What Happens to House Velaryon by the Time of ‘Game of Thrones’?

Published Sep 3, 2026, 12:06 AM EDT

Julio is a Senior Author for Collider. He studied History and International Relations at university, but found his calling in cultural journalism. When he isn’t writing, Julio also teaches English at a nearby school. He has lived in São Paulo most of his life, where he covers CCXP and other big events. Having loved movies, music, and TV from an early age, he prides himself in knowing every minute detail about the things he loves. When he is older, he dreams of owning a movie theater in a small countryside town.

House Velaryon is one of the key players in House of the Dragon. They are one of the wealthiest houses and have the greatest armada in Westeros. They have the legendary Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint) as their lord, though the situation might get a bit dodgy when it comes to who might be his heir. Still, they are an illustrious Valyrian house during the era of the Dance of the Dragons. But by the time of Game of Thrones, the Velaryons are but a shadow of what they once were. The house’s name is barely spoken in the series, and some members briefly show up in the A Song of Ice and Fire books, but in subordinate positions — not nearly as influential and important as they once were. What happened to “the old, the true, and the brave?”

The Dance of the Dragons is actually the starting point of House Velaryon’s decline. For more than a century, House Velaryon held control of the Narrow Sea even in the face of foreign threats such as the Triarchy, but the civil war forces them to direct most of their efforts to the blockade on the Gullet. The Battle of the Gullet causes great damage to the Velaryon fleet, as well as the plundering of Driftmark. This is the beginning of House Velaryon’s decline, although it would take some decades for it to fully be realized.

Your answers point to the great house whose words, values, and way of surviving in Westeros match your own. Bend the knee — or don’t. That’s very much up to you.

Winter is Coming — and you have always known it. You prepare not out of fear but out of duty, because the people who depend on you deserve someone who takes the long view.

You understand the game — its rules, its exceptions, and exactly when the rules become the exception. You play it without illusions and without apology.

You carry a sense of destiny that is difficult to explain and impossible to ignore — the feeling that you are not simply participating in the world but meant to reshape it.

You are a force — direct, powerful, and difficult to ignore when you enter a room or a conflict. You do not negotiate with challenges. You meet them.

You understand that power does not always announce itself — that sometimes it arrives with flowers, good wine, and a smile that doesn’t quite reach the eyes.

In Fire & Blood, after Corlys dies, it’s Alyn of Hull (Abubakar Salim), legitimized as Alyn Velaryon, who inherits Driftmark and becomes the head of House Velaryon. Alyn proves to be a great commander and manages to continue House Velaryon’s supremacy in the waters, but he was never a sharp political player. With the Velaryon fleet based mostly on Driftmark and the Gullet, other houses started building their own naval power until eventually the Velaryon fleet was no longer the biggest proverbial fish in the sea. Couple that with the lost riches after the sacking of Driftmark, and the house was in clear decline.

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