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Characters / A Song of Ice and Fire - Drowned Men

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This is a listing of the deities and individuals associated with the Drowned God of the Iron Isles in A Song of Ice and Fire.

For the main character index, see here

For the main Deities and Religions entry, see here

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The Drowned God

He Who Dwells Beneath the Waves

"What is dead may never die, but rises again harder and stronger."

The Drowned God is the deity of the Ironborn, who is opposed by a harmful deity known as The Storm God. The Drowned God is characterized by a strong theme of death and rebirth, which in religious practice, has lead to a form of baptism in which initiates are briefly drowned and then resuscitated. He is believed to have created the Ironborn for the purpose of raping and pillaging other races of men.

The Drowned Men are the priests of the Drowned God. They walk the Iron Isles preaching the Drowned God's word and denouncing foreign gods and their followers. They only dress in whatever item of cloth they obtain from the sea, and, likewise, some of them eat only fish. Most do not bathe, save in the sea itself.

    Drowned God and his religion 
  • Asskicking Leads to Leadership: As Aeron puts it, the Drowned God only aids bold men. Euron Greyjoy is considerably more mocking.
  • Belief Makes You Stupid: Belief in the Drowned God has led the Ironborn to prize reaving over farming and state-building, and stunted their progress and prevented them from properly assimilating to the rest of Westeros, either with the First Men or the Andals. Euron Greyjoy, an atheistic Ironborn cosmopolitan mocks his own people, and his brother Aeron (a priest of this faith) for their weird choice of religion:
    Euron: All gods are lies, but yours is laughable. A pale white thing in the likeness of a man, his limbs broken and swollen and his hair flipping in the water while fish nibble at his face. What fool would worship that?
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: From the point of view of most of Westeros. People of the Faith of the Seven and followers of the Old Gods don't really get the whole pillaging-as-a-holy-rite deal.
  • Crossover Cosmology:
    • As has been noted by some R'hllor worshippers, the Drowned God and his opposition to the Storm God mirrors the enmity between R'hllor and The Great Other. Moqorro disagrees, and tells Victarion:
      Moqorro: Your Drowned God is a demon. He is no more than a thrall of the Other, the dark god whose name must not be spoken.
    • King Harmund II Hoare who converted to the Seven tried to syncretize Seven and Drowned God worship in a manner that pleased neither. He argued that while there are Seven Aspects of One God, the Drowned God is an aspect of the 7, specifically the Stranger, and he promoted the worship of the numerologically inelegant Eight.
  • Crystal Dragon Jesus: To an extent. Although it doesn't have the outward trappings of Medieval Catholicism, it is still a monotheistic faith centered around a figure that died and came back to life, and incorporates a baptism ritual.
    • Due to their ascetism and lack of formal hierarchy they appear to lean more towards early Protestantism than the Catholic-esque Faith of the Seven.
  • Forever War: The Drowned God and the Storm God are said to have been at war for "a thousand thousand years".
  • Good Old Ways: To "pay the iron price" (i.e. instead of buying things, kill people and take their stuff) is this for the religion/culture (naturally, not really viewed as good by non-Ironborn). It's perfectly okay for women to pay the "gold price", that is, buying finery from a merchant, but if men do it, it's seen as weakness.
  • Human Sacrifice: Drowning enemies to the Drowned God's honor is considered a godly act.
  • Recurring Element: The Drowned God and the Storm God parallel other, more obscure myths from other parts of Westeros about a sea deity paired with a sky deity, specifically the "sea god" and "goddess of the wind" of Stormlander legend and the "Lady of the Waves" and "Lord of the Skies" once worshipped by the Sistermen - Interestingly, in both myths, the sea deity and the storm deity are not enemies but lovers.
  • Retcon: An in-universe case. Even though the ironborn are descendants of the First Men that settled in the Iron Isles, according to their religion, the ironborn were created by the Drowned God in his image and they emerged from the seas around the Iron Isles. There are hints in ''The World of Ice & Fire" that support the presence of men prior to the First Men arriving in Westeros. Euron Greyjoy finds it bemusing.
  • Shout-Out: The Drowned God is partially inspired by Cthulhu and Dagon.
  • War God: Creating the Ironborn to "reave and slay" and being generally pleased when they kill their enemies and wage war on other races makes him look like one of these.

The Drowned Men

    Drowned Men 
  • Carry a Big Stick: Their only weapons are driftwood cudgels to bludgeon unbelievers with.
  • Culture Justifies Anything: They propagate and justify Rape, Pillage, and Burn as a holy duty, with warriors drowning and sea taken to the halls of the Drowned God, and justify the maintainance of captives as thralls and salt wives. Their proselytizing of "the Old Way" and the Ironborn ethos has resisted thousands of years of reformers, new religions and Targaryens.
  • Just the First Citizen: Drowned Men have no hierarchy, but prestigious Drowned Men like the Damphair or Galon Whitestaff gain positions of leadership or become voices of authority within Ironborn society.
  • Mad Oracle: Their unkempt appearance and tendency towards fanaticism makes them appear as such.
  • Rabble Rouser: Their strength lay in their ability to rouse the smallfolk of the Ironborn against "corrupt" kings. Especially if said "corrupt" kings saw fit to limit their power and influence and extend rights to thralls.
  • Rebel Leader: In times of "godless kings", prominent Drowned Men become this.
  • The Resistance: They tend to become this when a king of the Iron Islands is too tyrannical or godless, or rather too progressive and far from their standards to their liking. As such they had a particularly violent feud with House Hoare, which had Andal blood and believed in the Seven instead of the Drowned God and promoted radical changes in the Ironborn's way of life, leading one rebellion that overthrew a Hoare king and suffering several bloody. repressions from the Hoares in return.
  • Status Quo Is God: They constantly preach about the Old Way, or what current Ironborn see as the Old Way with them "paying the Iron Price" by reaving the other kingdoms and taking thralls and salt wives, and try to influence the rest of the Ironborn into returning to it. As such they've constantly been one of the major obstacles to the economical and societal progress of the Ironborn, as well as the integration of the Iron Islands into the Seven Kingdoms, and were a particular thorne in the side of house Hoare who promoted the development of trade and more peaceful relations with the rest of Westeros and tolerance toward the Faith of the Seven on the islands, leading to several bloody uprisings led by the Drowned Men, and several brutal repressions of them by the Hoares as retribution.

    Aeron Greyjoy* 

Aeron Greyjoy

The Damphair

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/aeron_greyjoy_ffg_7866.png
"The Drowned God helps bold men, not those who cower below their decks when the storm is rising."

The youngest living brother of Balon, Euron, and Victarion. Once a laid-back fellow who partied too hard, Aeron suffered a Near-Death Experience that left him a changed man. As a fervent priest of the Drowned God, he is fiercely dedicated to his faith and seeks to hold the Iron Islands to the old traditions. Needless to say, having Theon (whom he sees as weak), Asha (who seeks to disrupt the patriarchal order of House Greyjoy), and Euron (self-explanatory) in his family complicates this.

See the House Greyjoy page to see the rest of his family.

  • Admiring the Abomination: When Euron first proposes his plan to conquer Westeros with dragons, Aeron despite hating Euron, admits to himself that he likes the plan:
    For half a heartbeat even Aeron was swept away by the boldness of his words. The priest had dreamed the same dream, when first he'd seen the red comet in the sky. We shall sweep over the green lands with fire and sword, root out the seven gods of the septons and the white trees of the northmen.
  • All-Natural Fire Extinguisher: During his days of being a party animal, Aeron once won a longship and a herd of goats in a bet that he could quench a fire with nothing but his piss. In honor of his "achievement", he named his new longship Golden Storm and hung a penis-shaped battering ram on the prow — or would have, if his brother Balon hadn't threatened to hang him from the mast if he did.
  • Badass Preacher: The Damphair is a proven battle commander who inspires terror in foe and friend alike. Not to mention the political force he is in the Iron Islands at the start of the series.
  • Berserk Button: Maesters, following Urrigon's death due to a maester's failed operation to sew his brother's fingers back. He initially refused to stay in Goodbrother's hall unless his Maester was gone, and was about to leave until he was told about Euron sitting the Seastone Chair.
  • Became Their Own Antithesis: Aeron used to be a jovial warrior who loved songs, wine, women, and pissing contests. Now he's an unsmiling, stern-faced priest who spends 24 hours a day worshipping the Drowned God and then some.
  • Big Brother Worship: A possible downplayed case: when Aeron turned to religion, it was Victarion's philosophical outlook he turned to as a basis. He certainly looks up to Victarion and Balon a whole lot more than he does any of his other family members for all he could probably still find faults if he bothered to.
  • Bizarre Taste in Food: Aeron sometimes swallows saltwater to strengthen his faith in the Drowned God.
  • Boisterous Bruiser: Prior to his nigh-drowning.
  • Brutal Honesty: He's not one to measure words. When he meets up with Theon for the first time, he's not shy in making clear what he thinks of him.
  • Church Militant: Since his view of the Drowned God is religion it's very... interesting.
  • The Comically Serious: A Clash Of Kings gets some mileage out of Theon interacting with Aeron.
  • The Consigliere: It's inferred this was his role regarding Balon. Balon tasks him with being this to Theon in A Clash of Kings, but it doesn't work very well (i.e Theon thinks Aeron is a terrifying madman and Aeron thinks Theon is a arrogant fool)
  • Cool Uncle: Theon seems to have viewed him as this, when he was a jovial man loving parties, drinking and women. Completely averted following Aeron's religious transformation and Theon's return, as Aeron shares Balon's views on Theon, believing him to be a fool and to have become soft and "wolfish", and doesn't bother to hide his disdain for Theon while in return, Theon now sees him as creepy, humorless and mad. Even his relation with Asha isn't that good as while he does have fondness for her, he still holds her sex against her and refuses to sees her as fit to succeed her father.
  • Cynicism Catalyst: His older brother Urrigon's death, which was inadvertently caused by Aeron himself when they did the "finger dance", accidently cutting off one of Urri's fingers. The Maester that was called for attempted to reattach the finger, but ended up only getting it infected and killing Urri. As a result, Aeron spends his life feeling guilty over his part in it, and utterly despises all Maesters as fakes.
  • Death Glare: Reputed to sour wells and make women infertile.
  • The Determinator: Aeron never loses his faith in the Drowned God. Even when he and Falia are about to be sacrificed by Euron, he faces his approaching death with dignity and urges her to have courage, because they will feast and drink for eternity in the Drowned God's watery halls.
  • The Dreaded: Most Ironborn are utterly terrified of him. This actually sabotages him when Euron returns and shows himself to be more charismatic.
  • Foil: To his nephew, Theon. They are the youngest sons of their respective Greyjoy lord fathers. And, after suffering deeply traumatic events during war, they each become completely different from the men they were before the war started. Specifically, Aeron was a fun-loving, hard-drinking rake who became a humorless, grumpy and devout priest after he was revived from drowning in a sea battle, and Theon went from a cocky young warrior and Jerk Jock to a crippled, ugly, half-mad shell of his former self after he is captured and relentlessly tortured by the enemy.
  • The Fundamentalist: Very much so. He takes the teachings to such extremes, he doesn't even bathe in anything other than cold salt water. And, most of what he owns is either made out of driftwood. Or came up as flotsam on the tide. And he drinks saltwater to quench his thirst.
  • Hates Smalltalk: He has little time for useless conversations, and will simply leave or tell the other person to shut up if they try to hold one with him. Pretty much the only subjects he enjoys talking about are the Drowned God, restoring the Ironborn to their old glory and how badly Euron needs to be drowned.
  • Have You Seen My God?: Aeron Greyjoy longs for some visible sign of the Drowned God and some indication that he, Aeron, is truly his servant and blessed by him. His faith starts to crack when Euron Greyjoy returns and despite his blasphemy and atheism, seems to triumph and receive no rebuke from the Drowned God.
  • The Hedonist: As a young man, Aeron loved nothing more than partying, drinking, dancing, and pissing contests. But after a Near-Death Experience, he did a complete 180 and decided to dedicate himself to following the Drowned God.
  • High Priest: Not officially, because the Drowned Men don't have a formal hierarchy, but he's definitely the most personally respected of the Drowned Men by both the populace and his fellows, and he's effectively the Ironborn's religious leader.
  • Holier Than Thou: He'll gladly remind somebody how they are failing the Drowned God. At length. Just by pointing out how he acts and lives vs. how they do. His most frequent target is his brother Euron.
  • Instant Oracle: Just Add Water!: He receives his prophetic visions by immersing himself in seawater; justified as he worships a god of the sea.
  • Horrible Judge of Character: His fundamentalism and fanatical belief in the Drowned God and the Old Way strongly taint his views and appreciation of other people, and makes him blind to Balon and Victarion's flaws and shortcomings. He sincerely believes that Balon was a great king who gave back their freedom and pride to the Ironborn and can see no flaw in him, save for Balon wanting Asha to succeed him on the Seastone Chair, and that Victarion would be the best choice of a king after Balon's death. On the other hand, having been a victim of Euron's abuse he is absolutely right to hate and oppose Euron, and to not want him as king of the Iron Islands.
  • Humans Are Bastards: Comes to this conclusion after the Ironborn voted for the kingsmoot, telling himself that he can't trust anyone but the Drowned God, a faith that Euron tries to steal from him.
  • Klingon Scientists Get No Respect: He has a special distrust and hatred for Maesters, believing that the Ironborn would be better without them, unlike his brothers who at least acknowledge their usefulness, and refusing to see one in his sight, unless the situation is urgent. This stems from his brother Urrigon's death, as it was an infection caused by a maester's failed attempt to sew his fingers after Aeron accidently cut them during a Finger Dance, that killed him. Though it's likely that he's projecting on them his own guilt over his role in Urrigon's death.
  • Knight Templar: If you're not with the Drowned God, he's against you. And if the Drowned God appears to disagree with him, such as allowing Euron to win the kingsmoot, proving that a godless man can sit on the Seastone Chair, it's not the fault of the Drowned God but the people because the kingsmoot (which he called for) is a human institution and not a divine one all of a sudden.
  • La Résistance: He promises Victarion that he will start one to oust Euron after failing to keep him away from the Seastone Chair via kingsmoot. He states that he will go amongst the Ironborn villagers and rouse them against Euron. He hasn't been heard or seen since. In a preview GRRM read at Balticon, originally intended to appear in A Dance with Dragons, it turns out he was captured by Euron's mutes and imprisoned in the Silence a short-while before Euron set sail for the Shield Islands.
  • Large Ham: On one topic in particular, yes: "NO GODLESS MAN MAY SIT THE SEASTONE CHAIR!"
  • Lesser of Two Evils: The reader gets the impression Aeron may be completely off his rocker, but he's preferable to his brother Euron.
  • A Lighter Shade of Black: Much like his brother Victarion. He's The Fundamentalist whose object of worship is the deity of Rape, Pillage, and Burn, but he's a Lesser of Two Evils than his brother Euron.
  • Mad Oracle: Gives off strong vibes of this. Although, to be honest, his oracle skills don't seem to cut the mustard. Especially in comparison to others we meet in-universe — Melisandre could eat him for breakfast, if she bothered to eat. It doesn't help his cause that he's close enough to the image to allow Euron to paint him, and those who follow him, as a bunch of raving, slow-footed fools, though.
  • Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Aeron is revered by the Drowned Men because he's the only priest who has never lost a man in a drowning ritual. Either he has the favor of the Drowned God or he's just really good at CPR.
  • Moral Myopia: During the Kingsmoot Aeron expresses shock and disbelief when Asha denounces the futility of the invasion of the North, and proposes peace and an alliance with the northmen, wondering how she could undo Balon's work. Nevermind that Balon, Aeron and their brothers just did that with their own father's, Quellon Greyjoy, work as Quellon worked to better the Iron Islands' ties with the mainland and the Faith of the Seven, brought maesters to the Iron Islands, and discouraged reaving.
  • My Greatest Failure: What happened to Urrigon.
  • Near-Death Experience: His near-drowning certainly marked a major change in his life.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Aeron's insistence on the kingsmoot paved the way for Euron to become a King. Aeron for his part blames it on the fickle nature of the Ironborn people.
  • No Sense of Humor: He used to have one, but lost it after his spiritual awakening.
  • Perpetual Frowner: Aeron never smiles. His face is permanently grim and unhappy.
  • Pet the Dog: In The Winds of Winter chapter we see a suprisingly nice side of his personality. In his youth he was trying to shield Urrigon from being molested by Euron. He also really liked Asha and believed that she would make a good king, if not for the Ironborn tradition; even then he believes that Victarion should have accepted her offer of sharing power. Aeron also warns Falia Flowers of Euron, and when she is tied to the prow of ship beside him, he tries to comfort her with promise of afterlife.
  • Phallic Weapon: After winning a longship in a pissing contest as a young hedonist, he named it Golden Storm and wanted to mount a cock-shaped Battering Ram on it, only relenting when Balon threatened to hang him from the mast.
  • Principles Zealot: It's not an especially big leap to suggest that the Ironborn rules that Victarion lives by were the ones that his little brother took so much to heart upon his conversion. And managed to turn even more extreme.
  • Rape as Drama: It's strongly implied that Euron sexually abused him as a child. This is the source of his recurring nightmare of the bedroom door's screaming hinge, and the reason he hates Euron so much.
    • All but confirmed in The Winds of Winter.
  • Rape, Pillage, and Burn: This is essentially what "the Old Way" consists of, more specifically doing Rape, Pillage, and Burn under some kind of religious dressings of the Drowned God, and not doing it for mere plunder and conquest. For some reason, this strangely formulated nuance doesn't trickle down to the rest of the Ironborn and he's shocked, shocked, shocked that Euron who does more Rape, Pillage, and Burn than the rest of the Ironborn combined despite mocking the gods gets elected King on the basis of his plunder.
  • Red Baron: He is much more commonly called Damphair or The Damphair than his real name due to his habit of bathing in the ocean. Similarly, his followers are called The Drowned Men.
  • Status Quo Is God: His primary motivation.
  • Stepford Smiler: He was overcompensating because of terrible things that happened to him in childhood.
  • Tautological Templar: He says that "No godless men shall sit on the Seastone Chair" and holds a kingsmoot in the belief that Euron won't possibly be elected over the will of the Drowned God. When Euron wins, he says that the kingsmoot is a human institution and not a divine one and that the lesson to be learned is you can't rely on people.
  • Turbulent Priest: Damphair uses his preaching to strike deep in the Ironborn politics. One particular example is him trying to rally the common folk of the Islands against Euron.
  • Turn to Religion: He abandons his vices after surviving a ship wreck, becoming a fanatical religious leader who supports the Old Way.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: No one has seen him since the kingsmoot. Asha Greyjoy believes that he's dead but Word Of Mouth has confirmed that he is alive.
    • He is a prisoner of Euron, who eventually sacrifices him to the Drowned God.
  • Wild Hair: In addition to only bathing in salt water, he weaves seaweed into his beard.

    Beron Blacktyde 

Beron Blacktyde

Blind Beron

A priest of the Drowned God.

    The Old Grey Gull 

The Old Grey Gull

The Old Grey Gull is a priest of the Drowned God. He lives on a rock.

    Tarle 

Tarle

The Thrice-Drowned

Tarle, better known as Tarle the Thrice-Drowned, is a priest of the Drowned God. When Balon declared himself king before the First Greyjoy Rebellion, Tarle crowned him.

  • Cryptic Background Reference: No one knows why he's thrice drowned.
  • The Rival: He is renowned for his incredible success rate when performing the drowning ceremony, a rate only surpassed by Aeron. During the Kingsmoot, he claims that Maron Volmark is the true heir to the Seastone Chair, whose election would remove House Greyjoy from power.

Historical Drowned Men

    Galon Whitestaff 

Galon Whitestaff

Galon Whitestaff was an ironborn priest of the Drowned God who lived during the Age of Heroes.

  • In-Series Nickname: Whitestaff for the tall carved staff he carried to smite the ungodly - made of weirwood or from Nagga's bones depending on the tale.
  • Founder of the Kingdom: He called for the unification of the Iron Islands under a High King.
  • Perilous Old Fool: Deposed a would-be tyrant even though he was feeble and half-blind.

    The Shrike 

The Shrike

The Shrike was a Drowned Man prophet who revolted against Harmund III Hoare and successfully halted the spread of the Faith of the Seven and defended the Old Way.

    Lodos (I) 

Lodos

A simple but charismatic holy man who claimed to be the living son of the Drowned God, and thus the rightful ruler of the Iron Islands after Aegon the Conqueror extinguished House Hoare.

  • Anti-Climax: He tried to summon krakens to sink Aegon's warships, but nothing happened.
  • Divine Parentage: He claimed rulership of the Iron Islands was his right as the son of the Drowned God.
  • Driven to Suicide: After krakens failed to appear at his commands, Lodos filled his robes with stones and walked into the sea to "take counsel" with his father. Thousands of his followers went in after him, and their corpses washed up on the shores of the Iron Islands for years.
  • Never Found the Body: Lodos's body was never recovered from the sea, though the bodies of his followers were.
  • Reincarnation: Invoked. See below.

    Lodos (II) 

Lodos

Lodos the Twice-Drowned, Lodos the Second of That Name

A man claiming to be the aforementioned Lodos, returned from the Drowned God's watery halls.

  • Decapitation Presentation: His pickled head was sent to Aenys as a token of allegiance by Lord Goron Greyjoy.
  • Divine Parentage: He claimed rulership of the Iron Islands was his right as the son of the Drowned God.
  • Rebel Leader: He led a revolt against the Iron Throne and gathered thousands of followers in Great Wyk and Old Wyk.
  • Off with His Head!: Goren Greyjoy had him beheaded.

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