In one of the latest Game of Thrones episodes, Dany uses the metaphor of a wheel to describe the great houses of Westeros. Sometimes one house is on the top, sometimes they’re on the bottom. And no house more clearly shows a rise and fall than the fabled Valyrian house Velaryon.

The Early Years

Valyrian Velaryon. God, what a mouthful.

House Velaryon was an ally of House Targaryen back in Old Valyria. We’ve heard from the mouth of GRRM that House Targaryen was fairly minor among the forty dragonlord houses of Valyria. GRRM has also said “It’s safe to say that the Targaryens were the only nobles with dragons who escaped the destruction of Valyria.” I think we can assume, then, that House Velaryon was even more minor than House Targaryen, and that they were not one of the forty dragonlord houses.

The Velaryons traveled to Westeros well before the Targaryens did, settling on the island of Driftmark.

Legend has it that house Velaryon was given their seat by the Merling King; they ruled from the Driftwood Throne (not to be confused with the Seastone Chair of the Iron Islands). They monopolized trade on the middle part of the Narrow Sea from their island. House Velaryon was always a predominantly naval power. Obviously. They live on a big island. It’s noted in The World of Ice and Fire that their allies, the Targaryens, “ruled the skies with their dragons.” This suggests that the Targaryens and Velaryons were connected well before the Doom, and that Targaryen interests in Westeros were burgeoning well before Daenys the Dreamer had her prophetic vision of the Doom.

House Velaryon is noted for its Valyrian traits; they tend to have the white hair and purple eyes of the blood of Old Valyria. It’s no surprise that, after the doom, House Targaryen and House Velaryon intermarried repeatedly (and would continue to do so in the centuries to come).

Aegon the Conqueror’s parents were Aerion Targaryen and Valaena Velaryon. When Aegon and his sisters flew out to conquer Westeros, Driftmark soldiers rode with them. You have to wonder if some of the more backwoods Westerosi even saw a difference between the Velaryons and Targaryens; besides the banner (and the dragons, I suppose), the two would have been equally exotic and equally mystical.

The Velaryons, as noted above, were traditionally merchants. Their wealth most likely considerable at the time of the conquest. Aegon’s early court was heavily Valyrian. His master of ships was Daemon Velaryon, a notable figure in his own right. Daemon was one of Aegon’s oldest supporters, and when he died in the Battle of Gulltown, his son was named master of ships in his place. His daughter Alyssa Velaryon would become a queen when Aenys I Targaryen took the throne. The first Lord Commander of the Kingsguard was Corlys Velaryon, handpicked by Visenya Targaryen herself.

Things were looking up for House Velaryon. They continued to thrive as they had for decades, making wealth on the seas and friends in the noble courts. Another Daemon Velaryon served as admiral for Maegor the Cruel – although he, like so many of his ilk, bucked under the Ur-Mad-King. The Velaryons, by virtue of being Valyrian, were almost guaranteed a bid into the Targaryen succession, and were protected by geography and politics alike. But the wheel keeps turning, turning.

High Tide: The Years of the Sea Snake

Enter Corlys the Sea Snake.

Corlys is a man out of legends. He sailed as far north as he could to try and find a “northwest passage” beyond the Wall (he didn’t find one). He sailed his great ship the Sea Snake to the far east, to Yi Ti, Leng, and became the first Westerosi to reach the shores of Nefer in N’ghai. He sailed the Thousand Islands, presumably in search of salad dressing. On the last of his Nine Voyages, he sailed to Qarth and bought twenty ships, filling their holds with spices, textiles, elephants, and all manner of exotic stuff. This last expedition catapulted House Velaryon into the stratosphere. They were, at that moment, richer than both the Lannisters and the Hightowers. That’s right: they were richer than the guys who own the gold mines and the guys who have been merchants for millenia in Oldtown.

This can’t be overstated. Corlys Velaryon, the Sea Snake, changed the game. He was a bold man with bold tastes and bold friends. He had so much treasure that he built a new keep on Driftmark called High Tide, just to hold all his excess booty.

The history of House Velaryon is inseparable from the history of House Targaryen, and doubly so when it comes to Corlys. When Daemon Targaryen, the Rogue Prince, fought in the Stepstones in 106 AC, he was supported largely by the Velaryon fleet under the command of Corlys. Daemon declared himself King of the Stepstones, and Corlys put the crown on Daemon’s head. Corlys himself was wed to Rhaenys Targaryen, the Queen Who Never Was; Daemon Targaryen eventually married Corlys’ daughter Laena.

Things went sour, though. Corlys and Rhaenys had two children, Laena and Laenor. Laena was married to Daemon; Laenor was married to Princess Rhaenyra. Laena and Laenor both died in the same year, 120 AC, in separate tragedies. Later that year, the widower Daemon and widow Rhaenyra were wed.

It’s a complex, weird, incesty family. But at the head of it all was Corlys Velaryon, the Sea Snake. His grandchildren by Rhaenyra and Laenor were Luke, Jace, and Joff; they might well have been fathered by another man, Harwin Strong, but nobody ever proved it. Corlys fell ill before the Dance, but recovered, saying later “Mayhaps the Seven have preserved me for this fight.”

Look, let’s make a long story short: Corlys picked the wrong side, rode the wrong dragon, and it really, really cost him. The Dance of the Dragons was a contest between King Aegon II, the rightful ruler, and his sister Rhaenyra. Corlys obviously sided with Rhaenyra, and his support can’t be underestimated. This man was rich as Midas and bold in battle; he was a wise old admiral, and a living legend in his own right. The Sea Snake lent a great deal of clout to the cause of The Blacks under Rhaenyra. Besides that: more than half of Rhaenyra’s army was made up of Velaryon men. That’s huge.

Corlys closed off the Gullet with a massive naval blockade, effectively blocking all sea traffic in and out of King’s Landing. The blockade was eventually broken, however, and the great keep of High Tide was sacked. It’s not known if High Tide even survived the battle, or if it was simply burned to the ground. Either way: this was a serious blow. The power and prestige gained by Corlys was being bled away. When his wife Rhaenys died in battle, he abandoned Rhaenyra’s cause. This was a low point for Corlys. His heirs, Luke, Jace, and Joff, were dying off one by one. He had no heirs, no wife, and his fleet and beautiful keep were broken. The Sea Snake was falling.

Corlys was named Hand of the Queen, and welcomed back into Rhaenyra’s cause. Why wouldn’t they welcome him? They needed Velaryon ships and men. The Queen captured King’s Landing eventually, and Corlys convinced her to remove the bastard taint from two of the dragonseeds, peasantborn dragonriders: Addam and Alyn. Alyn Velaryon became Corlys’ heir, and the line was safe for a time. There’s an interesting aside here: Addam and Alyn were known as bastards of Corlys’ son Laenor. But word on the street is that they were actually Corlys’ sons, and that he hid that fact to prevent the wrath of his wife. This might explain why he pushed so hard for Addam and Alyn to be legitimized; they might have been his last surviving issue.

In King’s Landing, Corlys proposed a peaceful solution to the Queen, as armies descended on King’s Landing. Corlys was no longer the Sea Snake, the bold man who crowned Daemon King of the Stepstones. Corlys was afraid for his life, afraid for his legacy, and devastated by the loss of the glory he worked so hard for. Unfortunately, due to a lot of shit that had nothing to do with Corlys, the Queen decided Corlys was an asshole and locked him up in the black cells. This marked the end for the Queen. The Velaryon men weren’t going to stick around and help her fight when she just locked up the legendary Corlys. They left King’s Landing by the hundreds, and the terrible war petered out.

This wasn’t the end for Corlys himself. He lived on, pardoned by King Aegon II, only to be arrested again by Cregan Stark when Aegon II was poisoned and Aegon III made king. Corlys was ultimately pardoned by Cregan thanks to some deal cooked up by Black Alys Blackwood. Corlys served as one of the regents of Aegon III until his death in 132 AC. He was seventy-nine years old. His body lay in state beneath the Iron Throne for a full week.

The Tide Recedes: The Hour of Oakenfist

House Velaryon, in my opinion, never recovered from this. The Sea Snake was the end of a long upswing. But the politics continued. Alyn Velaryon, the legitimized bastard, proved a competent heir to the Sea Snake. During the Dance, Alyn tried to tame the dragon Sheepstealer. For his troubles, he won burns all over his back and legs, which he wore until the day he died.

Alyn Velaryon – later called Lord Oakenfist – was an underdog in a way that a Velaryon had never really been before. The wealth of Corlys was, for the most part, gone. The Hand of the King, Lord Unwin Peake, hated Alyn, not least because Alyn managed to get another Velaryon married to a Targaryen. His niece Daenara married King Aegon III, upsetting Unwin Peake’s plans to marry his own daughter, Twin Peakes, to the king. (Okay, that wasn’t her name. Her name was Pikes).

Unwin forbade Alyn from becoming one of Aegon III’s regents, instead commanding him to fight a hopeless battle in the Stepstones. We all know this story: the evil grumpy bureaucrat sends the young attractive hero on a hopeless mission – and then, against all odds, the hero wins. Alyn earned the name Lord Oakenfist by smashing the pirates of the Stepstones. Basically everybody loved the guy – but as an underdog. This was not the days of the Sea Snake, a legendary lord on par with the Lannisters and Hightowers. This was a man who had much to prove in a world that looked down on him.

Alyn was then sent to fight Dalton Greyjoy, which he did with aplomb, managing to also befriend the princess of Dorne along the way. Seriously, this guy is such a comic book awesome hero. Lord Oakenfist. He’s like Cu Chulainn or something; a hero who bops around and does awesome stuff and seems basically invincible. He negotiated the release of the king’s brother Viserys from his captivity in Lys. And then, after King Aegon III died, Alyn became Best Buddies with the Young Dragon, Daeron.

Daeron, first of his name, conquered Dorne. That much is known. But he couldn’t have done it without Alyn goddamn Velaryon, also known as Lord Oakenfist, also known as Lord Fucks-Your-Shit. Alyn was named master of ships, and while Daeron occupied the main force of Dorne in the northern pass, Alyn took his big oaken fist and punched the hell out of the river Greenblood, conquering and subduing all the way up to Planky Town.

Alyn had a bunch of bastards (okay, two: Jon and Jeyne Waters) and then, after fighting more pirates on the Stepstones and in the Narrow Sea, just disappeared. That’s right, he disappeared without a trace.

Alyn Velaryon was, like his father/grandfather Corlys, a man out of legend. But Corlys and Alyn couldn’t be more different. Corlys was a legend because of his majesty. He was a nigh-king, a global phenom who sat high atop the social ladder. When he died, his death was cause for much grief, and his body was laid below the Throne itself. Alyn was an underdog. He was a plucky guy with a lot to prove, a man from a decidedly minor house who had to prove himself to the existing aristocracy. His death was mysterious and off-screen, and that’s for a reason: he wasn’t a father of the realm in the same way Corlys was. Alyn was lower on the totem pole than Corlys, and House Velaryon never climbed higher.

Many Years Later: Where are they now?

Alyn was the last gasp of greatness for House Velaryon. Aerys II made a Lucerys Velaryon his master of ships, and presumably the Velaryons supported Rhaegar at the Trident. But their glory days were well over.

Lord Monford Velaryon allies with Stannis Baratheon in the War of the Five Kings (again, like the days of old: was Driftmark really going to ignore Dragonstone?) Monford constantly urges Stannis to attack, attack, attack, ignoring actual strategy. His contribution to the war effort is four ships. This out of a fleet of 200 ships suggests that the Velaryons sure ain’t what they used to be. Monford burns with his ships on the Blackwater, and is succeeded by his six-year-old son. Surprisingly enough, the Velaryons stay loyal to Stannis; Jon Snow sees their banners at the Wall.

And at last we come to Aurane Waters, the Bastard of Driftmark, and we see how far the house has fallen. Aurane has all the looks of a Valyrian, and is taken as a hostage after Blackwater. Cersei, because she’s literally just a ball of bad ideas held together by tight dresses and wine, names Aurane the master of ships. Hey, there’s another parallel between the Mad King and Cersei: a Velaryon Master of Ships. Aurane calls for a huge fleet of dromonds…which he promptly steals, intending to be a pirate king on the Stepstones.

Conclusion

The story of House Velaryon is practically a template to understand the game of thrones. Like a textbook, it provides clear-cut examples of how getting involved in the Game is a good way to bring about your own ruin. It’s the story of a house that rises because of its friends in high places, and falls when those friends turn out to be the wrong friends to have. It seems entirely likely that House Velaryon will be extinct before the series; even if the name survives through the six-year-old Monterys, its men are scattered and it is a declared enemy of the crown. Aurane Waters is the great window into the fall of the house: a bastard by birth, he’s taken to piracy on the Stepstones. The greatest heroes of the house, Corlys and Alyn, made their legends fighting pirates in the Stepstones. Dany uses the metaphor of a wheel, but the metaphor of a wave seems more apt here. House Velaryon hit their high water mark with the Sea Snake. The water is receding, and the last Westerosi Valyrian house is left high and dry. Or, to use Alyn Velaryon himself as a metaphor: you try to ride a dragon to glory, you might just end up burned.