Gulltown

Gulltown is the largest city and principal port of the Vale of Arryn, a thriving center of trade and commerce on the eastern coast of Westeros. During the opening stages of Robert's Rebellion, Gulltown remained loyal to the Mad King Aerys II Targaryen, creating a significant obstacle for the rebel lords. Its allegiance to the throne forced Eddard Stark, who had been summoned by his foster father Jon Arryn to raise his banners, to find an alternative route back to the North to call his own levies to war.

Role in Robert's Rebellion

Rather than attempting to take the city by force, Stark was compelled to cross the treacherous Mountains of the Moon to the Fingers, a remote and rocky peninsula. There, he secured the services of a fisherman to carry him across the dangerous waters of the Bite. The journey was perilous; a storm caught them mid-crossing, and the fisherman drowned. His daughter, however, managed to get Stark safely to the Sisters before the boat sank. According to a tale told by Lord Godric Borrell of Sweetsister, Stark left the fisherman's daughter with a bag of silver and a bastard in her belly, a child she named Jon Snow, after Jon Arryn. This account, related to Davos Seaworth in the hall of Breakwater Castle, provides a crucial, if contested, origin story for Jon Snow, linking his birth directly to the strategic necessity of bypassing Gulltown.

Narrative Significance

The story of Gulltown's defiance and the subsequent journey across the Bite is recounted by Lord Godric Borrell to Davos Seaworth as a lesson in political calculation. Borrell uses the tale of his own father's decision to aid Ned Stark—despite the risk of angering the Mad King—to illustrate the wisdom of not committing to a losing side. By sending Stark on his way with the words, "If you lose, you were never here," Borrell's father hedged his bets, a strategy the current Lord of Sweetsister considers applying to Stannis Baratheon's cause. The anecdote thus serves to underscore the themes of risk, loyalty, and survival that pervade the political landscape of the Seven Kingdoms, while also providing a legendary, if unverifiable, explanation for the birth of one of the saga's central figures.