The Ancient Starks

Hey everyone, it's Barry! And after long consideration I'm here to the certified Jon?

And on a side note, if this challenge proves to be succesful, I would love to see a second edition of this with some of the other certified people as judges: Bronn, Davos and myself (Ghost)! Something like #BestSidekick maybe. Just some food for thought...

But now back on topic!

I am here to tell you why House Lannister is the best house! Just kidding, House STARK is the best of course! (Although the Lannisters aren't too bad either). But let's get started with why House Stark is the best, before I throw away any sympathy with Jon I might have had to begin with :eyes:

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Now, when people think about "the Starks", most think about the "modern" Starks, Eddard/Ned, his wife Cat and their five children Robb, Sansa, Arya, Bran and Rickon. Almost everyone also includes Jon, although he would technically be a Targaryen in this patriarchal society and is believed to be a Snow for the biggest part of the story. Some might even that there are Ned's siblings, Benjen, Lyanna and, most forgotten of all, Brandon.

Yet when speaking of "the Starks", most people would probably think of Ned and Cat and their five children, plus Jon. Which is reasonable of course as they are the main characters of the show and books for most of the time, especially the earlier seasons/books. If I think of "the Starks", my mind goes to them first as well.

However, when I think about HOUSE Stark, my mind goes to what I like to call the TRUE Starks. The Kings in the North. The Kings of Winter. Ancient Starks, who have warred with other great houses of the North and even some outsiders over what would later be known as the Kingdom of the North.

Not that the "modern" Stark aren't true Starks, of course they are, but this idea, that House Stark is such an honorable house, stems from the fact that Ned is such an honorable man and Robb trying to emulate that. In my opinion at least.

The way I see it (and I make no claims that this is true) is that Ned got his sense of honour from Jon Arryn, the man who was like a second father to him. It is said by many people who knew Jon Arryn, that he was a great and honorable man and don't forget, that House Arryn's word are "As High As Honor". But I'm getting sidetracked here, back to House Stark.

Now as I said, the ancient Starks weren't as honorable as our "modern" Starks. Sure, they had their own sense of honor, a Northern kind of honor, much more alike to the Free Folk than to the Andal understanding of honor, with their knights and lords and ladies. It was much more violent and deceitful than you might think.

Honor amongst kin was much more important than whatever honor you owed the enemy. Which was pretty much anyone who was not kin to you. House Stark didn't get to where it is now, by following some code of honor, but by deceiving and slaughtering their contenders to the kingship of the North.

So I guess what I'm trying to say with these many words is, that I love House Stark for its rich and, most of the times, violent history that stands in contrast to their modern counterparts' sense of honor and at the same time mirrors the violence and hardships "our" Starks had to endure over the course of the show/books.

And to show you how rich and violent their history is, I'll name a few examples of ancient Starks and stories about them, in the hopes of convincing you that House Stark is indeed the best house:

Brandon the Builder

No list about the history of House Stark would be complete without the inclusion of its founder, Brandon Stark aka Bran the Builder. He is a legendary figure from the Age of Heroes just like other founders of great Westerosi houses, like Lann the Clever or Garth Greenhand.

He carries the moniker "the Builder", because he is credited with not only building Winterfell, but also the Wall, the Hightower and Storm's End. Now while it is highly unlikely that he built all of these, I think it's safe to say that he had at least a hand in erecting the foundations of Winterfell and the Wall, while it was probably some other Brandons who finished them and may have helped in raising the Hightower and Storm's End.

Which we will probably never be able to tell, because after his death, the name Brandon was used inflationary among House Stark. Without having the exact numbers, I would say that something around 50% of all male Starks have been named Brandon (don't nail me down on that number). So it shows what a legendary figure he is.

The Warg King

Now, the Warg King was no Stark, but he serves as an example for how ruthless the ancient Starks were. The Warg King was a petty king who ruled Sea Dragon Point, the large peninsula to the west of Deepwood Motte. He was said to have been allied with the Children of the Forest, but nonetheless, they were defeated by the Kings of Winter.

Which Stark it was is unknown, but he is said to have killed the beasts, greenseers and even the sons of the Warg King and took his daughters as prizes. Which probably means they became slaves and/or concubines, which is one possible way how greenseer blood might have entered the Stark family tree. And it shows that the ancient Starks didn't give two figs about honor if it benefitted them.

The Hungry Wolf

Theon Stark aka "The Hungry Wolf" is probably my all time favorite Stark, as brutal as he was. The reason for that is mainly how he dealt with the Andal invasion.

Like in many other places across Westeros, the Andals also landed in the North under their warlord leader Argos Sevenstar. With the help of House Bolton (even though being their biggest rival), they managed to defeat the Andals in the Battle of the Weeping Water and kill Argos.

But Theon didn't stop there. He decided to take the fight to their enemy and crossed the Narrow Sea, with Argos' body ties to his prow like a figurehead. He raided and burned a couple of Andal villages and a fortified sept, killed many of them and took their heads back to the North. There he put them on spikes all along the shorelines of the North, to deter any would-be invader that tried to land on his shores.

It takes a lot of ruthlessness and badassery to just take the fight to your superiorly equipped enemy and put their severed heads on your shore as a warning. As the Andals never invaded the North by sea again, it must have worked. They did however try to conquer the North on land, but was we all know, that failed as well.

Anyway, the way I see it, Theon Stark is the reason why the North is still inhabited by First Men and not by Andals, as the Andals would have just kept coming over the sea if it wasn't for Theon.

House Manderly

Now the Manderlys are no Starks of course, but they serve as an example that the Starks not only had fierce and ruthless warriors amongst their ancestors, but also shrewd diplomats.

It's unknown when exactly the Manderlys were expelled from the Reach and on what exact grounds other than they became too powerful for some of their rivals, but historians put the time somewhere between 1000 and 600 BC.

The Manderlys had to flee the Reach as they had no friends left and for some reason chose to flee to the North. The Starks, having lost their cadet branch the Greystarks, who guarded the White Knife against pirate raids, to extinction, offered their castle Wolf's Den and the surrounding lands to the Manderlys in exchange for an oath to be forever loyal to the Starks.

The Manderlys gladly accepted and have been among the most staunch ers of Starks ever since, evolving into one of the most powerful and certainly richest houses in the North. So whatever Stark king chose to welcome them as their bannermen had a good sense of diplomacy and long term benefits.

The King Who Knelt

Including Torrhen Stark, The King Who knelt in a list of ancient Starks is stretching the term ancient very far, I know, but I just feel I have to include him. He was the last King in the North after all (until Robb came along) and his reign was around 300 years ago, so I think I can make an exception.

Torrhen is another example of a great Stark king/lord, who chose the life of many of his subjects over his reputation and saved the North from a war it couldn't win. Many of his bannermen and even his own sons didn't agree with his choice and would have rather fought than bend the knee. After the surrender a number of them even founded a sellsword company, the Company of the Rose, and chose voluntary exile in Essos over living under the Targaryens rule.

However, Torrhen was wise enough to see the futility of a war against an enemy superior in numbers and with three full grown dragons at their side. For that I feel he deserves a place among the greatest of the Starks.

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To sum it up, House Stark has had many great kings in the long history of the house, some of them known by name, others only by reputation or some deed they have done. All of them were different but awesome in their own way. And much more fun in their ways than most of the modern Starks if I may say so. That might just be my opinion, but I hope I could convince you of the awesomeness of House Stark.

When the snows fall and the white wind blows, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives.

Winter is Coming!

#BestHouse

#StarkSquad

#RavensTeeth