House Greyjoy of Pyke

The house traces its line back to the Grey King, a legendary ruler from the Age of Heroes said to have reigned over the sea itself and taken a mermaid for a wife. From that root comes the warlike reputation of the ironborn, who once held much of the Westerosi coastline before withdrawing, island by island, to the archipelago they hold now.

When Aegon I Targaryen conquered the continent, Harren the Black ruled the riverlands from Harrenhal, a castle he had just finished building. Dragonfire destroyed him and his line, and the ironborn were pushed back into their islands once more.

Before that defeat, the kingship had been granted by an assembly of the island lords, a custom broken in his time by King Urron Greyiron. After Harren's line fell, that assembly met and named Vickon Greyjoy of Pyke Lord Paramount; his descendants have ruled the isles ever since. From that election on, the Greyjoys have lived largely apart from the rest of the Seven Kingdoms, which they call the Green Lands.

When the Dance of the Dragons broke out, the Lord Reaper of Pyke was Dalton Greyjoy, known as the Red Kraken. He was offered a seat on the small council as Master of Ships in place of Ser Tyland Lannister, who had been moved to Master of Coin, but his absence from court suggests he turned down both the post and any open stand in the war.

Instead he acted on his own account: he sacked Lannisport and sent the ironborn raiding the coast, taking Kayce and Faircastle, on Fair Isle. He held out against the Iron Throne for two years, until he met his death at Faircastle.

In another push to bring back the Old Way, Dagon Greyjoy led ironborn raiders against the mainland coast and burned Little Dosk. The answer came by land and sea alike: Lord Beron Stark raised his swords and House Lannister readied its fleet, and between them they drove Dagon and his men back to the Iron Islands.

Quellon Greyjoy tried a different path, drawing the ironborn closer to the rest of the realm instead of setting them against it. He never saw it through: he died as Robert's Rebellion was drawing to a close.

Some five years later, his son Balon claimed the crown of the Iron Islands for himself. He had already built the Iron Fleet, and with it he led an uprising that Robert Baratheon and Eddard Stark crushed without mercy. Balon's elder sons died in the defeat, and the youngest, Theon, was sent to Winterfell as a hostage to guarantee his father's good behavior.

In these pages the house has only one representative: Theon, taken in at Winterfell by Eddard Stark since childhood. When Robb Stark gathers the northmen and marches south, Theon joins his personal guard and fights at his side at the Whispering Wood.

Of his father, nothing is heard at all: when Robert Baratheon dies, Balon Greyjoy makes no move for either side in the struggle.

Robb sends Theon to Pyke to treat with his father, and what he finds there is no longer the home he remembered. Balon chooses to crown himself King of the Iron Islands and throw his ships against the north: Moat Cailin falls to one brother, Deepwood Motte to a daughter, and Theon is sent, alongside his uncle Aeron, priest of the Drowned God, to ravage the Stony Shore.

Theon breaks the chain of command and takes Winterfell on his own, undefended as it is. His sister denies him the reinforcements he asks for, and while chasing Bran and Rickon, missing from the castle, the castellan Ser Rodrik Cassel besieges him. The arrival of Ramsay Snow — Roose Bolton's acknowledged bastard — ends the siege, though the newcomer brings plans of his own.

Balon Greyjoy dies suddenly, and not long after his brother Euron arrives to claim the empty throne. Aeron calls a kingsmoot, something the islands had not seen in thousands of years, hoping the crown will fall to Victarion.

Euron wins out over Asha, Victarion, and several other claimants with a promise to bring all of Westeros to heel through the Dragonbinder. Aeron vanishes after the defeat, set on turning the people against him.

Crowned now, Euron launches a large-scale attack on the Reach: he threatens Oldtown and conquers the Shield Islands. He puts Victarion in charge of that campaign, but strips him of much of his most trusted people by handing out lands on the conquered islands. He then gives him another task: cross the seas at the head of the Iron Fleet to find Daenerys Targaryen and ask for her hand in his name. Victarion agrees, though in secret he hopes to have her for himself.

Theon remains a captive of Ramsay Bolton, now legitimized, at the Dreadfort, when Ramsay sends him to Moat Cailin to negotiate the surrender of the ironborn garrison still holding out there. He succeeds, and in return watches Ramsay flay the men who had yielded, alive.

Back with the woman Ramsay has married, Theon recognizes in her Jeyne Poole, presented to the north as Arya Stark. A fragile bond grows between them while the Boltons prepare to settle in at Winterfell. It's Mance Rayder and his warrior women who finally get them out of the castle, however reluctantly; outside, they're captured by Mors Umber, now serving under Stannis Baratheon.

Meanwhile Asha had retaken Deepwood Motte, but a sudden attack by Stannis and the mountain clans defeats her and takes her prisoner. She's kept alive in the royal camp when the king marches on Winterfell, and there she finds Theon. She asks Stannis to spare his life, but the king refuses because the northmen want him dead; she then proposes, as the lesser evil, that he at least be beheaded before the old gods, in the manner of Ned Stark.