who are the andals in game of thrones

The Andals in Game of Thrones (and A Song of Ice and Fire) are a human people from Essos whose invasion of Westeros reshaped almost everything south of the North.

Who the Andals Are

• They are one of the three main human ethnic groups of Westeros: Andals , First Men, and Rhoynar.

• They originally lived in northern Essos in a region called Andalos or “the Axe.”

• They are strongly tied to the Faith of the Seven, the dominant religion in most of Westeros.

In titles like “King of the Andals and the First Men,” the “Andals” part refers to all the peoples descended from these invaders in the south and center of Westeros.

What They Did in Westeros

• Thousands of years before the show, the Andals crossed the Narrow Sea and invaded Westeros in waves over centuries.

• They first landed in the Fingers and the Vale, then spread south and west through most of the continent.

• They fought and overthrew many kingdoms of the First Men and often married into local dynasties instead of wiping them out entirely.

A famous legend from this era is Ser Artys Arryn, the “Winged Knight,” who supposedly helped the Andals seize the Vale and found House Arryn’s rule there.

Culture, Religion, and Legacy

• The Andals brought iron weapons and armor, which gave them a big military edge over many First Men rulers.

• They cut down sacred weirwoods, killed many of the children of the forest, and pushed the Old Gods’ worship back mostly to the North and beyond the Wall.

• They imposed or spread the Faith of the Seven, carving its symbol into their flesh and demanding conversion from conquered peoples.

Because of this, most “southern” great houses (like Lannister, Arryn, and many in the Reach and Stormlands) are Andal-descended or heavily mixed—and their knights, chivalry, and feudal customs are essentially Andal culture.

Who Resisted the Andals

• The North, ruled by the Kings of Winter (the Starks), is the big exception: they stopped the Andals at Moat Cailin and kept their old gods and First Men identity.

• The Andals did reach the Iron Islands militarily, but the Faith of the Seven never truly took root there; the ironborn kept their Drowned God.

• The Neck’s swampy terrain and the crannogmen’s tactics also blunted Andal expansion there.

That’s why, in the time of the show, you see a cultural divide: South = Andal/Faith of the Seven, North = First Men/Old Gods.

How the Show Refers to Them

• When Dothraki call Jorah “Jorah the Andal,” they’re using “Andal” as shorthand for a Westerosi man from the south with that culture and faith background.

• The king on the Iron Throne styles himself “King of the Andals and the First Men,” claiming rule over both the old First Men bloodlines and the later Andal-descended peoples.

So, in simple terms: the Andals are the later human invaders from Essos whose wars, religion, and culture turned most of Westeros into the feudal, Faith-of- the-Seven society you see in Game of Thrones.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.