Dothraki sea
The Dothraki sea,[1][2][3][4] also known as Great Grass Sea,[5][6][7] the Haunted Lands,[4] and the Great Desolation,[4] is a vast inland region of the continent of Essos, located east of the Free Cities, north of Slaver's Bay, and west of the Bone Mountains. Its landscape of steppes and plains is home to the nomadic Dothraki equestrian people, who constantly battle each other and raid surrounding lands.
Contents
Geography
The Dothraki sea is a vast interior of plains and grasslands in central Essos, east of the Free Cities and north of Slaver's Bay. The grasslands are bounded to the west by the Forest of Qohor and to the east by the massive Bone Mountains. Its southern edges are formed (from west to east) by the Painted Mountains, the Skahazadhan, and the red waste. The region is bounded to the north by the Shivering Sea and its various coastlands, including Omber and the great forest containing the Ifequevron and New Ibbish.[8]
Flora and Fauna
Over a hundred types of grass of various colors grow on the plains, often growing thick and taller than a man's head. From afar the grass looks like a sea, rolling like waves in the breeze.[9] Hranna grows in the thick black soil in the west.[9] Gnarled cottonwoods, purple brush, and brown grass can be found in the south of the Dothraki sea.[10]
The Dothraki keep herds of free-ranging horses.[11][12] The hrakkar is a white lion found in the Dothraki sea.[13]
Vaes Dothrak
The Dothraki sea is so immense it can support more than two dozen khalasars.[3] In the eastern grasslands is Vaes Dothrak, the sacred city of the Dothraki, located in the shadow of the Mother of Mountains and by a large lake known as the Womb of the World.[14]
There are some Valyrian roads in the west near the Forest of Qohor.[15] The Steel Road and and the Stone Road originate in Vaes Dothrak and run east through the Bone Mountains.[16] Merchant caravans can travel to trade in the Western and Eastern Markets of Vaes Dothrak as long as they remain peaceful and observe the customs of the city.[13]
Settlements
Vaes Dothrak is the only permanent settlement of the Dothraki.[4] There is also a Lhazareen town just north of the Skahazadhan.[17]
Ruined settlements in or near the grasslands include several in the Kingdom of Sarnor:
In the west is Vaes Khadokh, originally a colony of the Valyrian Freehold. To the north-east in the vicinity of the Kingdom of the Ifequevron are Vaes Leisi and Vaes Aresak.
Vaes Diaf is an isolated ruined Ghiscari city in the central Dothraki lands. Ghiscari ruins by the Skahazadhan along the southern Dothraki sea are:
At the eastern extremity of the Dothraki sea where it meets the Bone Mountains are:
South-east of the Dothraki sea in the red waste are four cities of the Qaathi given Dothraki names:
History
The grasslands are considered by Maester Yandel as the birthplace of civilization, where the first true towns arose beside the banks of the Sarne and its myriad vassal streams.[4] The histories of those days are lost, for these "kingdoms of the grass" rose and fell before the invention of writing. Only legends and tales survive, including those of the the realms of the Fisher Queens beside the inland Silver Sea, the savage Hairy Men, the lost city of Lyber, the woods walkers in the forests on the shores of the Shivering Sea, and, to the east, the kingdoms of the centaurs.[4]
Some maesters believe the First Men originated on the grasslands before beginning the migration that took them to the Arm of Dorne. The Andals may too have arisen in the fertile fields south of the Silver Sea. What is known, however, is that these lands were the home of peoples such as the Cymmeri, the Zoqora, and the Gipps in the central grasslands, the Qaathi to the southeast, and the Tagaez Fen.[4]
Most of the grasslands came to be dominated by the city-states of the Kingdom of Sarnor. The Tall Men came to control the Sarne, its vassal streams, and the three lakes which remained of the Silver Sea.[4]
Scholars believe the ancestors of the Dothraki crossed west over the Bone Mountains.[16] The horselords themselves, however, believe their people came from the Womb of the World, a supposedly bottomless lake beneath the Mother of Mountains.[4][18] The Dothraki reduced Sarnor and several smaller kingdoms to ruin during the Century of Blood, as well as eastern territories of the Free Cities at Essaria and the northernmost settlements of the Ghiscari from Slaver's Bay. The Dothraki sea is thus also known as the Haunted Lands because of its many ruins and as the Great Desolation because of its emptiness.[15]
Recent Events
A Game of Thrones
The khalasar of Khal Drogo travels through the Dothraki sea[9] so his new bride, Daenerys Targaryen, can be presented to the dosh khaleen at Vaes Dothrak.[19] Daenerys visits the Western Market after a caravan arrives from Pentos by way of Qohor and Norvos.[13]
An unnamed city of the Lamb Men in the southern Dothraki sea is attacked by the khalasar of Khal Ogo and then sacked by Drogo's khalasar. Drogo claims the the Lhazareen of the settlement belong south of the river bend instead of in the Dothraki sea.[17]
As Drogo lies dying from his festering wounds, his great khalasar splits into a dozen smaller ones.[11] Daenerys burns herself, Drogo's body, and Mirri Maz Duur in a pyre, and Daenerys emerges unharmed and having hatched three dragons from her dragon eggs.[20]
A Clash of Kings
Daenerys and her meager khalasar flee the Dothraki sea,[2] traveling through the red waste to Qarth.[21]
A Dance with Dragons
Daenerys now rules along Slaver's Bay as Queen of Meereen, and she includes Khaleesi of Great Grass Sea among her titles.[5] Drogon, one of her dragons, is spotted flying north across the Skahazadhan toward the tall grasses of the Dothraki sea after an unsuccessful attempt to chain him.[6] The queen later receives further reports of Drogon in the Dothraki sea.[22]
Drogon eventually returns to Meereen, and Daenerys disappears on his back from Daznak's Pit.[23] Aggo and Rakharo, two of her bloodriders, lead most of her khalasar in searching the Dothraki sea for her.[24][25]
Victarion Greyjoy, having been tasked by his brother Euron, King of the Isles and the North, to bring Daenerys to Westeros, leads the Iron Fleet to Slaver's Bay. When the master of a fishing ketch mocks Victarion for not knowing the Dothraki sea is made of grassland instead of water, Victarion strangles the fisherman.[26]
Daenerys ends up in the Dothraki sea. She stays in Drogon's lair, a cave in a hill that she names Dragonstone after the isle of her birth. She lives on local edible vegetation, and on meat from kills that Drogon brings back, and catches one fish from the pool. While Daenerys is trying to find the Skahazadhan, she and Drogon are found by the khalasar of Khal Jhaqo.[12]
Quotes
Beneath them, the plain stretched out immense and empty, a vast flat expanse that reached to the distant horizon and beyond. It was a sea, Dany thought. Past here, there were no hills, no mountains, no trees nor cities nor roads, only the endless grasses, the tall blades rippling like waves when the winds blew.[9]
—thoughts of Daenerys Targaryen
Daenerys: It's so green.
Jorah: Here and now. You ought to see it when it blooms, all dark red flowers from horizon to horizon, like a sea of blood. Come the dry season, and the world turns the color of old bronze. And this is only hranna, child. There are a hundred kinds of grass out there, grasses as yellow as lemon and as dark as indigo, blue grasses and orange grasses and grasses like rainbows.[9]
The green swallowed her up. The air was rich with the scents of earth and grass, mixed with the smell of horseflesh and Dany's sweat and the oil in her hair. Dothraki smells. They seemed to belong here. Dany breathed it all in, laughing. She had a sudden urge to feel the ground beneath her, to curl her toes in that thick black soil.[9]
—thoughts of Daenerys Targaryen
Yes, but north of the slave cities is the Dothraki sea, and two dozen mighty khals who like nothing more than sacking cities and carrying off their people into slavery.[3]
The frightened child who sheltered in my manse died on the Dothraki sea, and was reborn in blood and fire.[27]
Master: The silver queen is gone. She flew away upon her dragon, beyond the Dothraki sea.
Victarion: Where is this Dothraki sea? I will sail the Iron Fleet across it and find the queen wherever she may be.
Master: That would be a sight worth seeing. The Dothraki sea is made of grass, fool.
Victarion: No man calls Victarion Greyjoy a fool and lives to boast of it.[26]—Master of a fishing ketch and Victarion Greyjoy
Daenerys Targaryen was no stranger to the Dothraki sea, the great ocean of grass that stretched from the forest of Qohor to the Mother of Mountains and the Womb of the World. She had seen it first when she was still a girl, newly wed to Khal Drogo and on her way to Vaes Dothrak to be presented to the crones of the dosh khaleen. The sight of all that grass stretching out before her had taken her breath away. The sky was blue, the grass was green, and I was full of hope.[12]
—thoughts of Daenerys Targaryen
Chapters that take place in the Dothraki sea
- A Game of Thrones: 23. Daenerys III
- A Game of Thrones: 61. Daenerys VII
- A Game of Thrones: 64. Daenerys VIII
- A Game of Thrones: 68. Daenerys IX
- A Game of Thrones: 72. Daenerys X
- A Dance with Dragons: 71. Daenerys X
References
- ↑ A Game of Thrones, Chapter 17, Bran III.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 A Clash of Kings, Chapter 12, Daenerys I.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 A Storm of Swords, Chapter 23, Daenerys II.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 The World of Ice & Fire, Beyond the Free Cities: The Grasslands.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 2, Daenerys I.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 11, Daenerys II.
- ↑ A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 43, Daenerys VII.
- ↑ The Lands of Ice and Fire, Central Essos.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 A Game of Thrones, Chapter 23, Daenerys III.
- ↑ A Game of Thrones, Chapter 72, Daenerys X.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 A Game of Thrones, Chapter 68, Daenerys IX.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 71, Daenerys X.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 A Game of Thrones, Chapter 54, Daenerys VI.
- ↑ A Game of Thrones, Chapter 36, Daenerys IV.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 The Lands of Ice and Fire, The Dothraki Sea.
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 The World of Ice & Fire, The Bones and Beyond.
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 A Game of Thrones, Chapter 61, Daenerys VII.
- ↑ A Game of Thrones, Chapter 46, Daenerys V.
- ↑ A Game of Thrones, Chapter 11, Daenerys II.
- ↑ A Game of Thrones, Chapter 71, Catelyn XI.
- ↑ A Clash of Kings, Chapter 27, Daenerys II.
- ↑ A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 23, Daenerys IV.
- ↑ A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 52, Daenerys IX.
- ↑ A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 55, The Queensguard.
- ↑ A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 70, The Queen's Hand.
- ↑ 26.0 26.1 A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 63, Victarion I.
- ↑ A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 5, Tyrion II.