The two great houses of Westeros in the period when House of the Dragon takes place are the Targaryens of Dragonstone and the Velaryons of Driftmark, both being the only two surviving houses from the destroyed Valyrian empire. But now that Game of Thrones fans have been introduced to the Lords of the Tides, what else is there to know about the only other descendants of Valyria in the new age?
As most of you will already know, the Targaryens hail not from Westeros itself, but from the ruined civilization in Essos. Before the doom of Valyria came about and the great empire collapsed under its own weight, the Targaryens sailed toward the Seven Kingdoms and settled on Dragonstone, mostly thanks to Daenys Targaryen’s prophetic visions that warned the family of the catastrophe to come.
It’s unclear why the Velaryons were also saved from desolation, but it is believed that they came to the Seven Kingdoms even before the Targaryens, settling on the island of Driftmark and slowly growing in power over the years. Here’s a brief history of everything they did from Aegon’s conquest to the time King Viserys I takes the throne in House of the Dragon.
The history of House Velaryon
When Aegon decided to launch his invasion of Westeros — emboldened by the same vision of doom that had befallen Daenys — it was the Velaryons who offered up their ships to carry the Conqueror’s soldiers over to the mainland. With their shared heritage, the alliance between the Targaryens and the Velaryons came easily enough. Despite being masters of the sea, though, the Velaryons could never hope to thwart the Targaryen monarchs as the greater surviving house since they had no dragons of their own.
This close bond between the two great houses brought about the union of Aerion Targaryen and Valaena Velaryon in the first place, whose children were Aegon the Conqueror, Visenya, and Rhaenys. After the Targaryens took over the Seven Kingdoms and settled at King’s Landing, the Velaryons kept close to the crown and maintained a position in the Small Council for more than a hundred years. Their office was unsurprisingly the Master of Ships, a position at which they excelled and grew even stronger than before.
The Velaryons reached the pinnacle of their power when Daemon Velaryon died and gave the rule of the house to Corlys Velaryon the Sea Snake, who is played in House of the Dragon by Steve Toussaint.
Who is the Sea Snake?
Given the brief time Corlys has graced the small screens in House of the Dragon thus far, one would argue that he is a deft politician, playing the Game of Thrones in the favor of his dynasty. The truth is much more complicated than that, however, because more so than being a Lord of the Tides, Corlys was first and foremost an adventurer, a legendary mariner who became renowned throughout the world as the best seafarer by the time he grew to be thirty.
When he was a boy, Corlys traveled much of the world and learned the ropes, quite literally, from his peers. When he was sixteen, Corlys became a captain in his own right and continued his travels.
At one point in his career, the Driftmark heir built Sea Snake, a legendary ship he used to traverse many uncharted places in the world. On board Sea Snake, Corlys ventured beyond the Jade Sea and visited the mysterious realms of Yi Ti and Leng. He returned with many treasures that essentially turned House Velaryon into the richest family in Westeros, but Corlys wasn’t done by a long shot.
Corlys Velaryon sailed across Essos nine times, all of which has been recorded in Maester Mathis’ book called The Nine Voyages. Ultimately, when his grandfather Daemon died, Corlys became the Lord of the Tides, a title that fitted him perfectly, and created a new seat for his house, now known as High Tide. In 90 AC, Corlys married Rhaenys Targaryen, then a contender for the throne, and sired two children, a daughter named Laena and a son named Laenor.
But when King Jaehaerys the Wise summoned the great council of Harrenhal to deal with the matter of his succession, the majority of the votes went to Prince Viserys, and so it was that Corlys’ wife, Rhaenys, became known as the Queen Who Never Was.
Being the ambitious man that he is, Corlys still continues to exercise the influence of his house and its vast armada to sway King Viserys toward his goals, one of which involves dealing with the Triarchy’s dominion over the Stepstones. Where he goes from here on out and what he does is anyone’s guess, so we’ll have to wait for House of the Dragon to unfurl his narrative in earnest.