scandinavia, refers to Frey as Frico. There's a lot of different names for Frey and says that Frey or Frico bestows peace and pleasure on mortals and his likeness is portrayed with a giant phallus. Yeah, the giant phallus is associated with fertility and having lots of kids. There you go. Libations to Frey were made during weddings in in old Scandinavia.

That's interesting. And a big part of phrase myth is that he's he's going to lose his he loses his sword and when Ragnarok comes, he still won't have his sword back and he's going to have to fight with an antler. So Ragnarok, he's going to face Ragnarok with an antler. How do we how do we translate that for the phrase? Like during the Long Night, the phrase will fight with the

Baratheons? Probably not, but I don't know maybe just keep an eye out for frays who lose their swords at in at opportune moments or inopportune moments and then we'll find our Norse association once again. All right that's a lot of history and some other stuff let's get into house Frey more in current times. You could argue that Lord Walders found like a hack or cracking of the code of the nobility and power because having so many children and grandchildren is an advantage in

so many ways. He calls them stock and looks at them as resources, as we've kind of pointed out already, which is not uncommon in Westeros, but it's really kicked into a higher gear here because he has so many. Like he forgets the names of some of them. There's so many. He's loyal to them in his own way and like a mafia godfather way. I keep coming back to that comparison. It's more to the men, which is also common in Westeros. And of course the honor of his house kind of way not.

He doesn't care about the individuals that much. He cares about how they're all viewed as a whole. But that's also part of because there's so many of them, it's hard to see them as individuals when you don't even remember all their names. That comment about him being able to field an army from his breeches, it's partly true,

right? He brags to Catlin that he has more sons than Tywin by 19 1/2 and he sees it as both a measure of his manhood and his wealth, both which fuel his pride, which as we know is, you know, as big as it gets, there's, there's few people that have the pride of Lord Walder. So practically though, and, and just as beyond this being a point of pride, it allows him to expand his ambitions majorly.

He can have a bunch of his sons be warriors, some of them who are actually pretty dangerous, like Black Walder. Some of the other ones have special skills like Anes, A skilled commander, Lucian as a septum moving up the ranks. More on him later. Lothar, the architect of the Red Wedding, he thought I was going to say like the bridge or something and endless marriage alliances. How many marriage alliances you can have with all those sons and daughters? It's crazy.

He has so many marriage alliances that he can treat them as expendable too, which he does. There's he turned like multiple of his former marriage alliances. He betrayed at the Red Wedding, like he had a Blackwood marriage and he killed one of the Blackwoods there. He's like, I don't care, you know, break a few eggs. And these marriage alliances build on one another. Lena says.

Even a family which might ordinarily look down on the phrase, they wouldn't necessarily look down on the families the phraser married into, and thus their progeny would look a little better by comparison. So there's these, like, tangential or indirect connections that the phrase are looking for that bring them a little bit more into the old Country Club, into the old boys and girls network, right? All these connections just get

them a little more in there. But of course, he doesn't always get his way in that regard. Right. It's a plot point that he wanted a Tully marriage for decades. Hoster had already rejected A Fray ride for Ed Muir, but that came back around, didn't it? Yeah, it sure did. Another aspect of the phrase that is notable is that George wrote them as physically unattractive. George doesn't do the villains are always ugly thing. I mean, look at half of the Targaryens and Lannisters,

right? They're they're very good looking. But he made Walter look like a stoat or a weasel, and his progeny looked like that too. And many characters, including the Lannisters, mock them for it. Even their castle is called ugly. So it's really a theme here. It's not just. And if George were a different writer, you might be like, all right, that's a little bit of a trope there. But he isn't.

He's he mixes it up here, the Fraser, where he is very heavy with it. But that's he can do that because he's been consistent elsewhere. It reminds me of Edward Rutherford's book Serum, which follows families in the region of Sarah. All of his books do this where they follow different families in different regions over long, long periods like 10,000 years. You know, sometimes like epic history. But he does have like families with certain. I think it is rodent like or weasel like faces.

One of the families is described, I think. The Fisher family. Yeah, yeah, the fishers are described like that and they make me think of them and then they he has builders. He has. Anyways, it's it's a great author but very fray like. I have read serum as well. It's it's the region around what is now Stonehenge. So the the book actually starts pre Stonehenge and ends in like the 1950s. So it's really it's really good. It's a really unique book.

So yeah, good shout out Shay. That's a really good call. But this, this weasel look hasn't always been true as far as we can tell. We saw his father in in the mystery 9. He didn't look like that. So it isn't necessarily a long standing family look like the the seed is strong, like the black hair and blue eyes of the Baratheons, or the Lannister golden green. But maybe Walder's look will stick. Maybe it will become the divining look for them because,

well, he's had so many children. And that's just a lot of weasels. Pop goes the weasel in A Game of Thrones. Very early on. The phrase are everywhere, even before we see them. There's several in the Hands tournament. Walder complaints later about how poorly they do. Sansa actually counts 6 of them, but names Martin Rivers who is afraid by birth, just not by name. So he's really there's seven. This is a subtle bit.

You know Sansa is a good POV for this because Martin ends up proving himself very capable as a commander of Outriders. He's like second to Blackfish. He couldn't have gained that position second to Blackfish without already being good at it. He wouldn't have been promoted or selected in the 1st place, yet he isn't a Sir while all his true born relatives listed here are and he's probably more competent than most if not all of them. So here we get this like nobility over merit thing that's

very common. We see it with the phrase even with within their own. And like Martin's probably more competent than most of them, yet he is relegated because of his birth. And this comes up in other places too. Like at one point Wilders tells one of the young girls to get off the stage because I don't want any bastard stock up here, you know, real phrase only. Like, damn, dude, rude. So there there's a large party of phrase at the end of the crossroads when Catlin seizes

them or seizes Tyrion rather. It's to the phrase that she announces her intentions because they're so numerous and because she hopes to count on their support. It's kind of subtle, but none of them do they stand up and be like, yes, my lady, what can we do for you? And then they find out what she wants to do. They're like, never mind, we're not helping you. Tyrion's POV is when we find that out, we're on the road with them. And Tyrion's thinking about how

the phrase didn't help her. He finds that really interesting. He thinks about how, yeah, Lord Walder's not necessarily going to support the Tully's here. If that's what's going to happen, You're like, Catelyn may be making a mistake here. And you can glean from this at the commander of that 20 or so Frey detachment. It's been well, well taught by his Frey superiors. The Frey values are on on in play here. Like, no, don't get involved. There's no profit here.

This is Lannister versus Stark. You don't want to take a side here. If it's Lannister versus random guy, take the Lannister side. You know, when the friendship of the land, if it's Stark versus random, take the Stark side. There's profit in that. But these are two great houses starting to fight. It's none of your business. Notice how the other houses, though, did get involved. You got Brackens getting involved. You got a woad getting involved. You got all these other.

They don't. They're not taught that. They're taught, you know, regular honor and nobility. This is a noble woman in need of help whose child was attacked. Yeah, that's not what really happened. But they have no reason to doubt Catlin's story. So. But the phrase were the only ones who sat out of all those Riverlands houses that were present. So that's interesting. It's all at all turns the phrase behave differently immediately

from both PO VS on both sides. Here, both Caitlin and Tyrion, we we hear that this guy is shifty, that he's not to be trusted. So it's just we're told many ways from many point of views, but we're also told in the same breath that he is powerful, very powerful and has a huge family and that the crossing is vital to Rob's strategy. He can't just go around as the the must deal with the phrase.

And not only does he must he deal with the phrase, but he wants them as an ally and definitely doesn't want them as an enemy because of again, 20 to 25% of the Riverland's strength is there is right there at the time when Rob's army is marching South and we first arrive at the twins. The vibe of this of the chapter is that they might attack the twins, but that notion vanishes the moment we see it. Quote. One glance was sufficient to tell Catlin that the castle would not be taken by storm.

The battlements bristled with Spears and swords and scorpions. There was an Archer at every crennel and arrow slit. The drawbridge was up, the portcullis down, the gates closed and barred. The Great John began to curse and swear as soon as he saw what awaited them. Lord Ricard Karstark glowered in silence. That cannot be assaulted, my Lords, Bruce Bolton announced. Nor can we take it by siege without an army on the far bank to invest the other castle. Helmand, Tallhart said gloomily.

Across the deep, running green waters, the western twin stood like a reflection of its eastern brother. Even if we had the time, which to be sure we do not, there's something deeply humorous to me about the Great John getting mad at the castle itself. It's like a castle, but the scene really shows, deeply delivers, how bad their predicament is and how they really have no choice but to deal with this man and how he knows it. So not only attacking it is out of the question.

Yeah, 'cause they just really have no choice here. Yeah. That is, Walter becomes an enemy eventually. But that was not a preordained thing. Remember, never believe that the phrase we're planning on betraying Rob. They were planning on that as an option, but they were preferred to win and become the new, to have the new Queen of the North come from their family. That was a better outcome than the Red Wedding for them. And they knew that.

But the Red Wedding was a better outcome than losing entirely, which was what they saw coming. Remember at their first meeting, Catelyn fibs a little bit. They're like debating and how do we negotiate? Let's should we go inside? And they're like, don't go in there, Rob. He'll just throw you in jail and do whatever he wants. And Catelyns like, I'll go. He won't harm me.

And then she thinks, unless you think saw some profit in it, so she doesn't say that out loud, 'cause he, you know, if she says that out loud, then they'll be like, yeah, exactly. Unless he sees some profit in it, which he very well might. Which again, reinforces the idea that we've been saying all along that profit motive, gain, extracting maximum value is his primary goal here. He's always thinking about the bottom line. And that's what he does.

He doesn't harm her, but in making a deal, he considers all the factors and holds them over the barrel. You know? He knows they're desperate. He knows they want to get to River Run, and he knows they are on a time or on short time. Here. They don't have the ability to wait. He knows his castle's too strong for them to attack. He knows they want him as an ally. He knows they don't want him as an enemy. Unfortunately, everything they want, he knows, and he can thus

bring that to negotiating table. And this is something the phrase for 600 years have been practicing. Find out what they need, find out what those people want, and you use that against them. If they need to cross really badly, make them pay more. This is something they're experts at. Walter also knows Ned is in prison. Tywin is their foe, and he uses the Jaime Lannister argument that comes much later. Yeah. I swore an oath to Hoster Tully, but I also swore an oath to the king.

Which oath comes first? I don't know. So this is his out When they're like, you should already be on our side. And you're like, yeah, but I swore, yeah, whatever. It's actually a reasonable argument. It's crappy, but it legalistically it's kind of Fair. So that's why the deal is so heavily in favor of the phrase. Rob has to marry a Frey. Arya has to marry a Frey. Big and Little Walder get to be wards to Winterfell. Oliver Frey becomes one of Rob's Squires.

But it isn't just the crossing. They don't just get the crossing, they get 1000 Knights and almost 300 or 3000 footmen, which is that's a substantial amount to add.

The infantry immediately goes with Roose Bolton to go fight the Battle on the Green Fork to distract Tywin, while the cavalry goes with Rob's other cavalry to go relieve River Run where we have the Battle of Whispering Wood and the Battle of the Camps. We learned the attitude and themes of this house through Catlin and others. They're aggressively proud. They don't want to be looked down on others. They want to overcome that. They want to be the ones looking down on others.

And that's why they take shots like this to become queen or to become just to move up the noble ladder. And it's interesting too, because he talks about the injustice of being looked down on. And being looked down is something that a lot of us would would sympathize with and say, yeah, I don't want to be looked down on either. But it's written in a way that we don't sympathize because it's nobles looking down on other nobles. They're already so privileged.

It's hard to not feel bad for anyone in that position, especially this guy. It doesn't feel like an injustice the way it's written. It's like, no, this guy is greedy. He's his reason for feeling this way is his pride. You know, we shouldn't feel bad that he's an outcast given how privileged he is, right? But that's what he's trying to sell. And it works a little better on someone like Catelyn, who understands noble pride a little more and has a little bit of her

own, or at least a little bit. So even though there's all this early on this, they're not trustworthy, blah blah blah, it still doesn't come off as they'd murder you all at a wedding. Untrustworthy. It comes off as they might switch sides, maybe they won't give you their full support, maybe they won't show up on the battlefield. But like full blown conspiracy to murder you all. It wasn't really written like that. Maybe, maybe some of y'all got that vibe, but I didn't.

It seemed like the pride mattered as much as all, but it didn't necessarily seem like his pride was that violent, that overweening and powerful. And Catelyn understood that pride was the most important thing, the key to Waldre, his pride. But she even didn't realize how deep that runs, how violent and how angry that is. He's the living embodiment of violent pride. Like this guy. There is perhaps nobody who

embodies it better. I mean, he's, he's basically the IT. It's like the thing that keeps him alive. Like this guy would have died long ago if it wasn't for his burning sense of pride. He just wants to be more respected. He just wants it so badly and it's keeping him going. He tells Catlin to read. He's like, why aren't you? Catlin's like, why aren't you fighting with the Lannisters if

that's your attitude? He's like, well, they didn't ask me if he wants me to fight with him, he should ask. And Catlin accepts that answer because she realizes, well, that coming from him, that's probably true. And she's like, well, I'm asking. And that's when they start negotiating in in earnest. So it was it was a good play by Catlin, even though it didn't work out in the long run. I'm not wasn't her fault anyway.

We quoted earlier how Rob wouldn't trust him and how things kind of changed over time. This is when we get back to that. What Rob did to prove and to ensure that Lord Walter didn't turn on him was he left 400 of his own men at the twins saying, hey, Ray, you're giving us all these men to help us in our army. Let us give some back to you to help defend your castle, which is now denuded of defenders.

But actually I want men loyal to me inside your castle in case you turn on us. But something changed. Those men were pulled away in a little later. We'll talk about that shortly. Let's finish up with what happened in the rest of the Game of Thrones. After the Battle of Whispering Wood, we learned that Perwin Frey, one of the good ones, one of the only good ones that we know of, was one of Rob's bodyguard. So that was cool. He was there and fought well and

Rob respected him. Sir Cleos and Tian fight under Jamie because remember some of the Freys are fighting for the Lannisters. Cleos is the Lannister Frey and and Teyon is his son. They're both captured and I'm sorry they're not not Cleos. Teyon isn't his son, he's his younger brother. Their father Emmon is also on the Lannister side of the war and that's the only ones up with River Run. So yes, there are Lannister phrase and Northern phrase. It's confusing.

After the Battle of the Green Fork, which also happens near the end of the book, Anis, Jared, Hostein, Danwell, Elmar and Ronald Rivers are all fighting under Roose Bolton's banners. And this is when we move on to a clash of kings. Because in the Clash of Kings, Jared, Hostein, Danwell and Ronald are captured. But soon ransom. So all but two of them were captured. Arya says while she's at Harrenhal, 2 frays come to ransom them. Presumably the two who weren't captured, Anis and Elmar.

Catlin suggests sending Stevron, who at the beginning of the series is Walter's heir, as an envoy to Balon Greyjoy. Good call, Catlin, but Rob chooses Theon instead. Oops. After the Battle of Ox Cross, Stevron is slightly wounded, but he dies in his tent while asleep within three days. It's a little bit suspicious. Later in the series, lots of phrases start dying and it's a lot of some of it at least is blamed on Blackwalder murdering his way to the top. This could be one of those

examples. This could have been one an early example of that, but we can't be sure. It's definitely, definitely suspicious though. Now, Stevron had actually been preaching peace and the strategy of just sitting back while Renly and Tywin go. He's like, hey, let Renly and Tywin fight, let's sit back and see what happens. A very fray thing to suggest, but Rob isn't having it. And this is immediately before Great John and Rickard rise up and name Rob King of the North.

So that is where that went. And Rob later thinks that man, after he marries Jane Westerling and he's lamenting the fallout. He's like, sure, wish Stevron was around and, and maybe even in charge because he, we could have negotiated with, he would have forgiven us and maybe, you know, could have worked with that, but not Lord Walder. And yeah, unfortunately Rob was right about that, not Lord Walder. He was not willing to make amends.

Also, in a clash of kings, big and little little Walder arrive in Winterfell. They are disliked by Bran and of course they are. They're crappy. They're crappy kids. I hate saying that about children, but they're crappy kids. It's a real insight into the culture of the twins, 'cause these are children and it's hard to not like them or it's hard to. Yeah, it's hard to not like them. It's hard to hard not to dislike these kids, which is just like, I don't want them dislike

children. But yeah, it's like, it's like Walder when he was 4. They're they're bullies, they're vicious, they're tattletales. One of them might even be a straight up murdering Kinslayer. Probably is. It's not a good look. So this is what you. This is a really interesting insight. By seeing the children of a house like this rather than just the adults, you understand what the culture of the twins must be like. They're all like this. It's super common for them to behave like this.

This is like the corporate culture of house Frey, to borrow a modern term. The organizational culture of this of this family is extremely violent, extremely bullying of extremely like getting over on each other, which is a big reason why Bran is so turned off by he's never seen this before. Bran was raised to be in the pack survives lone wolf dies

environment. That's the vibe he was taught us the complete opposite of of how this generation if not many generations of frays have been raised. When they get the news of Stevron's death in the North, they immediately just talk about the succession. They're like, aha, he's dead, died of waiting for our grandfather to die. And they're like, who's going to be Lord? And one of them is, see, I'll be

Lord one day. Big Walder says he's like, I don't care if he's going to be Lord, I'm going to be Lord one day. And they're like 40th in line or something like that. Max, you're Lewin over here. And he gets mad. He's like, where's your grief? And they're like, oh, we're very sad, like in a flat tone of voice like that. And Bran gets a sick feeling in his stomach about that because he realizes they're lying.

And this is when it really dawns on him what I was saying about the complete polar opposite of the behavior and, and what these children value versus what he values and what his house taught him, what his parents taught him versus what these boys have been taught. It's just so different. Now when Ramsay takes Winterfell, they're of course spared and kept his hostages. And, you know, they're gently treated. But Ruse at the Red Wedding, before the violence breaks out, does a toast.

And he's like, yeah, but I've got the little and big Walder up at my castle, you know, hint, hint. And, and, you know, like, I've got hostages, don't forget, you know? And. And Catlin notices Lord Walter's expression and, and understands that the threat was heard. You know, Catlin witnesses much of the Battle of the Fords. If you don't recall which battle that was, it's the one where the fandom debate is whose fault was it, Rob or Ed Muir? Right?

They didn't. Rob didn't communicate his plan. Ed Muir maybe took a little too much initiative that we're not here to rehash that debate. It's just a way to remind you all of which battle it was. Sir Perwin, again, was involved the good Frey and Martin Rivers, the competent but lower ranked. They led the Frey contingent in this one. But an underrated factor is the one I've been teasing for a

while here. In order for Edmar to make his plan work, he had to take those 400 soldiers from the twins that were there to make sure Lord Walder stayed loyal to bring to this battle. They needed every man they could get, and those men never went back after. So that insurance policy was sacrificed to win this battle that Rob didn't even want. So that would that proved very costly beyond what anyone could have guessed. It's it's a, it's a missed detail.

It's just a couple lines thrown out. Prizingly important given so many other factors. Sir Cleos is sent as an envoy to King's Land. Remember, he's still a captive at this point, and when he returns to King's returns to River Run after having delivered the demands of of the Stark faction, Tyrion sends infiltrators to help free Jamie. Now, Sir Cleos has nothing to do with it, but Catlin uses it as leverage to to help with her plan regarding Brienne and Jamie's freedom.

Remember, of course, Cleos is there with them. He's like the red shirt of that trio. He is killed ignominiously by outlaw arrows and then his own horse dragging him. His head gets smashed on a stone. And Jamie later tells his parents that that he died bravely, which that's the good kind of lie right there. You know, like even though Emin and Emin's crappy and I like Jenna and she's not necessarily a good person, she's a good character.

I don't have any problem with dishonesty to save, you know, to save your family some grief, you know, like that's their child that died. Even though it's Cleos, a guy

that we don't really like. Still around halfway through the book, we learned that Roose Bolton after reforming his army up on the Green Fork, you know, or up on the Causeway after the after the Battle of the Green Fork, he headed West with that remnant of his arm, actually more than a remnant, his pretty substantial army still and married fat Walda.

Must have been some real interesting conversations there between Lord Walder and Roose Bolton, conversations that the TV show tried to give us. And those actually were decent conversations. Those were reasonably OK and and A and a decent facsimile of what I would guess some of those conversations to be like. They would have been a lot more subtle in the book if they had happened if we had seen them. But it's the groundwork for betrayal.

I don't think the betrayal had quite started then, but the two most villainous houses under Rob Stark's banner got together and

started conspiring. And as Rob's war effort tanked, given some of the problems that picked up with Richard Karstark and obviously the Westerling thing and losing Winterfell pretty huge, they were already in agreement, even without having to say it, that both Bolton and Frey want to be on the winning side, whichever side that is, And if they can help each other in that goal, all the better. Because, well, helping each other can only make sure that

goal is accomplished. It's a convergence of villainous values here. From the Fray vantage point, Nina adds, the family was at this moment hitched to a star in decline. Rob suddenly looked like a king who couldn't even hold on to what he already had. He started off doing so well, and the frays were all for it. But then blow after blow after blow, major blows that it would seem almost impossible to recover from.

And then, on top of everything else, Tywin wins on the Blackwater. If Tywin had lost to Stannis, which was a big possibility, something that Walder Frey definitely calculated on and expected was part of the problem. Let's say if we look back on his thinking, there is no way Walder Frey joins Rob or almost no way he joins Rob if Stannis isn't in the picture because Rob is no match for Tywin one-on-one. But that was never the picture,

that was never the setup right? Tywin was fighting on 2 fronts. That's part of why he was vulnerable. He had to fight Stannis and or Renly and the Starks. The Starks have one enemy until the Ironborn showed up and then they did have two enemies. So it's hard to understate just how much the whole war picture changed quickly from.

Starks are looking good. Not only do they have lots of victories, but the enemy of their enemy situation is really good because Stannis is coming for King's Landing and he's got the whole army. Like the, the Baratheons did not tear each other apart fighting each other, right? They Stannis just got the whole army. Well, almost all, some of them fled to the Reach, but still it

came a lot sooner than expected. It looked good for the Starks, it looked good for the phrase, but then it just fell apart. And then, of course, the Weschling marriage was the final straw and they reached out to switch sides and did so. Ari actually overhears the phrase telling Ruse that Rob should bend the knee now, like after the after the loss on the Blackwater, Rob should sue for peace. It's just the situation has turned so dramatically, you know, we should we should give up.

But they're not thinking villainously alone enough. No, don't bend the knee. Don't tell Rob to bend the knee. Tell Rob to keep going and then stab him in the back. You have there's much more profit in that. So these are lesser phrase. No worries. Phrase your Lord, grandfather, Lord father, whichever is totally on top of things. He was prepared to turn this loss into a win, even though it's going to make them look really bad in the process. There's also a fun joke here for

the observant. Some of you are familiar with this one, but it never gets old. This is Elmar, Frey and Aria. Remember, Elmar and Aria were going to marry each other. They didn't know that that was arranged, but neither of them knew it. Elmar knew she was going to marry. He was going to marry a Stark Princess. But when speaking to Aria, he didn't know that was her. He just thinks he's some serving

girl. Here's the George R Martin joke for the observant Elmar sitting outside on the steps alone quote. What's wrong? Arya asked him when she saw the tears shining on his cheeks. My Princess. He sobbed. We've been dishonored. Amy says. There was a bird from the twins. My Lord Father I'll says I'll need to marry someone else or be a septum. A stupid Princess, she thought. That's nothing to cry over. My brothers might be dead, she confided.

Elmar gave her a scornful look. No one cares about a serving girl's brothers. It was hard not to hit him when he said that. I hope your Princess dies, she said and ran off before he could grab her. I hope she doesn't 'cause she's you, Aria, you're the Princess. So that's pretty funny. How cruel, though, just another example of the disinherit, bullying and viciousness in this

family. Just they just casually throw in that his father tells him he might have to be a septum now, like he's like 12. Like what really. There's no brides for you? You're afraid? Come on, your your own grandfather had eight wives or is on his eighth wife. Surely there's one out there for you. And I'll just how weird it is to have your dad be 92 and to be the 22nd son and he's not even the last because his Walter's eighth wife is pregnant.

So he might be the 22nd of 23 sons or maybe he'll have a younger sister. That's just wild to think about, isn't it? A storm of swords, The phrase in a storm of swords big and Little Walter sign a letter saying Theon Greyjoy burned Winterfell, absolving Ramsay there as even though they're just children, they're noble signatures add a

lot of weight to that lie. And of course, it's early in a storm of swords that the news spreads even farther about the Rob Jane Westerling marriage that reaches the twins. The phrase with Rob just storm off and the Red Wedding. We're not going to go into detail here. You know the Red Wedding. We've covered it elsewhere, but a few points here. The chief architect was lame Lothar. He was also part of luring the

men to the arrangement as well. Let's not forget certain phrase were kept away like Perwin and Olivar because they would not have cooperated. There's a few phrases at least. They still have honor. And I really wonder what they're thinking now. What does Perwin Frey think now that the Red Wedding has happened? What does Olivar think? Olivar must be particularly crushed because Olivar loved Rob. His own family killed Rob, and he loved Rob.

That's what a thing to live in that family when your family did that. But it also shows that Walder knows his kin is as brutal and ruthless as he is. He is intelligent, he knew exactly which of his children to keep away from the reading, exactly which one of them to prevent from being a witness or stopping it or standing up or anything. Just keep them away. Give him another job. Tito's Frey is actually killed by Sandor Clegane outside the wedding.

He was the son of Jared Frey, future pie filling. Sandor also kills Garth Good Brooke, who was the husband of Titos's sister Kyra. So Sandor really did a number with an axe to that branch of the family. River Run is also part of the phrase reward for switching sides. So they got a lot from Rob. They also got a lot from switching sides, not quite as much, but a lot. River Run is a huge reward.

And of course, these marriages that we briefly mentioned earlier, let's restate that Davin is going to marry a Frey. We don't know who yet. And Lancel is supposed to marry Amare Frey, but that also hasn't happened because he's, you know, in the faith and doesn't want to get married and wants to, you know, be married to the gods in his own way. Blackwalder. Here's a tale of two sieges.

Here, Blackwalder ends the siege of Sea Guard by threatening to kill the heir to Sea Guard, Patrick Maluster. It's believable that Blackwalder has credibility. He will hang Patrick Maluster people that they know he'd do that. So Lord and Lord Jason, who is a highly competent, very good warrior dude, believes Blackwalder and yields his castle. Both of them are now captives inside their own castle.

In the BWB episode we talked about the possibility that they're a good target for the Brotherhood or somebody to potentially infiltrate and free the Malesters. Because the Malesters, once they're free, they would presumably turn right back to supporting the Starks. Given that's their vibe, that's how they tend to operate, and the reason they only reason they back down in the 1st place was because of the threat to their air. But if that's removed, then they might just get right back at it.

Merritt Frey. Of course. Mutton Head gets the dubious honor of being the only Frey POV chapter and epilogue POV chapter. The first epilogue POV chapter. But of course that means Doom. He's hanged by the now Stoneheart LED Brotherhood Without Banners, who lured him to the ransom situation by offering to give back Peter Pimple, but they just hanged him too. Lots of hanging going on. Yeah, so many more phrase get hanged after the Red Wedding.

Like like one or two phrase die before the Red Wedding, and then after a whole lot more die. Too many to count, though. In A Feast for Crows, the phrase are led by Ryman. Well, the phrase lead the embarrassing siege of River Run, and the Jamie solves for them. It's pretty much the opposite of Blackwalder 'cause they threatened to hang Ed Muir. Blackfish is like, I don't believe you. And Blackfish was right. They don't want to hang at Muir because they want to. They need him as a cat.

He's more valuable as a captive and Blackfish sussed that out. So just it's an embarrassing and Jamie comes in and does it right. So that allows Emmenfrey again, second son of Walder Emmenfrey's allowed to take up the castle, annoyingly waving his deed around being, you know, comedically silly like that. It's reminiscent perhaps of why Tywin spoke out against this match to Jenna in the 1st place, but Emmen is almost certainly doomed.

Maybe Jenna as well. We talked during our Brotherhood Without Banners episode that Tom O Sevens has already infiltrated the castle. He's already in there, he's already been operating, he's the reason Ryman Frey was hanged. They blame it on Black Walder, which they might be barking up the right tree in general, but it was the BWB in this case. So it's a funny situation where you have the phrase are very busy dealing with outlaws and outlaws are very busy dealing

with phrase. So they're both. It's like a little miniature war happening behind the scenes here, or maybe not behind the scenes. Maybe it's happening somewhat openly. Also in A Feast for Crows, we learned that Little Walter has become Ramsey's Squire. Like that's a meeting of awfulness that. Yeah, just the things they cook up together, Bear. Yeah. Just evil be getting more evil. Good. The the the perfect influence on Little Walter, right.

There was a certain Septon Alador who was set to become the new High Septon until he was dragged out naked from a brothel by sparrows. And that ended his candidacy. That put Lucian Frey, Walter's fifth son, in line to be High Septon. We hear from Kyburn that he feasted 30 of the Most Devout to buy their votes, to bribe them basically. But it didn't work because the High Sparrow was elected in a landslide by the by the Sparrows charging in and just, you know, forcing it.

But that money that Lucian Frey was using to feast all the Septons and the Most Devout, that has to be coming straight from the twins. Well, while there's got to be funding that, like, Lucian probably isn't independently wealthy and he's not married, so it's not like his wife's family is providing the money. So yeah, a Frey High Septon that had been really valuable for the house. Like, that's a big inroad there, but one that they missed out on.

You're supposed to forget your last name when you become the High Septon, but this one wouldn't have. Now, Lucian's only elder brother from the same mother, Sarana Swan, is Jared Frey. And Jared Frey is our segue to A Dance with Dragons. Jared, along with Simon and Rhaegar Frey, are duped by Lord Wyman Manderly.

Famously and epically. They think they're getting Manderly marriages and guests gifts and a new ally out of the surrender deal because they brought his son's bones back, but instead they get chopped up into pie. This really puts the phrase in special company as being part of some of the most memorable slash gruesome killings. They set up the Red Wedding, but they also end up in fray pies and there's probably more to come.

They also claimed in open court that Wendell Manderly's death was caused by Rob turning into a rabid wolf. They further claimed that Rob also killed the two that were killed by Sandor Garsh Goodbrook and Jared's son Tito. He's like, my own son was killed by Rob turning into a rabid wolf. But no, that was Sandor. It was a Hound, not a wolf. Hey. Jared fires back with the one of the weakest insults I've ever heard. Which it means George was intentionally making this guy sound weak.

He said Davos called him a liar straight up. And Jared's like, I demand satisfaction. Many men cry when they slice onions. I do not have that particular weakness. It's like, is that supposed to sound tough? Because it really sounds the opposite of tough. The phrase, of course, went N with big plans, but they ended up with big problems at Winterfell. Despite their strength, despite their ascension, people are

openly hostile to them. I mean, these are phrase in the North, who betrayed the northerners, and the northerners are bigger on things like Gastrite and Kinslang. It matters more there. It matters everywhere, but it really matters in the North and they're not holding back a lot of them. They're like these people were there here, like the even though some of them are allies, they're still looking down on them. This is a different sort of looking down on that the phraser used to.

It's normally like you guys are upstarts, you guys are new blood, but this is you guys are kinslayers. You guys are guest right violators. That's a whole nother level and they don't they don't handle it very well, do they? They can't handle the insults. They're already prickly and proud and wanting to be seen as more, but they're seen as less. Their achievements, achievements have they see as fair game in the ruthless Game of Thrones, but most others don't. Most are like, no, you guys

basically cheated. You can go too far even in violence and in the Game of Thrones. And this is an example of it. And they're just so mad about this. Like we, we earned this. We earned that. Like did you though? Little Walter just straight up turns up dead. He was going to wear Mary Willa Manderly. Well would've is loose there. Manderly never intended for that, but that was the arrangement. His death will be explored in the Winterfell Murders episode.

Atopic Smoot 2025 Choice not out yet but will be later this year. Maybe it is. By the time you're listening to this, Fat Wilda and her unborn child will be, or already is, in major danger from Ramsey. That's about as straightforward as it gets. Ramsey wants the dread for it, for himself. Fat Wilda's child is a threat to that. Very straightforward. Amy's spray? Already dead, already fell into a pit trap dug by the Umbers and their troop of Green boys.

Doesn't take a expert word to dig a hole, does it? Stannis is very happy about that. He's like Anis was clever and cunning, a capable commander. Now Hostein Frey is in charge, and he's stupid. He calls him Sir Stupid. Yeah, and fair enough. I mean, Hostein is not very bright. It's true. Biggest of all, though, is an inside Winterfell. It's what's coming for them outside Winterfell. They're already on the March and

the fight. They're going to try to fight Stannis. And I don't think that will go well for them. I think it will end them. You may see an entire Fray contingent lost at this battle. We have that detailed in our Battle of Ice series from long ago. I think that was 2014 maybe, but it holds up still. Y'all not? It's not like anything has changed. Our quote of the week. Given Star Wars is big these days with Andor on TV, I'm thinking about it a lot.

I'm always been a Star Wars fan. I grew up on it, and I watched Star Wars in 1979 when I was 4. I've read a lot of Star Wars books too, and a lot of them are very good. Some of them aren't, but the one I'm recommending today is Star Wars the Fallen Star High Republic, book 3 by Claudia Gray, The Light of the Jedi's book one. It's also really good. This whole series is really good, but I particularly like this quote here.

Only now did Bell realize that to him, acceptance had meant something too close to surrender. That wasn't it at all. Acceptance was strength. It was being able to carry the weight of what had been and what had not through all the many days, months, years and decades to follow. Bell would bear this burden as long as he cherished the memory of Blank. I'm leaving out the name because it's a spoiler. That meant he would bear it always. Yeah, I really like that. That's a really good quote.

Really strong and really valuable for real life. Acceptance is strength, y'all. It's not surrender. Surrender is surrender. Giving up is surrender. Accepting a truth, accepting what you can't change, is a strength 'cause that can be very difficult, especially when it's something like this, when it's grief. Another Star Wars recommendation I have is Catalyst, which might

be more on point. Honestly I just didn't have a quote ready for it. But it fills in a lot of the gaps around Andor and Rogue One vis A vis the character Galen Urso who was played by Mads Mickelson. He was the genius that figured out how to extract maximum energy from kyber crystals, but he was a complete nonviolent man, a pacifist director. Chronic tricks him into making this, doing this research without realizing he's weaponizing it behind the scenes, and this is what is

portrayed. The beginning of Rogue One is Chronic chasing down Urso to bring him back to work, and this story fills in what happens before that. It's really good. You can get it through our website at historyofwesteros.com. Click on one of the links on the right. You can either buy the physical copy through Amazon or one of the other places, or get the Audible version through the Audible links there and listen to them.

Let's talk about the outlook and succession situation for House Frey. It's our last section for the day. In terms of military strength now they're roughly akin to the Dread Fort, which is a fitting comparison as an ally and kind of goes to show how they were well matched in terms of their relative strength. The dread Fort has about 4000 men. They've lost very few. The frays probably lost a bit more so maybe they have roughly 3500 but they're spread out.

1400 ish went N with a nice and hosting and we don't expect they're coming back which might put them down to 2000 ish. They also set 200 to Garrison river run those they might be more around 1800. Plus they've got all these parties out hunting down outlaws and they have to travel in force because the outlaws are hunting them. Small parties will not serve. Ryman was travelling with like 10 Knights and several Squires in a group and he still got hanged. But none of this may matter

under the right circumstances. However, that's the phrase. Manpower might be a weakness for them, but when they get their comeuppance, which maybe we shouldn't assume is coming, I kind of assume it, but it's possible they won't get as satisfying of a ending as we think. But it it it could happen in a way that doesn't involve

military might. You know, we obviously the show gave us a thing with Aria, which I think is a little over the top, but it could be along the lines of something like that. Or we could get the Red Wedding 2 point O where a bunch of phrase are slaughtered at the twin or at the at river run when Davin Lannister marries his bride to be from house Frey, who hasn't been named yet. He hasn't picked. So most of the phrase we've seen have become or always were

villainous, right. It's, it's not a house that's like, part good, part bad. Yeah, there's some good guys in there, but they're overwhelmed by the bad ones. And that's kind of tragic because those good ones might get killed or caught up in the actions of their family. Olivar and Purwin and maybe Roslyn. I mean, Roslyn, we're not sure about where her loyalties lie, but she's pregnant with a child with Ed Muir. Like, her family did this to her.

If I were her, I'd side with my new husband, who hasn't been awful to me, and my family's using me as a pawn and marrying me to a house they're intending to slaughter. Like what? That's a betrayal, right? Rosalind would. Again, I have no idea what she's thinking or feeling, or what kind of person she is, even, but like, that is grounds for disowning your own family,

right? Supposedly she's going to be allowed to join Ed Muir at Casterly Rock in his prison and live there with him after their child is born. But a lot's going to change before that ever happens. I'm assuming so, yeah. Olivar and Perwin. I'm preparing myself for them to have unhappy, tragic endings that they don't deserve. The biggest irony, though, would be if one of those siblings, one of those good siblings, Olivar and Perwin? Probably not.

Olivar couldn't be blamed for the Red Wedding because he's too young, but Perwin? Maybe. Cersei's small council discusses the idea that whoever succeeds Lord Walder would be smart to clean house, to pin the Red Wedding on one of the other claimants, to provide the notion, or to send the message to Westeros that the people that did this in our house have been taken care of. We abjure the Red Wedding. We it shouldn't have happened, but it wasn't me. It was this guy.

It was these phrase and I've taken care of them. We're cool now. So that would be so brutal if Perwin, one of the good guys, is actually blamed for it and he takes the fall. I mean, it probably hard, hard to put it all on him. But you can do a lot with disinformation in a non information era where people just can't check things. There's no Internet for people to look these things up like you can. The lies you can tell are pretty big. Look at the lie Jared told at the Mermans court.

Yeah, Robb Stark turned into a direwolf and eight people. He told that like he's like, we can get people to believe this. Speaking of, it's been foreshadowed that after Wilder goes when this house cleaning may or may not happen, the main danger to house fray among so many is itself quote. Lord Walder would soon turn 2 and 90. His ears had started to go, his eyes were almost gone, and his gout was so bad that he had to be carried everywhere.

He could not possibly last much longer, All his sons agreed, and when he goes, everything will change, and not for the better. His father was querulous and stubborn, with an iron will and a wasp's tongue, but he did believe in taking care of his own. All of his own, even the ones who had displeased and disappointed him. Even the ones whose names he can't remember.

Once he was gone, though. And this is the kind of chapter in writing this is merit phrase brain that we're in right now that just makes me wish against all reasonable thought that I we have chapters from more POV's like this is so thorough. This is a really, really accurate, detailed take on the way Wilder treats his family from one of his own. This is perfect description, perfect encapsulation. Even the ones whose names he can't remember.

Even the ones who had displeased and disappointed him. But then the end. Stennen's there once he was gone, though. It's a sentiment a lot like what Rob thinks about Stevron. He's like, well, Stevron was in charge. If Stevron had ascended to Lord of the Crossing, we could deal with him. He's reasonable and honorable and honest. If Stevron had inherited, that's Barrett thinking. Why? If Stevron inherited, we would

still be in the same shape. He would carry forward the lessons of Lord Walder. He thinks how Stevron had it beat into him by Walder to that blood is blood, that he taught him that, but he didn't teach that to anyone else. And Stevron's gone. So the omens of doom around House Frey are legion. They come from inside the house, outside the house, from the north, from the South, maybe even east and West. Yeah, maybe the Iron Islands and Sea Guard and the Vale. Who knows?

Who knows who will bring their comeuppance? We just know that they've earned many comeuppances. And Speaking of, you have made a notice of pattern of the phrase largely, though not entirely, escaping consequences from the Iron Throne. So many times they did something and didn't pay much of a penalty for it. Remember before we talked about the Black Fire rebellions, the second Black Fire Rebellion? What was up with that?

Blood Raven not giving them blood Raven, the very merciless guy not seemingly punishing them very much. That's of course why we suspect there was foul play. Still, he'd have to punish them somewhat to have a, you know, it has to be public. It has to look like justice was done. There's other examples too that we've gone through throughout the episode. And now. But now they are escaping

consequences or not having. Now they're not escaping consequences even though the consequences aren't coming from the Iron Throne. Perhaps George is setting them up for one particularly huge takedown like the Red Wedding 2 point O, or maybe even multiple events. While the Iron Throne isn't hammering them, Stoneheart and some other houses are. And of course the BWB Arya as well has named them right He she's thought about them.

She's like I want to kill those phrase but she just doesn't know them by name. They would be on her list if she had specifics. She just doesn't know who to write down. Well, she's not writing that list anyway. She doesn't know what names. That's the point. So as I said earlier, more phrase have died since the Red Wedding than before by far. That's likely to continue, right? In part because they're killing each other. So yeah, the Red Wedding 2.0 is the biggest one, but there's

other ones. And, and, but there's a twist here, one that we should see coming because we've been down this road before. This is Nina's take, and I think I agree with you very strongly. George may use future Fray Desk to challenge the reader's desire for vengeance against House Prey. George is very cautious with how he writes vengeance. He doesn't write it as always justified. It's it's human.

It's a thing that happens a lot, but he wants the reader to consider that it's too much sometimes. Like, do we think it's going to be fair if Perwin and Oliver are killed? No, of course not. And look at how Stoneheart's doing it. She's perfectly happy to hang Brienne, Heil, Hunt, Podrick just for being associated with the Lannisters. That's not fair either. That's not right either, right? How will we as readers react to unjust deaths of a family we see

as villainous? Here's that Gray area. It's going to be tough. It's going to be tragic, but it's going to be very well written and it's going to be poignant, and that's great. What about Theon's torture or Cersei's walk or her losing her children? These are not the punishments we would necessarily decide on ourselves in a civilized society. Theon, yeah, deserve punishment. But to be tortured that way, that's not the the punishment I would choose. That's not justice. That's vindictive.

Or something else entirely. What about what about Catlin killing Jingle Bell? That wasn't particularly justified. He didn't do any of the most innocent Frey in the room by far, right? And Wilder. But Wilder even seemed to acknowledge that it was fair play. Like, yeah, son for a son. He actually says that's a grandson. No, because he's doesn't value

human life very much. And of course, we've said before and we'll say again that we expect Fat Walda to be murdered by Ramsay, and Ruse will probably be killed as well in that. So even though there's going to be a lot of frayed deaths and that throws the whole thing off, here's the succession as it stands right now.

It's not as complicated as it might sound, because we're only going to, we only really need to follow the branch that extends from Walder's eldest son, because it's a lengthy branch. That's Stevron. Again, Stevron died after the Battle of Ox Cross. Which made his eldest son Ryman, heir to the twins. But Ryman, as we just said, was hanged by the brother or without manners. And they'd already hanged Ryman's third son, Peter Pimple.

So the current heir to the twins is Edwin, who is the eldest son of Ryman. Next is Walda, daughter of Edwin. Of course, if Edwin dies first, Walda might get passed over. Next will be Black Walda, who is the second son of Ryman. Everyone expects him to kill his way to the top. A Lord Blackwalder would be an interesting development. A very violent, competent man at the top. That could make things interesting. But someone else might kill him first. Someone non Frey perhaps, or

maybe one of his other brothers. That would be quite a twist if the guy that's murdering his own kin is killed by one of his other kin first. Now he has no true born children. It's possible he is the actual father of whatever child is in the eighth wife of of Joyous Erinford is her name of of Lord Walter is. Some people suspect that Black Walter got her pregnant instead of Walter himself. Walter claims his stuff still

works though. Well let's just say one way or another she is pregnant by someone named Walter. Next up would be Paraphray who is daughter of Peter the the hanged Peter Pimple. She might also be passed over, but it may not even matter because it probably won't come to that. Next would be Walton, who is the third son of Stevron. Then we have Stefon the suite, who is eldest son of Walton. He's sixth in line. Then we have a Brian Fray. Then we have Fair Walda.

These are all the children of Walton. Then we have Waldor Vance who is eldest son of the deceased Magell, who is Stevron's only daughter, followed by Patrick Vance and Marianne Vance. The Vance phrase probably would never inherit, but maybe they would, or they they might change their name to Fray that that kind of thing happens. M and Fray is now a new Lord of Riveron.

He's actually started the first Frey cadet branch, which is the the house Frey of River Run. But this branch probably will not last. This is the and that's the non step first non Stevron branch. M and Frey is the beginning of the next branch. If Cleos were alive, he would be 13th in line. The full succession that Nina drew up goes all the way to wait for it. 84th. That's how many freaking phrase there are. 84 For reference, Roslyn, Edmure's bride is 82nd. She's very far down 53rd in

line. My famous, My famous, my favorite Frey name. Jamos. Jamos. What is that? Jamos? It's like a very modern name, like jamming out, but modified to be medieval sounding. What's that? Jamos? You got Jamos? That's right, infamous forever now. The Red Wedding, like the black dinner of Scotland, won't ever be forgotten. That's something I don't know that Lord Wilder realized in all

his pride and his ambition. He may not have realized how historically significant and unforgettable the Red Wedding will be, how his house will always be associated with this violent violation of the gods rules of God's laws. Kinsling guessed right. Treason, you know. You might have been like, better that than toll collectors. Better to live in infamy than to be insulted, right? You might be right. That might be his vibe, his attitude. That's. What he thinks. Yeah, you're right.

It's ruthless. But you, you might be right. The Black dinner of Scotland inspired the Red Wedding, and that was 585 years ago. Obviously we still know about it. Obviously we still talk about it. George was inspired by it. And, well, that's almost exactly the age of House Frey. 600 years old. 580. Five, 600. Yeah, roughly 600. Yeah. That may have been what George had in mind.

Actually, it is. Besides being just historically outstanding, it's also the single most historically significant thing House Frey has done. More memorable in the bridge, more memorable than any of their wars that they fought or participated in. And given the Kinslaying is likely to tick up even more, it's only going to make them look worse. Yeah. So it's going to be interesting to see how George writes. Their ending will be a complete ending, like all of them being wiped out.

It's kind of hard to imagine 84 frays being killed off. That seems unlikely. But maybe they lose to Crossing. Maybe they would go the way of Lofton or Black Fire or Toyne. Maybe we'll see frays in the Golden Company. We also might get more of them in future Duncan Egg stories, Right? Maybe even more versions of of a younger Lord Walder because they're so large.

I'll repeat what I said at the beginning or repeat a version of it that we couldn't possibly go down the rabbit hole, the weasel hole with too many of the individuals. A lot of plot points surrounding various phrase were discussed, but some of them have a lot more story to go. Some of them may be worth coming back to. And so many of them are going to die. Some of those deaths, you might go, wait, do I even know that phrase? Which phrase was that?

And you might not. That might be a phrase you've never seen before, which is part of the tragedy here. Again, like Perwin and Olivar, who we know, there's definitely some phrase out of those other 80, some that are good people. It can't all be bad, right? But blind vengeance, power, politics and their reputation might be too much for those few decent ones to overcome. And they may be part of the tragedy, the good ones associated with the bad ones.

The bad ones are the ones that everyone thinks about, the ones that everyone wants to get. And the other ones get caught up in it. It may be Davos of all people who said it. Well, thought it best. He didn't say this line out loud, but it's a very perfect line to end on. These phrase are cursed. Few questions from y'all. Yaki Nikko says U.S.

President John Tyler was in his 60s and 70s still having kids, his son, also in his 60s and 70s, still having kids, and his son, President Tyler's grandson, born in 1928, is still alive today. Whoa. That is, yeah, that's some, that's some fray like qualities there. The trivia answer, The word bunghole appears four times in A Song of Ice and Fire. Lord Walder says it's second. The other three to name to say the word bunghole are the Great John Roarge and Lem Lemon Cloak.

Yeah, Lem Lemon cloak from last week in the Brotherhood without Banners episode. Dom Tartaglia. Shout out to folk wise. Check out the folk Wise channel asks does bunghole in the Song of Ice and Fire only mean booty hole or is it ever a nautical term? None of the contexts I can recall have it to do with anything nautical. You could, those characters I just mentioned aren't nautically inclined at all. Great John Roord and Lemon Cloak. And he asked if it was Victorian.

Someone did guess Roord. No. Nice. But yeah, I don't think anyone said Lem or Great John. I think great John's, the context with him was like, then after we, you know, then we'll head off to the we'll we'll stick our sword up Tywin's bunghole, then it's off to the Red Keep to rescue Ned Roord. Yeah. Threatens Aria with her stick sword. And Lem. I forget what I forget Lem's bunghole comment.

Quite a few episodes that relate to this one that you y'all might want to check out if you want to stay immersed in this area. We got Wars of the Roses episode. They we compared them to how Stanley very thoroughly and

there's a lot of detail there. Of course, the Black Dinner of Scotland episode, which came out only a couple weeks apart from the War of the Rose episode, and it was earlier late last year in 2024. The Mystery Night Valar re Rita series, especially episode 4, but all of it really 'cause the

phrase are a big part of that. The Brotherhood Without Banners episode that we did just last week has quite a bit of the phrase in there because of course the Brotherhood Without Banners is targeting them above all else. Only the Lannisters are even close. The Battle of Ice episode, we did 3, three of those actually, and they all of course involve a lot of discussion of both the phrase in Winterfell and the phrase going to face Stannis.

Arya's list is an episode we did not too long ago that one of course, discusses the possibility of the phrase being included in her revenge. Even though she doesn't know their name, she knows the house name. Last but not least, it's an episode that's not out yet as of this, as of this episode, but by the time you all hear this, it

might be out. It's called the Winterfell Murders. We'll be discussing all the murders that happened in Winterfell and it is with Dragons, which includes of course, Big Walter. Thanks to everyone who watched us live. Thanks to everyone who caught us after the fact as well. We appreciate all of you. It's what we do for a living, so it's vital to us to have your support. Thanks to Nina for the succession work and the other

notes. She had a lot to say in this episode and I appreciate that very much and I suspect you all do too as well 'cause her takes are so good. You can check her out at good queenalley.tumblr.com. As usual, thanks to Joey Townsend for his excellent music. We love that theme song that we've been using for over 12 years now. And Michael Klarfeld, KLARADOX, claredox.de, that's his website.

You can get copies of his beautiful well illustrated maps and some other cool things he's got there now. Just check out his website in general. There's lots of neat things to see there. On behalf of Ashea, I'm Aziz. We'll see you next time. Until then, you know what to do.