We’re another month closer to the premiere of the second season of HBO’s House of the Dragon. I’m trying to ease in to writing about the show, one blog post a month. HBO helped me out last month by releasing two trailers for the season, featuring the opposing perspective of the two factions: the Blacks and the Greens. My write-up of the trailer for my dad counted as my monthly blog post submission.
This month – since the show doesn’t have the cool traversing-the-globe opening credit sequence that Game of Thrones had – I wanted to lay out some of the geography for those not fully up on where things are located in Westeros.
There are a million maps of Westeros available, but for this purpose, I decided to use the Game of Thrones boardgame map from Fantasy Flight Games, for no real reason other than I like it.
The Two Towers (or rather, Two Strongholds)
By the end of the first season, the death of King Viserys had put the countryside pretty-much up-for-grabs. The Hightower-controlled faction held the capital, King’s Landing, with King Aegon (the deceased King Viserys’ eldest son) on the Iron Throne, wearing the crown of Aegon the Conqueror, and Princess Queen Rhaenyra held Dragonstone, the island fortress where the king’s heir traditionally resided. She managed to get her hands on another crown – her father’s.
Reminder – Rhaenyra is legally Viserys’ heir.
These two locations are practically next to each other on the map, separated by Blackwater Bay and the Crownlands.
Right next to the island fortress of Dragonstone is the island of Driftmark the seat of the powerful House Velaryon who are sworn to Rhaenyra’s claim. Just to the south of these two warring children of Viserys is Storm’s End, the seat of House Baratheon, who has sworn loyalty to King Aegon by virtue of a marriage pact between Aegon’s brother Aemond Targaryen and one of Lord Baratheon’s daughters. Shipbreaker Bay is the location where Aemond’s dragon Vhagar killed Rhaenyra’s son Lucerys as a consequence of dragon-vs-dragon combat.
We know that Rhaenyra is going to be near Storm’s End, according to the trailers.
The Rose Road
With Rhaenyra and Aegon being so close to one another, one might think that the Dance of the Dragons would be confined to the Blackwater Bay area. BUT – in the first trailer we saw troops from the Reach on the march.
We know that they’re from the Reach because we can see the Hightower sigil on their banners and armor. They would be marching from Oldtown, one of the oldest cities in Westeros, and part of the Tyrell-controlled Kingdom of the Reach.
That looks like a long march, but at least there’s a road (the Rose Road) to make the traveling easier.
The last time we saw an army marching from the Reach (Highgarden, specifically) to King’s Landing, it was not a dull affair.
Are there going to be other armies marching on long roads towards King’s Landing as part of the greater Targaryen vs Targaryen conflict? Rhaenyra, at the end of Season One, had dispatched her eldest son Jacaerys to treat with Lady Jeyne Arryn in the Vale and with Lord Cregan Stark in the North. One would imagine it would take the Northmen longer to get to the capital area from Winterfell than it would the Hightower troops to get to King’s Landing from Oldtown.
But it’s not yet established who the various kingdoms are going to side with. Any army from Oldtown would have to march past Highgarden, so whether the Tyrells would back the play of their Hightower vassals or not is a factor to consider. The Vale of Arryn might be problematic for Rhaenyra’s diplomatic gesture, since Daemon Targaryen was famously a bad husband to Lady Rhea Royce, his first wife – who was from the Vale. The Riverlords are notoriously contentious and hard to unify, something that’s still the case hundreds of years later – during Robert’s Rebellion, some Riverlands houses followed the wishes of the liege lord Hoster Tully in supporting Robert Baratheon, but some held to their allegiance to King Aerys.
The Crownlands
In the immediate locale around King’s Landing, and within striking distance of Dragonstone, are noble Houses not far from the coastline of Blackwater Bay. These are the Crownlands, the region not associated with the nearby kingdoms of the Riverlands or the Stormlands. It is generally considered to be a region directly controlled by the crown (the name Crownlands might be a give-away) but with two different Targaryens wearing the crowns of two different former kings, to whom do the Crownlands give their allegiance to?
The trailer has shown armed forces from several of the notable Houses from the Crownlands.
The shields of these troops indicate House Rosby and House Stokeworth, and the helmets of the riders in the background correspond with the Hightower helmets from before. So at least these Crownlander troops are aligned with King Aegon.
Likewise, there’s a shot of Hightower troops marching from behind, interspersed with men-at-arms wearing very distinctive kettle-helms.
I zoomed in on the kettle helm troops who had their shields on their backs, and the shield design is compatible with the sigil of House Duskendale, another Crownlands house.
So the bad news for Rhaenyra is that the Crownlands appear to not be supporting her claim.
The Lord(s) of the Tides
Rhaenyra does have an immediate advantage in the Blackwater Bay area though – her naval commander Lord Corlys Velaryon has a serious fleet, within easy sailing distance of King’s Landing.
But the Greens aren’t necessarily without ships though – just maybe not in the King’s Landing region. House Redwyne commands an impressive fleet, and the Lannisters have a fleet at Lannisport. The Redwynes are from the Reach and are on the Arbor – an island not far from Oldtown. And Tyland Lannister is King Aegon’s Master of Ships (or at least, he was Master of Ships for King Viserys, and was a willing conspirator in the plan to usurp the crown from Rhaenyra in favor of King Aegon.)
But there’s also these guys: the Iron Fleet of the Iron Islands.
The fleet at Lannisport and the Redwyne Fleet are not necessarily free to sweep around Dorne and come up to the Blackwater Bay. Not with the Greyjoys on their watery doorstep.
The Iron Island are technically part of the Seven Kingdoms, but they are notoriously frisky and prone to falling into piratical leanings, if the opportunity presents itself. The Lannisters might be loathe to leave Lannisport undefended, and the Redwynes might not want to rely on the Lannisters to safeguard the coastlines of the Reach should the Arbor fleet sail east along Dorne. Particularly if House Greyjoy decides to root for Rhaenyra.
That’s not to say that the Velaryon Fleet can just operate without any concerns. Season One of House of the Dragon established that the Triarchy – an alliance of three free cities in Essos – were happy to challenge Velaryon shipping in the Narrow Sea. Daemon Targaryen killed the piratical Triarchy-funded Crabfeeder and Daemon was briefly declared the King of the Narrow Sea, but he abandoned the Stepstone Islands for more civilized surroundings and we later found out in small council meetings that the Viserys administration was not necessarily committed to putting too much investment in clamping down on the Triarchy.
Although, maybe Laenor and Qarl Corey and their nautical mercenaries are keeping the pirates at bay, letting Laenor’s dad focus on the usurping Westerosi threat. I guess we’ll find out.
I enjoyed the bloody trailer for House of the Dragon in the first season, I guess, but I do miss the map overview from Game of Thrones. Of course, if you don’t show a map, armies can just shoot about at rapid speeds. Maybe the showrunners for Game of Thrones did themselves a disservice by letting the audience have some insight into the logistical concerns.
No. Show us a map, and let things make sense.
(Comments are always welcome. Super welcome! But if you want to talk spoilery Game of Thrones talk with me (also welcome) I’d invite you to visit my Safe Spoilers page on my backup blog. That way my non-book-reading friends won’t be shocked with foreknowledge.)
Images from HBO’s HOUSE OF THE DRAGON and GAME OF THRONES. (And also, the map from the Game of Thrones boardgame from Fantasy Flight Games. I make no claims to the artwork, but some claims to the text here. So there.
If you liked this article, thank you! I have all of my Game of Thrones related articles on my handy-dandy Game of Thrones page should you want to read more but don’t want to navigate around my site.
© Patrick Sponaugle 2024 Some Rights Reserved
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