What is a Kingsmoot? A History of The Iron Islands

This post was originally written on September 3, 2015, but in light of the events on the Iron Islands in the latest episode of Game of Thrones, it seemed like a good time to put it back in rotation.

With yesterday’s official announcement concerning the casting of Euron Greyjoy and all the spoilery pictures from Ballintoy Harbor suggesting that the Iron Island scenes from A Feast For Crows will be featured in Season 6, it’s time to take a deeper look into the odd little kingdom that sits in Ironman’s Bay, southwest of the territory once run by the Stark family.

The Iron Islands are an archipelago made up of 31 islands all together, seven of which are considered the major islands, because everything on Planetos happens in sevens. The largest of them is known as Great Wyk, followed by Harlaw, which is the wealthiest and most populous of the islands. The island of Pyke is only the third largest of the group, but it’s the seat of House Greyjoy, which has ruled the Iron Islands since 33AC, when Lord Vickon Greyjoy of Pyke was elected following the Targaryen War of Conquest. Prior to their rule, the Iron Islands had been run by House Hoare, who refused to rule from the islands themselves, but ran things from parts of the Riverlands, which they had conquered. (The final member of House Hoare to rule was Harren the Black, who oversaw the construction of Harrenhal, only for the Targaryens and their Dragons to arrive in Westeros and begin their conquest the day it was completed. The more you know!)

Unlike the rest of the Seven Kingdoms, the Iron Islands are fiercely independent, and stick to their own ways and gods. They do not follow the Old Gods, or the Faith of the Seven, but claim allegiance to The Drowned God, also sometimes referred to as He Who Dwells Beneath the Waves. (There is a sept on Great Wyk, though, showing the strength of those inland ways.) Like the Islands themselves, the Drowned God is harsh; he clashes with his enemy The Storm God whenever their is a storm, which is often on the Islands. And yet, Iron Islanders also believe that “what is dead may never die,” meaning that those who die and whose bodies are put out to sea will feast forever in the Watery Halls of the Drowned God with his mermaid attendants. The priests for this religious order are known as Drowned Men. Ironborn children are “drowned” at birth, in a ritual much like Christan full body christenings. Drowned Men are drowned a second time as adults, this time to the point of asphyxiation, whereupon they are resuscitated with a primitive form of CPR.

The Iron Islanders also have a tradition when it comes to choosing their leaders. In the other six kingdoms, succession is determined by primogeniture, and in all but Dorne, male-preference cognatic primogeniture (meaning that women can inherit, but only if there are absolutely no living male heirs). Dorne has absolute primogeniture, where gender doesn’t matter, only birth order. In ancient times, the Iron Islands didn’t care who was born first, or if your father was king. When the current ruling monarch died, the leaders of all the Ironborn Houses, and the Great Captains of ships, gathered together to formally elect their next leader, the closest thing to democracy in either Essos or Westeros. The Kingsmoot was held on the island of Old Wyk, the holiest of the great islands, on a spot known as Nagga’s hill. The area of Nagga is famous for not having trees, but instead the remain of a dead sea dragon, whose bones rise from the earth.

Prior to the Andal invasion, the kings raised at the Kingsmoot would create themselves a crown of driftwood. That crown would be destroyed when they died and returned to the sea. The new king would then fashion himself a new one. In this way, Kings were not seen as following each other, but each ruler was his own man. Kingsmoots are considered binding agreements among all who participate. Only once have the participants refused to abide by a decision made on Nagga’s Hill. In that case, the king, Urragon III Greyiron, passed away, and a Kingsmoot was hastily convened without waiting for his son, Torgon Greyiron, who was still at sea. The winner of the Kingsmoot, Urrathon IV Goodbrother, then killed all the members of the former royal family he could find. The rest of the families were so horrified that when Torgon returned and deemed the Kingsmoot invalid, they banded behind him.

Torgon and his immediate successor, Urragon IV Greyiron, were the only kings of the islands to be raised without a Kingsmoot. But after one generation of that, the Drowned Men insisted on returning to the old ways again. Unfortunately, that turned into a bloodbath, as Urron Greyiron simply had all the other possible candidates murdered. According to legend, the tradition of Kingsmoot died there. The Greyirons ruled for a thousand years, until 6000BC, when the Andal invasion swept House Hoare into power, and with the backing of the Andal kings, they held the throne until Aegon’s War of Conquest.

Since the War of Conquest, the Greyjoy family has held the throne, though its rise to power was not considered a proper Kingsmoot, as it was done under the duress of the Targaryen Kings. Kingsmoots are considered things of the past, a lapsed tradition of “the old way.”

—————————————————SPOILERS BELOW———————————————-

So what does this have to do with the casting of Euron Greyjoy? Well, though the show has *technically* come to the end of the books as published, a few chapters were left behind in the editing process. Along with the horde of Dornish characters we met in A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons, we also spent chapters on the Iron Islands and met a host of Ironborn. In fact, we learn early on in A Feast For Crows that Balon Greyjoy has fallen to his death while crossing the rope bridges that link the towers on Pyke. There is suspicion that foul play might have been involved, since Balon has been crossing those bridges his entire life and never slipped. There are heavy suggestions that a Faceless Man may have pushed Balon, though who hired him and why is never clearly established. Melisandre also takes Balon’s death as proof that her blood magic worked, as it leaves Stannis as the last of the Five Kings standing. (But as we have seen in the show, that’s no longer the case. With Balon Greyjoy’s presumed death in Season 6, all five of the original Kings in this war will be dead.)

The result is that Balon’s Drowned Man brother Aeron, a religious zealot, calls a Kingsmoot, the first in thousands of years, to pick a successor, insisting that the old ways are the only thing that will keep the Ironborn safe in this uncertain time.

But he has other motives. At this point in the story, Aeron does not believe that Balon has any worthy heir, as Theon is thought to be dead and Yara/Asha is a woman. Balon’s brother Euron is also a contender, but Aeron believes that Balon’s brother Euron is the one who sent the Faceless Man, and wants to prevent his ascension to power at all costs. Unfortunately, his plans fail, and Euron wins the Kingsmoot anyway. Euron convinces the crowd that he is worthy in part by pulling out a horn, known as Dragon Binder, that he plans to use to control Daenerys’ dragons after marrying her. (A Feast For Crows and A Dance with Dragons are littered with people who plan to marry Dany and get control of her dragons. The show cut them all, and streamlined her marriage to Hizdhar.) The Ironborn love this idiot plan and vote for it wholeheartedly. Euron then sends yet another brother, the rather dull Victarion, to Meereen to propose to Dany on his behalf.

According to the footage and photos we’ve seen, it looks like the production is filming scenes in which the Iron Islander are gathering and Euron’s ship is sailing into port. Has he come for the Kingsmoot? Will we skip the Kingsmoot all together and just put Euron on the throne? I feel like that’s probably not going to happen. Fans sort of expect if we’re doing the Iron Islands, we’re doing the Kingsmoot and seeing the bones of Nagga.

So far as we know, Victarion doesn’t exist on the show, so Euron can’t send him to Dany. Will Euron bring the dragon binder horn to her himself? Or will he send someone else, perhaps Yara? If Theon somehow does make it back to Pyke, could he be the one Euron sends? This dragon binder horn, as you might guess, it extraordinarily important, since Dany can’t even get Drogon to do as she asks. I assume it is not cut.

However this plays out, let us hope that the delayed Ironborn chapters go over better with the viewers than the Dornish ones did last season. I was not a major fan of the new Ironborn plot when I first read it in A Feast for Crows, nor was I thrilled with the Dornish. I was hoping the show would solve the Dornish problem last season by streamlining their family and their endless hotheaded desert plotting. Unfortunately, it simply made different mistakes with them. I am hopeful the Greyjoy succession is handled better.

• Published on 05/01/2016 at 11:00 PM CDT
• Last updated on 05/04/2016 at 10:44 AM CDT