Three Sisters

The Three Sisters are a small, windswept archipelago in the Bite, notorious for smuggling, wrecking, and a fierce independence that has persisted since before the Andals came. Their lords, sworn to the Eyrie but loyal only to themselves, have long played a treacherous game between the great powers of Westeros, a role that proves crucial when Davos Seaworth washes ashore seeking passage to White Harbor.

Geography and Reputation

The Three Sisters—Sweetsister, Longsister, and Littlesister—are bleak, poor islands whose stony shores and treacherous currents have made them a haven for smugglers and wreckers for centuries. Sisterton, the main town on Sweetsister, is a vile place of mud streets, daub-and-wattle hovels, and the Gallows Gate where hanged men dangle with their entrails exposed. The islands' lords, the Borrells of Sweetsister, the Longthorpes of Longsister, and the Torrents of Littlesister, are all sworn to Triston Sunderland, the Lord of the Three Sisters, who in turn owes fealty to the Eyrie. This allegiance is tenuous at best; the Sistermen have a long memory of being fought over by the wolf and the falcon, and they nurse old grievances against both northmen and southrons.

History and Customs

Before the Andals came, the Sisters had their own gods—the Lady of the Waves and the Lord of the Skies—and their own kings. The maesters date the Rape of the Three Sisters to two thousand years ago, when the northmen conquered them, but Sisterton has not forgotten. Afterward, the islands bent the knee to the Eyrie to get the northmen out, a history that has left them deeply suspicious of all mainland lords. The Sistermen are known for their webbed hands and feet, a trait that Davos Seaworth, upon meeting Lord Godric Borrell, had always dismissed as a sailor's story until he saw it for himself. They are also infamous for wrecking: on stormy nights, false lights are used to lure unwary captains to their doom on the rocks, a practice that supplements their meager living from fishing and smuggling.

Role in the War of the Five Kings

During the War of the Five Kings, the Three Sisters remain officially neutral, but their lords are pragmatic survivors. Lord Godric Borrell of Sweetsister, a blunt and ugly man with a lumpy nose and webbed fingers, plays a waiting game. When Davos Seaworth, Stannis Baratheon's Hand, is delivered to him by a storm, Borrell does not immediately hand him over to the Lannisters or the Arryns. Instead, he feeds him sister's stew, a creamy concoction of leeks, carrots, barley, clams, cod, and crabmeat, and questions him. Borrell reveals that the Freys have already reached White Harbor, that Lord Wyman Manderly is bending the knee to the Iron Throne, and that Stannis's cause in the north is all but lost. He recalls how his own father, during Robert's Rebellion, sheltered Eddard Stark and sent him on his way with the words, "If you lose, you were never here." Borrell extends the same pragmatic courtesy to Davos, ultimately helping him reach White Harbor, but only after extracting a promise that Davos was never there.

Narrative Significance

The Three Sisters serve as a microcosm of the cynical, self-interested politics that pervade Westeros during the war. Their lords are not motivated by honor or loyalty but by survival and profit. The islands' history of smuggling and wrecking makes them a natural refuge for fugitives and a source of information for those who know how to navigate their treacherous loyalties. Davos's sojourn on Sweetsister provides him with crucial intelligence about the shifting allegiances in the north and underscores the precariousness of Stannis's position. The Sisters also embody the theme of memory and grievance: the old wounds of the Rape of the Three Sisters still fester, and the lords of the islands have not forgotten the wrongs done to them by both northmen and southrons, a bitterness that shapes their every decision.