FTLOL Episode 7 - Go for Gold

Welcome back to another episode of For the Love of Lore. I'm Austin, your co-host for today's adventure. And I'm Abby. We are so glad you're here.

So today in Middle Earth, we are going to learn about the creation of the Sun, the Moon, and the coming of the first map. And over in Westeros, we are headed to the Westerlands to cozy up with our favorite villains at the Lannisters. So, grab a flag and a veil, and let's go on an adventure! Welcome back everybody to the lands of Middle Earth, where we just left off with a heck of a couple of chapters, if you ask me.

Um, fair warning. This is a bit of a change of pace this week. We're kind of going back down into what I might call a lore dive. Last week was pretty heavy with the whole Fainor, and then Morgoth killing Fainor's dad, and then Fainor Kinslang, and, you know, Kinslang's no good, even with the Old Gods.

So, don't get too comfortable. I will say this is just kind of a quick stop. Give you some lore in the earth and stuff, and then these next two chapters a lot goes down, but we'll get into that soon. So, we're going to start with Chapter 11, which is called the Sun, the Moon, and Return of the Noldor.

So, we are going to continue a segment that I introduced last week that I had way too much fun with. It was the, what I'm calling the Austin Swanson reads dramatic GBT intro. With your narrator voice. With my narrator voice.

So, um, yes. Here's what Chantchapie gave me this week. Okay. The world is doomed.

The two trees have fallen, their legs stolen on their beauty of the loins. They'll nore graves, but hope is not yet extinguished. From the ruins of the Lebriana lore win, final gift is born. The last flames of a dying paradise.

In the middle earth, we're got rains in shadow, but soon the sky itself will burn anew, and in the north, the exal gold will step into their destiny, their face forever tied to the moon, and the moon, the sun in the moon. Oh, and it rhymes at the end? I mean, I am so, I mean, hey, I was terrifying. Don't get me wrong.

But like, I was pretty impressed with this week. I was like, okay, Chantchapie, Bob, off queen. So yeah, basically, I'm at the infra-set. We are in a very pivotal moment.

And then I kind of a recap for last week of my millennial talk episode. Very quick, Milcor, Gil's fan or his dad, Father, Fenway. He's dead right after the gates, right after Milcor just destroyed the two great trees of Elinor, Tulepriana, and Lorelin. And this kind of sends Fenor into a bit of a tizzy, and he kind of loses his mind just a bit.

And he decides, you know, me and the Noldor were going to leave. And we're going to go back to Milor, where we can kind of do our own thing, have some free will, if you will, and throw in a couple of harsh remarks and some kinslang and Bing, Bing, Bing, Faneur, and the Noldor elves are back in the North. Meanwhile, Faneur's half-brother, Fingolfin, angle, I drill, like to point that out. So all this happened, do not agree with it, but they do decide to go north because, remember, Faneur burned all the ships.

So they do decide to go north, kind of wrap around through a very treacherous cold trek. A lot of elves die, but they do make it to their side, and that's kind of where we are at. So the in-middle earth, during this time, like I said before last episode, the Cindar elves are just kind of Jade Chillin. They got Cindall, who was going to be kind of the next main character, if you will, of the story.

And this is the guy who froze when he saw the love of his life for years. I mean, it's equally like, oh, it's also like, no, I mean, it's like, what? I won't question Cindall, but like, you're cool. But like, come on.

And then yeah, Morgothin reaches his first wave of orcs upon the Cindar elves, who are very unprepared because they don't really have any weapons at this point. You know, Faneur hasn't been here to kind of show them how to craft things out of the jewels of the earth. But that's what the dwarves come in. The dwarves come in, show them Mythreal and be like, you can, you all can find back and join you.

I don't know why I got a little southern with that, but I just, I don't know if I got the dwarves. The dwarves, they're like, y'all folk, you know. So they come in, swoop in, say the day, and the elves and dwarves for now are cool. So now the Cindar elves have Mythreal out there at their disposal.

Yes, that's a good word for it. And it cannot have, can fight back against Melkor and his, works slash Morgoth in his way as it works. So now we are caught up, we're back at the present, if you will. And there is a bit of a problem with the current world.

There is no light. So the two trees were supplying the light for the world. And as we learned, Melkor destroyed them. And now there's going to no light, so there's a bit of a perpetual darkness and it's terrifying.

So this is kind of the first big challenge for the Valar before they can kind of deal with the whole Nulvar situation. So Manway asks Yvonne, I'm kind of says like, I need you to fix this for me because I don't know what to do. Manway is in a bit of panic. I can, he's the leader of the Valar, so he's supposed to kind of have it together.

But he's a little lost about what to do right now. And Yvonne and Nina kind of side a team up and say, well, he'll heal these trees. We'll get the light back and try to bring back some happiness in this world. So Yvonne sings her songs to the trees and Nina uses her tears to try to get them back to life.

And nothing happens. So now they're a little panicked as well and they're kind of lost. And Tolkien says that last bit of hope, something happens. A branch from T'Lipporyon produces one great flower of silver and from L'Orlian, a single fruit of gold.

All right. The name of the episode. So Yvonne takes these flowers from the trees. And after she does, both the trees kind of wither for good, where they're like, let's still stand in valor to this day.

Tolkien says that the elves use these stumps, if you will, as a memorial that even the greatest joy can vanish. I'm like, that is dark, man. So say Tolkien's not all happy. You're lucky.

I mean, there's some depressing things in here. So yeah, like I said, the Valar kind of they thought about taking the branches out of the branch of the stumps out, but manway and a couple of their Valar were like, no, this needs to be a reminder that, you know, not everything is good in this world. And even the best things, even they too shall pass. So they always need to be more paired.

So, you know, in weeks past, I've always talked about how we thought the Valar were a little ignorant. Right. Now you, that's the word. So I think this is the stumps are a reminder of their naivety and how they need to be a little more aware of that.

Not everything's good. Melkor, Morgoth is bad. So fail to plan. You plan to fail.

Amen to that. But that on a bumper sticker. We're in a Taylor Swift song. Oh, is that where it's wrong?

No, I mean, it is in one, but she didn't invent it. Not yet. But yeah, I think, you know, it is depressing, but I get what they're, I think this is just talking telling us that they are taking the next step in real life and realizing what life is about. It's not all good.

There's going to be a lot of bad. And this is a reminder that even though things are going to go perfect, there's always there's always something working in the shadows, if you will. So we now have these two flowers, a gold and silver flower. And I'll lay in manway, take these flowers and make vessels for them.

Now he says vessels, and I'm not really sure what he means. And this question will come up more as I go on here because I'm still confused after doing some research and looking up and you'll see here why in a second. So, Varda, who is the wife of manway, the queen, the queen takes them and gives them the power to traverse the lower regions of Ilmen and set them to voyage upon appointed courses above the girdle of the earth, to the east and to return. I had that quote because they said, girl, again, stop it with the girdle.

They keep doing this to us. Basically, this is a dominant, the settlement here. So that whole sentence is basically just saying, Varda gave the power to these vessels that hold the flowers to start in the west in the sky and then move, go down to the east and then come back around. Okay.

So they have now created their ultimate light source. They don't need to run the trees anymore. It's high in the sky, so they think it's safe in Morgoth slash now core and problem number one quote unquote solved. What I kind of want to talk about touch on here is something that it's a very quick sentence in the summer really, but I think it gives credence to a lot of lore in this book and even in the movies.

So when Morgoth sees the sun go up, he describes him being like, yes, he's angry that they fix the situation, but they also say he's a little bit pained by it. And it even mentions how his sons, the orcs are also pained by it. So I think this is Tolkien introducing the concept that daylight hurts, milk or slash Morgoth and Sauron and all of these deceivers and the orcs as well. You can really see this happen in the movies in return to King.

It's when Gandalf and Pippen are at minister at this point. They're kind of separated from the group. So here's the here's the full war. Pippen, he grabbed the Palantir, talked to Sauron, Sauron thinks Pippen has the ring.

So Gandalf says, all right. Well, sorry, Pippen, the individual saw that Sauron was going to attack minister. So Gandalf says two birds, one stone, I'll take the guy that Saron thinks has the ring, take him to minister, kind of lure him into a bit of a trap, if you will, so that he was going to say that. So in that moment when Gandalf and Pippen are there, minister, kind of taking that deep breath before the battle, they're having a conversation like a patio that overlooks Mordor.

And from Mordor, you can kind of see a host of clouds moving towards them. And Gandalf explains this lore item of like he is, Saron is doing that to cover the day like for his or her so they can move forward. So it is fascinating to me because this one sentence in the summer, really, and basically set the course for lore for the rest of the series. Okay.

So it's not mentioned a lot after this. I mean, we'll talk about it later in the books, as we'll see that Morgoth does not like the Sun, but this is the first direct instance that Mel core slash Morgoth and all the bad guys do not like this son and it physically pains them to be in it. So I thought that was a fun little. Isn't that just, I could be wrong, but it's don't vampires, like they can't go in the sun.

Yes. And there's other old, I don't, I can't remember, like there's other things like turn to stone in the sun and stuff like that. So it is basically drawing on that. Okay.

Fact of orcs are a little bit based on vampires because they dwell in the depths and they can't come out during the day. The real vampires not Edward. I mean, sorry, friends, they don't sparkle. You don't want to go through this?

No, I do, but when I'm just sick and I just need to zone out, not because I think they're real. I mean, those are movies that define a generation. Yes, anyways, but that is a good point. They are, they are works are loosely based on vampires and goblins.

Okay. Okay. So next on the Valars to do list, if you will, is their security issue. So they, they see that clearly Valinor slash Amman is not perfect the way they thought it was.

And they kind of realize that it is susceptible to attack and to to Morgoth's. He has access to it. So they're like, we need to cut that off. So what they kind of do is to make it a safer place.

They raise a massive impassable mountain barrier and it is called the Pélissagar. No, the Pélà Pélà. Pélascar. Pélascar.

Yes. It's so hard to pronounce these words. So that no one, not even an old door. This is this is no one.

No one gets access. Can return to Amman. Only Arendelle in the distant future will ever cross his barrier again. And you will talk about that later.

That's a story of another day. But this chapter also takes kind of a quick peek into what Melkor is up to. So he is not happy with his new son lights, whatever it is. He is actually so unhappy that he actually tries to attack the sun and the moon all by himself.

So this is where the vessel thing gets confusing for me because it's not described very well in the book. And I don't really know what he means by vessel. I don't know if the vessel is a person or if it is just like a matter of energy or a boat or a boat. I don't know.

But he does give the sun the moon names. So the sun is Arian and the moon is Tillium. So I don't know in here here. I'll mention this too.

So this is the next confusing part is that he does not talk about if these two beings are humanoid or if they're just spirits or whatever. A bit of a lore about Arian and Tillium is a little problematic. So Tillium is a guy and Arian is a one. Tillium basically is obsessed with Arian.

So he like chases her and it's just trying to describe the moon phases with the sun. OK, but he's like obsessed with Arian. So he's always the moon's always chasing the sun. And I apologize.

I just smacked the microphone. He's always chasing the sun. And the him doing this causes a lot of eclipses and eclipses of the middle earth are never good. So he Tillium causes a lot of problems in the middle earth and he's like endlessly obsessed with Arian who never really says that she likes them that much back.

So it's always the man man. It's always the man man. God. So anyways, what are these beings already?

The vessels? I don't know. But there's your history about the sun and moon who apparently have feelings and emotions. But I think this was just Tolkien trying to give a lore reason to moon phases and then the sun still doing its constant circle, but the moon being different spots and having eclipses.

I assume that is what. This whole shebang about love chasing was. But anyway, it's more work. Morgoth tries to attack Arian and Tillium and they do fend him off apparently with ease.

So that's good that Morgoth can't destroy the sun alone. So now Melkor can realize is that he's been for it again and he realizes he was can't think about the sun. So he has to kind of work around that now. And right after this battle with the sun, he has a brand spanking new problem.

Somebody can say a bigger problem. The Noldor, now that they have moved from a mon over to middle earth, they have gathered outside of his gates and they are ready for war. I mean, they are angry. They are upset.

And I should mention these are feynor's Noldor is him and his army. Fin Galfon and Galadriel are not far behind and they will be involved in this mix. But just for timing and lore sake is Feynor and his Noldor army. They're there first.

So this kind of begins what is called the Dagotnuwungiliath or the battle under the stars, which I think is a sick name. It is Jazzy. It is Jazzy. And this is this is a battle that will define the rest of middle earth is the first angry battles against Morgoth.

The numbers that are described are, I mean, we're talking tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of troops on the battlefield. So the reason it's so big is because they really hasn't been besides feynor killing us again, there hasn't been any war. So there's elves who never die and have kids. So I mean, we've got a lot of elves out there who are now angry upset and ready to go to war.

So this is why I wish we have a show about this because it would be so cool. But that's fine. But that's gender 10. And it's just again, it's just kind of I'm telling you, this is a deep breath before things go in and chapter 11 kind of falls into that too, where we're just kind of getting a backdrop into what's happening or a deep diamond, what's happening in the background before things hit the fan again.

So I'll just real quick go into chapter 11. It is called of men. And I think you can assume what that means. So now begins what is described as the years of the sun, which sounds pleasant.

Sounds nice. It sounds beachy. I want to go to beach. Basically, with the years, the sun is the sun as you will see.

And I will talk about gives new growth to a lot of things. And I think before, yes, there were trees and grass and everything, but now everything is plentiful. So just for elves records, they just call it the years of the sun because it's a time of growth. Yes, there is conflict, but there's also growth, not only in plants and mountains and rivers, but also of people.

Like I said, change becomes very rampant. The grasses were longer and the trees grow taller due to the light of the sun. That's good science right there. But most notably, the first rising of the sun on the very first day brought about the younger children of the Alubatar who awoke in the Easter lands of Middle Earth.

And yes, as you could assume, these younger children of Alubatar are men. And even though they were born pretty far in the east, as science tells us and common knowledge, the sun comes up in the west. So you can kind of think of these men as. Oh, sorry, I'm an East.

I have a coffee today, guys. I'm so sorry. Yeah, since it goes down in the West, they kind of chase the sun, if you will. So they start in the East, but since the sun's kind of going away from them, they chase it.

And I think that's just Tolkien telling like that. So they got so far West is because they were chasing the sun. They had to take their cool sunset pics. Well, of course, it's the years of the sun hashtag years of the sun.

So once they're born, the Eldar kind of give these new children a lot of names. I have written down just a few because I thought they were fun. So we have first off the second people, which I feel like is a little bit of a little bit of like a ha ha, like we were first, second. Like how siblings are like I'm number one.

Yeah. Yeah. You're the youngest one of those next is Hildor, which is Elvish for the followers. We have Apananaar, which is Elvish for the afterborn.

Again, still a lot of this whole like we were first. That's kind of icky. Yeah. We have Engwar, who, which means the sickly.

Yeah. I was like, dang, guys, like there's no good. You can't say anything positive about these people. No, next is fear.

Mar, which is the mortals. No, which, yeah, that's just that's a fact that makes sense to follow that. That's why they called them the usurpers. I'm like, you guys in your entitlement, my goodness.

The next was the strangers, the inscrutable, the self-cursed. Self-cursed. Yes. The heavy-handed, the night-fearers.

OK, I like the last one. And the last one is the children of the sun, which that's the one we're going to go with, because it's the nicest. I'm a child of the sun. I like that one the most, and it's the best.

It's the nice. I think it's the only nice one they really gave them, to be honest. Right. But there's a few.

And there is a lot more. I just pick those because I like them the most. But I can tell you there was not besides the last one, we said there was not any kind of words from the elves, which kind of sets the tone for some events going forward. But in the early days of men, Tolkien specifically says in Summerland, not much is recorded.

So I still struggle with this book, trying to figure out who is the quote-unquote narrator, because it says there's no record. Right. So what is that? Aren't you the author?

Yeah. Well, I guess it is Christopher that put this together, right? Because Tolkien technically didn't write this book. This is Christopher kind of parsing.

I'm taking his notes in. Yeah. So I'm wondering if it's Christopher kind of saying my dad didn't write anything more about this time. Yeah.

So that's why I just get confused. I don't know if it's J.R.R. saying that or if it's Christopher saying that. Right.

And I assume because it's so direct and saying there's no record, I'm guessing it's Christopher saying my dad didn't write anything more about events in this time and I have no more input for it. I guess. OK. All that is really known is that Olmo was kind of the primary caretaker of the men because the rest of the valor are still a little bitter and a little scared after the whole no dol bor fiasco.

So they are still kind of hiding back in them on and in valor and they really don't want anything to do with them. And then right now Olmo kind of takes upon himself to kind of show them the way and give them a guiding hand a little gentle push, if you will. So what he does is he sends them messages by stream and flood. And I once again have no idea what that means.

You can interpret it as he's sending them messages in a bottle or he's forming ships of letters in the water for them regardless what he's doing. Doesn't work because like I said, these men you can think of them as babies. Yes, they have. I always think of men as maybe still.

Well, there it is. Just kidding. Yes, these people are full well in all that. But they're they were just put on this point.

They don't really know what to know. So they're still developing their languages. They're always communicating their own technologies. So it's very early period for them.

What I found really fascinating here is that one, they fell in love with the sea, which is a huge indicator for a big faction of men coming here pretty soon. And two, they find dark elves and I have this is the first time dark elves had been mentioned and I tried to do some boo-boing about dark elves in Middle Earth. I didn't get much. So I don't know where dark elves are.

If they're good, if they're bad, if they're just like elves who live in more secluded locations, but the way they help the humans, it seems good. Like they didn't do anything bad. So what the dark elves did is basically just took them out of their wing, gave them the lay of the land to show them, to show them some technology, gave them some tools, stuff like that. So not dark as in Morgoth, dark as in me, or we don't know.

We don't know. OK, so I didn't know if it was a skin color thing. I didn't know if it was because he does talk about smells reside in the mountains, kind of like dwarf. So I don't know if that means they're residing in the dark.

I don't know. Or you know, he often uses dark as a bad metaphor. Right. So I don't know.

It's one of those three. I don't know which it is. I'm guessing it's either the color of their skin or their mountain elves because they did help the men and they were they really did take them under their wing. They even told the men a lot about the lore of the alert told about the God, the valor, about Eru and all that.

And they even talked about how dark you'll talk about how they came from valinor. So again, it's very confusing where their timeline is. And that's some more research I'll do for a future episode. But the humans kind of chalk up valinor is like a yeah, right.

Like there's no perfect place. Like that doesn't exist. So they chalked up as me a rumor and legend in that obviously carries forward all the way through one of the rings because, you know, men, men don't think it exists. They think when the elves sail sail out, they're just like, oh, they're just going to basically die, right, but it is replaced.

So the rest of the chapter basically describes the difference between men and elves. Basically, elves and men are very similar in stature and look, but that's kind of that's where their similarities kind of diminish or stop, if you will. Elves are mortal men are not elves. Can I get sick men can?

That's why I called them the sickly. The sickly got it. Elves are stronger and kind of harder to hurt and battle and they describe men is very brittle. But what men do have on elves and that the elves kind of envy is that men seem to have kind of the same fire that they nor had that they are kind of willing to go out and explore and kind of push the boundaries of their own kingdom.

They don't they don't get complacent like elves do and there are some else who even envy that kind of attitude. And it's even this attitude that some else think that everyone that God's favor men more is for this kind of fire that they have and that they kind of live by that. So I thought that was fascinating and Tolkien does not say how specifically, but he does imply that Morgoth now that he knows that the human and elves are chatting and getting to know each other. He does imply that Morgoth wants to get these two groups to hate each other.

That's kind of his always his ML. He did this with an old door and the Valar and the other elves. Now he wants to do it with the men in the Cendary and Elves in the dark elves. So it, you know, I think Chris first left J.R.

doesn't go in a description of how Morgoth does this and what lies he spreads, but he does say that early seats have been sewn to get these two groups to not like each other. So that's obviously huge going forward. And it seems like that won't be too hard for him to do. No, no, there's a lot of things coming up very soon that it's not good.

So last night of this chapter is basically just talking about how men and elves had a really good piece in friendship during this time. So much so that immortal and mortal, as I've described, even shared some children, aka the men they elves were getting down. All these relationships, three offspring were had and these three are Aaron Dil, who is, are they going forward? He goes to, he goes to the place them on.

Okay, okay. He's kind of the one who basically opens up the passage again. We'll get there. Elwing and Elrond is on middle earth officially.

So this is something that Alex, our brother, always loves to point out that movies and shows get wrong is that Galadriel is heck of a lot older than Elrond is. Elrond to Galadriel is like a little brother and that's why during the rings of power, their whole flirtation thing bothers him because he's like, she sees him as like a little brown. Like that's not how they should go. So, but for more accuracy, Elrond is half human, half elf.

He is still immortal because of having that half elf in him, but he is now born, kind of right before in a very pivotal moment from an alert that Elrond will be a part of, and it's going to be exciting to see. Are those three siblings or are they from different relationships? Elrond and Galadriel? No, no, they're in Dil.

Oh, they're technically all brothers. All brothers, okay. So, I believe more are born after them, but these are kind of, these are the big three names I want our UN or viewers to remember going forward. Okay.

But yeah, some are half elves out there and in other Lordeoms, if you will, half elves are looked down on, like I'm thinking of like the Witcher, universe, half elves are looked down on. There are in Tolkien's world, the direct answer is no, they're not looked down on, but the more descriptive answer is, they kind of are. They basically just get like comments made towards them, but like in terms of hierarchy, it does not hurt them to be a half elf or a half war, if you will. So, no one really looks down on Elrond for it, but people will make comments about it towards him.

It's kind of like a jab. Got it. So, wait, this could be it. We can skip this question if you want, but okay, so Elrond is oh my god, I can't think of her name.

His daughter, Huhushi. Orwin. Orwin. So, she marries Aragorn, which she does, and they have kids.

Are they more than half? They're like quarter elf. Yeah, so are they not immortal? No.

They're not. Okay. They live, so they've got Aragorn's blood and he is, of course, he is a dune dine, so he gets to live for a very long time and they have 25% health. So, his kids live for a very long time, but they're not immortal.

Okay. And they do, they are describing to having a basically stronger. But Elrond's wife is slowly up. So, so Arwin is 75 fish.

Correct. Okay. Sorry. Sorry.

Tango. No. Tango. Tango.

This is what we do. This is for the law. I put a lot of lore, so I'm saying. And that is it for this chapter.

And I now have our next chat GBT outro. If you were ready. Here we go. Ansel, beneath the first light of the sun, a new chapter begins.

The elves have reached their wars, and Elrond have defied their doom, but now, now come the second. Portal fleeting, unshaped by the music of the Aunar. Desperate the shaker, very comfy. The first one to watch them with wonder and doubt.

Orgoth sees them with hummer. And as the shadow pink then looms ever larger, the race of men soon learn. The middle earth is no gentle way. Their choices will forge towards their courage, recording orders, and their fate is yet another.

Oh. Oh. I mean, pretty good. I messed it still on written.

That's exactly what I thought when I saw that. Oh dear. I mean, what about song at the final generation? But that is it for middle earth.

Okay. So again, this is kind of a lore dump. I like a lore dump. Yeah, this is a lore dump before things hit the fam.

All right. Things are going to go 0 to 100 once again, as this book always does. But that's it. I like it.

Yeah. Thanks for the info. Of course, as always, now we can transition to our other fantasy land of Westeros. Hello Westerosi travelers.

We've arrived in the Kingdom of the Rock. And today we will be visiting the sites of the Westerlands. The Westerlands have a rich literally, literally rich. A rich history earned from mining deep into their rocks for gold and silver.

So this episode today is all about gold. Got the golden stun, the actual gold, all of it. This is a place where social climbing and family betrayals are par for the course. So let's on Earth some lore.

The Westerlands are full of rugged hills that can seal a vast network of caverns. Therefore, any bastards born here take the last name Hill. They do have some rolling planes, some forest and some fertile fields in between all those hills, but it's pretty rocky over here, especially the closer you get to the ocean and the rockier. The western border of the Westerlands is the Sunset Sea.

We haven't really talked a lot about the Sunset Sea yet, but it's a pretty big ocean off to the west. And then their northern border is Iron Man's Bay and the Iron Islands lay in that bay. So they're right there. A quick thing about the Sunset Sea.

I assume it's in the west where the sun sets, and that makes sense. You know, it do be like that. I had coffee, I got it right next to her. The eastern border of the Westerlands butts up to the Riverlands and then the southern border meets the reach.

We have not talked about the reach yet, but we will soon. During the Dawn Age, it is known that the children of the forest and giants both dwelled here within the Westerlands. There are still ancient giant bones that you can see in certain places. And supposedly there was also these really great big lions that roamed the hills, but they are now thought to be extinct.

Oh, that's a shame. I know. The ruling family of the Westerlands hails from Casterly Rock, which is also sometimes just called the rock. Do I need a rock?

Do I need a shark? Yep, he sure did. The castle itself is actually kind of cool, so I'm going to tell you about it real fast if you don't mind. So, just did, but that's okay.

So during the time of the first men, there was this teeny tiny little village near where Lanna's port is now. And the legend says that there was this lion, this is probably a great big lion that was praying on all the sheep in this village, and there was a young man named Corlos. He was the son of Caster. They didn't really have last names back then, I guess.

And he tracked this lion back to its den, which was inside a cave of this huge, like giant mountain near his village. And Corlos only had a spear with him, but he was able to kill the lion and his mate, but he left the cubs alive, which was pleasing to the old gods, you know, like he took care of the problem, but he didn't hurt the little by base. Well, it didn't hurt him. So supposedly the old gods then, since they were pleased, they sent this shaft of sunlight into the cave, and that enabled Corlos to see all these glimmers of like gold leading deeper into the cave.

So eventually the legend says it was Corlos. It might have been some of his family members or descendants, we don't really know, but eventually they began to like mine into that mountain for that gold. And then as they got deeper and deeper and deeper, they just built fortifications into the mountain to protect their treasure. So there was all these tunnels that had been mined, but those were eventually turned into halls and chambers and living quarters.

Thus House Castor Lee was established. That's a sick castle. Yeah. The Castor Lee is never ruled as kings, but they were easily the wealthiest family in all of Westeros, not just the Westerlands, like the whole shebang.

They get some money, but they do. Surprised to know one, at some point during the Age of Heroes, the Castor Lee's suddenly disappeared from history, and they are quickly replaced by the Lannisters. Where did they go? No one knows exactly how or why, but the Castor Lee's were ousted from their lands in their home.

There's a few different versions of the story, according to legends, and we're going to explore those, because they're a little bit fun. So if this is your type of fun, hopefully. I think that's why they're here. I hope this.

All of these legends involved this whimsical little character named L'Anne the Clever. L'Anne, L'Anne, L'Anne. It is said that this is who House Lannister is named after. That tracks.

So in legend number one, L'Anne the Clever coats himself in butter. Squeeze this himself through a narrow crack in the mountain until he got all the way into the living quarters where the Castor Lee's lived. But once he made it there, he started playing tricks on them to convince them that their house was haunted and then they fled the premises in fear of a ghost. Wow.

So there's that. Legend number two. A butter man. I like him a lot.

A butter. So flicked up man. Legend number two says that Lann used the same narrow crack, same thing. But he coaxed a horde of rats, mice, and other vermin into the chambers inside.

And that's what forced the Castor Lee's out. I'm glad these legends are really rounded and you know, it definitely happened. Yeah. And then the third legend is the most George RR of the three.

Is it going to get crazier? This one says that Lann snuck a bunch of the lions. Into the castle, but he told the lions to only kill the male members of the family. Oh.

So that he could take it upon himself to impregnate all the female members of the family. Oh, we're Georgian. We're Georgian. Yeah.

And then therefore that would kind of get rid of the Castor Lee name and now all these offspring are going to be Lannisters because he's the one that, you know, so. Yeah. George B. George B.

George B. George B. George B. George B.

George B. George B. On this one. Holy moly.

There is one arch mister who debates all of the legends and provides us with a most likely scenario. He just suggests that at some point there was a Castor Lee Lord that employed a guy named the Lann and this particular Castor Lee Lord had no sons but many daughters. And then this Lann ended up marrying the eldest daughter. She gave birth to a son, etc.

Oh, see that feels a little more normal. Realistic. But I personally love legend number one. I want the butter man.

Give me the butter man haunting a castle anyway. So yeah, that's just kind of my personal fave. Hopefully you have a fave version as well. It's got to be better now.

So yeah, anyway, now we've got a house Lannister. They are in existence. They obviously chose a lion for their sigil and their official house words, which I always forget because we never hear them. Like literally you don't ever hear these words, but they are hear me roar.

It's Katy Perry. Right. Right. Oh my God.

But they're most they're more common phrase that you do hear all of the time is we all know it and love it. It's a Lannister always days days days. Yeah. You know, I thought that was the house model.

Yeah, you would think but yeah, you know, because all the gold they have. They pay. That's what you know. So now that they control the castle that they refer to as the rock, they continue to mine for gold and they as they do so they add on to their castle.

But it's built within the mountain. Like that's the castle is literally built into the mountain from the outside. The mountain itself supposedly looks like a lion sleeping. It is six miles east to west and two miles wide.

I guess it's a big it's a big mountain. It's a big one. Yeah. The peak is 2100 feet tall, which makes it taller than the highest point on the wall and also taller than the high tower in Oldtown, which I did not realize until I started doing research for this episode because I just always like to forget about the Lannisters because I don't like them.

But once I started diving, I was like, oh, yeah, they got some sauce. They got some stuff. So I think I might have misspoken in an earlier episode when I said that those two things are the tallest things in Westeros. They actually apparently are not.

So it has natural defenses that are pretty strong being that it's built inside of a mountain. And then over time, they've added on extra walls, gates, watchtowers that have windows for archers and all of that. It's pretty much even as impregnable as the eerie and even Visenya Targaryen herself who did make it into the eerie, if you remember from last episode. Even she said she wouldn't have been able to fly her dragon into the rock and that trying to burn it from the outside wouldn't do any good.

So pretty impressive. And also who knew? I didn't know that until I was trying this stuff. This part's kind of funny.

The main entrance into the castle is a natural cavern towards the base of the mountain. So it's like a cave, but they've built it up into this grand entrance that they call the lion's mouth. Oh, it's got a huge staircase that leads up to it. It's wide enough for 20 riders to ride up the stairs.

And then on the other side of the mountain, like on the ocean side, there are more natural caverns and that's kind of their shipyard. It's pretty small, fresh shipyard because land is poor. The city is only a mile away and that's where most ships are going to dock over in that city. I see.

So yeah, inside of their castle, they have this place called the Golden Gallery where they display all of their treasures. That's quite the flex. It is everything in this room is gilded. The walls are literal gold.

Oh my god. You know, insane. They also have this fun little hallway called the Hall of Heroes where they inter members of their family who died valiantly in battle, I guess. And then they also display their ancient armor there with them.

So must be nice. Must be. They do have themselves a little tiny God's wood. It's in a cave that gets a little bit of natural sunlight.

They call it the stone garden. So not a lot of plants, but it does have a werewood tree. However, the werewood tree is a tense the size of a normal one. It is and it's got twisted, tangled little roots that are kind of starting to choke out all the other plants.

So I think that old gods don't be happy. No, they like it there. So yeah, that concludes our tour of the rock. Please ensure you have not accidentally obtained any of the golden treasures on our tour or else you will be asked to pay your debt.

There it is. The Lannisters. Okay, before we dive in on House Lannister, let's also talk really quickly about some of the other landmarks in the Westerlands. So just a second ago, I was talking about Lannisport.

Lannisport is only a mile south of Castorley Rock, but it is considered a separate city. It's walled and it's at the intersection of three different roads, which I think makes it. That's what gives it its power or I guess. It's got the port and it's also got three roads coming out.

Yeah. That's a tree home. Yeah. The three roads are the ocean road, the gold road and the river road.

Plus it's a port like he was saying. So it's right on the beaches of the Sunsepsy. It is smaller than Old Town in King's Landing, but it is larger than White Harbor and Goldtown. So as my son would say, it's a medium city.

It's a medium city. Yeah. Not small, it's not large. It's medium.

It supposedly is kind of ruled by a lesser branch of House Lannister, but it's also listed as one of the titles of whoever currently holds Castorley Rock. So it could also just be governed by the actual House Lannister. No one knows and it does really matter. The city is famous for having a bunch of goldsmiths who are known for being able to make lots of different things out of gold.

And they produce their own flavor of wine. It's like a spice to honey wine. Oh, that sounds good. That does.

They have their own city watch for a police force. And supposedly the quality of their brothels rivals King's Landing. Oh my God. Yeah.

George, you know, there's some facts about city that you just don't have to include. We don't need to know. But he does. Yeah.

The majority of the Lannister fleet is actually anchored here because it's bigger. There's a small portion of it anchored under the castle like in their own little shipyard. But most of it is down here in Lannisport. And then a lot of the merchants here in Lannisport, which is way off in the west of Westeros, they actually have a counterpart or like somebody that they communicate regularly with over in the free cities of Essos.

And I think because for people who live in Westeros, obviously like Essos is considered goods from Essos would be considered exotic. But I think for people in Essos, if you have gotten goods from Lannisport, that's probably considered exotic because it's so far away and everything is gold. Like, I don't know. I think it's probably they just kind of see it that way.

That makes sense. And then there's this other little castle called the Golden Tooth. It's just a small-ish castle, but it's a really strong and well-defended castle. It sits right on the Hill Road and it kind of stands guard between the Riverlands and the Westerlands.

It's really close to the border. And it is that if you're trying to invade the Westerlands from the east, you do have to make it past the tooth first, which is supposed to be difficult to do. But they also have a network of mines inside of their little mountain where gold is found in abundance. And it is held by House Lefford and that house dates back to the Andal invasion.

So they were formed by the Union of First and Then. They just got gold everywhere over here. They do. It's a lot of places.

And then another fun place is called Fair Isle. And this is an island. It is separated from the Westerlands. I think of it as like Catalina Island in California.

Like it's like Catalina One. Yeah. But it's still governed by the Westerlands. It is held by House Farman.

And it's important because during the Age of Heroes, the men of Fair Isle were responsible for guarding the whole West Coast and Westeros, like kind of protecting Westeros from the Ironborn because the Ironborn, we're going to talk about them next episode. But they are known for being like reverse. They just kind of land somewhere and steal a bunch of stuff and go back to their homes. So they're biking.

Biking-ish, yeah. So the people of Fair Isle did a mostly good job of protecting the coastlands from the Ironborn. There was a brief period where the Iron Islands gained control of Fair Isle, but that only lasted one generation. And then once the Andals arrived, it got added to the Westerlands and it has remained that way ever since.

Fair Isle has been visited by some important characters throughout the books, such as Princess Rhaena. And she's the sister of Old King Jhaerys. Old King Jhaerys is the king at the very, very, very beginning of House of the Dragon, like episode one. Like him dying is what decides that Viserys is going to become king.

So anyway, this Princess Rhaena is that guy's sister and she visited there. Alan of Hole, which is Adam's brother from House of the Dragon. So Adam is towards, at the end of season two, Adam, he gets a dragon. I think it's C-smoke or yeah, he gets that dragon.

So it's his brother, Alan, who is kind of like rejecting Corliss, Valarion's love right now, because Corliss is trying to like show both Alan and Adam some love and Alan's like, I don't need your love. So anyway, he ends up at some point visiting Fair Isle and then Stannis Baratheon visits Fair Isle and so does Asha Greyjoy, who in the show they name her Yara Greyjoy, but in the books her name is Asha. So, I'm just like, yeah. Okay, then we come to Castamere.

Yes. Castamere is now a ruined castle, which sits on top of a golden silver mine. It's built really, really similarly to Castamerely Rock, which does come into play here. So eventually the golden silver dried up inside of their mountain, but the castle was still enlarged inside of the hill that it was built into.

It was the former seat of house rain, like R-E-Y-N-E, who was nearly as wealthy as the Lannisters for quite a long time because of all the gold that they were able to mine. There's a lot of lore about the reigns of Castamere and of course we all know the infamous song. Yes. So we're- You're awesome.

You went right now. So we're going to dive into that in just a hot minute because it's deeply intertwined with Lannister lore as well. Great time. Are you ready for the- ready for house Lannister?

I'm ready. Okay, put your minor helmets on, turn on the headlamps. There is some gold in the Lannister lore today. That was snazzy sentence right there.

Right off the bat, the Lannisters are typically described as being pretty attractive. They are, as George says, they are emerald of eye and gold of hair. Their house colors are crimson and gold, and their household guard is called the red cloaks. So they have their own little household guard.

So another fun fact is that they did once own or possess a Valyrian steel sword, and it was called Bright Roar. Nice name, it was a blind too. Yeah, Bright Roar. They paid an absolute fortune for this Valyrian steel sword, and they purchased it from Valyria right before the doom of Valyria.

Good timing. Yeah, and then it was lost only a century later because their current king, whose name was King Tam in the second, he decided to sail his Lannister fleet all the way over to the ruined Valyria to try to plunder all of their secrets, their spells, their magic, their- how they work with gold and dragons and everything. He wanted to find it all out. There is evidence that they reached Volantis, which is a free city in SS, kind of near Valyria.

There's an ancient chronicle from Volantis that states a golden fleet bearing the Lion King stayed here to gather supplies, and they were lavished with gifts from the tree arcs. So they got to Volantis, however, after that they kind of disappeared. They were never- neither he nor his fleet were ever seen or heard from again after that, and then Bright Roar was never recovered. So it gone.

Yeah. What happened there? Right, I know. There's so much secrecy about this.

Every time somebody goes here, they disappear, or they come back in boils, or whatever. It's just like- Yeah, or they get the dragon skin, they get the thingy- George, tell me what's going on. Right, what is it? So there is some more lore on how the Lannisters were first men who initially opposed the Andals, and then eventually decided to accommodate them.

We're going to kind of skip all that to the juicy stuff, and the juicy stuff doesn't start till well after the Targaryens have established their dynasty. So yeah, we're just going to- we've talked enough about the Andals, I feel like we're going to skip all that. So we are now in the Targaryen era. About the first hundred years that the Targaryens ruled, the Lannisters just kind of keep to themselves.

They just kind of hole up in Casterly Rock pretty quietly. They're not really in King's Landing at all. None of their family members are part of the small council, or anything. They kind of just stay out of the political drama.

That changes at about the moment that the Dance of the Dragons begins. And you kind of see that in House of the Dragon. You see that- I forget his name, but one of the Lannisters gets put on the small council kind of like on accident almost. But during this time, they begin to closely ally themselves with House High Tower, and they are definitely Team Green.

They are not Team Black, and the High Towers and Lannisters, they have a lot of- they're like kindred spirits almost, because they both basically control the two biggest port cities on the west coast. And they both kind of begin to resent the fact that the Valarians are always favored by the Targaryens due to their prowess at sea, because the Valarians have always been good sailors. But they're like, hey, we're just as good. We have just as big of port cities as the Valarians.

Why do we always get left out of everything? So yeah, those two houses remain allies throughout the Dance, and then when the Dance was over, the Lannisters had pretty much secured themselves a permanent- permanent and prominent spot at court in King's Landing. So now they're in the big times, you could say. We're going to fast forward another couple hundred years to this dude named Lord Gerald Lannister.

Good old Gerald. Gerald, he accedes to the Lord of Casterly Rock after the deaths of his older brother and his niece, and it was kind of under strange circumstances. Some people were like, do they kill them? Oh.

But it was never confirmed, and then once he did take over, he was kind of a good dude, like he was referred to as Gerald the Golden. He brought about a very prosperous era to the Westerlands. He had two wives because the first one died, and then four sons, the second wife gave birth of four sons. And he ruled her a long time, like 31 years, which in Westeros times, yeah, that's a long, so long rule.

And even though he helped build wealth and power, he also tallied up himself a roster of enemies. Like his second wife kind of disappeared under mysterious circumstances, and then his oldest son Tywald died in battle shortly after his second wife had died. So he lost two people kind of back to back. Yes.