House of the Dragon namedrops “Aegon the Conquerer” quite a bit, referencing ancient Song of Ice and Fire history that goes back even further than the prequel series. There’s a reason the Targaryens had such an iron grip on the Iron Throne, starting with what happened to Valyria.
HBO’s adaptations of George R. R. Martin’s work occasionally reference the “Doom of Valyria”—the tragedy’s official name. Valyria is where House Targaryen and House Velaryon originated. Once upon a time, there was a territory in Essos (the continent across the narrow sea from Westeros where Daenerys Targaryen spent most of the events of Game of Thrones) called the Valyrian Freehold. It’s capital was called Valyria, or Old Valyria. You may remember that Tyrion Lannister and Jorah Mormont sailed in a boat through the ruins of Old Valyria on Game of Thrones in Season 5. Viserys was building an Old Valyria lego model. It’s in the conversation!
Casual viewers have almost certainly also noticed a few characters on House of the Dragon speaking to each other in the High Valyrian language. Daemon and Rhaenyra use it to communicate with each other. In a recent episode, Aemond embarassed his brother Aegon with his skills. (King Aegon is still getting hooked on High Valyrian phonics.) All of the dragon riders use it to communicate with their majestic beasts, but while the language is not dead, the land where it originated very much is.
Natural disaster destroyed Valyria
About a hundred years before Aegon the Conquerer conquered Westeros, over a dozen volcanoes and earthquakes and even a tsunami wreaked havoc on the region. It flattened castles and turned land masses into islands. According to the lore, some septons wondered if “Doom of Valyria” was caused by magic malfunctioning, a curse, or too much sin. Even in this fictional world, people assume natural disasters happen because they did something wrong. Some think it was actually a war between dragons and fire mages. However, most believe that the Doom of Valyria was simply a series of unfortunate, cataclysmic events.
Real life and fiction alike are full of stories about natural disasters wiping out entire nations or cities. I can see why. It’s a fascinating subject and a compelling tragedy. Historians obsess over lost civilizations like the city of Pompeii and, while it’s just a theory, the Mayan Empire. It also reminds me a little bit of what happened Superman’s home planet Krypton and the island kingdom of Numenor in The Lord of the Rings. There is also, now that I’m thinking about the God’s punishment angle, the flood that Noah and his family rode out in the Old Testament. This tale is actually older than time.
A young girl saw this coming
A Targaryen noblewoman named Daenys the Dreamer had a prophetic dream twelve years before it happened. She convinced her father to move House Targaryen out of Valyria. In a rare move for the characters in the Song of Ice and Fire universe, Lord Aenor Targaryen listened to a woman. They took five dragons and sailed across the narrow sea to Dragonstone, the island that became the House Targaryen seat in Westeros.
House Velaryon followed suit, settling in Driftmark. House Celtigar fled as well. Daenys and her brother Gaemon’s great, great, great grandson was Aegon the Conquerer. (The Targaryen incest tradition makes the tiniest fleck of sense when you consider that they were the few survivors of their race and also living on an island where they probably didn’t meet other people. Not condoning it, but context is key!)
They lost secrets as well as people
Essos plunged into political chaos in the aftermath. Many, many citizens died, but with the destruction of Valyria also came the loss of recorded history, institutional knowledge, and magic. The reason that Valyrian steel—another key reason that the name “Valyria” might ring a bell for for casual fans—is such a precious resource in Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon is that the instructions to create it burned in the Doom.
Published: Jul 16, 2024 02:03 pm