The Official Song of Ice and Fire Thread [UNMARKED SPOILERS FOR ALL BOOKS]

[Kantor]

Munkeh111 said:

Kantor said:

You think so? He has a fairly powerful army and a red witch, as well as the support of the Night Watch. He will soon be allied with pretty much the entire North. Who would kill him?

EDIT: He also has the Iron Bank of Braavos.

People who can still claim the Lord Paramountcy of the North:

• Jon Snow (legitimised and named as heir by Robb. Perhaps his death frees him of his vows, so he is a free man when resurrected)
• Rickon Stark (Davos is searching for him)
• Arya Stark
• Sansa Stark
• Bran Stark

People left to fight: literally everyone in the entire North except for House Stark. House Manderly springs to mind, as well as House Reed and House Umber. The Karstarks are mostly traitors, unfortunately, but with the Lannisters in their current pitiful condition (Tywin dead, Kevan dead, Tyrion in Essos, Jaime either dead or far away, Cersei awaiting trial, Tommen is a child, Pycelle dead) and a Stark King in the North, I think most Northern lords would be willing to switch sides again.

Well I was more thinking of the lack of food and warmth killing his army, which was never that big to begin with, and any assault on a fully manned Winterfell is going to be a tough task

So he can win the alliegance of the Northern houses, but most have been gutted have they not? The Manderlys are allied with him, but I can't remember where their knights are, but most of the Umbers will have died in the aftermath of the Red Wedding. My point is, all the people loyal to the Starks went with them when Robb raised the banners and went south. Which powerful Northern Lords have forces? It is probably just the Manderlys as the Reeds aren't very strong at all.

I feel his best chance of winning the North is with Rikkon, as he seems the only good candidate. Sansa is going to have to do very weird things with Littlefinger, Arya is going to do more weird assassin things and Bran can't walk...

I guess we shouldn't over analyse this, since as far as I can tell, there aren't really any large cities in the North, so it is kind of hard to see where all these people actually live/come from. Especially as if everything continued at this rate, the human race would just die, well certainly the Lords, since they spend all their time killing each other

White Harbour is almost certainly the largest Northern city, and that's a Manderly holding.

Admittedly, Sansa is going to be off being Lady Paramount of the Vale, Arya is across the sea from Winterfell and Bran is becoming a tree. So yes, Rickon is the most sensible choice. But a Stark is a Stark. The Northerners always come across as honour-bound traditionalists, and the Starks have ruled the North for millenia. They're not going to roll over and let a Bolton who is really just a Lannister puppet take control. As for Northern numbers, I've shamelessly stolen this from a post on the ASOIAF Crusader Kings II forum.

These are the numbers I think would be closest to what GRRM has in mind (I compiled this mostly from different thread in westeros.org):

- The North: 30,000
- The Riverlands: 35,000
- The Vale: 30,000
- The West: 45,000-50,000
- Iron Isles: 20,000-25,000
- Crownlands: 25,000
- The Stormlands: 20,000-25,000
- The Reach: 80,000
- Dorne: 25,000

That does put the North as one of the weaker areas, but Stannis has the Stormlands as well, and the Riverlands will likely join him if he can secure the allegiance of the North and drive out the Lannister puppets. That's enough to grant him a foothold, though almost certainly not enough to avoid being crushed by Aegon if he manages to secure Dorne and the Reach (and the Stormlands, come to think of it, which leaves Stannis with just the Florents and the Northerners).