Highlights
- The Andals were a group of invaders who shaped the visual and cultural landscape of Westeros, introducing knights and a writing system.
- They worshipped the Seven, a set of deities similar to Western Catholicism, and enforced strict gender roles and religious dogma.
- The Andals conquered Westeros by using their advanced iron weapons and armor, subjugating the First Men and completing the genocide of the Children of the Forest.
The history of Westeros is written in the blood of countless invaders, common folk, and forgotten gods. Each wove themselves into the fabric of the land, shaping it into the rich, troubled tapestry it is during the events of George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire. After the First Men, the second most influential group in Westeros were the Andals.
The Andals were directly responsible for much of the visual and cultural landscape that viewers and readers of Martin's world have come to know and love. Who were these early invaders, and what role did they play in shaping the Seven Kingdoms?
Who Were The Andals?
The Andals originate from a region called the "Axe" in northern Essos. Thousands of years before their invasion of Westeros, the Andals built an empire by conquering the various tribes that populated Essos' Flatlands and Velvet Hills. Legend tells that, at some point during this expansion, the Andals were visited by the Seven, the set of deities that form the basis of what would later become Westeros' main religion. The Seven, it is claimed, crowned the first king of the Andals, Hugor of the Hill.
Most records of Andal culture concern their time in Westeros and not much is known about what day to day life looked like in Essos. However, if later Westerosi culture is any indication, they had knights and a culture more reminiscent of medieval Europe. Unlike the First Men, who came several thousand years earlier and were in the middle of a Bronze Age, the Andals had iron weapons. They also had a more advanced writing system that gradually replaced the runes of the First Men.
The Andal Faith of the Seven closely resembled Western Catholicism with some notable deviations. Still, the existence of a priesthood (septon), medieval religious beliefs about homosexuality, virginity, and the necessity of the sexual repression of women were present. Just as in medieval Europe, Andal knights were a warrior class that enjoyed special liberties, wealth, land, and title, and fought under the banner of their deities. As evidenced by the Westerosi society the Andals built, Andal women were relegated to the roles of mother, wife, and caretaker, whereas men where allowed a greater degree of social and political freedom. This distinction, as in real world Europe, was enforced through religious dogma and, as needed, gendered violence.
How Did The Andals Conquer Westeros?
At some point - sources date it anywhere from two to six thousand years before the events of Game of Thrones - the Andals crossed the Narrow Sea and invaded Westeros. It is widely held that the Andals were fleeing the ever encroaching, dragon-toting Valyrian Freehold. Practically all of the written histories of Westeros was committed to parchment after the Andals invaded and was written by Andal historians, making it both one-sided, and a bit removed from the events they purport to record. The existing narrative isn't entirely reliable but, whatever their reasoning, the Andals abandoned or were forced out of their cities and migrated en masse.
Before the Andal invasion, Westeros was experiencing a period of peace and prosperity due to the Pact, a peace treaty between the elf-like Children of the Forest and the First Men who'd invaded thousands of years earlier. After the invasion, the First Men were subjugated and the genocide of the Children, which had begun thousands of years prior, was effectively completed.
Though the First Men greatly outnumbered the invaders, the Andals' iron weapons and armor gave them a devastating advantage. The Andals first invaded the Fingers, a region of narrow peninsulas in the northeastern part of the Vale that extend into both the Narrow and Shivering Seas. They burnt the sacred weirwood trees, slaughtered the Children of the Forest and the First Men alike, all the while declaring the superiority of the Seven over their enemies' Old Gods. It was during this period of genocide and expansion that some of Westeros' oldest Southern houses, like the Lannisters, first made their names.
After hundreds of years of bloodshed, the Andals destroyed or married into every existing southern kingdom and even carved out a few new ones. The only preexisting Westerosi forces to resist the Andals were led by the "Kings of Winter," the Starks and other rulers of what would become the North. The Kings of Winter stopped the Andals at Moat Cailin and retained the independence until Aegon and his sister came with dragons to subjugate the entire continent.
Though the Faith of the Seven slowly dominated the continent, the Andals initially allowed the worship of the Old Gods out of necessity. Even after the war was finished, the First Men were still more numerous and the ruling Andals feared that an outright religious ban might lead to a revolt. But, as fate would have it, the biggest threat to the Andal dominion over Westeros came from without, not within. Moreover, the Andal collapse was wrought by a familiar hand.
Fleeing their own calamity this time, survivors of the Valyrian Freehold, led by three Targaryen siblings, invaded Westeros on dragon back. After a very short conflict, Aegon Targaryen conquered the entire continent including the Northern Kingdoms. Unlike the Andals, these new conquerors did not seek to entirely rewrite the existing society, merely to affix themselves to its head.