House Farman

House Farman is the ruling family of Fair Isle, a small island whose long seafaring tradition gives the house an identity beyond its place among the lesser lords of the westerlands. Its history in the account turns on a household divided by Rhaena Targaryen’s presence: Lord Marq offered her refuge and affection, Androw became her husband, and Elissa joined her closely, while Marq’s heir Franklyn came to resent the queen and the attention she drew. The family’s sudden change of lordship transformed those tensions into a public confrontation—and revealed that its influence on Fair Isle did not rest with its lord alone.

Seat and Seafaring Tradition

Fair Isle and Faircastle are the center of House Farman’s account. The Farmans are described as having sailed the western seas since the Dawn Age, and their words, “The Wind Our Steed,” express a family tradition closely embodied by Elissa Farman. She loved sailing from childhood, learned to handle a boat around Fair Isle as a young woman, and voyaged as far north as Bear Island and south to the Arbor. Her desire to sail beyond the Sunset Sea extended that maritime inheritance toward the unknown, even as it alarmed her parents.

That seafaring identity was not merely a family boast. When Elissa prepared to leave Fair Isle, her ship, the Maiden’s Fancy, was ready at the docks. There, sailors, shipwrights, fisherfolk, porters, and other residents recognized her as someone they had known since childhood. Their attachment to her would prove decisive when the family’s succession dispute spilled into the harbor.

Marq Farman’s Household

Lord Marq Farman was remembered as amiable and good-natured, with affection for all his children, including his wayward daughter Elissa and gentle younger son Androw. He also loved Rhaena for loving his children. His hospitality had a history: after the Battle Beneath the Gods Eye, when Rhaena was threatened by her uncle Maegor and condemned by the Poor Fellows, Marq gave her refuge on Fair Isle. The household’s later association with the widowed queen thus began not as a political arrangement alone, but with a personal act of protection.

In the Year of the Three Brides, Rhaena married Androw, Marq’s second son, in a small ceremony on Fair Isle. It was Rhaena’s third marriage and Androw’s first; he was seventeen, nine years younger than she was. Marq presided, and the family’s own septon conducted the wedding. Only a few prominent guests attended, including Lyman Lannister and his wife Jocasta. The king and court learned of the marriage only when a raven brought news from Casterly Rock after the wedding feast.

Androw was described as handsome, soft-spoken, and gentle, but poorly suited to the martial expectations placed on a lord’s son. He failed as a squire and never became a knight; his father even considered sending him to Oldtown to train as a maester, until the family’s maester judged that he lacked the necessary learning. Rhaena’s explanation for choosing him was that he had been kind to her. One account suggested that her marriage also repaid Marq for the refuge he had offered; Maester Smike instead speculated that Rhaena’s deepest affection on Fair Isle was for Androw’s sister, Elissa. The chronicle presents this as conjecture, not settled fact.

Succession and the Departure from Fair Isle

As Rhaena’s household grew, Faircastle became a destination for highborn visitors from the westerlands and beyond. Their attention increasingly went to the Queen in the West rather than to Marq and his heir. Franklyn resented both this shift in status and Rhaena’s friendship with Elissa, whose independent and adventurous manner he considered incompatible with the duties he expected of his sister. While Marq remained lord, these tensions did not displace the household’s welcome. His sudden death changed that balance: less than a fortnight after Rhaena and Androw marked their first wedding anniversary, Marq died at his own table at the age of forty-six, choking on a fish bone. Franklyn succeeded him as lord.

The day after Marq’s funeral, Franklyn summoned Rhaena and ordered her to leave the island with her husband, dragon, and companions, while insisting that Elissa remain and marry a man of his choosing. Rhaena departed that night on Dreamfyre, bound for Casterly Rock, and instructed her household to follow by ship. Androw offered to challenge his brother, but Rhaena dissuaded him, pointing out that he was not a match for Franklyn and that another widowhood would expose her to further hostility. She expected Lyman Lannister to shelter her again, as he had before.

Androw, Samantha Stokeworth, Alayne Royce, and more than forty of Rhaena’s friends, servants, and other companions set out the next morning. Elissa joined them, intending to sail aboard the Maiden’s Fancy. At the docks, Franklyn tried to prevent his sister from leaving, but he had brought only a handful of men and had misjudged the local people’s loyalty to her. The crowd overwhelmed his men and carried Franklyn away from the confrontation, while Elissa and the others boarded and sailed for Lannisport.

Significance

House Farman’s story shows how authority on Fair Isle depended on more than succession to its lordship. Marq’s hospitality had made the island a refuge and a center for Rhaena’s household; his death allowed Franklyn to assert control over residence and marriage, but not to command the dockside community’s allegiance. Elissa’s long-standing ties to sailors and other working people proved more effective in securing her departure than her brother’s brief show of force was in stopping it.

The family also occupies two overlapping networks of connection. Its old maritime identity is embodied in Elissa’s ambitions and the ship prepared for her voyage, while its ties to wider noble politics appear in Rhaena’s marriage to Androw and the shelter Marq had previously given the queen. After the departure, the Farmans’ island became the setting for a conflict over who could claim authority within the household—and whose relationships and loyalties would endure beyond the lord’s death.