#Meria Martell

[holly-mckenzie]

“I will not fight you,” Princess Meria told Rhaenys, “nor will I kneel to you. Dorne has no king. Tell your brother that.”

“I shall,” Rhaenys replied, “but we will come again, Princess, and the next time we shall come with fire and blood.”

“Your words,” said Princess Meria. “Ours are Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken. You may burn us, my lady…but you will not bend us, break us, or make us bow. This is Dorne. You are not wanted here. Return at your peril.”

Thus queen and princess parted, and Dorne remained unconquered.

FIRE & BLOOD | Aegon's Conquest

[august-diehl]

KINGS OF WESTEROS DURING AEGON'S CONQUEST

Aegon's Conquest, also called the Conquest, was the campaign in which Aegon I Targaryen conquered most of Westeros. Aegon subdued six of the Seven Kingdoms, successfully resisted only by Dorne.

[cinematic-phosphenes]

ASOIAF as historical paintings (17/∞) Meria Nymeros Martell, the Ruling Princess of Dorne during Aegon's Conquest

Meria: I will not fight you, nor will I kneel to you. Dorne has no king. Tell your brother that. Rhaenys: I shall, but we will come again, Princess, and the next time we shall come with fire and blood. Meria: Your words. Ours are Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken. You may burn us, my lady ... but you will not bend us, break us, or make us bow. This is Dorne. You are not wanted here. Return at your peril. (The World of Ice & Fire)

art by Charles Guillaume Brun

[fandomlife-confessions]

[sihtryggr]

😭😭😭

[tylands]

ASOIAF LIVES SERIES

THE LIFE OF: PRINCESS MERIA MARTELL OF DORNE

"Meria Martell was eighty years of age, and had ruled Dorne for sixty of those. She was very fat, blind, and almost bald, her skin sallow and sagging. Argilac the Arrogant had named her 'The Yellow Toad of Dorne' but neither age nor blindness had dulled her wits." Fire & Blood, pg 23.

"They had hardly reached King's Landing before Dorne erupted behind them (...) After the Dornishmen swarmed in from the shadow city to retake the castle, he was bound hand and foot, dragged to the top of the spear tower, and thrown from a window by none other than the aged Princess Meria herself." Fire & Blood, pg 33.

"The Yellow Toad of Dorne had done what Harren the Black, the Two Kings, and Torrhen Stark, could not; she had defeated Aegon Targaryen and his dragons. Yet north of the Red Mountains, her tactics earned her only scorn." - Fire & Blood, pg 39.pre

[martellspear]

MARTELL WEEK - day O3

⤻ favorite moment

“I will not fight you,” Princess Meria told Rhaenys, “nor will I kneel to you. Dorne has no king. Tell your brother that.” “I shall,” Rhaenys replied, “but we will come again, Princess, and the next time we shall come with fire and blood.” “Your words,” said Princess Meria. “Ours are Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken. You may burn us, my lady...but you will not bend us, break us, or make us bow. This is Dorne. You are not wanted here. Return at your peril.” Thus queen and princess parted, and Dorne remained unconquered.

fire and blood, george r. r. martin

[arwyd]

“Yeet”

-Meria Martell to Lord Rosby moments before pushing him from the top of the Spear Tower, probably

[mariedemedicis]

Ladies of House Martell:

Meria

[queenaryastark]

As gross as the parallel is, it's interesting that GRRM has Quentyn hear false rumors of Dany that vilify her for promiscuity in a similar way that their shared ancestor, Meria was vilified by her enemies:

The more Quentyn heard of Daenerys Targaryen, the more he feared that meeting. The Yunkai'i claimed that she fed her dragons on human flesh and bathed in the blood of virgins to keep her skin smooth and supple. Beans laughed at that but relished the tales of the silver queen's promiscuity. "One of her captains comes of a line where the men have foot-long members," he told them, "but even he's not big enough for her. She rode with the Dothraki and grew accustomed to being fucked by stallions, so now no man can fill her." -- Quentyn II, ADWD

---

Age and ill health finally did what dragons and armies could not. In 13 AC, Meria Martell, the Yellow Toad of Dorne, died abed (whilst having intimate relations with a stallion, her enemies insisted). -- Fire and Blood

Both Dany and Meria are/were powerful women ruling in their own right whose enemies fabricated falsehoods about them and tried to depict them as sexually depraved since they couldn't defeat them. This is clearly an intentional parallel not only between Dany and her ancestor but between both of them and Catherine the Great who was also sexualized by her enemies, who couldn't defeat her. She, too, was said to be participating in beastiality with a horse when she died, which was false.

Through Dany and Meria, GRRM is showing how women in positions of power are vilified by misogynists who want to uphold the status quo.

[prettymuchteddy]

A Welcome to Dorne

The Yellow Toad of Dorne knew they were coming. The moment the sky cried out a thunderous roar, she knew that they were upon Sunspear. The ground shook briefly. They had landed. Still, she did not move from her seat. They would see her on her throne as her subjects had done before. 

Hollow steps approached the throne room. The doors creaked open.

“Who are you?” a voice demanded.

She did not reply. The tone was already testing her temper.

“Where are the guards? The servants? Or is this an ambush?” the voice asked. “If it is, Meraxes is waiting outside, unless you wish this castle to be burned to the ground, I would advise against it.”  

She hummed. “You’re one of his consorts, aren’t you?”

“I am the wife of the future King Aegon, Rhaenys Targaryen.”

“Ah, the second one.”

“You’ve heard of us.”

“Here and there amongst the usual ramble of attempted invaders.”

“There is nothing usual about us.”

“So, I’ve heard. You have a different kind of weapon…a living one.”

“Our dragons have already defeated the Lord of High Garden, the Stormlands, the Riverlands, and the Isles, that is not to mention the submission of House Stark, Arryn, and Lannister. We have conquered most of Westeros. Would you count that as usual?”

“You believe a few bent knees are worth anything?”

“Those bent knees have welcomed us into the continent.”

“Some plots of land and six divided unruly kingdoms, what a prize you’ve won.”

“We’re looking to make it seven.”

The Toad smiled—a cruel smile.

“We both know what I’m here for”, Rhaenys said. “I will give you the same choice as the others, bend the knee or else.”

“I’m afraid, I can’t barely sit up, much less bend a knee.”

“Do you think this is a jest?”

“Hardly, if it were I would be laughing.”

“Who do you think you are?”

The old woman frowned. “I am Princess Meria of House Martell, ruler of Dorne.”

“Former ruler”, Rhaenys added.

“You are on my land, my lady. Not yours. Your blood does not flow into the sand of these desserts. Your ancestor’s hands didn’t build these castles. You hold nothing to this place.”

“I intend to change that.”

“I will not fight you, nor will I kneel to you. Dorne has no king. Tell your brother that.”

“I shall but we will come again, Princess and the next time we shall come with fire and blood.”

“Your words. Ours are Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken. You may burn us my lady…but you will not bend us, break us, or make us bow. This is Dorne. You are not wanted here. Return at your own peril.”

A deadly silence fell over the throne room. The same hollow footsteps eventually began walking toward the doors. They creaked open before shutting close.

Moments went by before hushed steps went across the marble floor.

“Princess, are you alright?” the timid voice of a servant asked.

Meria turned her head. The young girl had stayed despite her orders.

The girl went to her side. “She’s one of them, those Dragonriders. She’ll come back again, won’t she?”

“She will.”

“What will we do? She flies on a dragon.”

“Do you fear little birds because they can fly?”

“No?”

“We hunt them, don’t we? They can soar above in the air yet we can still hunt them.”

“Yes, with arrows but they aren’t the same, dragons breathe fire”, the girl insisted.

“And birds can peck your eyes out. Just because something can fly doesn’t mean they are invincible.”

“But then how can we kill them? They’ll return to try and conquer Dorne.”

Meria crossed her hands together. She neither smiled nor frowned. “Then we’ll have to shoot this little bird out of the sky.”

Technically not part of Martell week but I'm glad it fell on it :) Lowkey dedicated to @martellspear

[coldraindropsss]

Meria Martell, the Yellow Toad of Dorne, The red Princes of Dorne

[natividadmoon]

Day EXTRA Martell Week: Favorite trope/HC

Even the extra ends, yesssss! It was going to be a fuller image to show you the top and pants that I feel like the Martells wear under some tunics, but it stayed at the bust size. One of HC that I try to capture is the use of Khol on the eyes like the rings inspired by ones of Andalusian origin that a friend showed me.

The one in the drawing is a young Meria, by the way, about 30 years old, a mother and I think she was already princess regent of Dorne, so she was a determined and tenacious woman from a very young age. willing to tarnish her image in history, if that gave freedom to her lands and her people.

Nymeria drawing of the character of the day

[martellweek]

officially one week until martell week!!

— Meria Martell

"Your words. Ours are Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken. You may burn us, my lady ... but you will not bend us, break us, or make us bow. This is Dorne. You are not wanted here. Return at your peril."

[atopvisenyashill]

A timeline of the ruling princes and princesses of Dorne from Meria Martell’s death to the formal union of Dorne and the rest of the Seven Kingdoms in 187 AC.

Anything marked with a * means it’s a canon date. The rest are speculation and a lot of math on my part. I also made up the names for a few characters as well! Also rip the quality on this but when you click it, it looks better.

More explanation under the cut.

Where I ran into most trouble in trying to figure out this timeline when we have not nearly as much information as we do about literally every other major Great House of Westeros, is the line from Morion the Mad to Qoren Martell. There’s several quick changes in princes during that time and we don’t even know what their relation is to one another in several instances. So I tried working out the timeline in a few different ways - I tried it with Mara Martell, Morion’s heir, as his very young daughter, as a twin sister, as a younger sister, and I finally settled on her being his much older aunt as making the most sense.

I think it makes the most sense because Morion is considered young and yet his father was Prince for a very long time; it doesn’t make sense that a ruling prince would wait so long to have an heir unless in a parallel to Jaehaerys’ later issue, several of his heirs die and leave the line of succession a bit uncertain. So I concluded that Morion’s father, who I named Voren, had several older children that died, likely during the Vulture King’s first war (we know it’s suspected Deria was funding him) so when Voren died, the throne went to his reckless, dumb ass youngest son, Morion. With Morion dying without any children, the throne passes next to Deria’s second child, Mara, and the Nymeros Martell line descends from them. This also makes sense because in canon, Morion was angry that his father didn’t send soldiers to kick the Iron Throne out of the Dornish Marches during Lord Rogar’s War; if Voren had children that had died in a previous conflict, it would make sense that he’d hesitate to get involved again.

Qoren was also a bit tricky. He had to be old enough to fight in the Stepstones War against Daemon, but young enough to not be married yet and be considered a potential match for Rhaenyra two years later. After a lot of wondering how in the hell I make that work, I finally figured - again, similar to Cregan Stark and Jaeherys, that there was a surplus of heirs at this time. Mara would have come into her throne already old with children and grandchildren, and her heir would come into the throne also already old, same as Meria/Nymor/Deria. Makes sense that the prince before Qoren was therefore a grandfather or great-grandfather, and that Qoren’s father never took the Sunspear Throne.

I stopped at the unification of the Seven Kingdoms simply because we get absolutely no information on what was going on in Dorne until Doran’s mother. Apparently, Dorne was real quiet during the Blackfyre Rebellions, hah.

And as for names...

Voren - we have several instances of Dornishmen with names that end in the -en sound. Doran, Oberyn, Llewyn, Yoren, etc. It seems like a common naming quirk, similar to the Northerners being really fond of -on and -ard endings. I thought Voren sounded the most like a real name.

Ellario - We have Elia and Ellaria so I figured there should be a male version of the name. I didn’t want to use Elio, so Ellario was born.

[twoiafart]

Meria Martell receives the letter from Aegon Targaryen the Conqueror Artist: Francisco Vegas