[Dorne — Locations]
He states that he wants to serve Daenerys for the long term, and wants to make sure that, after she is Queen and broken the wheel, it stays broken after her death. He states that Daenerys once said she believes she can't have children, but that there are other ways to name an heir. Daenerys says he's been thinking of her death for quite a while, and angrily reminds him they lost Dorne and Highgarden because of his lack of planning for the short term. Tyrion remains silent as Daenerys says they will discuss this further after she is Queen.
Tyrion tests the loyalty of the remaining Small Council members by feeding each of them a different marriage plan for Myrcella . Pycelle dutifully informs Cersei of Tyrion's plans to marry Myrcella into House Martell of Dorne despite his promise to keep them secret. Cersei confronts Tyrion who insists that the alliance is necessary and that Myrcella will be safer in Dorne. He then has Pycelle arrested for breaking his confidence. Tyrion sends Petyr Baelish to negotiate with Catelyn Stark , leaving Varys as the last active member of Cersei's Small Council in the city.
Cersei is present while Qyburn is attaching Jaime's golden prosthetic hand that she commissioned for him because she's so disgusted by his stump. After Qyburn departs from Cersei's chambers, Jaime asks why she drinks more than she used to. Cersei replies that she drinks more because Jaime left the capital, Robert was killed, Myrcella was shipped off to Dorne, they suffered through a siege, and her son Joffrey is being married to Margaery whom she despises. When Jaime tries to make love to her, she refuses him and says that everything has changed and that he took too long to return.
Cersei summons Jaime to show him a box she's received. Inside, a stuffed Red Viper holds Myrcella's necklace in its jaws. Cersei is both unnerved and unsurprised by the threat as Dorne blames the Lannisters for the deaths of Oberyn and Elia Martell. Acknowledging Cersei's distress, Jaime makes a promise: "I'm going to Dorne. And I'm bringing our daughter home." When Jaime asks Bronn to join him in this quest, he reveals that Cersei has arranged for Wyllis Bracken to wed Lollys Stokeworth instead of Bronn, breaking their agreement.
Cersei also has a tendency to irrationally blame other people for problems she actually started herself though her ego won't let her admit otherwise. When Jaime reminds her that the world mustn't know Myrcella really is their daughter, she hypocritically faults him for his caution, saying it led to Joffrey being murdered and Myrcella being sent to Dorne in the first place, even though she was the one who had Joffrey installed on the throne in the first place rather than flee when Ned Stark warned her of his intentions in order to spare her children's lives. Although she later acknowledges that Tyrion did not in fact kill Joffrey, she blames him for the deaths of her other two children by sending Myrcella to Dorne and killing Tywin, an act that she says made the Lannisters vulnerable to their enemies. Again, Cersei forgets that Tyrion's actions were brought on entirely by her own, namely her failure to stop Joffrey from executing Ned and igniting a war, and later irrationally accusing Tyrion for Joffrey's murder. Furthermore she openly ignores that, after their father's death, she was the one who made the mistakes that destabilized more and more the position of their family.
Tyrion once observed that Cersei's love for her children is her one obvious redeeming quality - but she even managed to twist this into a negative. Cersei doesn't really "love" her children so much as she is obsessed with her mental constructs of them. She spent Joffrey's entire childhood convinced that he was going to grow up to be the best king ever, wise and brave - to the point that she blinded herself to his obviously psychopathic behavior. However, in spite of her obvious favoritism and far from realistic conception of her son, she at least acknowledged that Joffrey was indeed a monster after his death, implying she wasn't as deluded as she appeared. Her overindulgence of Joffrey also spoiled him rotten, filling him with an insatiable sense of entitlement - nor did he particularly give her much respect in return. Meanwhile, Cersei seems oblivious to the fact that she ignored her two younger children, Myrcella and Tommen . While Cersei is constantly upset that her own father Tywin played favorites with his children and focused all of his attention on her brother Jaime, she hypocritically visited the same treatment on her own children. She fixated on Joffrey so much that she barely knew Myrcella and Tommen, rarely engaging them in conversation except when she needed to manipulate them. After Myrcella was sent away to Dorne in a marriage-alliance, Cersei assumed she was suffering away from her family, not suspecting that Myrcella would actually find happiness once she was free from Cersei's control and not even want to come back to her. After spending some years in Dorne away from her, Myrcella outright said that Cersei doesn't even know her. Finally, after the destruction of the Great Sept of Baelor, Cersei tells a captured Unella, she was motivated by protecting her last living child, Tommen. However, Cersei once again proves what a poor parent she is by not going immediately to Tommen after his wife is killed in the explosion and preventing his suicide as she was too preoccupied with paying back Unella for imprisoning and humiliating her. In the end, Cersei kept her children close to herself more than most of other Westeros' noblewomen did with theirs, but still she managed to not truly know them and to, indirectly, cause their death; even her fourth child with Jaime could have lived if Cersei had accepted her defeat instead of foolishly refuse to surrender. All this happened because what Cersei loved the most were herself and, especially, power, so she never actually thought, or maybe cared, about how much her pursuing of it would have endangered her children before it was too late, and still, even after losing them one after the other, she never accepted her responsibility nor learned from her mistakes until she died herself with her unborn child.
Not long after, Jaime and Bronn arrive in Dorne, where Bronn narrowly saves Jaime from being poisoned by a viper. As they make their way towards Dorne, they are discovered by Dornish soldiers and a fight ensues. Jaime personally duels one of the soldiers and holds his own with his left hand until he is disarmed. The man moves in to kill Jaime, who catches the blade in his metal hand and uses the distraction to get his sword and finish his opponent. Over Bronn's protests, Jaime insists that they bury the soldiers in order to avoid suspicions. Unbeknownst to either, Ellaria Sand and the Sand Snakes are aware that Jaime is coming for Myrcella.
Jaime returns from Dorne with Myrcella's corpse. He then comforts Cersei in her quarters and the conversation shifts to the death of their mother. Cersei then tells Jaime about the prophecy that Maggy told her as a child concerning the deaths of her children. Jaime brushes this off, insisting that they are the only two who have ever mattered and promising they will take back everything that has been stolen from them. Aware that Doran Martell had nothing to do with Myrcella's murder, Jaime sends Doran a letter demanding the heads of Ellaria and the three Sand Snakes responsible, which leads to the deaths of Doran and Trystane at Ellaria's hands .
Jaime does not travel to Dorne to rescue Myrcella from any danger. Cersei instead sends him to the Riverlands to end the siege and persuade Brynden Tully to surrender Riverrun to the Frey garrison in exchange for Edmure Tully's safety, while Ser Balon Swann is sent to Dorne to bring Myrcella (and also to play his part in Cersei's failed scheme to assassinate Trystane Martell). Jaime is still in the Riverlands when Ser Balon reports to Kevan about the attempt on Myrcella, who survived but was horribly disfigured, thus he has no idea what happened to her by the point the books reached.
Sansa attends the departure of Princess Myrcella Baratheon for Dorne . She stands up to Joffrey when he mocks his brother Tommen for crying. As the royal party returns to the Red Keep, Joffrey is struck by excrement thrown by the angry crowd. Joffrey causes citywide riots by demanding that his guards kill all of the smallfolk present. In the chaos, Sansa is separated from the rest of the group and as she tries to flee to safety, she is pursued by a group of men who nearly rape her. She is rescued by the Hound, just as Tyrion is in the process of browbeating Joffrey for losing her in the first place. Shae treats her injuries and Sansa confides she thought the rioters were going to kill her, observing how they hated her and wonders why they would hate a stranger so much. Shae replies it is because Sansa has more than they will ever have, that her horse eats better than their children. Sansa says she would have given them food if she had it and she too hates Joffrey more than anyone. Shae warns her not to say such things and to trust no-one.
Samwell later reads with Gilly , who, while reading the journal of High Septon Maynard , discovers that " Prince Ragger " (a mispronunciation of "Rhaegar") had his first marriage annulled and secretly remarried while in Dorne . Samwell, however, pays no attention to this and vents his frustration over the Citadel likely not doing anything about the undead threat. He resolves to leave Oldtown with Gilly and Little Sam. He gathers dozens of books from the forbidden library in the Citadel before departing from Oldtown, quoting his father on how he is sick of reading about the achievements of better men.
Yara and Theon attend Daenerys's council meeting, after which, as part of Tyrion's plan to lay siege to King's Landing, Theon and Yara are tasked with escorting Ellaria Sand and the Sand Snakes back to Dorne. On the voyage back to Sunspear , Ellaria drinks Ironborn liquor with Yara and Theon, which she compares unfavorably to Dornish wine. Ellaria asks Yara if she had ever been to Dorne, to which Yara responds that she has been there a few times. Ellaria responds that there is a boy in every port in Dorne, which Yara responds, "A boy, a girl. Depends on the port." Yara and Ellaria begin to sexually flirt with each other. Yara tells Ellaria that Theon will serve as both her bodyguard and adviser. Yara puts her feet up on the table. Ellaria bends over Yara and spreads her legs apart across the table. Ellaria moves her hand up Yara's leg towards her crotch. Ellaria invites Theon to have a threesome with her and Yara, but Yara tells Ellaria to "Leave him be."
Joffrey attends the departure of his sister Myrcella Baratheon for Dorne as part of a marriage alliance pact; he notices his little brother Tommen crying and cruelly sneers at him for crying because princes don't cry, reacting with anger when Sansa points out that she saw him cry once. Joffrey is confronted by the populace as he makes his way back to the Red Keep , all of whom are starving and angry.
Prince Oberyn Martell , also known as the Red Viper of Dorne , was a member of House Martell , the ruling family of Dorne , the younger brother of Doran Martell and the late Elia Martell , the father of eight bastard girls known as the Sand Snakes , and a member of the Small Council for Dorne to Tommen I . He was renowned for his skill with a staff, his spirit for vengeance, and fluid sexuality.
After briefly discussing Oberyn's experience studying poisons at the Citadel, the Hand asks Oberyn to be the third judge at Tyrion's trial. Oberyn initially refuses, confirming that he blames Tywin for Elia's death (though he notes he is not foolish enough to take the consequences of killing Tywin to satisfy his vengeance). However, he reconsiders when Tywin offers Oberyn in particular and Dorne in general a seat on the Small Council .
Tywin explains that he wants to reunify the realms because House Greyjoy is in rebellion, Mance Rayder is marching towards the Wall with his wildling army, and Daenerys Targaryen has her eyes set on Westeros, and the last time dragons assaulted Westeros, only Dorne successfully resisted them . Oberyn is pleased that Tywin has, in a roundabout fashion, admitted that he needs Dorne. He is also placated by Tywin's promise to arrange for him to confront Gregor Clegane privately.
Following the coronation of Tommen Baratheon , Oberyn takes some time to write a bit of poetry in the gardens to his fifth daughter, Elia , named after his late sister. Cersei visits him and asks for a word. They discuss their children and Oberyn reveals he has eight daughters . Cersei asks after her daughter Myrcella , and Oberyn tells her that she is doing well and last he had seen her, she was playing with two of his daughters in the Water Gardens back in Dorne . Cersei asks Oberyn to deliver a gift to Myrcella, a ship, and then departs, leaving the prince trying to decide if he is to sympathize with a Lannister, though he promises to have it sent to Sunspear .
Oberyn's body is returned to Dorne, where Doran intends to bury and mourn for him. Despite his grief and anger at losing another sibling (his last one in fact) at the hands of the Mountain, Doran recognizes that Oberyn died fighting voluntarily in a trial by combat, which by law is not considered murder. However, Oberyn's popularity among the people of Dorne led many to demand war against the Lannisters as retribution for his death. Most vocal in support of war are Oberyn's paramour Ellaria and his daughters, the Sand Snakes. However, Doran refuses to inflict war on his people, especially a war he doesn't believe Dorne can win.
Oberyn has a lined face with thin eyebrows, black "viper" eyes and a sharp nose. His hair is lustrous and black with only a few silver streaks and recedes from his brow into a widow's peak. It is rumored that he has sexual relations with his squires when Ellaria is unavailable. It is not unusual for lords and ladies in Dorne to be openly bisexual, due to the relaxed attitude towards sexuality among the Dornish.
In a way he is the counterpart of Robert Baratheon . While he has also a veracious sexual appetite, he doesn't ignore the children that are born out of it and takes care of them, raises them at the court of Dorne.
During a tourney, Oberyn jousted against Willas Tyrell , eldest son of Mace Tyrell and heir to Highgarden . Oberyn knocked Willas from his horse, but Willas's foot got caught in the stirrup and the horse fell on him, crushing his leg and leaving him crippled. Though Willas does not personally bear any ill-will towards Oberyn for the incident and they continue a friendly correspondence, it becomes a new source of friction in the ancient feud between Dorne and the Reach.
Gregor is present standing guard over Cersei when Jaime returns from Dorne with Myrcella 's body. Later, Gregor continues to serve Cersei without question. He finds a man who boasts of having flashed his penis at Cersei during her walk and bashes his head against a wall, killing him.
Gregor follows Cersei and Jaime into Qyburn's laboratory, where the former Maester tries to win the service of the little birds by offering them candied plums from Dorne; the children are extremely frightened by the towering knight and quickly flee the room. Jaime asks what Qyburn has done to Gregor, to which the latter replies with "a number of things." Jaime wonders whether Gregor is able to understand what they are saying, then insults his intelligence by questioning whether he ever understood complete sentences at all, to which the huge knight menacingly turns his head towards Jaime. Qyburn assures that Gregor understands well enough. Jaime suggested sending Ser Gregor to the High Septon to crush him and his Faith Militants. Cersei disagrees, saying they can't let Ser Gregor face them all and that he only needs to face one, implying the coming trial by combat.
This joy is shattered, however, with the deaths of her son and grandchildren, orchestrated by Cersei. Left as the sole ruler of House Tyrell, Olenna declares war on Cersei, and accepts an invitation to Dorne to meet with Ellaria Sand . Wreathed in black as a sign of mourning and quite clearly struggling to control her emotions at the loss of her beloved family, Olenna listens to Ellaria's offer of an alliance between Dorne and the Reach in the interest of survival. After making plain her disgust at Ellaria and the Sand Snakes for their action to seize power in Dorne, Olenna flatly tells Ellaria that she no longer cares about survival.
Dorne was a sovereign kingdom before the invasion of Aegon the Conqueror , and weathered his attack to remain one afterwards, the only one of the Seven Kingdoms to retain its independence. It joined the Seven Kingdoms through peaceful marriage alliance nearly two centuries later, only one century before Robert's Rebellion . As a result of joining through marriage and not conquest, Dorne was allowed to keep many of its local customs and laws, such as equal inheritance laws for male and female heirs. Due to these different ethnic, legal, and political factors, the Dornishmen are very independently minded, with a stronger sense of "national identity" than many of the other Seven Kingdoms.
Dorne is ruled from the castle of Sunspear . Bastards born in Dorne are given the surname Sand. Things from Dorne are known as "Dornish," while the people of Dorne are properly known as the " Dornishmen ," though its people are sometimes simply referred to as "the Dornish."
Following the recent Sand Snakes -led rebellion , all known trueborn members of House Martell are now dead, with the region under the command of Ellaria Sand . However, Ellaria herself was captured and imprisoned in King's Landing after Euron Greyjoy attacked the fleet transporting her back to Dorne for the army, leaving a new Prince of Dorne to assume power in Dorne.
Dorne contains the only desert on the entire continent of Westeros, and due to its arid climate it has one of the smallest overall populations. It is the only part of Westeros where citrus fruits and spices grow. Dornish wine is also highly prized throughout all of Westeros, and considered to be among the best imports available.
Dorne is separated from the Stormlands by the Sea of Dorne and is surrounded by water on three sides. However, the coast of Dorne is rocky and mostly consists of towering cliffs. The only notable port is at Sunspear, and even this is poor compared to Oldtown to the west or King's Landing to the north. For this reason, Sunspear lacks any major strength at sea and is not a notable center for trade. However, the Dornish traditionally have greater ties to Essos than many of the other parts of Westeros, with the Prince of Dorne enjoying friendly relations with several of the Free Cities .
According to legend, Dorne once formed part of a land bridge, called the "Arm of Dorne," that linked Westeros and the eastern continent of Essos . The First Men arrived in Westeros by crossing this land bridge some 12,000 years ago, and came into conflict with the non-human Children of the Forest that already inhabited the continent. To try to halt the advance of the First Men, the Children are said to have called upon powerful magics which shattered the Arm of Dorne, sinking large portions of it into the Narrow Sea. All that remains of the Arm of Dorne in the present day is a string of islands called the Stepstones , which run between Westeros and Essos. The eastern peninsula of Dorne which terminates at the ocean is thus often called the Broken Arm of Dorne. The destruction of the Arm of Dorne, however, did not stop the advance of the First Men throughout Westeros.
Overland travel between the Dorne peninsula and the rest of Westeros is severely restricted due to the Red Mountains , a large mountain chain along Dorne's northern and western borders, which possess only a few passes such as the Boneway and the Prince's Pass . The rough valleys of the Red Mountains have been the site of border squabbles between Dorne, the Reach , and the Stormlands , for the better part of the past thousand years. The salient of territory possessed by the Stormlands in the Red Mountains, along Dorne's northern border, is thus called the Dornish Marches .
Central Dorne, east of the Red Mountains and west of the hills where the Greenblood river system begins, is completely inhospitable. Central Dorne is a true rolling-sands desert, with little plant life and almost completely uninhabited by people, save for the occasional oasis-castle.
Dorne's population is congregated around the coasts, and the few major rivers such as the Greenblood . The valley of the Greenblood begins in the hills of eastern Dorne and continues east until it empties into the Narrow Sea. Most of the population is concentrated in the river valleys of the east, and are so crowded that casual observers visiting Dorne don't realize how small its total population actually is (not realizing that the towns they see in the valley of the Greenblood represent almost the entire population). Even the eastern region of Dorne is arid, but irrigation in the river valleys makes it agriculturally productive.
Like the Reach and the Vale of Arryn , during the War of the Five Kings the military strength of Dorne has been left largely unscathed, in part due to their isolation from the conflicts of the war, except the loss of a very few soldiers (killed by Bronn in " Sons of the Harpy ").
In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, Dorne is one of the nine constituent regions of Westeros . It lies along the large peninsula which makes up the southernmost part of the continent. It is bordered by the Sea of Dorne to the north, the islands known as the Stepstones to the east, the Summer Sea to the south, and the Red Mountains to the west and north-west. The landscape consists largely of rocky mountains and parched deserts, with more fertile lands along the rivers and eastern coast. Dorne is ruled from the castle of Sunspear by House Martell .
One thousand years ago, Dorne was a shifting patchwork of small Andal states, with no ruler strong enough to seize control of the entire region. However, a people known as the Rhoynar had fled Essos after their homeland was overrun and destroyed by the expanding power of the Valyrian Freehold . After much wandering, the Rhoynar eventually landed in Dorne, and their leader, Princess Nymeria , forged a marriage alliance with Lord Mors Martell of Sunspear. With his support, she was able to conquer the entire peninsula, uniting it as the Principality of Dorne.
Seven centuries later, when King Aegon I Targaryen invaded Dorne, the Dornish refused to give open battle. Having heard of the defeat of the Reach and the Westerlands at the Field of Fire , they knew that a pitched battle would allow Aegon to deploy his dragons , so instead they adopted guerrilla warfare tactics, striking at Aegon's flanks and supply lines. Aegon was forced to concede defeat and leave the kingdom untaken. A century and a half later King Daeron I , the Young Dragon, invaded Dorne and successfully subdued the kingdom, but lost ten thousand soldiers in the process. Unfortunately for the Targaryens, Dorne rose in rebellion almost immediately after Daeron's troops returned home. In the resulting conflict, forty thousand Targaryen soldiers died, including the Young Dragon, and his successor King Baelor ended up making peace with Dorne instead. Fifty years later, after the long and fruitful marriage of Princess Myria Martell to Prince Daeron (later King Daeron II), Dorne finally joined the Seven Kingdoms through peaceful alliance.
The people of Dorne, the Dornish , are considered a passionate and fiery people, and have more relaxed views on sexual morality than other parts of the Seven Kingdoms. Since Dorne joined the Seven Kingdoms through peaceful alliance and a marriage contract, its people were allowed more indulgences than the other regions conquered by the Targaryens in war. In particular, the rulers of Dorne are allowed to style themselves "Prince" rather than "Lord" and inheritance always passes to the eldest child regardless of gender, in contrast to the male-favoring primogeniture practiced elsewhere in Westeros.
Dorne has never been a sea power; the ten thousand ships that the Rhoynar arrived in were destroyed at Princess Nymeria's order, who turned her back upon the sea forever once she married her Dornish prince. Even though many years passed, the Dornish have never made any efforts to rebuild a fleet. Some Dornish, however, have chosen to continue to practice the traditions of their river-faring ancestors, and built boats from the hulks of the burned ships - they are known as "Orphans of the Greenblood". The watercrafts they have cannot be considered as a fleet, though.
Dorne and the Reach are old enemies, and their ambivalence remains strong despite being unified under the Iron Throne . In the current generation there is also great antipathy for the Lannisters , due to the death of Princess Elia Martell (married to Rhaegar Targaryen ) and her two children during the Sack of King's Landing by Lannister armies. Dorne has maintained something of an isolationist policy for much of the last generation.
According to author George R.R. Martin , Dorne is loosely inspired by Spain, particularly the south's Moorish heritage, which culturally sets it apart from the rest of the country and of Western Europe. There is also some slight inspiration from Wales; the Norman invasion of England in 1066 didn't succeed in conquering the mountainous peninsula of Wales, and it took generations to bring Wales under control. Similarly, the Targaryen Conquest didn't succeed in conquering Dorne, and it remained an independent border state which frustrated any further attempts at conquest by the Targaryens for another two centuries, before being peacefully absorbed through marriage-alliance. Furthermore, Dorne's status as a principality also matches that of medieval Wales, which styled its rulers as princes.
Climatically, culturally and geographically, however, Dorne has many more similarities with Moorish Spain. Politically, Spain's isolation from the rest of Europe throughout much of its history also mirrors that of Dorne. Daeron's invasion of Dorne and subsequent rebellion against him also has strong parallelisms with the Spain's guerrilla war of liberation against Napoleon. In any case, Martin discourages making one for one comparisons:
Dorne also seems to have taken some inspiration from Cornwall , the southwestern peninsula of Britain that like Wales was ethnically distinct from England (being Celtic) and for a time independent. This is in keeping with Martin's comments that Westeros was generally conceived of as a continent-sized analogue of the British Isles. Both Cornwall and Dorne are peninsulas whose relatively isolated position allowed them to remain ethnically distinct from the core regions of their landmass (Cornwall is hilly, Dorne has mountains and deserts). Moreover, the adjective for people and things from Dorne is "Dornish", while the adjective for people and things from Cornwall is "Cornish", which seem to parallel each other.