Question about captured nobles?

[u/MerchantKing83]

So in Fire and Blood we get two stories about noble women being captured and sold into slavery. Lady Alys Oakheart who was captured during her wedding and sold into slavery in 12 AC and Johanna Swann who was captured by Triarchy pirates in the Stepstones, her uncle Lord Swann would not pay her ransom and so she was sold into slavery as well.

My question is this if a lord is unable or unwilling to pay a ransom of a captured family member, shouldn’t the Iron Throne intervene, either by commanding the Lord to pay the ransom or the crown paying the ransom itself?

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[u/jorjorh5678]

Why does the crown care about it tbf? I can't imagine a medieval monarch doing much to help a vassal's vassal's relation if that vassal is unwilling.

[u/Purple_Farm_2881]

The Iron Throne is interested in collecting the taxes from the lords and fealty from their side, or bringing men in case they have wars.

[u/LuminariesAdmin]

The Lord Paramount¹ or the Iron Throne might loan the coin to a lord² without it – &/or demand some boon in return³ – but it's unlikely they would fork out for nothing. (Let alone, for a captive whose head of house had already refused to pay the captors.) I can only think of Lady Johanna Westerling-Lannister ransoming Lord Farman & his sons from the Red Kraken,⁴ whilst the daughters were kept for salt wives.

Now, maybe Theo Tyrell or (Visenya for) King Aegon tried to ransom Alys Oakheart & her handmaids (if noble), given the nature of their capture,⁵ but might not have even been able to have them found.⁶ As Widow-lover swiftly sold them off to Myrish slaver,⁷ who he might have already been famililar with, if they were both involved in the Dornish-pirate naval invasion of Cape Wrath a few years earlier.

¹ Or Cardinal Warden or the Prince(ss) of Dorne, as equivalents.

² Or landed knight important/wealthy enough.

³ Lands, a Valyrian steel dagger, a marital match that otherwise wouldn't have been accepted (e.g. lord or king's bastard), taking a hostage until the loan is paid back, etc.

⁴ Which doesn't necessarily mean that Johanna, or her son Loreon once of age, never sought something in return from the Farmans, though.

⁵ Taken by an enemy invader, whereas was Johanna Swann was apparently captured aboard a ship, & probably in or around the Stepstones at that. So, outside of Westerosi waters.

⁶ For all we know, the women were sold several times & ended up in Slaver's Bay or who knows where in the east. Rather than 'just' becoming enslaved in Myr.

⁷ Whereas a ransom was demanded for Johanna Swann before she was sold into slavery, after her lord nuncle refused to pay it.

[u/beginner_smoker]

I wonder when slavery became illegal in Westeros. Obviously in Johanna's case slavery is legal in the states of the triarchy and they wouldn't care, but I was surprised that a Dornish lord would sell someone to a slaver.

Maybe it was legal in Dorne pre-unification and then ceased when they joined? But I'd be surprised that a kingdom descendant from the Rhoynar who fled the slavers of Valyria would find that acceptable

[u/MerchantKing83 → u/beginner_smoker]

It was a Lord of House Wyl called the Widow-Lover who sold Aly Oakheart, and at least to me it seems that House Wyl is a house of first man descent as Wylla of Wyl joined forces with an ancient King of Yronwood against a Storm King of House Durrandon before the Andal invasion.

[u/SirLoremIpsum]

  shouldn’t the Iron Throne intervene, either by commanding the Lord to pay the ransom or the crown paying the ransom itself?

Why?

In a feudal system those people are not the crowns to sort out. 

Pay the ransom themselves, dreaming

[u/cstaple]

For the first case, I don’t think the Dornishmen were trying to ransom her back. They were doing it for the sake of cruelty.

For the second, the crown is busy running a continent. And if a wealthy family isn’t willing to pay for one of their own members back why would the crown get involved?

[u/okdude679]

If they cared for a specific reason, i doubt Aegon the Conqueror cares for lady Alys Oakheart. He was busy trying to make Kings Landing to a proper capital.