- Balon Greyjoy: "I heard you lost your mind during a storm on the Jade Sea. They tied you to the mast to keep you from jumping overboard."
- Euron Greyjoy: "They did."
- Balon Greyjoy: "And when the storm passed, you cut out their tongues!"
- Euron Greyjoy: "I needed silence."
- — Euron Greyjoy matter-of-factly explains how he got silence.[src]
The Silence[1] was an Ironborn longship captained by Euron Greyjoy. It was the flagship of the Iron Fleet and Euron's personal flagship. The back of the ship was designed to look like the traditional skull-and-bones symbol used by reavers.[2]
History[]
Background[]
Euron left the Iron Islands years ago after the Greyjoy Rebellion was crushed, and became the terror of the world's oceans, raiding ships from Oldtown to Qarth.[3][4]
Euron's ship was once caught in a storm on the Jade Sea, far east of Qarth, during which Euron lost his mind: the crew had to tie him to the mast so he wouldn't jump overboard. After the storm had passed and they untied him, he personally ripped out the tongues of his entire crew. When nonchalantly recounting this event years later, he glibly explained "I needed silence" - hence the new name of his ship, for its crew of mutes.[4]
Aboard the Silence, Euron has raided ships from all the Free Cities and across the Summer Sea, including Summer Islander ships and even Ibbenese whaling ships. He even sailed to the Jade Sea to seize a fortune in spices and silks from Yi Ti's merchant fleets. During this time Euron and the Silence frequently visited the pirate dens of the Basilisk Isles, to sell plunder and take on new provisions.[5]
Game of Thrones: Season 6[]
Euron returns to the Iron Islands, and confronts his older brother Balon Greyjoy on a rope bridge of Pyke castle during a violent storm. Balon recounts the story he heard about Euron losing his mind and cutting out the tongues of his entire crew, which Euron calmly admits to. When Balon realizes that Euron has come to kill him they get into a brief scuffle before Euron throws his brother over the side of the bridge to his death.[4]
Game of Thrones: Season 7[]
Euron sails the Silence and the Iron Fleet into the port of King's Landing to negotiate for a marriage alliance with Queen Cersei Lannister.[3] Euron is aboard the Silence when he attacks Daenerys Targaryen's fleet while Yara Greyjoy, Theon Greyjoy, Ellaria Sand and the Sand Snakes are on their way to Dorne - sneaking up right on top of their fleet by emerging from a storm. Silence rams Yara's own ship, Black Wind, and Euron personally leads the boarding party. After the battle, the crew of the Silence cut out the tongues of the survivors.[2]
While Daenerys's Unsullied attack and conquer Casterly Rock, the Silence and the rest of the Iron Fleet attack their fleet from the rear, leading to a naval battle in which the Iron Fleet destroys the entire portion of Daenerys's fleet that transported the Unsullied.[6]
Conspiring with Cersei, Euron takes the Silence across the Narrow Sea to ferry the Golden Company, the most powerful sellsword army in the known world, back to King's Landing.[7]
Game of Thrones: Season 8[]
The Silence returns to Westeros alongside the rest of Euron's fleet, loaded with the Golden Company and their commander, Harry Strickland.
That night, Theon Greyjoy leads a mission to free his sister Yara, held aboard Silence. He and his men kill several of the ship's mute crew before rescuing Yara and fleeing.[8]
Euron later ambushes Daenerys and her forces at Dragonstone using the Silence and several other ships. Like the rest of the Iron Fleet, the Silence is outfitted with a scorpion, which Euron uses to kill Rhaegal. Though Daenerys tries to destroy the Silence and the other ships with Drogon, she is ultimately forced to retreat. Euron then turns his attention to Daenerys's fleet, destroying most of her ships with the scorpions and capturing Missandei.
The Silence is destroyed along with the rest of Euron's forces when Daenerys attacks King's Landing with Drogon and burns the Iron Fleet.
Quotes[]
- "A bold merchant will risk two years for one voyage to fatten his holds with spices, gems and silks so that he never wants for anything again. To be fair, many never do - because my ship, Silence, finds them on their return."
- ―Euron Greyjoy
- "I've got a crew full of mutes. It gets lonely at sea."
- ―Euron Greyjoy
Behind the scenes[]
The Silence seems based on a roman quinquereme, a battle galley, modified for oceanic sailing. Instead of oars, it is solely sail-propelled, with extra side sails added for extra power as well as making it stand out as the flagship of the Iron Fleet. The rear of the ship is based on more modern, medieval designs.
The massive kraken at the front of the ship serves as a ramming rod, while its tentacles spread the force of the impact on a large surface of the Silence, reducing the damages to the structure of the ship. It also contains a corvus, an assault ramp that was developed by the Romans, to easily board enemy ships. Front and rear castles complete the design, allowing archers to rain arrows on other ships.
In the books[]
In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, Silence is lean and fearsome. It has a single mast, black sails, and dark red hull. Its decks are painted red to better hide the blood that soaked them. On the prow is a mouthless maiden of black iron with long legs, slender waist, high breasts and mother-of-pearl eyes.
Euron's private dungeon is located below the decks of the Silence. Within it he is fond of cutting pieces off his prisoners and then force-feeding their own body parts back to them. He also has an almost obsessive need to personally cut the tongue out of the mouth of every new crew member or prisoner he acquires.
For as yet unclear reasons, Euron is also capturing priests from all of the world's religions and holding them prisoner aboard the Silence, torturing them. From a preview chapter from the sixth novel, Euron apparently attempts to use them all as human sacrifices in a mass ritual which will usher him is as a dark messiah of sorts for whatever dark powers he may or may not be in league with. Euron manages to capture his own brother Aeron Greyjoy right after the Kingsmoot and hold him prisoner about the Silence as it advances south to Oldtown, during which time he force-feeds him Shade of the evening, giving Aeron a distorted, psychedelic vision of what Euron intends, part of which involves Euron as a half-human, half-kraken monstrosity seated on the Iron Throne, with a shadow in woman’s form at his side, long and tall and terrible, her hands alive with pale white fire, and the gods of every religion impaled on the throne's spikes.
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ GameofThrones (July 26, 2017). Inside Game of Thrones: Battling the Silence (HBO). YouTube. Retrieved March 15, 2024.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Stormborn"
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Dragonstone"
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "Home"
- ↑ "The Summer Sea"
- ↑ "The Queen's Justice"
- ↑ "The Dragon and the Wolf"
- ↑ "Winterfell"