Dorne: Beyond the Sands - Culture, Conflict, and Conquest

Welcome to another episode of The Westerosi Primer. My name is Liz. And in this episode, I will be talking about Dorne. I’ll be discussing some of the notable people, places, and historical events that happened in the hottest and most southern kingdom in Westeros.

Before I start the discussion, there are a couple of things to note. First there will be some potential spoilers for people who have not read the novels in the “A Song of Ice and Fire” saga. There may also be potential spoilers for House of the Dragon and other future shows that may be adapted by Max in the future. So if you’re okay with this, then please continue listening.

Second, this will not be a definitive episode of everything about Dorne as there really is a lot of information about all the notable houses mentioned in the novels and the additional information written by George R. R. Martin and collected by various fans including the contributors of Westeros.org.

Throughout this season of the Westerosi Primer, I will be using information gathered from the novel series, Westeros.org, The World of Ice and Fire, and The Lands of Ice and Fire. Check out the full show notes and other links located on this show’s website: thewesterosiprimer.com With that said, let’s begin!

Dorne is hot, rocky, and dry. To the north, is the Sea of Dorne. To the east are the Stepstones, which House of the Dragon viewers will be familiar with. The Red Mountains separates Dorne from the Stormlands in the north and the Reach to the west and northwest. There are just two passes in the Red Mountains that connects Dorne to the Dornish Marches. The Boneway is between Summerhall in the Stormlands and Castle Yronwood. I will discuss Yronwood later in this episode.

Summerhall is actually a ruined castle in the Stormlands. It had been used as something akin to a summer residence for House Targaryen. There have been instances where some younger Targaryen princes were given the title of Prince of Summerhall. I didn’t discuss this castle in the Stormlands episode because it’s a ruin and no one owns it.

The Prince’s Pass is another pass between Dorne and the Marches. On the Dorne side, the pass is guarded by House Fowler. In the Marches, it’s guarded by House Caron of Nightsong in the Stormlands. An interesting fact about the Prince’s Pass is that along the route is the Tower of Joy. Book readers and Game of Thrones viewers will know the Tower of Joy is where Lyanna Stark stayed after she disappeared with Prince Rhaegar.

The eastern part of Dorne is mostly stony and not ideal for farming. There are of course rivers that provide water and arable land. A few rivers of note are Greenblood, Brimstone, Torentine, and Wyl. There is another river though it is nameless at this point. This nameless river flows near Yronwood and goes to the Sea of Dorne. I won’t get too much into the rivers. I will however mention that the Greenblood is notable since many of the First Men houses settled along the river.

The most notable city in Dorne is Planky Town, which is the primary trading port. It’s located at the mouth of the Greenblood. Its name comes from the planks rather than streets this town has. That’s because it floats on the river. Rather than conventional buildings, Planky Town is made of boats and barges that float on the river. One interesting fact I’ll also mention is that there have been instances where Planky Town was attacked. A particularly notable instance was Queen Rhaenys burning it during Aegon’s Conquest.

There’s another interesting detail not included in the TV shows I’d like to talk about here. King Daeron I made an observation about Dornishmen by describing them as three types: Salty Dornish, Sandy Dornish, and Stony Dornish. The Salty Dornishmen live along the coast and are mostly descended from the Rhoynar. Sandy Dornishmen live in the desert areas and along the rivers. The Stony Dornishmen live around the Red Mountains and are mostly Andal and First Men descent.

House Martell of Sunspear has a really fascinating and long history in Dorne. What makes them fascinating is that they are of a different ethnicity than most of Westeros. As I’ve already mentioned in the previous episodes, many Westerosi can claim First Men or Andal ancestry. Many are actually mixed due to generations of marriages. House Martell claim mostly Rhoynish ancestry. This detail isn’t mentioned much in the TV series. If you’re interested in me doing a more detailed discussion, I’ll be happy to do so. Just let me know! Check out the website to find out how to reach out.

The short version is that centuries earlier, Rhoynar were people who live along a river in Essos called The Rhoyne. They are a water faring people. Some Rhoynar could even use water magic. Unfortunately we don’t have any characters in the saga that have this ability. This would have made things pretty interesting given the amount of fire we see. Similar to Wales, the Rhoynar were ruled by princes and princesses rather than kings or queens. Another interesting fact is that unlike many other cultures, the Rhoynar practice absolute primogeniture.

In case you didn’t know what that is. In general primogeniture basically means the firstborn child inherits everything rather than dividing among all children. However there are variations of this. Agnatic primogeniture basically determines inheritance based on seniority of sons. Female members and their descendants are excluded.

Most of Westeros seems to practice male-preference cognatic primogeniture. Basically females and their descendants are eligible to inherit, but only if the male lines have died out. A real world example of this was the British Royal family. This changed in 2013 when a new act changed things to absolute primogeniture.

The reason I bring this up is that inheritance rules are a very big deal in Westeros. I feel that this was lost in many respects in Game of Thrones. This is a much bigger issue in House of the Dragon. Inheritance is connected to power and drives a lot of the scheming and fighting. I’ll have to save this particular discussion in a future season of the podcast.

Eventually the Rhoynar were unable to defend their civilization from the encroaching Valyrian Freehold. Princess Nymeria of Ny Sar led survivors on 10,000 ships to escape the Valyrians. They wind up in Dorne where Nymeria marries Lord Mors Martell. This is a pretty important event. Important enough that Arya Stark names her direwolf after this Rhoynar princess. This even comes up in the first episode of House of the Dragon when we first meet Rhaenyra and Alicent.

House Martell itself was started by an Andal adventurer named Morgan Martell. His lordship was a minor one. It was only due to the marriage of Nymeria and Mors that this house rose in power. This power couple start a war with other minor kings in Dorne, which later is called Nymeria’s War. It’s quite fascinating how even though the House is called Martell, Nymeria and her Rhoynar culture is what dominates the culture in Dorne.

Interestingly we see that Dorne is definitely part of the Seven Kingdoms in Game of Thrones. However during the events of House of the Dragon, Dorne is actually still an independent kingdom. This is because Aegon and his sisters actually failed in conquering Dorne. In fact for the next two hundred years, house Targaryen would attempt to conquer Dorne a few times but fail. Eventually Dorne conceded once a marriage alliance was made.

There was a double marriage between House Targaryen and House Martell. Princess Myriah Martell married crown Prince Daeron Targaryen. His sister Daenerys married Prince Maron Martell. So technically the Targaryens we know of in Game of Thrones actually do have some Rhonysh ancestry. Also the Martells we know of also have Targaryen ancestry. This was sort of repeated when Rhaegar married Elia Martell. This double marriage is an important plot point for the novels, which I’ll get to in a minute.

As we know in season 4 and 5 of Game of Thrones, House Martell had three main siblings. Elia was married to Rhaegar. Her two brothers are Doran and Oberyn. Doran Martell is the ruling prince of Dorne and was mostly wheel chair bound and portrayed by Alexander Siddig. We of course know the charismatic Oberyn played by Pedro Pascal in his breakout role.

Unlike in the TV show, Doran had three children in the novels. My earlier discussion of inheritance comes to play because the oldest child is actually a daughter, Arianne. She has two younger brothers, Quentyn and Trystane. For whatever reason only Trystane exists in the tv show. The fact Arianne wasn’t included in the show meant a major plotline was changed and mostly erased from the show. This would heavily explain why much of the Dorne related storylines after season 4 made little sense and seem pointless. It was very frustrating to me as a book reader.

Quentyn in the novels actually was sent to find Daenerys and renew an alliance between House Targaryen and House Martell. Daenerys isn’t overly impressed with Quentyn and neither were readers. Quentyn is frustrated and had a complex about being a failure to his family. He rationalizes the fact a past Daenerys was his ancestor for his crazy decision to try and claim Viserion. I’m sure you can guess how that turned out. Incidentally, this was actually how Rhaegal and Viserion were free from their chains. At the end of Book 5, A Dance with Dragons, Tyrion hasn’t even reached Meereen yet.

Dayne of Starfall is a noble of house Dorne. They live in the Red Mountains, which would make them Stony Dornish. They are described as fair versus the olive skin tone of the Rhoynar descended Salty Dornishmen. The Daynes are First Men in origin and claim to history going back thousands of years. At one point in time they were known as the Kings of the Torrentine. They naturally were a house that fought against houses in the Reach in the Dornish Marches. Eventually they lost their crown during Nymeria’s War.

Another interesting fact is that they own a sword called Dawn. It is actually not made from Valyrian steel. In fact this sword was made from a fallen star that landed in the Torrentine. Men who are deemed worthy to use Dawn were called Swords of the Morning.  There are a few notable members of House Dayne I’ll mention here.

Lady Dyanna Dayne was married to Maekar I, who was incidentally the son of king Daeron I and Myriah Martell. Maekar and Dyanna have many children together. They include blind Maester Aemon of the Night’s Watch and King Aegon V. On a side note, the young Aegon V will be one of the main characters in the upcoming spinoff A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. This series will be based on the stories about Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire Egg a.k.a. Aegon V.

The most famous Dayne is of course Ser Arthur Dayne, the last Sword of the Morning. He used Dawn during his time as a member of the Kingsguard. We actually saw him briefly in Game of Thrones. He is the dual wielding knight who young Ned Stark fought with at the Tower of Joy. Personally I think it was strange realizing that is Arthur Dayne when I knew for a fact he only used Dawn. But I will concede it’s visually cool looking to watch in a tv show to use two swords. The other interesting thing to mention is the fact he knighted a young squire named Jaime Lannister.

Ser Arthur actually had three other siblings. He has two sisters named Ashara and Allyria. Ashara Dayne was considered one of the great beauties in Westeros along with Cersei Lannister. She served as one of Elia Martell’s ladies-in-waiting. Ser Barristan Selmy apparently had been in love with Ashara, but never admitted such to her. She also allegedly was “dishonored” at the infamous Tourney at Harrenhal and apparently looked at a Stark there. There’s been debate whether it was Ned or Brandon.

After the Tower of Joy, Ned went to Starfall to present the family with Dawn and tell them what happened to Arthur. Ashara apparently committed suicide by jumping off a castle tower and there are speculations to the reason. Curiously her body was never found. There are rumors that Ashara is Jon Snow’s mother and Ned has never done anything to counter this. But well you listeners can try to decide what you think.

Allyria Dayne is only briefly mentioned in the novels. She’s noted as being the betrothed of Beric Dondarion, who I mentioned in the Stormlands episode. It’s rather sad how in the books, Beric mentions that due to his many resurrections from death, he couldn’t remember what hair color his betrothed had.

Arthur’s older brother isn’t named in the novels. However his brother has a son named Edric Dayne, who became Lord of Starfall as a child. In the books, he is the squire of Beric Dondarion. He is with Beric still while they are roaming about as the Brotherhood without Banners.

House Fowler of Skyreach is a noble house in Dorne. As I mentioned earlier in this episode, they are the ones who guard Prince’s Pass on the Dorne side. This family is a First Men house and were originally kings in Dorne like the Daynes and Yronwoods. They were called Kings of Stone and Sky. Historically they fought with Marcher lords.

Later they would side with the Martells against the Yronwoods during Nymeria’s War. They are still rivals with the Yronwoods. As I mentioned earlier, House Caron of Nightsong is near Prince’s Pass on the Stormlands side. During the first Dornish War, Lord Fowler led an assault that burned Nightsong and took hostages. This and a few other incidents resulted in what is called the Dragon’s Wroth. Basically Aegon and his sister-wives burned most of the castles in Dorne.

House Uller of Hellholt is another noble house of Dorne. Their keep called Hellholt is located in the Dornish desert. They descend from Andal explorers who settled on the Brimstone River. As you can guess from the name, this river has a noticeable sulphur smell. House Uller sided with the Martells during Nymeria’s war. Interestingly, Princess Nymeria married three times. After the death of Mors Martell, her second husband was Lord Uller and her final husband was a Ser Davos Dayne.

I mention a bit about this particular house because there is a notable character that Game of Thrones fans would recognize who is a member of House Uller: Ellaria Sand. In Game of Thrones, we meet Ellaria Sand as she is the paramour of Prince Oberyn Martell. She is of course the bastard daughter of Lord Harmen Uller.

Book readers like me would probably agree when I say the TV show did Ellaria dirty in a lot of ways. Don’t get me wrong. I think Indira Varma is great in the role. I also enjoyed watching her in other shows like Rome, which is another show produced by HBO (now Max). This is why I’m going to spend a couple minutes here explaining who Ellaria was in the books. This should make you show watchers understand why I say she was done dirty. I could go into a TED talk about how not just this character, but most of the Dorne characters were done dirty. Maybe that could be a future season of this podcast.

Season 4 of the TV show does a pretty good job depicting Ellaria in terms of the writing. She’s pretty eye catching and open sexually. She’s definitely a good partner for Oberyn. If Oberyn was the marrying type, I think he probably would have married her. Aside from their common interests, the four daughters they have together points towards a pretty long relationship. That’s right folks. Oberyn was actually the father of eight daughters.

In Game of Thrones, we only meet three daughters: Obara, Nymeria, and Tyene. Tyene is the one who is identified as Ellaria’s daughter. Book Tyene was actually the daughter of a septa from the Reach. She was also blond with blue eyes. Book Ellaria is the mother of four younger daughters: Elia, Obella, Dorea, and Loreza. In the books, these daughters are aged between seven and fourteen. Oberyn had four older girls who had different mothers. This again says to me that Ellaria meant more to him than the mothers of the other girls.

The adult daughter missing from the show is Sarella. Sarella doesn’t make an appearance in the books, but she does get mentioned. There’s a popular fan theory that technically we actually did see Sarella in the books. This is because there’s an acolyte at the Citadel we meet via a prologue and a Samwell Tarly chapter. This acolyte’s name is Alleras and his described background interestingly is similar to Sarella’s. And there’s the fact Alleras is an anagram of Sarella. Admittedly following the antics of a Sand snake studying at the citadel isn’t interesting television.

But back to Ellaria. The short story is that starting in Season 5, Ellaria is pretty unrecognizable from book Ellaria. Ellaria is a gentler character. The writing team on Game of Thrones seem to think only warrior women types are worth the screen time. Plus they probably gave Ellaria some aspects of Arianne Martell to compensate for her exclusion in the tv show. Book Ellaria actually is frightened of the revenge talk brewing at Sunspear. Her daughters hero worship their older sisters. Those said sisters are huge proponents of the “kill the Lannisters” plan. Book Ellaria rightfully is scared of her girls going down a bloody path of vengeance. She fears they’ll end up like their father.

The final house I’ll talk about in this episode is Yronwood. As I’ve mentioned earlier the Yronwoods of Yronwood come up a few times in this episode already. They are descendants of the First Men and ruled as Kings at the foothills of the Red Mountains. They control the Boneway on the Dorne side. Aside from rivalries with the Daynes and Fowlers, they also fought with the Storm Kings. Unsurprisingly they ultimately lost in Nymeria’s War and bent the knee.

There was an exiled knight named Ser Gyles Yronwood who served Rhaenyra in the Dance of the Dragons. I won’t discuss too much about this character’s actions during the war in case he’s a character in the show.

Another interesting fact is that teenage Oberyn had been caught with Lord Yronwood’s paramour. There was a duel and Oberyn wound up indirectly killing the lord. He had died from infection and it started a rumor that Oberyn put poison on his blade. From then he became known as “The Red Viper.” To appease House Yronwood, Oberyn temporarily went into exile in Essos and Quentyn Martell was fostered by the new Lord Yronwood. Incidentally Nymeria Sand was born in Volantis while Oberyn was having fun in Essos.

And that just about covers the basics of whose who in Dorne. If you’re interested in finding out more for yourself about any of these houses and other people and places I didn’t discuss in this episode, feel free to go to the full show notes where I will have links. Though be aware if you do any of this research there will be spoilers to the novels and some possible material covered in the future seasons of House of the Dragon.

Thank you for listening and tune in to the next episode where we travel to a rough kingdom of pirates and cutthroats more focused on paying the iron price than sowing.