#danwell frey

[lopata-four]

6 more sons of Walder Frey 🏰

[keepingupwiththeboltons]

Who's getting the twins?

Elmar Frey

Big Walter

Aenys Frey

Black Walder

Lothar Frey

Danwell Frey

Edwyn Frey

Hosteen Frey

Lyonel Frey

Aegon Frey

One of the girls should get it

No one should get it/im bald/see results

Voting ended onAug 28, 2024

[goodqueenaly]

This is probably a tricky question but which Freys do you think were likely to be the Knight and Squire at Harrenhal? The knight might have been one of the Crakehall Freys considering their build would make them strong jousters, but there a lot of Freys to choose from. Maybe one of the Freys who attended the KL Tourney, as they could be the best at jousting. Also, great piece on the Harrenhal Histories and Lore.

Hmm, this is an intriguing one. Unfortunately, I don’t think we have enough to say for sure, but I think there’s enough information to narrow it down to a few suspects.

Now, as far as I can tell, there are approximately 17 Frey men whose estimated birth years possibly align well enough for them to be candidates for the Frey knight at Harrenhal: Stevron, his son Ryman, Ryman’s son Edwyn, Stevron’s son Walton, Emmon, Emmon’s sons Cleos and Lyonel, Aenys, Aenys’ son Aegon, Jared, Jared’s son Tytos, Hosteen, Symond, Merrett, Danwell, Geremy, and Raymund. Of these, I think we can eliminate some out of hand. Walton, for one, we know almost nothing about: he hasn’t even shown up in the books, only in the Appendix listing of all the Freys, and we can’t even say for sure that he’s a knight (nevermind that the youngest year he could have been born would make him 14 at the time of Harrenhal, an impossibly young age for a Frey knight and first day champion). Aegon as well is not known to have been a knight; we only know that “Bloodborn” Frey is now an outlaw. Symond and Merrett are also both not knights, so they couldn’t have competed as such at Harrenhal and had squires to reprimand.

I think some of the above-mentioned men can also be weeded out by age. Stevron and Emmon would probably have been considered too old to compete. Stevron would have been in his late 40s at the Tourney of Harrenhal, and Emmon in his mid-40s - not ancient, for sure, but old enough to suggest that both men, cautious as they were and apparently unremarkable tourney knights, would not risk injury or even possible death competing against the much younger men who would doubtless be populating the lists. I would also say that Edwyn Frey was probably too young to have been the Frey knight: while the earliest possible birth year for him on the wiki would make him around 22 at the time of the tourney, I think it more likely he was at least a few years younger than that (I can’t see why there would have been pressure on Ryman to get a son and heir at 13, when the Frey line was amply provided for at that point), and thus a little young both to have his own teenage squire and to be a first-day champion. Similarly, I think Tytos Frey too young (at his oldest, he would have been 20 years old, and again, I think it more likely dynastically less important son Jared had Tytos when he himself was at least in his late teens or 20s), as well as Geremy and Raymund (18 and 17, respectively, at their oldest at Harrenhal, probably too young to have squires only two or three years younger).

That leaves Ryman, Cleos, Lyonel, Aenys, Jared, Hosteen, and Danwell Frey as possibilities. As for the two Lannister-Frey boys, I think them unlikely (assuming, of course, that they were born on the earlier side of the spectrum of their wiki estimation, as the latest estimates would make them toddlers or not even born at the time of the tourney): Cleos Frey’s personal arms are the Lannister lion quartered with the Frey towers - a sigil I’m positive was forced in some manner on all her boys by Lannister-to-her-fingertips Genna - and such a unique device would surely have been noted by Howland during the tourney, who instead only mentions the Frey sigil. Hosteen I also find unlikely: I don’t doubt that as skilled a rider as Lyanna was could handle a tourney lance against a knight, but Hosteen is always remarked upon as a huge and solid man, someone who probably for his sheer weight would be tough to unseat, especially for a girl who had only informal and probably limited tourney training (I also tend to think that “Ser Stupid” would be so thick as to not understand to chastise his squire when he lost). Ryman is a possibility, but by his mid-30s (his age at the tourney) I would expect he would have become the fat, lascivious, dull-witted drunk we know and love - hardly the type who would be expected to succeed on the first day of the lists (unless the Whents were trying to flatter the second-in-line to the Twins for some reason).

That leaves Aenys, Jared, and Danwell. Aenys was at least in his mid-30s, possibly over 40, when the tourney happened, which might have made him a mite too old, or at least on the older side, for competing. He was, however, cruel and clever, a man who might have seen it as his duty to upstage his cautious elder brothers (and decadent nephew Ryman) and show the strength of House Frey (and a man who, unlike stupid Hosteen, would have recognized the necessity of roundly thrashing his squire once the Knight of the Laughing Tree beat him, in order to ransom back his arms and horse). His age also makes it more likely than some of the men I mentioned earlier that he would have had a teenage squire, especially as he presumably would have been a knight for almost or around two decades by this time, and his known clever cruelty might have encouraged bullying behavior in such a lad.

Jared would have been around 22 or 23, at the peak of his physical abilities, and probably not too young to have had a squired seven or eight years younger (he was, after all, fourth son of the Lord Frey - not as exalted a position as Aenys’, but enough that he might served long enough as a knight to have taken a son of the local gentry, or maybe a Frey cousin, as squire). Jared is also described as thin, perhaps easier for a slight woman like Lyanna to unseat than, say, burly Hosteen. He is also known to be arrogant, which again might have translated into his squire’s treating a crannogman - an ancient Frey enemy - with such bullying hostility.

Danwell would have been somewhere in his 20s (literally, the wiki estimate of his birth puts him between 20 and 29 at the time of Harrenhal), so he would have the physical ability, and as with Aenys and Jared, I don’t think it unlikely for someone of that age to have gotten himself a squire. What I think is intriguing about Danwell is that he was actually married to a Whent - Wynafrei, the mother of only many stillborn and miscarried children. Did one of the original five champions - all Whent relations - let his maybe brother-in-law/relation by marriage Danwell win (our of some personal friendship, or as a favor to Wynafrei, or for some other familial reason)? We can’t know, but it’s an interesting possibility, certainly.

So, as a final rule, I think it most likely that the Frey knight whom Lyanna beat at Harrenhal was either Aenys, Jared, or Danwell. But this is all ultimately a guess, as we’ll never likely know for sure (and fuck it, it might have been someone besides one of Walder’s progeny anyway; there could easily be Frey cousins we don’t know about).

[artoficeandfire]

Amarei Crakehall and her children: Hosteen, Symond, Danwell, Merrett, Geremy, Lythene, and Raymund.