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It seems Walder Frey has lots of children. Does anyone know his complete line of succession?

When Arya kills Walder and his two sons at the end of season 6, who is left at the head of House Frey? Did he have any other sons?

We know Walder's daughter Roslin is married to Edmure Tully. Is she Walder's eldest daughter?

If there are no other Frey sons, and Roslin is the eldest Frey daughter, then wouldn't she be next in line? Do we have any reason to think she was in on Walder's "Red Wedding" plot? Or any reason to think she dislikes her husband? Why wouldn't she immediately free Edmure from the dungeon upon her succession as Lady Frey? Is there any reason to think Roslin would have any interest in preserving the Frey alliance with the Lannisters? Is it possible that Arya's assassination of Frey and his sons was not just an act of revenge but a game-changing strategic maneuver that flips the Twins and River Run back to alliance with the Starks?

Aegon
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    Too many questions in a single post I think. You should consider breaking up the questions. – Abhinav Jun 29 '16 at 08:38
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    Actually I think the second spoiler-tagged paragraph should be cut out entirely :P – Ciacciu Jun 29 '16 at 14:26
  • re that second paragraph: as far as Arya knows, there is no House Stark that Roslin could switch to. Based on the information available to her, she likely believes the Boltons still control the north, so she certainly wasn't doing any strategic planning to get the Riverlands back. So far we've seen no one in the show who wasn't there receive word of the Battle of Winterfell or imply that they know about it, and in the finale Littlefinger mentions that "word will soon reach others" about what happened there, implying it hasn't already. – childcat15 Jun 30 '16 at 01:10
  • this question always gets linked when succession comes into question... http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/37862/comprehensive-rules-for-game-of-thrones-lines-of-succession?rq=1 – Skooba Jul 01 '16 at 02:02

1 Answers1

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Show

Walder's eldest son Ser Stevron Frey is alive in the show and is now Lord of the Twins, Lord of Riverrun and Lord Paramount of Riverlands. In show there is no mention of Stevron's children but since he is a man of 40+, he must have Children and grand children. Lord Walder is said to have many unnamed Grandchildren, it makes sense that some of them might be Stevron's.

Since the info is not complete, it is not possible to draw a full line of succession. Among Lord Walder's Children we know only the following from Show:

  1. Stevron Frey, Lord of Riverlands
  2. Lothar Frey, deceased
  3. Black Walder Rivers, a bastard son, deceased
  4. Ryger Rivers, a bastard son
  5. Fat Walda Frey, deceased
  6. Roslin Frey, Alive

So by the known information, Roslin is indeed the first in line of succession. But that is only because we have no knowledge of children of Stevron, who would come before their aunt. We also do not know of other sons of Walder Frey, who would also come before Roslin in Line of Succession.


Books

In books Stevron Frey died of his wounds in Battle of Oxcross where he fought for Robb Stark.

As he was a grown man with Children and grandchildren, He was replaced as heir to Twins by his eldest son Ryman Frey. Ryman also has Children of his own, Black Walder who is portrayed as Lord Walder's son in show is infact a son of Ryman Frey and a great grandson of Lord Walder. Ryman also has two other sons named Edwyn and Petyr. Edwyn and Petyr have children of their own. Ryman was hanged by outlaws of Brotherhood Without banners and thus his first son Edwyn became heir to the Crossing.

The Line of Succession apparently would be:

  1. Ryman Frey (Dead)
  2. Edwyn Frey
  3. Walda Frey
  4. Black Walder Frey
  5. Petyr Frey (Dead)
  6. Perra Frey
  7. Aegon Frey (Dead)
  8. Walton Frey
  9. Steffon Frey
  10. Bryan Frey
  11. Fair Walda Frey
  12. Maegelle Frey

These are only the descendants of Stevron Frey. Other sons of Lord Walder have children of their own. A family tree of Stevron's line:

enter image description here

So according to Books, Edwyn Frey is now Heir to the Twins, he will be followed by his daughter Walda.

You can view other descendants of Walder Frey here. You can draw a line of succession yourself by keeping in mind that Children of an elder son come before a second son/daughter, a male comes before a female.


Roslin Frey's involvement

It is unlikely to see Roslin Frey who is not only a female, but the youngest female of Walder's children, to sit on seat of the Crossing. We already know Lord Walder has a number of sons and grandsons and men always come before women in their succession.

In Books Roslin Frey is loyal to Edmure Tully and while she did know about the Red Wedding, she and her full brothers had nothing to do with the Red Wedding. Her full brothers were not even allowed to be at the Wedding, fearing that they would let Starks know.

In Show, Roslin's involvement in Red Wedding is unknown. So is her loyalty to Edmure.

It'd be absurd to assume that Arya would ever do anything that strategical. She is not a politician or a general, just a traumatized child looking for revenge. In any case, Roslin won't be ascending to the seat because of her half brothers, full brothers and nephews. It is also unlikely that she would be able to influence her brother Stevron to abandon Lannisters and choose the North instead or to release Edmure. Stevron would never agree to it because:

  1. As long as Edmure Tully is alive and Free, Frey hold on Riverrun and paramount lordship of Riverlands would always be contested. Most of the Riverlander lords lost kin at Red Wedding and are loyal to Tullys. With death of Walder Frey, they might already be ready to rise up for Ser Edmure.
  2. Starks won't accept any offer of alliance for the twins because a huge number of them were involved in Red Wedding.
  3. Only Cersei Lannister can save the Freys from their enemies who would seek to punish them for Red Wedding. Cersei is their only choice.

Since Roslin's feelings for Edmure in the show are unclear, we cannot say whether she would be predisposed to release Edmure and forge an alliance with Starks in event of her ascent to the Twins. Remember, if she does that, she will be forfeiting Riverrun and Paramount Lordship of Riverlands to Edmure Tully. I don't think anyone would do that.

Aegon
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