The Mystery of why Valyrians never invaded Westeros.

[WarLord]

A Dance with Dragons; 2nd Tyrion Chapter

The Freeholds grasp had reached as far as Dragonstone, but never to the mainland of Westeros itself. Odd, that. Dragonstone is no more than a rock. The wealth was farther west, but they had dragons. Surely they knew that it was there.-Tyrion Lannister.

Ever since Tyrion brought this up I have wondered the same thing. Why were the Valyrians who ruled all of the Valyrian peninsula, old Ghis and Slaver's Bay, and the majority of the present-day Free Cities as well as making slaving incursions into Sothyros either unable or unwilling to conquer Westeros when they had at their disposal vast well-trained legions, slaves galore, pyromancers, storm-singers, blood mages, metallurgical ensorcellment, and, of course, dragons?

Westeros at the time would have been populated only with the petty kings of the first men and later the squabbling Andals and Rhoynar. All that time they made no move when they had clearly shown aggressive expansionist motives.

Then, shortly after the Doom, Aegon flees to Dragonstone with his immediate family and the world's last remaining dragons apparently uncontent to rule Volantis or any other of Valyria's one-time holdings and throws thousands of years of caution to the winds and conquers nearly all of Westeros in short order with three dragons and a handfull of hastily drafted levies.

Something must have kept them in check in antiquity or they would have steam-rolled them then as Aegon did, but what was it?

My own take is that, sorcery being so much more potent back then (perhaps much more than the maesters would have us believe, but that is an entirely different can of worms), the cause likely lies there. That and the only thing that Westeros had that nowhere else does is the Children of the Forest(they have the Others, but not at that point, I think). The first men, through their pact with the Children, seem to have the affinity for Greensight. It is mentioned and demonstrated in the books that controlling the dragons for military endeavors required the use of binding spells and possibly empowered bloodlines and that they were used in all the conquests as a nigh-unbeatable, general trump card. If a beastling or a greenseer were able to warg into an enslaved dragon I can only imagine the potential havoc. But they managed to maintain Dragonstone, I presume, because so near a volcano their magics, which seem to rely heavily on fire, would have been strengthened.

So the most advanced military in the world employing massive beasts of destruction failed where a bunch of half-naked, self-mutilating zealots succeeded. In the course of their conquest the Andals burned every weirwood they could, slaughtered the Children wherever they found them, and called down beastlings and greenseers as demonspawn to the point that even the First Men began to abandon the practice. All this, I believe, weakened the sorcerous defences of Westeros and perhaps whatever greater warding the Children may have had in place. Why the Valyrians failed to capitalize on it, I don't know. Perhaps at that point they had aquiesced to the fact that one does not simply walk into Westeros if one is a dragon.

I thought this was an interesting topic and potentially relevant to mod updates/submods in the very distant future. Though how how any of it might be worked in I don't know, but a few other fantasy mods seem to incorporate magic to varying degees.

I'm interested to know what my fellow crackpot theorists think.

[Black Dragons]

That good question maybe they thought that Westores was too wild and primitive to invaded (not worth it)

[Ingelheim]

I like the "they were afraid their dragons could get warged" theory.

[nastydream]

I like the "they were afraid their dragons could fet warged" theory.

could fet? lol :P

Anyway yes it's interesting though it's mostly because they already had too much teritorry

[blerg]

They were never really an expansionist empire, not in the same sense that Rome and various other empires on Earth were. Sure they set up colonies in the latter ages of their empire probably when the population became too large to hold on the freehold. But all in all I never got the vibe that they were out to subjugate and conquer opposing kingdoms

[aryagonnakill#2]

While GRRM may have something on this, since Tyrion asked the question so GRRM has obviously thought about it, the simpler answer I see is that they were not done with Essos yet. Valyria seemed to like to takes its time and develop infrastructure such as the Valyrian roads, I mean those roads must have taken hundreds of years, and thousands of sacrifices.

[James Arryn]

They seem to have been primarily land based. The Rhoynar escaped by sea, and Braavos was primarily a sea power, so my assumption is that that was the Valyrian weak spot. Of course dragons can fly anywhere, but they seemed to use them as support/last resort forces for the most part.

Additionally, any slave-based society is inherently conservative and somewhat careful about expansion.

[Nymeria_Stark]

While GRRM may have something on this, since Tyrion asked the question so GRRM has obviously thought about it, the simpler answer I see is that they were not done with Essos yet. Valyria seemed to like to takes its time and develop infrastructure such as the Valyrian roads, I mean those roads must have taken hundreds of years, and thousands of sacrifices.

Now that you mention it, I think this could be why Daenerys hasn't fine to Westeros yet! Maybe she's attempting to prove her strength by reclaiming the lands of Old Valyria in the name of House Targaryen before going to Westeros.

[ValrianSunni]

I like the theory. People seem to be anticipating a dragon warning situation. I'm not convinced that that will happen.

Maybe old Valyria had too many dragons, and its rulers were consumed with managing the lands they already had in Essos, balancing the power politically. Too many dragons is just as big a problem as too few.

[FaceGardener]

a quick note: the Targaeryans moved to Dragonstone a hundred years before the Doom; they did so because a prophetic member of their family foresaw the Doom. Aegon the Conquerer was born on Dragonstone and spent his entire life carefully planning for the invasion of Westeros--this is made note of whenever we see the big ol' Westeros-shaped table in Dragonstone's drum tower. While much popular credit is given to the field of fire, there are suggestions that the conquest had more to do with thorough plotting and alliances than it did with the dragons, and that the dragons' power was largely embellished by historians and singers. While dragons are certainly very powerful, The Princess and the Queen demonstrates that they can't exactly rout a gigantic army like it's nothing: enough scorpions and even crossbows can kill a dragon.

[Duckfield]

I think it was also important for them to keep all their dragons in one location. We don't know much about Valyria but we know that it was ruled by noble families, so I imagine they had some kind of council, made of members from all the important families like in Qarth. If they had a king I believe it would have been mentioned.

We also know that each family had its own dragons, and seems like overall there were A LOT of dragons in Valyria. Add that to their knowledge and practice of magic, and thriving economy, and you can see Valyria was insanely powerful. Perhaps too powerful.

If I was in their position, my greatest fear would not be of some exterior enemy like the Ghiscari empire, because beating any army is easy when you have so many dragons. The real fear would be that we start turning on each other. With so many dragons, the Valyrian version of a "dance" would be catastrophic. It would destroy everything and literally turn Valyria to a hell on earth.

So maybe they thought the best way to avoid that is to expand slowly, and keep the dragons as close as possible. If the dragons are all in the volcanos of Valyria they can be moderated and kept in good hands. Dragons are basically nukes. If they used them all the time in conquests, it could cause a devastating mess that will backfire.

Let's say they dispatched 1 or 2 families with all their dragons to conquer Westeros, 2 more to conquer Asshai and more to Pentos etc.. It's very possible someone might end up succeeding so much in conquering, he would eventually become too power hungry and go rogue. Maybe even declare himself a king and return with his own host to attack Valyria.

Unfortunately for them, the doom happened regardless to all this. But I actually think that if it didn't happen, and if they kept being very careful with how they make use of their dragons, they'd eventually conquer the entire world.

[Benandante]

a quick note: the Targaeryans moved to Dragonstone a hundred years before the Doom; they did so because a prophetic member of their family foresaw the Doom. Aegon the Conquerer was born on Dragonstone and spent his entire life carefully planning for the invasion of Westeros--this is made note of whenever we see the big ol' Westeros-shaped table in Dragonstone's drum tower. While much popular credit is given to the field of fire, there are suggestions that the conquest had more to do with thorough plotting and alliances than it did with the dragons, and that the dragons' power was largely embellished by historians and singers. While dragons are certainly very powerful, The Princess and the Queen demonstrates that they can't exactly rout a gigantic army like it's nothing: enough scorpions and even crossbows can kill a dragon.

This.

Aegon did not flee to Dragonstone, the Targaryens moved there pre-doom. They also endured on Dragonstone some centuries after the Doom but before Aegon's conquest.

Whatever answers the question "why did the Valyrians not invade Westeros?" also answers "why did the Targaryens not invade Westeros sooner?"

I tend to think magic of some kind.

Harren the Black built his monstrosity of a castle on the God's Eye, one of the most sacred places on the continent. He mixed blood in the mortar, etc.

He moved into Harrenhal on the same day that Aegon the Conqueror arrived at what would become King's Landing.

We expect this is not a coincidence: the Targaryens landed because Harren moved into Harrenhal

Another Question to Add to Those of This Thread: Why was Aegon unable to conquer Dorne?

[Nozlym]

Another Question to Add to Those of This Thread: Why was Aegon unable to conquer Dorne?

i think we have a general understanding that the dornish used guerilla warfare tactics that the targaryens couldnt deal with easily and instead left dorne to themselves while they settle with the rest of westeros they just conquered

[FaceGardener]

i think we have a general understanding that the dornish used guerilla warfare tactics that the targaryens couldnt deal with easily and instead left dorne to themselves while they settle with the rest of westeros they just conquered

yeah, it's like how in RPGs, if the enemy spreads out, your fireball spell doesn't work too well. Also when you've got a giant resource-gobbling monster (how many sheep did Balerion need to eat every day?), it's not super efficient to try to use him in a barren desert against foes who generally won't take the field against you.

[Nozlym]

anyways to the topic of the OP

my view on the subject is that, they simply didn't care to much for expansion. we kinda have evidence of this with the info from TWOIAF about the rhoynar fight with the valyrians. when the time came for the valyrians to finally finish the conflict, 300 dragons arrived from valyria. meaning that most dragon lords if not all still lived in valyria.

and who can blame them, u live in the most incredible city the world has ever seen, why would u want to leave.

some other possibilities could be the glass candles, which allowed them to basically use google maps, so they probably checked out every corner of the world but still stayed put pretty much.

also the volcanoes might be a major part as well. maybe they thought that they were the source of the dragons power?? who knows

[Pod The Impaler]

Possibly related question:

How old is the Citadel ? We know Oldtown was around long before the Targaryens came. Perhaps they were able to counter whatever magical resources (dragons aside) that the Vakyrians may have had.

Indeed - there are things which are said in the text that do not jibe with the dragons coming only with the Targaryens - references to "heroes" slaying them in more ancient times. (Was that even in Westeros, or in Andalos or something?)

Perhaps there is some other conflict going on, related to the Citadel vs. Old gods or First Men vs. Andals, etc. - all of which would predate the Targaryens arrival on Dragonstone prior to the Doom.

[blerg]

If you believe as I do that the COTF caused the Doom then it only makes sense that Aegon was only able to invade after Harren desecrated the God's wood at Harrenhall.

[Ingelheim]

could fet? lol :P

Anyway yes it's interesting though it's mostly because they already had too much teritorry

F******* keyboard.

[BRANDON GREYSTARK]

Nothing worth taking .

[WarLord]

Gods wood at Harrenhal is important theory.