#talbert serry

Welcome to House Words Wednesdays! Each week, I take a House without known canon or semi-canon words and present what I think could make sense as that House’s motto. You’re free to suggest more as well, if your favored House has not yet been suggested; take a look at this link to see what has already been suggested, and shoot me an ask if you have another House you’d like to see.

House Serry is a noble House of the Reach, sworn to Highgarden. It's unclear where the Serrys originally came from, as the Shields were not initially inhabited by lordly reacher families (the initial male inhabitants were killed by invading ironborn, with the women claimed as salt wives or unofficial concubines). Instead, King Garth VII Gardener, the famed “Goldenhand”, staffed the islands with “his own fiercest warriors and finest seamen” after he drove the ironborn from the then-named Misty Islands, renaming them the Shield Islands in testament to their position as the first defense at the mouth of the Mander. From that point, the Serrys and their neighbors have been on the front lines of protecting their riverine entrance to the Reach (including attacking Quellon Greyjoy's forces at the tail end of Robert's Rebellion, killing Lord Quellon). The Serrys have also, in recent years, had the honor of a Tyrell match, with Lia Serry marrying Ser Theodore Tyrell, second cousin to Maragery and her brothers; their daughter is Margaery's companion Elinor, fiancée of young Arthur Ambrose.

The Serrys come dramatically to the fore in AFFC, during “The Reaver”. Under the command of the newly elected King Euron, Victarion and the Iron Fleet attack the Shield Islands, and Victarion himself faces off against Ser Talbert Serry, son and heir of the Lord of Southshield, whose ship he had rammed. Ser Talbert fights nimbly and ably against Victarion, but is no match for the Iron Captain's sheer brute strength, and is eventually thrown overboard in his armor. To what might be his credit, Victarion thinks after the battle that young Serry had been “almost ironborn”, and wishes him to feast in the Drowned God’s hall as well as he fought (the compliment is a fascinating summary of Victarion’s psyche and outlook). At the subsequent feast in Lord Hewett’s hall, the Serry seat of Southshield is given to Lord Drumm's right-hand man, Andrik the Unsmiling (with Euron's secret intention being to make him a sacrificial lamb to the Reach's vengeance forces). Still, Ser Talbert gets something of a last laugh: the wound Victarion took in gripping Talbert's “good castle-forged steel” longsword becomes infected during his journey east, and only the probably necromantic power of Moqorro saves the Iron Captain from an ignominious death from his festered wound.

The Serry sigil is a white rose upon a red escutcheon upon white, within a red embattled border. Given this sigil, I decided that the Serry words should be Do Not Pluck. The embattled border obviously recalls the battlements of a castle - entirely appropriate for a lord whose duty is primarily defensive - and so the sigil's message becomes one of defending the wealth and splendor of the flowered Reach. Likewise, these words are a fitting warning from the Serrys to their seaborne foes: the rose may seem sweet and pretty, but you would be wise not to pluck it, lest you meet our steel thorns. I like these words in particular for the fate of Victarion after his battle with Talbert Serry: having gripped what might be thought one of the steel thorns of the Serry rose and plucked it from Talbert's hand, Victarion found himself suffering near-fatal consequences on his voyage to the dragon queen.

1) Victarion’s inability to get Talbert Serry out of his head is one of the most interesting notes in his characterization. The Iron Captain is repeatedly capable of these weird little sparks of empathy amidst his general blunt awfulness, but they’re always filtered through the Old Way and Victarion’s particular hierarchical understanding of the world. Talbert Serry was worth more than other greenlanders because he was “almost Ironborn,” chattel slavery is bad because the iron price is not being paid, etc. I think these moments are about how warrior culture and racist ideology can (and, indeed, are designed to) kill empathy in the crib.

2) I hadn’t noticed it before this time around, but there’s a running theme in this chapter of Victarion’s iron loyalty to authority running up against his desire to kill Euron, paying off at chapter’s end with his inner pledge to betray the Crow’s Eye. Vic specifically wants to wed Dany in part to get back at Euron regarding Vic’s third wife, but also because he realizes Dany (well, her dragons and bloodline) answers this question: 

One day I shall drink your milkshake wine, Crow’s Eye, and take from you all that you hold dear. But was there anything Euron held dear?

3) I’m far from the first person to point this out, I know, but this is just brutal:

There is no wine so sweet as wine taken from a foe. Someone had told him that once. His father, or his brother Balon.

Firelight glimmered in Euron’s eye. His smiling eye. “Will you take a cup of Lord Hewett’s wine? There’s no wine half so sweet as wine taken from a beaten foe.”