How succession works
The realm's rules for who inherits — with the councils, and the one great war, that settled the question whenever the rules themselves ran short.
The three ways a seat is passed
Male-preference primogeniture
The Iron Throne & most of the Seven KingdomsA lord's eldest trueborn son inherits all — his seat, his lands, his name. Younger sons come next, each before any daughter; a woman inherits only when no trueborn brother survives her. So the crownlands, the Reach, the Westerlands and the Vale reckon it, and so the Iron Throne is passed.
The law is plainest where it is least tested. The realm has never once agreed whether a lord's daughter should come before his brother, and the two times the question was put to a Great Council, the answer favoured the male line — precedent, the maesters say, though it was never written into any statute.
SourcesAGOTASOSF&BTWOIAFAbsolute primogeniture — the Dornish way
DorneIn Dorne the eldest child rules, whether that child be a daughter or a son. A younger brother does not step over an elder sister; a ruling princess governs Sunspear by the same right, and with the same authority, as any prince.
This the Rhoynar brought over the narrow sea with Nymeria and her ten thousand ships, and a thousand years beneath the Martell sun have not worn it away. Where the rest of the realm argues over its daughters, Dorne simply counts births — a tidy custom the other kingdoms have never seen fit to borrow.
SourcesAFFCTWOIAFThe kingsmoot — the ironborn choice
The Iron IslandsThe ironborn once chose their kings rather than bred them. On the shores of Old Wyk the captains of the isles would gather, each free man with a voice, and raise up whichever reaver they judged strongest and most worthy of the driftwood crown. The crown was given, not inherited.
The custom of father-to-son crept in from the green lands with the Andals and the septons, and for long centuries the kingsmoot lay silent, remembered only in the songs of the priests of the Drowned God. The salt kings' oldest right, the greybeards say, was never wholly drowned — only sleeping beneath the waves.
SourcesAFFCTWOIAF
Worked examples — the Great Councils
- 101 AC
The Great Council at Harrenhal
The question: When a claim through a king's son meets a claim through a king's daughter, which comes first?
The verdict: Old King Jaehaerys, having outlived his sons, summoned the lords of the realm to Harrenhal to name his heir. The choice fell between Viserys, a grandson descended through a son, and the line of Rhaenys, his granddaughter. By a great margin the lords raised up Viserys — and with him the principle that a claim through the male line stood before a claim through the female, however senior.
In the chronicleThe Great Council at HarrenhalSourcesF&BTWOIAF - 233 AC
The Great Council of 233 AC
The question: When the direct heirs are dead, exiled, sworn to the Citadel, or born of a madman, whom shall the lords crown?
The verdict: When Maekar I fell, his nearest heirs each stood barred by death or circumstance — one son slain, one a maester forbidden a crown, one remembered chiefly for his madness. Rather than set a mad prince's infant son upon the throne, the assembled lords passed the boy over entirely and crowned Maekar's fourth son, Aegon — the unlikely king the realm would come to love. A worked lesson that a Great Council answers to its own judgement, not to strict descent.
In the chronicleThe Great Council of 233: Egg is crownedSourcesF&BAKOTSKTWOIAF
The counter-example
King Viserys I named his daughter Rhaenyra his heir and made his lords kneel and swear to her, setting aside the very precedent his own Great Council had raised him upon. When he died, the greens crowned his eldest son, Aegon II, within days. Two claims, each lawful by some reckoning and neither by all — and a generation of dragons and men dead to prove the harshest truth of Westerosi succession: a realm's peace rests not on parchment nor on law, but on whether its great lords agree.
How does succession work in Game of Thrones?
Across most of the Seven Kingdoms, and for the Iron Throne itself, inheritance follows male-preference primogeniture: a lord's eldest trueborn son takes everything, younger sons follow before any daughter, and a woman inherits only when no trueborn brother survives. Dorne and the Iron Islands each keep older customs of their own.
Can a woman inherit the Iron Throne?
The realm has never firmly settled it. Twice — at the Great Councils of 101 and 233 AC — the lords favoured a claim through the male line over one through a woman, and those choices hardened into precedent without ever becoming written law. Dorne is the exception, where a daughter inherits on equal footing with a son.
How is Dornish inheritance different?
Dorne practises absolute primogeniture: the eldest child rules, daughter or son alike, and a younger brother never steps over an elder sister. The Rhoynar brought the custom over the narrow sea with Nymeria, and a thousand years of Martell rule have kept it unchanged.
What is a kingsmoot?
The kingsmoot is the ironborn's ancient custom of choosing a king rather than inheriting one: the captains of the Iron Islands gather on Old Wyk and raise up whichever reaver they judge worthiest of the driftwood crown. Father-to-son succession later crept in from the green lands, but the old elective right was never wholly lost.