In your essay on Dorne, you suggest that Vorian Dayne came after Davos Dayne. Which is a big surprise 1- Vorian would be far more plausible as the king who was eventually defeated and sent to the Wall, with Davos succeeding him as leader of the Dayne household. 2-If Vorian was sent to the Wall for leading a failed rebellion after the consolidation of the Martell as rulers of Dorne, it seems to me very unlikely that he would be sent with the status of king

Looked at the text yet again, and I think there’s a broader problem about the way that WOIAF describes Nymeria’s Conquest which makes the sequence of events really confusing:

racefortheironthrone:

Here’s my logic:

We know that during Nymeria’s first marriage, the Daynes were allies of Mors Martell during his nine-year campaign against the Yronwoods. Sending Vorian Dayne to the Wall in this early phase wouldn’t make much sense.

After Mors Martell’s death, which came before Nymeria’s eventual victory against the Yronwoods, Nymeria married twice, first to the Ullers and second to Ser Davos Dayne, who was the Sword of the Morning but not Lord of Starfall.

Davos Dayne’s son with Nymeria was passed over as Nymeria’s heir – which would break the First Men and Andal rules of succession that the Daynes would have followed – in favor of her oldest daughter with Mors Martell, following the new Rhoynar customs. In dynastic politics terms, this is a huge blow to House Dayne, rendering the marriage alliance useless.

Vorian Dayne, who was Lord of Starfall but not Sword of the Morning, was sent to the Wall at some point by Nymeria – why would the two come to conflict when their Houses had been allies in the war against the Yronwoods? Well, Nymeria’s decision to name her oldest daughter over her oldest son would be a clear casus belli.

My belief is that King Vorian Dayne was the older brother of Ser Davos, in one of those periods in which Dawn had been given to a non-ruler of Starfall (as was the case with Ser Arthur Dayne), that he allied with Nymeria against the Yronwoods, confirmed that alliance by marrying his highly symbolic younger brother to Nymeria, rebelled when his nephew was disinherited, was defeated, and was sent to the Wall as a King in part to smooth over ongoing tensions within the court at Starfall, as I can’t imagine it would have been easy for Ser Davos or his son during the rebellion.

The problem with your scenario is that, if Davos had succeeded Vorian, he would have been Lord Davos Dayne rather than Ser Davos Dayne when he married Nymeria.

“Years of war followed, as the Martells and their Rhoynar partners met and subdued one petty king after another. No fewer than six conquered kings were sent to the Wall in golden fetters by Nymeria and her prince, until only the greatest of their foes remained: Yorick Yronwood, the Bloodroyal, Fifth of His Name, Lord of Yronwood, Warden of the Stone Way, Knight of the Wells, King of Redmarch, King of the Greenbelt, and King of the Dornish.

For nine years Mors Martell and his allies (amongst them House Fowler of Skyreach, House Toland of Ghost Hill, House Dayne of Starfall, and House Uller of the Hellholt) struggled against Yronwood and his bannermen (the Jordaynes of the Tor, the Wyls of the Stone Way, together with the Blackmonts, the Qorgyles, and many more), in battles too numerous to mention. When Mors Martell fell to Yorick Yronwood’s sword in the Third Battle of the Boneway, Princess Nymeria assumed sole command of his armies. Two more years of battle were required, but in the end it was Nymeria that Yorick Yronwood bent the knee to, and Nymeria who ruled thereafter from Sunspear.”

The first paragraph strongly suggests that Nymeria sent the six kings to the Wall before Yorick Yronwood was defeated. This is a bit of a problem, because the Dorne chapter lists Yorick Yronwood as one of the six kings sent to the Wall, and he could hardly have fought Mors Martell for nine years and killed him in the Third Battle of the Boneway if he was up at the Wall.

Moreover, the second paragraph’s list of the various sides conflicts with the idea that the kings were all sent before Nymeria’s 11-year war against the Yronwoods. House Blackmont is described as bannermen of Yorick Yronwood, yet Benedict Blackmont was one of the six kings sent to the Wall by Nymeria; if Nymeria had already conquered the Blackmonts prior to the war, they wouldn’t have been counted as Yronwood bannermen. Likewise, Vorian Dayne and Garrison Fowler are listed as two of the six kings sent to the Wall. If they were defeated by Nymeria prior to the war against the Yronwoods, why would they be listed as mere “allies” of Mors Martell, rather than subjects and vassals?

I had a question (sorry if it’s stupid) about the Aerys I’s heirs. In the World of Ice and Fire, Yandel says that after the death of Alor Targaryen, Maekar became the Prince of Dragonstone. But on the wiki i saw that Aelora Targaryen was the Princess of Dragonstone after the death of her brother, implying that she was the heir to Iron Throne. If this case is true, and not an error, why was your younger sister, Daenora, not considered to be heir to the throne before her uncle if her sister was?

nobodysuspectsthebutterfly:

Hey, y’all, @condedatorre especially. The clarification and definition of Princess of Dragonstone is actually on the wiki. 🙂 If you look at the article for Prince of Dragonstone, you’ll see Aerys I Targaryen’s heirs include “Aelora Targaryen^[15]”, and if you check Aelora’s article, it says that “Aelora became the new heir to the throne for her uncle, King Aerys I Targaryen, following Aelor’s death.^[4]” A bold statement without proof, yes? Nope! Those citations link to this thread on the forum, where Ran (Elio Garcia) explains:

The situations of the past are not congruent with those of the
present, really, so not relevant. For that matter, we’ve certainly
discussed the value of precedent… but another question would be
whether the precedents of the _Targaryen_ dynasty are necessarily in
place for the Baratheon dynasty. It may well be that over the 15 years
of Robert’s rule, it’s been made clear that there is a firm order of
succession, with Myrcella ahead of Stannis. The machinations of Cersei
and Tywin? One more sleight for Stannis to chew on? Mayhaps.

Having seen the Targaryen family tree from its early form, I don’t think
the Viserys II change made much difference – you’re assuming that
Daeron and Baelor had sisters back then…

As to Aerys’s heirs, Rhaegel _was_ his heir, and then Rhaegel’s son
Aelor, and then Aelora. These are all things George established before
“The Sworn Sword” or “The Mystery Knight”. (Yes, the mystery of Daenora
remains – something we brought up with George at the time and he
insisted on our leaving things as he had written them, so I assuming
there’s a reason why Daenora is not considered at all when it’s said
Maekar is the only possible heir remaining.)

Bolding mine. Later comments in the thread clarify Aelora’s status:

The Grey Wolf:
Are you saying Aelora was heiress to the Iron Throne after Aelor/before Maekar?

Ran:
Yes. The text is explicit in running down through Aerys’s various heirs
before coming to Maekar, and explicitly links Aelora’s death with Maekar
becoming heir.

The Grey Wolf: I don’t remember the text being that explicit but alright.

Ran:
I’m referring to GRRM’s write up on Egg which discusses the situation.
In the course of editing we ended up compressing things so it’s not
explicit there.

And Elio additionally says:

Given GRRM’s response, there’s no error with the Aelora situation, or
the Daenora one. He seemed to have definite ideas about it that he did
not explain.

And there the conversation stops, as they realize they’ve gotten way off topic from the thread’s main subject (an endless discussion of R+L=J, apparently).

Anyway. Regarding what Elio says about the explicit/edited text and Aelora’s status, I double-checked TWOIAF, and it says:

goodqueenaly:

Don’t apologize!

The wiki is, of course, a fan-run creation, and while extremely helpful and accurate in the vast majority of areas, it is not ultimately canon. I’m not sure who worked on the Aelora article, but my guess, if I had to make a guess, is that the person was going on the fact that Aelora was married to her brother Aelor while the latter was Prince of Dragonstone. Now, we’ve never seen the title “Princess of Dragonstone” applied to the wife of a Prince of Dragonstone; the only two Princesses of Dragonstone in-canon are Rhaenyra (who was formally named and acclaimed as such by her father, King Viserys I, when he decided to treat her as his heiress) and our Daenerys (who, once she was in exile with Viserys, was at least arguably his heir presumptive, since after him she was and is the last of the legitimate, dynastic male line of Aegon the Conqueror). Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if the wife of the consort was known as “Princess of Dragonstone”, and indeed I’m hopeful to get clarification on this in the future.

In the course of that reign, His Grace had recognized a series of heirs, though none were children of his body; Aerys died without issue, his marriage still unconsummated. His brother Rhaegel, third son of Daeron the Good, had predeceased him, choking to death upon a lamprey pie in 215 AC during a feast. Rhaegel’s son, Aelor, then became the new Prince of Dragonstone and heir to the throne, only to die two years after, slain in a grotesque mishap by the hand of his own twin sister and wife, Aelora, under circumstances that left her mad with grief. (Sadly, Aelora eventually took her own life after being attacked at a masked ball by three men known to history as the Rat, the Hawk, and the Pig.)
The last of the heirs Aerys recognized before his death would be the one to succeed him to the throne: the king’s sole surviving brother, Prince Maekar.

I can only assume that whatever was edited out was something that would have made it far more clear that Aelora was included in Aerys’s series of heirs, and was Princess of Dragonstone in her own right before she died. What’s left… sigh… I hope Elio eventually gets that second edition of TWOIAF he wants, or else Fire & Blood vol. 2 better have all the details. And as for Daenora being excluded from that title and status… I’m just going to assume there that it’s a Dunk & Egg thing, due to GRRM being both mysterious and insistent about it. Especially considering her marriage to Aerion and the evidence from TWOIAF that he returns as an antagonist in later D&E stories.

But seriously, somebody could just follow Elio’s w.org posts and get so many details that apparently didn’t make it into TWOIAF but still count. Sigh, it’s worse than the SSMs for obscure non-textual but apparently canon details. Also, I should note that this whole thing got off topic regarding women succeeding to the Iron Throne, where Elio is insistent that Yandel’s “iron precedent” is not necessarily all that iron, and well, he should know…

A very interesting development, although one that I think adds to my confusion about Bloodraven and Maekar.

As I’ve explored with Aziz over at History of Westeros podcast, everything leading up to Maekar becoming king speaks to Bloodraven and Maekar being fierce political rivals who are widely expected to come to blows the moment Aerys II dies, with “bloody war between Lord Rivers and Prince Maekar for the crown, the Hand against the heir.“

Aelora being named as Princess of Dragonstone ahead of Prince Maekar, would absolutely have been viewed by much of the political community and probably by Maekar himself as a direct attack on his rights as heir by Bloodraven, looking to extend his monopoly on royal power through what would have been a lifelong Regency. And yet, four years later, all is forgiven and Bloodraven remains as Hand for the whole of Maekar’s reign?

I’m not saying it’s impossible, but we’re getting absolutely no information about how this transformation occurred, and all the information we’re getting points the other way.

I have been reading your CBC analysis and I have a question about what you call “Dornish Treatment.” I understand that Dorne can make its own laws and collect taxes with little interference, but why was this a good enough reason for them to swear fealty? What laws, besides inheritance, are truly different?

Excellent question. There’s a lot we don’t know about Dornish law, but we can look at Gaemon Palehair’s edicts as a bit of a guideline – poor relief, pensions for former soldiers, a ban on wife-beating. The WOAIF also suggests that the Dornish have different customs on bastardy and homosexuality as well.

In terms of why that was good enough, I think you can find the answer in the sheer level of punishment Dorne absorbed. The First Dornish War burned every castle in Dorne but Sunspear, leaving the country “a blighted, burning ruin.” While we know a lot more about Dareon’s casualties than those of who he fought against, the combination of his crushing victories and Lord Tyrell’s reprisals against the civilian population suggests that this war was incredibly bloody.

My interpretation of the whole 50,000 spears vs. 25,000 spears is that the various wars had an impact on Dorne’s male population similar to what WWI had on France, which would have an impact on Dorne’s fertility going forward.

I think the Dornish agreed to the peace because the alternative would have bled their country dry.