The Red Kraken

The Red Kraken is the name by which Dalton Greyjoy, Lord Reaper of Pyke, is remembered: a young ironborn commander whose daring raids brought him wealth and influence but whose ambitions outlasted his alliances. During the Dance of the Dragons, he chose a side when both claimants sought his support; afterward he continued to defy the Iron Throne, treating royal commands as no check on his conquests. His sudden death at Faircastle, just before a major confrontation, exposed how much his power depended on his own presence—and how quickly it could come apart without him.

The name and the man

The epithet belongs to Dalton Greyjoy, who became Lord Reaper of Pyke at sixteen. He is introduced as daring and bloodthirsty, a description borne out less by a single battle than by the scale and persistence of his maritime depredations. When Ser Otto Hightower sought allies for Aegon’s cause, he offered Dalton the admiralty and a place on the council in exchange for allegiance. Dalton’s choice mattered because the ironborn could carry the war beyond its principal fronts, striking at the western coast while armies contended inland.

The name also carries a measure of irony. Dalton could be courted as a useful ally, but the Iron Throne could not rely on him to remain one. His raids served his own power, and the end of the Dance did not end his attacks. The Red Kraken became a figure who treated political alignment as temporary and plunder as a continuing claim.

Raids and wartime power

While Lord Jason Lannister and his army were engaged on the Red Fork, Dalton led longships against the shores of the Westerlands. Lady Johanna had barred the gates of Casterly Rock, which the ironborn could not breach, so they took the harbor’s ships, sank those they could not seize, and sacked Lannisport. Their plunder included great wealth and more than six hundred women and girls. This attack showed the reach of Dalton’s forces: even when a principal stronghold held, the surrounding port and its people remained vulnerable.

His victories extended to Fair Isle. Faircastle fell to him, ending the island’s remaining organized resistance. Dalton took four of Lord Farman’s daughters as salt wives and gave a fifth to his brother Veron; Lord Farman and his sons were ransomed back to Casterly Rock for their weight in silver. These outcomes made clear that his conquests were not simply territorial. They brought captives, wealth, and control, while leaving families and communities to bear the costs.

The Red Kraken’s wartime usefulness did not produce lasting loyalty. The historical account notes that, once peace came, the ironmen showed no more regard for the blacks than for the greens. Dalton did not openly proclaim himself king of the Iron Isles, but he largely ignored the Iron Throne’s edicts. Commands to stop raiding, restore the women taken by his crews, and return Fair Isle to its former lords all failed to curb him. His replies invoked the Drowned God and mocked the possibility that the island’s dispossessed lords could reclaim it. When Lady Johanna tried to build warships to carry the fight to the ironborn, Dalton burned the shipyards and took another hundred women. His conduct turned a wartime alliance into a postwar conflict and made the western campaign continue through the first three years of Aegon III’s reign.

Ambition and the coming battle

In 133 AC, Alyn Oakenfist’s fleet sailed from Oldtown after waiting in vain for Lord Redwyne. Dalton had long been warned of the expedition and assembled hundreds of longships south of Fair Isle, with more gathered near Feastfires, Kayce, and Lannisport. His plans went far beyond meeting Alyn at sea: he spoke of taking the enemy fleet, returning by its route, raising his banner over the Shields, sacking Oldtown and Sunspear, and claiming Driftmark. He also considered sending one of his sisters to compete for the queen’s crown, imagining an ironborn woman on the Iron Throne. The contrast between that courtly possibility and his military preparations captures the breadth, and the audacity, of his ambitions.

Dalton also spoke of taking Lady Baela as a salt wife. The account places this boast alongside his possession of twenty-two salt wives, four of whom were on Pyke, two having borne him children. The others were women taken during his conquests, including daughters of Lord Farman and women of less powerful families. Their circumstances varied, and the chronicle is explicit that the details of one wife, Tess, cannot be recovered. What is certain is that Dalton’s household reflected the same coercive power as his campaigns: his conquests had made women captives and dependants, while his own position among them remained, in the end, vulnerable.

Death and the collapse of his power

On a rainy night at Faircastle, while the longships gathered below, Dalton had his pleasure of Tess. Later, while he slept, she took his dagger and killed him, then threw herself into the sea. The account refuses to claim more about her identity or motives than the conflicting records allow. Its certainty is narrower and more consequential: the Red Kraken died not in the battle he had prepared for, but at the hand of one of his own wives, on the eve of what he imagined would be his greatest victory.

His death immediately weakened the force gathered against Alyn. As news spread, captains began to leave for home rather than continue under a leaderless command. Dalton had no rock wife; his heirs were two young sons born of salt wives, three sisters, and ambitious cousins. The Seastone Chair passed by law to his eldest salt-born son, Toron, who was not yet six. Because Toron’s mother was a salt wife, she could not act as regent in the way a rock wife might have done. The succession thus offered no clear adult authority to hold the captains together, and the struggle for power that followed was already apparent as they hurried back to the Iron Islands.

Fair Isle’s people and the remaining knights rose against the ironborn as their ships and fighters dispersed. Reavers left behind were killed, and ships were seized and burned. Within three days, hundreds of ironborn had been killed, and only Faircastle remained in their hands. The revolt did not end with Dalton’s death: his close companions and brothers-in-battle continued to hold the castle under Alester Wynch and Gunthor Goodbrother. Their own quarrel over Lysa, one of the salt widows, ended with Gunthor killing Alester. The Red Kraken’s death therefore closed his personal story but left behind a contested succession, a breaking fleet, and a violent struggle over the island he had conquered.