House Velaryon

Corlys Velaryon

the Sea Snake

Life: 53 AC
House: Velaryon

The Lord of the Tides weathered the war's worst losses — the chronicle keeps his final chapter veiled for the show-only reader.

Corlys Velaryon inherited an old and wealthy house and then spent his youth proving he did not need the inheritance, sailing his ship the Sea Snake on nine great voyages east — to Qarth, to Yi Ti, as far as the shores of Leng, by his own later telling — and returning each time richer and more famous than the last. Wed at sixteen to Princess Rhaenys Targaryen, herself passed over for the Iron Throne at the Great Council of 101 AC, Corlys built Driftmark into a fortune the crown itself sometimes had to borrow from, and wore the title Lord of the Tides less as an honor than as a fact the rest of Westeros had simply been made to accept.

The arc of Corlys Velaryon

This carries the character’s road through the published novels. Read on only if you do not fear to know.

The Dance of the Dragons costs Corlys nearly everything his voyages had built toward: his son Laenor dead before the war even properly begins, his daughter Laena dead in childbirth years earlier, and his wife Rhaenys burned from the sky at Rook's Rest fighting for a Black cause the Sea Snake had staked his whole house on. Maimed himself and increasingly doubtful the war could still be won cleanly, he becomes, in its final days, one of the conspirators behind Aegon II's poisoning — a Hour of the Wolf plot aimed less at revenge than at simply making the killing stop. He lived on afterward, Lord of the Tides to the last, outliving nearly everyone the war had asked him to lose.

Where the books leave Corlys Velaryon: died in 132 AC at seventy-nine, collapsing on a stairway at his own seat, and was given the burial he had long since arranged for himself — at sea, aboard his own ship, in the deep water east of Dragonstone

These partings name deaths, endings, and roads not yet ridden in the books. Unveil them only if both roads are known to you — or if you do not fear to know.

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House

Who is Corlys Velaryon?

The Lord of the Tides and head of House Velaryon, famed for nine great voyages east aboard the Sea Snake, and husband to Princess Rhaenys Targaryen.

Is Corlys Velaryon alive?

No — the chronicle need only say that the Sea Snake outlived nearly everyone the war asked him to lose; the particulars are treated in his veiled record.