#hellholt

Dorne in the ASOIAF Calendar

March 2025 -> the Hellholt by Eddie Mendoza

What a Lady of House Uller would wear

Warning, Spoilers Ahead…

  The last installment ended with the Dornish War’s most famous fatalities: Queen Rhaenys and Meraxes.

10 to 12 AC are referred to as the Dragon’s Wroth. Every castle in Dorne, except Sunspear, were burned thrice over by Balerion and Vhagar. The sands around the Hellholt (the site of Rhaenys’ death) were fused into glass.

Why was Sunspear spared the repeated destruction? Was it an attempt to turn the Dornish against the Martells ala “see how you suffer while your lords do nothing”?

The Dornish lords went into hiding but were still pursued by Targaryen forces. Aegon the Conquerer had offered a “lord’s ransom in gold for the head of any Dornish lord, leading to the deaths of Lord Fowler, Lady Vaith, Lady Toland, and four successive Lords of the Hellholt.

Only two of the killers lived to collect their rewards and the Dornish repaid blood with blood: “Lord Connington of Griffin’s Roost was killed while hunting, Lord Mertyns of Mistwood poisoned with his whole household by a cask of Dornish wine, Lord Fell smothered in a brothel in King’s Landing.

Dornish assassins attacked Aegon thrice and he “would have fallen on two of those occasions but for his guards. They also attacked Visenya and her escorts – two were slain before Visenya killed the last attacker with Dark Sister.

The “infamous act of that bloody age” occurred in 12 AC, when Wyl of Wyl, the Widow-lover, crashed the wedding of Ser Jon Cafferen, heir to Fawntown, to Alys Oakheart, daughter of the Lord of Old Oak. Admitted into the area by a treacherous servant, Wyl and his forces “slew Lord Oakheart and most of the wedding guests, then made the bride look on as they gelded her husband. Afterward they took turns raping Lady Alys and her handmaids, then carried them off and sold them to a Myrish slaver.”

I would have used “disgusting” instead of “Infamous”. The Oakheart-Cafferen wedding is as horrifying as the Red Wedding. Worse in many aspects. In the Red Wedding, the Freys, Lannisters, Boltons, and Starks were active participants in the War of the Five Kings. The attack during the wedding was treacherous, cowardly, and terrible but the Northern and Riverlands lords did have targets on their back.

The attack on the Cafferen-Oakheart wedding seemed to be picking a random Stormlands and Reach family and deciding to unleash hell for kicks.

Did Tywin Lannister read about the Cafferen-Oakheart wedding in a history book and think to himself: “I can top that”.

By the way, Dorne is now a “smoking desert, beset by famine, plague, and blight – referred to as a “blasted land” by traders from the Free Cities.

The book states that the Martells remained “Unbowed, Unbent, and Unbroken”. It might be true for the Martells but their land has been annihilated.

In 13 AC, Meria Martell died (while having sex with a stallion, according to her enemies). How very Catherine the Great of her!

Meria’s son, Nymor, becomes the Prince of Dorne. Nymor is tired of war and sends his Deria, his daughter, to King’s Landing, to propose peace terms.

Deria and her fellow Dornish didn’t receive a warm welcome. Queen Visenya declared “No peace without submission” and Orys Baratheon suggested removing a hand from Deria before sending her back to Dorne. Lord Oakheart, father of Alys, wanted her sold to the “meanest brothel in King’s Landing”.

Aegon rejected all the proposals by stating that an “envoy under a banner of peace would suffer no harm under his roof.”

Grand Maester Lucan wrote Aegon was weary of war but couldn’t see a way to end the war due to the following reasons:

·         Queen Rhaenys’ death would have been in vain

·         It could inspire rebellions from other regions

·         The Reach, the Stormlands, and the Marches had suffered horrendously would neither forgive or forget

Aegon almost refused the peace terms when Deria handed him a letter from her father.  Aegon read the letter while gripping the Iron Throne so hard he cut himself open. He left for Dragonstone and returned the next day, accepting the peace terms. He signed a treaty of eternal peace with Dorne. Aegon must have forgotten to explain the “eternal” part to his descendants as this is the end of the First Dornish War.

No one knows the content of the letter but a few possibilities are put forth:

·         A simple plea from one father to another

·         A list of all the lords and noble knights who lost their lives during the war

·         Septons suggest in was an ensorcelled missive, using Meria’s blood, and Aegon was unable to resist its “malign magic”

·         The threat of hiring a Faceless Men of Braavos to kill Aenys, Aegon’s heir

It’s not mentioned in the books but fans have theorized the letter could have contained an offer to end a still-alive Rhaeny’s suffering or that her bones had been returned to Dragonstone.

I’m not sure why Aegon would keep the return of Rhaenys’s bones a secret. Wouldn’t he want a state funeral for his beloved sister-wife? If the offer was the return of Rhaneys’s bones did Aegon ever tell Visenya, Orys, and Rhaenys about it? Surely they would have the right to know.

I doubt the letter contained magic. The Faceless Man threat is a possibility. It would explain why Aegon never told Visenya the contents of the letter. I could see her going nuclear on Dorne if she knew of the threat – and Sunspear would no longer be spared.

So what did the two idiots (Aegon & Meria) achieve during this decade-long pissing match:

On Aegon’s side we have:

·         The death of a sister-wife and mother of his heir

·         The death of a dragon – one of the weapons that made the Conquest possible

·         The mutilation of a brother – one who underwent a marked personality change as a result of his captivity

·         Thousands dead, and the suffering and mutilation of thousands more

 On Meria’s side we have:

·         Dorne turned into a “blasted land”  of plague, famine, and desolation

·         Thousands dead, and the suffering of thousands more

 Both sides are idiots and I’m equally disgusted with the Targaryens and Meria Martell.

Aegon’s obsession with unifying the Seven Kingdoms (and satisfying his own ego) led to a brutal war that he justified by his “dragon dream” of an unknown threat from the North.

The only finished product in the ASOIAF-verse is the show and what was Dorne’s contribution to the Long Night, round 2? Nothing! Maybe there was an unnamed Dornish in the Night’s Watch.  If I had to guess, it won’t be much different in the books. Oberyn and Quentyn took themselves out due to ego and stupidity. The rest of House Martell will be wiped out in the upcoming Dany-Faegon confrontation. Dorne’s forces will suffer in that same confrontation so we’re not going to see them in the North fighting wights.

Meria’s refusal to negotiate with Aegon due to her own ego led to thousands of Dornish deaths. Harrenhal and the Field of Fire had happened by this death. She refused to treat with Aegon, knowing it would result in thousands of Dornish deaths, and she did not care as she had to remain “unbowed, unbent, unbroken”. Horrible woman. And if your country has undergone such destruction, they gossip over it on another continent, you are in fact “broken”.

The aftermath of the war led to the normally tense relations between the Stormlands/the Reach and Dorne to escalate to intense hatred – which would cause issues for generations to come.

Dorne’s reputation would suffer – they would be known as treacherous, untrustworthy cowards. Not to mention the years/decades it took to fully recover from the Dragon’s Wroth.

Impact Over Hellholt

Dorne has different customs and attitudes towards bastards than the rest of Westeros.

They are not greatly concerned if a child is born in wedlock or out of it, especially if the child is born to a paramour. Many lords—and even some ladies—have paramours, chosen for love and lust rather than for breeding or alliance. –The World of Ice and Fire

I figure Ellaria’s mother was probably Harmen Uller’s paramour, his official mistress. I don’t know if she was raised at Hellholt, though the fact that she’s “returning to her father’s seat” does suggest she lived there, and I really don’t see any reason to think otherwise. Especially since we have the example of Daemon Sand, the Bastard of Godsgrace, who Oberyn introduces to Tyrion in the same sentence as his father, Ryon Allyrion. And though Shae says Ellaria was “almost a whore” when she met Oberyn, I figure that’s probably just wishful thinking on her behalf. (As Ellaria’s position – the publicly acknowledged paramour of a wealthy, handsome, and powerful man – would have been Shae’s dream job.)

Furthermore, what we know of Harmen Uller suggests he and Ellaria get along well:

I have a raven, Arianne thought, triumphantly, but who to send her to?[…] Arianne finally decided that she had but two real hopes: Harmen Uller, Lord of Hellholt, and Franklyn Fowler, Lord of Skyreach and Warden of the Prince’s Pass.Half of the Ullers are half-mad, the saying went, and the other half are worse. Ellaria Sand was Lord Harmen’s natural daughter. She and her little ones had been locked away with the rest of the Sand Snakes. That would have made Lord Harmen wroth, and the Ullers were dangerous when wroth. Too dangerous, perhaps. The princess did not want to put any more lives in danger.

–AFFC, The Princess in the Tower

So, Arianne thinks that Harmen would be angered at the imprisonment of his bastard daughter and grandchildren. Harmen was also present among Oberyn’s group of Dornish lords that went to King’s Landing, with no mention of any unease he’d have with Ellaria… and he was also present at the welcoming dinner for Balon Swann in Sunspear, again with no problems. It’s very likely that Ellaria and her daughter Loreza accompanied her father on his trip back to the Hellholt.

FFG: Game of Thrones - Hellholt by Hieronymus7Z