The kingsmoot

The kingsmoot is the ancient ironborn tradition of electing a king by acclamation of the captains and kings of the Iron Islands, a custom revived after the death of King Balon Greyjoy during the War of the Five Kings. In A Dance with Dragons, the kingsmoot becomes the decisive mechanism by which Euron Greyjoy seizes the Seastone Chair, outmaneuvering his brother Victarion and his niece Asha through a combination of audacious promises, a terrifying dragon horn, and the sheer force of his will, thereby setting the Iron Islands on a collision course with the rest of Westeros and Slaver's Bay.

Origins and Legal Basis

The kingsmoot is a tradition that predates the Targaryen conquest, allowing the ironborn to choose their own king when the succession is disputed or when a king dies without a clear heir. After Aegon the Dragon ended the line of the last King of the Iron Islands, he permitted the ironborn to revive this ancient custom to select who should have primacy among them. The legal force of a kingsmoot is binding: once the captains and kings have shouted for a candidate, the decision cannot be overturned except in one specific circumstance. As Rodrik Harlaw, the Reader, reminds Asha Greyjoy, only once has the choice of a kingsmoot been overthrown—when Torgon the Latecomer returned to claim that the kingsmoot was unlawful because he had not been present to make his own claim. This precedent, recounted by Tristifer Botley, gives Asha a glimmer of hope after her defeat, though she is unable to act on it.

The Kingsmoot on Old Wyk

After Balon Greyjoy's death, his brother Euron Crow's Eye summons the ironborn to a kingsmoot on the sacred island of Old Wyk, at the base of Nagga's Hill. The claimants include Balon's daughter Asha, his brother Victarion, and his other brother Euron. Asha puts her name before the captains, submitting herself to their judgment, but her claim is fatally weakened by her sex and by the ironborn's traditional disdain for women as rulers. Victarion, the more conventional candidate, expects to win by right of seniority and martial prowess. Euron, however, arrives with a dragon horn called Dragonbinder, which he claims to have found amongst the smoking wastes of Valyria. When one of his mongrels sounds the horn, the sound is so terrible that it seems to burn the hearers from within, and the man who blew it dies with blisters on his lips and blood streaming from his chest. Euron declares that the horn can bind dragons to his will, and he promises the ironborn that he will use it to conquer all of Westeros. The captains and kings, dazzled by this vision of limitless plunder, shout for Euron, and he is borne down Nagga's hill to don the driftwood crown.

Consequences and Aftermath

Euron's victory at the kingsmoot reshapes the Iron Islands and the wider war. He immediately marries Asha to Erik Ironmaker, the Anvil-Breaker, to neutralize her as a threat and secure the islands in his absence. Victarion, humiliated and resentful, is sent east with the Iron Fleet to fetch Daenerys Targaryen and her dragons—a mission Euron intends as a death sentence, since Victarion is meant to bring the dragon queen back as Euron's bride. Asha, refusing to submit, flees to Deepwood Motte, where she is eventually captured by Stannis Baratheon. The kingsmoot thus fractures House Greyjoy, sending Victarion across the world, Asha into captivity, and Euron on a campaign of reaving and sorcery that will ultimately draw the Iron Islands into the war for the Iron Throne and the struggle against the Others. The precedent of Torgon the Latecomer remains a legal loophole that Asha and Tristifer Botley discuss, but it is never successfully invoked, leaving Euron's kingship unchallenged by law even as it is undermined by treachery and ambition.