The Mystery of why Valyrians never invaded Westeros.

[Stannis's Lawyer]

What would Westeros offer them that Essos doesn't? There is wealth on Westeros, but it sounds like whatever Westeros has, Essos has more of. Also, conquest would force them to take armies across the sea, supply those armies, etc. Sea crossings are dangerous, and Valyrian ships would be as likely to sink as any other.

1. Gold. Lots and lots of gold, with mines that aren't inside volcanoes.

2. Ghiscari crossed the Summer Sea. Rhoynar crossed the Narrow Sea. Valyrians probably kept colonies in Sothoryos.

[blerg]

The Valyria wars all started as defensive engagements. Westeros never attacked valeria

[Stannis's Lawyer]

The Valyria wars all started as defensive engagements. Westeros never attacked valeria

We do not know if Ghiscar attacked Valyria first. But since they were based on Rome, they probably did engage in offensive engagements.

[A Bastard Snow]

1. Gold. Lots and lots of gold, with mines that aren't inside volcanoes.

2. Ghiscari crossed the Summer Sea. Rhoynar crossed the Narrow Sea. Valyrians probably kept colonies in Sothoryos.

They already had gold.It had to have been worth it for them to transport men and materials back and forth over 5000 miles away and clearly it was not.

Its not just a matter of taking the gold.

You need slaves to mine the gold and you need soldiers to maintain order.You also need to build an infrastructure to be able to support having tens of thousands of slaves at one location mining 24/7 and having guards watch them 24/7 (Housing for slaves Barracks/Outposts for soldiers.Not to mention you need a massive supply of food)

You also need to build roads and ports to be able to transport the cargo on a trip that will take over a year each way.

It would take a massive investment to be able to even begin mining for gold and why would you do that when you already have gold close by and you already have the slaves mining it.

That would be like if the North invaded Meeren cause they have copper.When the North already has copper.

[Stannis's Lawyer]

They already had gold.It had to have been worth it for them to transport men and materials back and forth over 5000 miles away and clearly it was not.

Its not just a matter of taking the gold.

You need slaves to mine the gold and you need soldiers to maintain order.You also need to build an infrastructure to be able to support having tens of thousands of slaves at one location mining 24/7 and having guards watch them 24/7 (Housing for slaves Barracks/Outposts for soldiers.Not to mention you need a massive supply of food)

You also need to build roads and ports to be able to transport the cargo on a trip that will take over a year each way.

It would take a massive investment to be able to even begin mining for gold and why would you do that when you already have gold close by and you already have the slaves mining it.

That would be like if the North invaded Meeren cause they have copper.When the North already has copper.

The gold of the Westerlands are much easier to get than the gold of the Fourteen Fires. Mining in the Fourteen Fires was horribly dangerous, so taking gold from the Westerlands was probably cheaper.

[A Bastard Snow]

The gold of the Westerlands are much easier to get than the gold of the Fourteen Fires. Mining in the Fourteen Fires was horribly dangerous, so taking gold from the Westerlands was probably cheaper.

Easier to get too?You mean going 5000 miles across the ocean transporting thousands of soldiers and supplies for them building hundreds of miles of roads building dozens of ports finding a large enough gold mine to make it worth your effort taking that gold mine from the people who own it then collecting thousands of slaves to mine it is somehow easier then....doing nothing cause you already have a massive goldmine full of workers in your homeland.

Oh and who the fuck cares if its dangerous?That's why you use slaves.

Taking over Westeros for gold would have required a massive investment that no one family could have supported.And why would anyone want to take such a risky investment for land so far away when you can exploit the land and labor of people right near you.

[Pox Americana]

Their system (all landowners can vote) resembled Volantis. Volantis had no problems launching invasions, and the Volantenes had no dragons. They were also clearly imperialistic, as seen by their wars with Qarth.

The Volantene also have a centralized triarch system. The Freehold had Freeholders and Lords Freeholder. It's far easier to get three elected officials to agree on something than the first class citizens of a caste system, especially the ~40 ruling families in competition with another.

[Makrell]

We also do not know Aegons plan when he landed in Westeros. Im not certain he had immediate plan to conquer all of westeros. Both the North and Dorne were VERY distinct regions with different culture and maybe even different speech. There was no logic for him to need them, other than to get a bigger kingdom. The starks attacked Aegon, not the other way around.

I think valyria didnt attack because of the different climate, they prefer warmer places, they couldve taken the south, but they wouldnt want the north, see that they didnt conquer the north of essos either.

The kings of westeros mightve been quite dependendt on valyria to, there might be tributes and trade going back and forth. Extending your empire just to look bigger on a map is a stupid idea, it is easier to control locals when they control themselves, see the real world for examples.

[Ser Greg of House House]

Imperial overstretch? (not sure if I'm using the concept correctly). There's only so much land those families can manage without sharing power or risking the monopoly over dragons.

Sure, Aegon proved it was possible to do it with only 3 dragons. But it took a lot of time, relocating and adapting to a new culture.

[JagLover]

Rome conquered where it found it worthwhile and established its frontiers where it met rival powers (like Persia) or wild lands thought unsuitable for empire (like Germany or Scotland).

The narrow sea doesn't seem to me to make much of a barrier, and the divided seven kingdoms were too weak to challenge them. Even the far smaller Iron islanders were able to carve out a kingdom back then. The north and Dorne may not have been worth the expenditure in blood and men to take and hold, but, taking no other factors into account, there seems no reason why they wouldn't have taken the rest.

So we then come to the question of magic, and what caused the Doom, which may have been connected to why they steered clear of Westeros. In the COTF you have a people capable of smashing a land bridge and "warging" into animals (including presumably dragons). Though it may be that the Valyrians fear of invading westeros was more based on historical fears and old legends than the situation as it existed just prior to the doom.

It may be that what was done in the building of Harrenhal broke a pact that had protected Westeros. Or alternatively the fact that it had been done showed Aegon that the COTF were no longer to be feared as men could break the pact with impunity.

[MadFox]

Even though I mostly agree with, "A Bastard Snows" statements there are theories on the forums that at least one of the noble families might have had some relations to the Starks.

The reasoning behind this from my understanding is as followed, that even during the times of Old Valyria that the Starks abilities to Warg where known in Essos. If this is the case

than maybe one or two possibly three might of had a a connection with the Starks, and even though they are the primitive cousins, they are still family. This could be another possibility

as to why they might have never moved on Westeros as a whole.

[Tywin Lannister's bastard]

1) They didn't feel the need.

2) They lacked the immediate resources at the current point in time.

3) They wished to consolidate their ruling rather than overstretching their empire.

4) Valyria was ruled by many families, they probably didn't all agree that it was worth the effort.

5) They were planning on doing just that in the future, hence Dragonstone.

:agree:

And about your fourth point, there probably just weren't internal disagreements among the families about how to manage the Freehold but also outright civil wars. Maybe The World of Ice and Fire will tell us more about this.

Or maybe all the Valyrian noble families were incredible statesmen and superbly reasonable negotiators for thousands of years and that's how they avoided civil wars. Yeah.

[A Bastard Snow]

:agree:

And about your fourth point, there probably just weren't internal disagreements among the families about how to manage the Freehold but also outright civil wars. Maybe The World of Ice and Fire will tell us more about this.

Or maybe all the Valyrian noble families were incredible statesmen and superbly reasonable negotiators for thousands of years and that's how they avoided civil wars. Yeah.

Yea there is no way dozens of families all got along and never tried to make any power plays to get more dragons.

I imagine at some point there used to be hundreds of families each with a dragon and then eventually several of them took over the weaker factions and added the dragons into their force.

There is no such world in which people with power don't want more power "Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely" And you cant get more absolute then fucking Dragons

[King of Vaes Tolorro]

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

Primitve? Essos might have Quarth of the Three Walls, Westeros has one Wall, and it is enough. Essos might have the Titan of Braavos, but Westeros has The Rock.

Essos Might have its shining palaces, palaces of marble, and jewels. but they are now cities of bones. Westeros has its bleak castles. But Storms's End still stands in the face of Gods and Men.

The Valyrians dared not tempt the beasts of Westeros.

And if they had been united at the time, Valyria could never have faced them.

[theDao]

A big theme at the wall and about the long winter is forgotten knowledge. It took a very long time to forget enough of it to the point that only Old Nan's stories remain, and some ancient forgotten texts that Sam manages to uncover, but the circumstances are different here.

An entire culture was destroyed, and one noble family, living at some outpost, is all that remained. Surely, in several generations, the knowledge could vanish, and the warnings of old could be taken very quickly to be just fictional tales. After a successful conquest, even the stories that they knew would not be passed to the children, because behold - I conquered Westeros and am rulling it, the stories were just silly. If there was some status quo maintained by the powers at be, it could have been simply forgotten, and the consequences could also be delayed - dragons dying out for example, only to be reborn in Essos because that is where they belong.

I am not claiming that this is the case, but just maintaining it as a possibility that shouldn't be easily dismissed. It could be the case that the Valyrian council, or whatever their ruling body was, decided to not invade Westeros because of the many good cultural, economical, and other arguments presented in this thread, and it could just as easily be that the high priests warned them about the dangers of it.

[Waters Gate]

Imperial overstretch. The Valyrian empire was already too large to further expand i'd say. And there would have been the issue of the vast expanse that is the Dothraki sea, ever allowing roaming hordes to strike around the empire.

To draw a parrallel, lets take the Roman empire. At its maximum expansion, Roman emperors knew that the empire was overstretched and that further expansion would be too difficult. Already there was so much internal strive and potential for civil war to keep in check, Roman emperors often had to take to the field in various places over the empire themselfs.

Consider that long border that the Roman empire had with the rest of barbaric Europe, and compare that to the vast expanse of the dothraki sea. The valyrians somehow have to control that whole border, and its very long. Diverting large amounts of army's elsewhere, like say Westeros, makes them weak on that border and against internal strive.

[Gibzit]

I just thought of this: why didn't aegon invade beyond the wall? did it make any difference to him? it was still part of westeros, and i doubt the wildling could do much resistence against him

[Darksnider05]

Every giant with a bow is a potential dragon killer. Chancing that is never going to be worth it.

Not counting the bucket load of other reasons invading the North is just capital B bad let alone the far North.

Dorne to the 10th power.

[Makrell]

The same reason he didnt invade the north, it is cold and to big a hassle. The north is like the mountains of the moon is to the vale, you need to keep them peaceful, but you dont need to live there.

[joluoto2]

They didn't wanted to stretch too thin. And to administer Westeros they'd need to establish a Westerosi capital, and then the Valyran Freehold is suddenly split in two.

They never even conquerd all of Essos.