“Recorded outside the printed novels as “Our Roots Go Deep” — this chronicle notes the words are semi-canon rather than a line any character speaks on the page, and prints them with that caveat attached.”
The seat, the words, the line, and the tale of House Oakheart — drawn from the novels and the Citadel's fuller histories, with the television series set aside wherever it parts from the books.
Seat
Old Oak
Region
The Reach
Founder
Unnamed. An old and powerful Reach house, its three green oak leaves marking Old Oak as one of the more ancient lordly seats the Reach's own long memory can still point to with confidence.
House Oakheart's recent history is really the history of a single knight sent south on a single errand, and how badly, in the end, that errand went — the family's roots running deep, by its own motto's boast, while its most famous living son's own footing at Sunspear proved to run nowhere near deep enough.
I
An Old Reach House
Old Oak's standing among the Reach's great houses predates most record this chronicle can point to with any confidence, and its three green oak leaves — the Three Leaves, as the Reach's heralds style the banner — have flown over the seat long enough that the Citadel finds little cause to question the family's claim to ancient blood, whatever it cannot independently confirm about the particulars. What distinguishes House Oakheart in this chronicle's own century is not a war fought at home, but a single knight sent far from it.
The present tale
This chapter carries the house's fortunes into the novels' events — veiled until you choose to read on.
§
A Shield Sent to Dorne
Ser Arys Oakheart, sworn to the Kingsguard's white cloak, was dispatched to Sunspear as the sworn shield of Princess Myrcella Baratheon when her betrothal to Prince Trystane Martell was arranged — an assignment any knight of the Kingsguard might have accepted as an honor and, this chronicle's sources agree, a rather less comfortable one than it appeared. Within half a year of his arrival, Arys had been drawn — seduced, the plainer accounts do not hesitate to say — by Arianne Martell, Prince Doran's own daughter and heir, into a conspiracy to crown Myrcella in her brother Tommen's place, a scheme this chronicle records without pretending its motives were entirely political on every side involved.
These partings name deaths, endings, and roads not yet ridden in the books. Unveil them only if both roads are known to you — or if you do not fear to know.
The present tale
This chapter carries the house's fortunes into the novels' events — veiled until you choose to read on.
§
An Axe Faster Than a Sword
When Arianne's plot was discovered before it could bear fruit, Arys Oakheart drew his sword to defend it too slowly to matter: Areo Hotah, Prince Doran's captain of guards, closed the distance and ended the White Sword's service with a single stroke of his own long-hafted axe. The Dornish court that reported his death to the wider realm named a different killer entirely — Ser Gerold Dayne, called Darkstar — sparing both the conspiracy and Arianne's part in it from a scrutiny the truth, had it traveled north unaltered, would certainly have invited. House Oakheart, so far as this chronicle's sources allow it to say, has not yet been told which version of its son's death is the one the Citadel actually believes.
These partings name deaths, endings, and roads not yet ridden in the books. Unveil them only if both roads are known to you — or if you do not fear to know.
The people of House Oakheart
The lords, ladies, and branches of Oakheart the books name — the notable, the infamous, and the merely unlucky.
Arwyn Oakheart
Lady of Old Oak in her kinsman's absence
fl. 298–300 AC
Arys Oakheart
knight of the Kingsguard, sworn shield to Princess Myrcella Baratheon
d. 300 AC, killed by Areo Hotah at Sunspear
What is House Oakheart known for?
House Oakheart's recent history is really the history of a single knight sent south on a single errand, and how badly, in the end, that errand went — the family's roots running deep, by its own motto's boast, while its most famous living son's own footing at Sunspear proved to run nowhere near deep enough.
Where is the seat of House Oakheart?
House Oakheart holds Old Oak, in The Reach. The chronicle traces the house from its founding down to its part in the present tale, marking legend as legend wherever the songs run ahead of the record.
Is House Oakheart in the books or only the show?
Book canon. This history follows George R. R. Martin's novels first, then the histories — Fire & Blood and The World of Ice & Fire — and does not follow the television series where it diverges.