The keep is surrounded by a fairly large port city called Caraxes' Landing, which, before being reconquered by Maelys, was a small village mostly inhabited by pirates and slaves. When Unwin tasked Lord Velaryon with sailing to the Sunset Sea to confront Lord Dalton Greyjoy, Alyn Oakenfist sailed into Bloodstone under a parley banner, as the Stepstones lay between the narrow sea and the Summer Sea. The War for the Stepstones was a conflict that occured when Prince Daemon Targaryen and Lord Corlys Velaryon fought a series of land and naval battles with the Triarchy for control of the Stepstones, which were islands between the Dorne and the Disputed Lands in the southern Narrow Sea. After the war, Maelys bent the knee to Robert Baratheon and he was granted the title of Marcher Lord of the Stepstones by the new king, with his new power base being located on the isle of Bloodstone, where the ancient Bloodstone Keep, built over two hundred years ago by Daemon Targaryen soon after he declared himself King of the Stepstones, was located. Many cite the amount of forces sent to take part in the assault of the region to be one of the reasons behind the Targaryens losing the Throne to the rebels. Due to being preoccupied with conquering the region, Maelys could not take active part in helping the Crown put down the insurrection. To everyone's surprise, the tactical genius possessed by Maelys allowed the crown to conquer the isles of Sunstone and Bloodstone, the two islands closest to Westeros, granting the Kingdom a strong grip upon a part of the isle chain and allowing it to have a staging area for later conquests. Due to his progressing insanity, the King was extremely paranoid about the region remaining no man's land between the Seven Kingdoms and Essos. The Stepstones were the region that was to be conquered by the Iron Throne on the command of King Aerys II right before Robert Baratheon rose in rebellion against the Mad King.ĭespite his advisors suggesting otherwise, deeming the whole endeavour as futile and wasteful, the king decided to send Maelys and a contingent of troops alongside a part of the fleet to the isles to secure them for the crown. The first lord of the newly reinstated house was Maelys II Blackfyre, commonly called Maelys The Younger. A Marcher Lord is, by definition, a military commander tasked with maintaining the defence of a border region, or, in other terms, a march, such as, in the Blackfyre case, The Stepstones.Īfter the War of Ninepenny Kings, House Blackfyre was deemed to be extinct, however, the only surviving child of Maelys Blackfyre, who was a bastard, was legitimized under the condition of renouncing any claims to the Seven Kingdoms.
Tyrion is notorious for reading foreign books and studying languages - clearly his cultural knowledge is paying off as he survives traveling around the known world.Marcher Lord of the Stepstones is a hereditary title possessed by the lords of House Blackfyre. That's the equivalent of going from New York City to San Francisco and back. Only instead of driving or flying in a plane, he's doing most of it at the speed of a horse's trot. From the northern tip of Westeros all the way to Slaver's Bay, his total mileage comes in just shy of 6,500 miles.
Tyrion Lannister, meanwhile, has gone farther than any other character. Maybe next season we'll finally see her get closer to the Iron Throne. Starting in Pentos, she's made her way east across Essos in order to gain power. When he heard the singers that Prince Daemon was defeated at the War for the Stepstones, he took this opportunity to reconquer the Stepstones in the name of King Viserys and Princess Rhaenyra of House Targaryen which will spark the Second War for the Stepstones. Since this entire voyage happened off screen, you may not have realized Yara was sailing around the entire continent of Westeros to get there.ĭaenerys Targaryen wants to return to Westeros but has so far traveled nearly 5,000 miles in the wrong direction. Yara Greyjoy was traveling during virtually all of season four, heading from the Iron Islands to the Dreadfort on a rescue mission. The estimated distance of this journey is about 1,500 miles (the equivalent of traveling from Maine all the way down to Florida), though the show makes it seem like a breeze. Martin, this fantasy series chronicles an epic struggle for power set in a vast and violent fantasy. Then, i n season five, Littlefinger traveled from Winterfell to King’s Landing in the span of just two episodes. Game of Thrones Based on the popular book series 'A Song of Ice and Fire,' by George R.R. Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish journeyed nearly 2,000 miles as his scheming brought him from King's Landing up to Winterfell.