House of the Dragon spoilers follow.
Fire reigns in House of the Dragon as the first Game of Thrones spin-off has finally hit the airwaves. While HBO cancelled the Naomi Watts-led The Long Night before it even aired, the latest series is a little closet to the main Thrones timeline — some 172 years before the birth of Daenerys Targaryen.
The golden-haired family are House of The Dragon's focus, but if you were paying close attention during the season premiere, you might have spotted a tease for another spin-off.
Way back when, HBO was looking at five spin-offs to redeem the damage done by Game of Thrones season eight – and while House of the Dragon is the first, its viewing figures and rave reviews suggest it won't be the last.
The Thronesverse is reportedly touting stories based on the likes of House of the Dragon's Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint) and the Dunk & Egg novellas, while Kit Harington is also due to reprise his role for a Jon Snow sequel series. Excitingly, we've also now got our first tease of Queen Nymeria and her 10,000 ships.
During 'The Heirs of the Dragon,' we caught up with a young Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen (Milly Alcock) and BFF Lady Alicent Hightower (Emily Carey), with the latter giving the rebellious Targaryen a history lesson on Dorne.
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Alicent quizzed Rhaenyra about Queen Nymeria and her conquering of the lands that would become Dorne. The name Nymeria might sound familiar, and that's because Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) named her direwolf after the warrior queen.
Nymeria's history is outlined in George RR Martin, Elio M García Jr and Linda Antonsson's The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones novel.
Despite it looking like Rhaenyra hasn't been paying attention, she recited Nymeria's story as follows: "Princess Nymeria led her Rhoynar across the Narrow Sea on 10,000 ships to flee their Valyrian pursuers. She took Lord Mors Martell of Dorne to husband, and burned her own fleet at Sunspear to show her people that they were finished running." She then tears the page out of Alicent's book and gets on with her day.
It's a seemingly throwaway line, but with Variety claiming last year that Person of Interest's Amanda Segel is set to write 10,000 Ships, let's dive into the story.
The Rhoynish Wars saw Nymeria and her people flee across Essos when the Valyrian Freehold and their dragons tried to conquer everything in sight.
Nymeria ruled the river city of Ny Sar, but as the Valyrians grew in power, she escaped with a fleet of 10,000 ships (give or take). Her first stop was Abulu in the Summer Isles, but when over 100 ships tried to return home and were lost at sea, Nymeria realised something had to be done.
She eventually settled her fleet at Dorne in the south of Westeros and married Lord Mors Martell. To ensure she wouldn't lose her followers again, she burned all her ships and trapped her people on Dorne.
Prior to this, Dorne was a mess of warring kingdoms, meaning Nymeria was the first to unify the last of the Seven Kingdoms' realms.
The name Martell is another familiar one, and you'll all know what happened to the likes of Oberyn, Trystane, and Doran Martell.
With the Sand Snakes and Ellaria all dead by the end of Game of Thrones, House Dorne nearly goes extinct. Still, Game of Thrones ended with an unnamed Martell representing Dorne. Long before this though, Mors Martell and Nymeria represent its early days – making the current sigil of the Martells' yellow spear against the background of Nymeria's red sun.
There aren't just direwolves called Nymeria, and as well as the name being common in Dorne like Brandon in the North, Oberyn Martell (a direct descendant of the queen) named his bastard daughter Nymeria Sand (Jessica Henwick) after her. Interestingly, the Martell name should really be 'House Nymeros Martell' as a merger of the two, but it's never been mentioned in the shows and is rarely referenced in the books.
If you still aren't sold on the idea, Nymeria is more important than you think.
Through the marriage of Myriah Martell to King Daeron II, it means the Targaryens are actually descendants of Nymeria. Much like how House of the Dragon has been exploring Dany's complicated family tree, 10,000 Ships can do the same as a prequel to the prequel.
Whether House of the Dragon will have more nods toward Nymeria remains to be seen, but with the first episode being packed with Easter eggs and even a prophecy of the Night King, you'd better read up on your A Song of Ice and Fire lore.
House of the Dragon airs every Sunday in the US on HBO, and on Mondays in the UK on Sky Atlantic and NOW. Game of Thrones seasons 1-8 are available on DVD and Blu-ray.
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Tom Chapman is a pop culture-loving writer and NCTJ-accredited Broadcast Journalist with over seven years of experience covering the small and silver screen.
Starting his career with a post at Movie Pilot in Berlin, Tom took on freelancing full-time with regular stints at Digital Spy, Screen Rant and Comic Book Resources.
These days, you can still find him covering all things Marvel and Star Wars at Digital Spy, while dipping his toe in bylines at Yahoo! and IGN.
Tom likes to think his spirit animal is a cross between Gale Weathers and Olenna Tyrell.
