Love this format so much, the repackaging of the livestreams in smaller topical chunks. Wish they didn't demonitise the stream it came from, though. Wanted to give you assurance LML that people like me, whoever they may be, watch and enjoy both the long livestreams and the shorter videos and have equal appreciation for them both. Always a good day when you drop a vid!

The relationship between the God-Empresses with two husbands and the rock/salt kings are great, but it may not just be literary parallelism, it may be that the practice had precursors in the GEOTD. Because, of course, we also see a third "monarch has two consorts" culture: the Targaryens and the conqureror, who represents a third strand of culture descended from the GEOTD. And of course, the dragon has three heads.

Interesting idea about Dany's dragon eggs coming from Asshai: if the eggs really are the ones that Alysa Farman stole, maybe they weren't actually pawned off by Alysa to buy the ships before leaving and were instead sold after she got to Asshai? We're told that she sold them to a Pentoshi merchant but maybe that was a tale spun to fool the Targaryens in case they tried following her Also, do you think there is more land between Asshai and Westeros besides the 3 Stop-Off Islands that Alysa Farman rediscovered? Obviously Ulthos is an island or something to the southeast and there's probably more land beyond Asshai and the eastern edge of the map that would be considered part of Essos still, but are there any islands or continents like the Americas or the Pacific islands? There's a Game of Thrones mod for Crusader Kings 2 and if you have the dlc that adds an Aztec invasion of Europe, a descendant of the Stark who sailed across the Sunset Sea attacks Westeros in the Sunset Invasion. I honestly prefer the canon version where he just disappears over the sea but an Aztec-based Sunset Empire who practices horrific blood magic by ripping people's hearts out sounds so on-par with ASoIaF

Japan had a very interesting dynamic in the past which was tensions between Shoguns and Emperors - with Emperors meant to be religious figurehead instead of a ruler and conflict between those two polars, which all this stuff with the Greykings and Rock Kings/ Driftwood and Ironborn clashes you talk about reminded me about that.

No better birthday present than Ironborn Week from LML!!! WE ARE HYYYYYYPE!!!

nice edits. hopefully this one doesn't get "demonized" too

When life hands you Braavosi lemons, homie out here making lemonade. I regret missing the stream. I was there, just wanted to watch a 1.5x VOD. Gotta start showing up live.

So a connection I just made was between the driftwood crown and Jammie sleeping on the weirwood stump and seemingly tapping into the network or at least having magical dreams.

I never really questioned why exactly the ironborn having salt and rock kings. It's especially odd considering their other 'values' don't seem particularly focused on sharing. The more of this analysis I see, Ironborn culture is getting more and more bizarre

Claiming descent from heroic legendary kings is quite common around the world. Th le Norse leaders of the "Great Heathen Army" who invaded the British Isles in the 9th century CE claimed to be the son's of the legendary sea-king Ragnar Lothbrok. Later kings of Norway claimed descent from Sigurd Snake-eye, who was Lothbrok's son and the grandson of the Sigurd who slayed Fafnir the dragon

god DAMN I LOVE the intro music so much. SO FUCKING GOOD

Always good to see another Ironborn breakdown from the Lightbringer

Heckin good stream. 2 down & 2 to go another superior stream from Dave&Tim Praise garth ❤️💚❤️💚❤️

I'm loving these shorter, more-pointed, and enhanched Sunday snipets! Dave and Tim bringing the Light all week long! Praise Garth!

you rule Dave and Tim!!!!!!

27:35 we think Euron sailed from Asshai to Westeros the known route, but we don't know that, he may have as well came via the sunset sea. Maybe no one saw the direction from which he came, because he came back at night or something. I think Euron may have some power over the winds, he has storm god parallels, so he could have easily sailed via the sunset sea. Maybe it's even faster than sailing all the way from Qarth, which is where he know he was last.

I find it amusing that Tim says "We've sung this song before" when talking about the ancient mariners. Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Iron Maiden ;)

So I was driving back from Fayetteville, NC to Michigan during the live stream. Figured it would save it for later. Pure heartbreak when it was gone lol

Could it be said that Westeros as a whole, at times, has somewhat of a rock king and a salt king? The Rock King being in King’s Landing and the Salt King being on Driftmark or Dragonstone or maybe even fighting in the Stepstones? ​⁠​⁠​⁠ Although it isn’t an intentional custom of the Westerosi, there often seems to be someone (having King’s blood) fulfilling the role of Westeros’ Salt King on one of those islands off the east coast. Stannis or Daemon Targaryen (the bad brother?), Visenya Targaryen, or an opposing house such as the Velaryons? Aurane Waters? Often the heir to the throne or the commander of the naval fleet is on one of those islands. Often someone very martial. Often a leal brother or heir. All while the Rock King is in King’s Landing. This would make Stannis’ resentment of being sent to Dragonstone quite interesting. On Driftmark, Lord Alyn Oakenshield Velaryon wrote “LOYAL” on his brother’s tomb! This seems to be GRRM shouting for us to notice!

These guys only put out hits!!

Outstanding as usual guys; in awe of what you can both distill from the narrative! Thank you for your work!

Yes! I have been waiting all week for this ❤

Keep on rock king in the free world!

Now my favorite week of the year. Yall better make this a whole damn thing!!!

I forgot these were the livestream and get so upset at the cutoffs. Wish I had been live for the original streaming. Good work boys. I expect nothing less. When I’m not driving I’ll be back with some of my questions and observations.

I only bring this up because I think you’d like to know ❤ 7:04 Loving the analysis, but Idk who told you that was the right way to pronounce archipelago, but I think they were messing with you. I went and double checked that I hadn’t been saying it wrong my whole life, but no, I was right. Arc-a-pel-a-go. It’s all good though, we’ve all mispronounced stuff at some point. Heck, I’m dyslexic and do this with unfamiliar words all the time! And with familiar words I’ve only read and never heard said aloud.

Great to see more of the discussion, I could only make an hour or so of the live stream.

The stuff with the salt and stone king makes soooo much sense! U really went on a deep dive and uncovered some true treasures! Thx so much guys. U and Tim make a great team ❤️

Everyone knows that the greatest king of the Iron Islands was A-aron Badstudent.

So i managed to listen to the first video 3 times aha including listening live and falling asleep, re listening falling asleep and then watching the new edited video...on to this one now! Im enjoying the added images...im here for all of it! Praise Garth! 🥦

First like! How many more of these? Hate I missed the stream

This format is easier to understand and you could add more info that wasn't in the live... also more vids hopefully mean more $$$ 😀 Maybe Grey King is also because (1) unusual hair colour, (2) exceptional old age, (3) colour of iron, (4) mixture of Black+White / Rock+Salt? I've been wondering how the Queen of Sheba traveled all the way to Israel (2-3 years one-way!) and who would be in charge in the meantime... having a land and sea ruler makes sense. Also yey peace-loving mariners from thousand islands = Filipinos 🥰

That’s a cool discovery

I really enjoyed the stream, it was a great one! 🎉 And im loving the broken up vids ... this way the info is more easily absorbed! But that stream was so fun! If you are able to put it back up after you put out all these 4 vids, that would be awesome cos is was such a good time!❤😊❤😊

Loving these chopped up Ironborn stream videos

Thank you :)

All this Ironborn lore has me so hard I'm afraid it may be greyscale.

For the algorithm! Praise Garth

Thank you guys!

❤ wonderful as always

Excellent thank you

I was just thinking, if ASoIaF never finishes, David's videos will be the ramblings of a super fan. If the series does finish, David's videos are the foundation to a university course on 'Symbolism in the works of GRRM' lol

These have been great vids

Just realised that the "Grey" of the Grey King would refer to his hair, since that Valyrian silver can tend into shades of grey and white- but it's usually the most obvious feature of Valyrian descent.

as ever, I love your work

Any time David and Tim get together I know I'm in for a good time.

I love it.

Love how clean this is! Feel like we are missing some of the in-between fun tho. 🤨 Stupid KZfaq AI screwing everything up

Already watched the video, just coming back to boost engagement after hearing about your monetisation problems. Always love your content!

Totally makes sence.

Love this iron born series

This video really needs to do some numbers. Its so good

Lml you spent to much time with the cuts I assume but they are perfection and we adore you for it

Loving these edited, shorter form livestream videos. Very slick, hope they're a bit easier for you to get out!

Great video. The lack of clarity about whether the Salt King is the heir of the Rock King (essentially making the Salt King just the Ironborn equivalent of a Crown Prince or Heir Apparent) vs. an altogether different rank responsible for commanding the fleets in times of war/raiding is very interesting. I think it has clear parallels with the real world rank of the "tánaise ríg" in Irish culture. This is a rank mentioned in medieval Irish texts (especially Críth Gablach) that some scholars have interpreted as meaning the "Heir Apparent", an heir selected by the rí (king) from among the rígdamna (the pool of princes considered eligible for the kingship). However, other scholars have considered the "tánaise ríg" to instead be a rank designated to represent the king as a leader in times of war, in other words someone invested with royal authority to lead the armies of the tuath (tribe / people) to battle while the rí (king) remained back home in his seat of power. It seems to me that we have exactly the same ambiguity between the idea of the Salt King / tánaise ríg as heir of the Rock King / rí vs. the idea of the Salt King / tánaise ríg as a war leader with royal authority responsible for leading the tribal kingdom's forces out on raids while the Rock King / rí remained at the kingdom's centre of power. Some scholars have suggested that the latter was the older practice used in the ancient pagan kingdoms of Irish antiquity, while the role of the rank shifted more towards formal heirship as the island was Chritsianized and feudalized in the medieval period and began to look more like "mainstream" continental Europe. We see similar tensions in the Iron Islands between their ancient native practices and the growing cultural pressure to conform to the expectations of the Faith of the Seven and mainland culture. As for the assertion that the Rock King and the Salt King were sometimes of the same lineage but sometimes belonged to rival factions, we also see this with the rí and tánaise ríg in Ireland. The medieval text Caithréim Cellachán Caisil, for example, describes the practice of alternating the kingship and the tanistry between Clann Éogain Móir and Clann Chormaic Chais. Very relevant to the Iron Islands is a passage in the text Annála Uladh that mentions a situation in which a Norse earl leading Viking forces in Ireland is described as the tánaise ríg of a local Irish king... This seems pretty on the nose if we read Ironborn culture as a fusion of land-based First Man (read "Celtic/Irish") and Mariners (read "Norse") who arrived later in the island; i.e., we have a case of land-based First Man / Irish Rock King / rí whose army is being led by a sea-based Mariner / Norse Salt King / tánaise ríg. (I hope I explained that in a way it makes sense!) Lastly, to further complicate things, early Irish texts also mention the rare practice of kingdoms ruled by leth-rí or "joint kings" in which two kings jointly ruled over the tuath. Is George familiar with any of this? Maybe, maybe not. But I certainly wouldn't put it past him.

There is a tradition of "democracy" among a First Men culture: the Hill Tribes of the Vale have large councils where every individual can voice their thoughts. Tyrion remarks how it takes a long, long time. That could have been borrowed from the Children or developed after the Andals. I think it is important because the First Men were a melting pot of cultures and languages when the Andals gave them the title.

Have you mentioned the Valyrian-like names like Aeron and Urrigon? Could be thanks to a common ancestor-- the great empire of the dawn

Maybe after Euron is dealt with Theon will become the rock king of the islands, and Asha will become the salt queen. Theon 's relationship with the Starks (a greenlands house ) and the old gods (land based gods) indicates his eventual suitability to govern the domestic affairs of the iron islands.

I watch your channel pretty much every night before bed. It would be cool if you branched into other stories too like Dune or Neuromancer maybe get into doing read throughs

I'd vote for LML in the Kingsmoot 🌊👑

An elective monarchy with priests being majorly involved in it unifying a relatively small (as far as the 7 kingdoms go) tribal society is just the early Prince-Bishopric of Montenegro The massacre at the kings moot by Urron red hand has the vibe of the Slaughter of the Dukes in Serbia, carried out by the Turks which triggered the Serbian revolution. I doubt that’s the inspiration, it’s almost certainly some Irish, Norse, or Scottish stuff, but the amount of possible Balkan history parallels here are interesting to me. Maybe it’s just historical pareidolia where everything reminds me of a field that interests me.

Do a Video on Brandon of the Bloody Blade

❤

oh david you’re so close! archipelago, stress on pel - ar-kih-PEL-uh-go.

Wouldn’t the Others need this dynamic as well? Perhaps Euron’s place is to be the Salt King of the Others and Jon the Rock King of the Others?

Praise the Garth! 🌳 …and the almighty algorithm

Question why was Orkmont the centre of power during the times of the driftwood kings. House Greyiron was based there and after them House Hoare was also from Orkmont. Wouldn't old wyk make more sence

Hi! There's this one question recently in my mind about the GEOTD and Yi Ti. So the second is a successor of the first, but at the same time Yi Ti seems to be very Chinese, and a lot about the GEOTD seems to be far from that, for e.g. when we talk about the looks of the people there. Could someone explain me this? :D

Sac for Rithm 🎉

And where does urrathon peake called shieldsmasher play into this

Mountains of the Moon Clans all allow free men and women to speak at council.

Aye I’m one of the first commenters :D

Will we hear your thoughts on the HOTD s2 teaser, LmL?

Isn't the election system more or less parallel in the Iron Islands Kingsmoot, the Wall and the Citadel? All weirwood places, controlled by the children of the forest in the begining, some like the wall even now? All places where Empire of the Dawn people intermingled with First Men?

arch-a-pel-a-go

king kongsorts?

1

Arka-pelligo

"Archipeligo" is pronounced "Arky-pelly-go".

If anyone wants to hear another one of my theories regarding George's encodings of metaphysics, geometry and math within his story, then read this. You pointed out how there are 8 ironborn islands, each one with a Salt King and a Rock King, giving us a total of 16 kings. Well, the number 8 is symbolically used to encode the vertices or corners of a hexahedron, aka da CUBE. With there being 16, this infers 2 cubes. And the importance of double cubes in arcane lore is key to understanding the human mystery. And what brings it full circle is that both SALT and ROCKS are parallels used to portray the cube itself. Firstly there is SALT, which forms in cubic crystalline structures. It is also used in the Bible to encode the cube. Then there is the symbolism of the stone, which is not only used in the Bible to encode wisdom regarding the cube but also in Freemasonic lore with what is known as the perfect Ashlar stone. The cube is a universal geometry that encompasses the world's religions, occult sciences and mythologies. There's no wonder why George is using it here with the Ironborn. But I also want to point this out as well, which is why I think George is using it here. The crystal PYRITE also forms in cubic crystals and PYRITE as a word is similar to PIRATE. Which, is telling us about PI-RATIO which is embedded inside the cube itself. And if my memory serves me correctl, anytime you read a crystal name with the suffix -ite - the original pronunciation actually pronounced like "it". Instead of "Pi-Right" its "Pi-Ritt". George may be communicating another mystery here. Usually the doubling of the cube, like squaring the circle implies the alchemical marriage. So, hopefully this as a clue may help you to think of the "MARINERS" as primarily feminine. Since, the first men is the masculine half.

She takes 2 husbands because she has total WAP.😂😂😂 Honestly I think this is a a great theory, yours, not mine.

Hate to be that guy but I believe it’s pronounced: arc-uh-pel-uh-go.

Ginghis Khan is one of my special interests, so it’s great to hear about him on here. I love how the Iron Born are this massive amalgamation of warrior cultures from across history with all the fun of Cosmic Horror thrown in for interest. The show did them so dirty. Just another reason to dislike it. You and Tim are doing a great job with all of this.

If you’re gonna say, rock king, at least throw in a guitar riff

google can teach you how to pronounce archipelago

Hate to be that guy, but archipelago is pronounced ark-uh-PEL-uh-go, your pronunciation of it is better than it was but the emphasis in on ‘pel’ not ‘ark’. That being said, language is made up and we all know what you’re saying, so thing only matters if it matters to you.

yasss... 420th like