George R.R. Martin’s book series A Song of Ice and Fire is big on pre-history. To understand the events of Game of Thrones, you have to understand what happened years before they stated, back when Daenerys Targaryen’s father was on the Iron Throne and got kicked off by current king Robert Baratheon. And you can go further than that, learning about the Tragedy at Summerhall War of the Ninepenny Kings and other events that shaped the perspectives of some of our characters. This sense of history is one of the things that makes Martin’s world feel real and lived in.
The same holds true for HBO’s new Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon, which is set centuries before the original show, back when the Targaryens were at the height of their power and dragons filled the skies. But there’s a time centuries before that when dragons were even more common and the ancestors of the Targaryens even more powerful. Back when the Valyrian empire was at its height over on Essos, nothing could touch it.
But the Valyrian empire is long gone by the time House of the Dragon begins. What happened to it? In a clip posted to the official Game of Thrones Twitter account, Martin explains what happened: the Doom of Valyria.
Learn about the catastrophic event that ended Old Valyria and brought dragons to Westeros. pic.twitter.com/wc4bH0gTXX
— Game of Thrones (@GameOfThrones) October 9, 2023
George R.R. Martin explains the prehistory behind House of the Dragon
“About 400 years before the time of Game of Thrones, or 200 years before the time of House of the Dragon, the Valyrian peninsula exploded,” Martin explains. “And it was called the Doom of Valyria and it was over in a day. It was over in a few hours…What used to be lands attached to each other are now some barren, windswept islands…Hundreds of dragons died in an instant along will millions of people.”
In Martin’s mythos, no one knows exactly what caused the Doom of Valyria. It was an environmental disaster involving a chain of volcanos known as the Fourteen Flames all going off at once. It left the once-mighty Valyrian empire in ruins, as Tyrion and Jorah found out when they sailed through the place in the fifth season of Game of Thrones.
On House of the Dragon, King Viserys Targaryen keeps the memory of Old Valyria alive by building a huge scale model of the capital city in his bedroom. See what I mean about the past being ever-present in these shows?
Martin also alludes to how the Targaryen family escaped this catastrophe. A woman named Daenys Targaryen, known to history as Daenys the Dreamer, had a premonition that something horrible was going to happen to Valyria. So she and her family hopped on their dragons and moved to the island of Dragonstone, on the west coast of Westeros. About 100 years after Valyria fell, Aegon I Targaryen, known as Aegon the Conqueror, set out from Dragonstone to unite the Seven Kingdoms and become the first person to sit the Iron Throne.
Another great thing about all this history is that it provides HBO with an almost stream of source material on which to base future Game of Thrones spinoffs. We’ve already heard they’re considering a series about Aegon the Conqueror. Might we one day get a show about Old Valyria as well? Anything is possible.
Much also depends on how popular the second season of House of the Dragon proves, along with new spinoff series A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. House of the Dragon season 2 will premiere on HBO and Max sometime in 2024.
Westeros map
In an extended version of that video on YouTube, Martin talks about the Stepstones — the series of islands that Daemon Targaryen and Corlys Velaryon fought to control early in House of the Dragon season 1 — and the Disputed Lands, a patch of land on Essos endlessly fought over by three of the Free Cities…until they got together and decided to take over the Stepstones, that is.
