The Secret History of House Martell, Chapter 2: The Paternity of Oberyn and Elia Martell, and Cersei’s Three Septas.

Welcome to my Secret History of House Martell series: a revised, expanded iteration of my nutty ideas regarding all things Nymeros-Martell.

This post is Chapter 2 in said series. It assumes familiarity with Chapter 1, although it doesn’t entirely rely on it. In Chapter 1 (which you can read in 3 parts on reddit, HERE, HERE and HERE, or in one giant post on my blog HERE), I argued for the following propositions:

• Quiet Isle’s Elder Brother is now in the Vale in the guise of Ser Morgarth the Merry, a hedge knight hired by (an unwitting) Littlefinger. He is likely seeking Sansa Stark in concert with “Ser Shadrich” and “Ser Byron the Beautiful”. (I have elsewhere argued that Ser Shadrich is Howland Reed and that Ser Byron is Sandor Clegane glamored to look like the AWOL Tyrek Lannister—who is himself Quiet Isle’s gravedigger.)
• The man known as both Elder Brother and Ser Morgarth is in fact Prince Lewyn Martell of Dorne, who is “dead” in the same sense Sandor Clegane is now “dead”.
• Elder Brother/Ser Morgarth the Merry/Prince Lewyn Martell has an older brother: Archmaester Marywn “The Mage”. Marwyn is thus uncle to Oberyn and Doran and is, like Lewyn, the younger brother of the nameless former ruling Princess of Dorne, who was mother to Doran, Elia, and Oberyn.
• Obara Sand is almost certainly not Oberyn’s daughter but Marwyn’s.
• Oberyn’s daughter Tyene Sand is already in King’s Landing in the guise of the pock-marked, storky novice appearing in ADWD’s Epilogue. Some of the textual reasons to believe this dovetail with the idea that Elder Brother is Lewyn. (See: the storks living around Quiet Isle.)

Here in Chapter 2, I will argue for the following propositions (which I acknowledge will at first blush strike many folks as just as outlandish, clearly absurd, totally batshit crazy, and/or surely impossible to support with any textual evidence as the first batch did):

• The nameless former ruling Princess of Dorne—mother of Doran, Oberyn and Elia Martell—is an incredibly important character. She was a classic Dornish libertine, and her children were sired by three different men.
• Her second child, Elia, was sired by Prince Jaehaerys Targaryen, a few years before Jaehaerys was crowned Jaehaerys II.
• Her third child, Oberyn, was sired by Jaehaerys’s son, Prince Aerys, a few years before Aerys was crowned Aerys II.
• The nameless former ruling Princess of Dorne is still alive. She did not die, but—in keeping with the “rhyme” already established between history’s King Charles I of Spain and the Martells—abdicated and retired to a holy sanctuary, in part due to what was at the time crippling gout (like the gout that prompted Charles’s abdication and retirement to a monastery).
• She is living in King’s Landing as Septa Scolera in the company of none other than Septa Mordane, known as Septa Moelle, and Maege Mormont, known as Septa Unella.
• Scolera’s gout is well-managed by her consumption of sour milk products—the single best thing a person with gout can consume.
• Scolera’s true name is likely Sarella; Oberyn’s daughter Sarella is likely her namesake.

Oberyn and Elia: “Martells” Who Are Also Targaryen Bastards

I submit that in the mid-to-late 250s, Doran Martell’s mother, the Princess of Dorne—possessed of freewheeling Dornish-Targaryen sexual mores—bedded her older cousin Prince Jaehaerys, the future-King Jaehaerys II. Their coupling resulted in the birth of Elia Martell. Mere months after Elia’s birth, the Princess of Dorne then bedded Jaehaerys’s son, Prince Aerys, the future Mad King Aerys II, who thus sired Oberyn Martell, the Red Viper.

Why do I think all this? It’s complicated.

The Nine Year Gap

For the sake of brevity and simplicity, I’ll call the nameless Martell Princess of Dorne who mothered Doran, Elia and Oberyn “Scolera”, because I’ll later argue that she’s now called “Septa Scolera”. (Her true name is likely Sarella, but “Scolera” avoids confusion with Oberyn’s daughter, her namesake, Sarella.)

Given that Oberyn refers to Scolera’s consort as “her consort”, per se, rather than “my father” or “Elia’s father”—

“It was when I visited Casterly Rock with my mother, her consort, and my sister Elia.” (SOS Ty V)

—Oberyn clearly believes he and Elia were sired by someone else. Regardless of whether Oberyn knows the truth, his words (a) foreground the question of his and Elia’s paternity, and (b) hint that Scolera kept things fresh in her bedroom.

While less definitive, Oberyn’s words to Tyrion—

“Why, if the gods were cruel, they would have made me my mother’s firstborn, and Doran her third.” (SOS Ty V)

—are certainly consistent with he and Doran having different fathers, in that they only stipulate their common maternity.

Now, we know that after Scolera gave birth to Doran, she failed to have any children who lived past infancy until nine years later, when Elia and Oberyn were born in quick succession, defying Doran’s expectations:

“I was the oldest,” the prince [Doran] said, “and yet I am the last. After Mors and Olyvar died in their cradles, I gave up hope of brothers. I was nine when Elia came, a squire in service at Salt Shore. When the raven arrived with word that my mother had been brought to bed a month too soon, I was old enough to understand that meant the child would not live. Even when Lord Gargalen told me that I had a sister, I assured him that she must shortly die. Yet she lived, by the Mother’s mercy. And a year later Oberyn arrived, squalling and kicking.” (FFC CotG)

Two successful pregnancies after nine spotlighted years of infertility and crib deaths hints that Scolera found herself a fresh sperm donor—or two.

Timeline Issues

Let’s take a quick look at the relevant timeline. Per Chapter 1’s discussion of Obara’s paternity, it’s likely Doran was born in late 247 or early January 248, with Oberyn born close to 10 ½ years later, c. April-June 258. We know Doran “was nine when Elia came”, and that “a year later Oberyn arrived”. (FFC CotG) Since Oberyn was probably conceived c. July-August 257, this means Elia was likely born c. April-June 257 and conceived c. July-August 256 (although it’s possible “a year later” rounded down the actual gap, meaning Elia was born/conceived 1-6 months earlier than that).

Aegon V/”Egg” was king until 259 AC. His second son Jaehaerys was almost certainly born in 225 AC—we’re told his age during three different years, all of which yield “225” by simple subtraction—making him about 31 when Elia was conceived, which fits. (TWOIAF)

Jaehaerys’s son Aerys was 18-years-old when he became king in 262, meaning he was born in either 243 or 244. Thus Aerys would have been at minimum an “old” 12 but more likely 13 if not 14 when Oberyn was conceived c. mid-to-late 257. If this seems “too young” to possibly bed the same woman his father bedded the year before, consider first that both parties were possessed of Targaryen blood, notorious for producing precocious sexuality. (Jaehaerys himself was only 14 or 15 when he eloped with his 13-14-year-old sister Shaera.) Moreover, and not, I think, coincidentally, we know that Oberyn himself was probably 11 or 12 when his supposed first bastard Obara Sand was conceived. If the world can believe Oberyn is her father, and if Aerys was almost certainly slightly older when Oberyn was conceived than Oberyn was when Obara was conceived, then obviously Aerys wasn’t too young to sire Oberyn.

What about Scolera? Given (a) her own precocious Targaryen blood, (b) the cultural nature of Dornish sexuality (see below) and (c) the fact that she was still young enough to be a lady-in-waiting to Rhaella in 259 AC, when Joanna Lannister arrived—

“Lannisport was the end of our voyage,” Prince Oberyn went on…. “Were you aware that our mothers knew each other of old?”

“They had been at court together as girls, I seem to recall. Companions to Princess Rhaella?” [said Tyrion] (SOS Ty X)

In 263 AC, after a year as the King’s Hand, Ser Tywin married his beautiful young cousin Joanna Lannister, who had come to King’s Landing in 259 AC for the coronation of King Jaehaerys II and remained thereafter as a lady-in-waiting to Princess (later Queen) Rhaella. (TWOIAF)

—I find it overwhelmingly likely that Scolera was very young when she gave birth to Doran back in 247-248: probably 12-15, making her only 20-25 when Elia and Oberyn were conceived. (A 12-year-old gives birth in Blood & Fire.)

The Point Of All That Targ & Dornish Smut

Let’s assume Scolera was indeed 20-24 when Elia was conceived in 256. It’s easy to imagine a 20-to-24-year-old culturally Dornish maternal Targaryen descendant of Daenerys Targaryen (and Mariah Martell) bedding a 30-year-old paternal Targaryen descendant of Daenerys’s brother Daeron (and Mariah’s brother Maron Martell) like Jaehaerys. But would the same woman then bed that man’s son, a “man” roughly 9 years her junior, shortly after giving birth to said boy’s half-sister? And would a 13 or 14-year-old Targaryen prince bed his older cousin mere months after she gave birth to the bastard daughter of his own father? Judging by everything we’re told about Targaryen and Dornish sexual mores—seemingly gratuitous details that now smell like clever foreshadowing—hell yes.

Consider: The Targaryen drive to incest is drilled into us from the earliest moments of AGOT. Dany marries and begins enjoying sex at (supposedly) 13. Helaena Targaryen marries and conceives at 13. (tRP) Maegor the Cruel married and consummated at 13, Viserys II did that same at 12 with a much-older bride of 19, who gave birth the following year! (F&B)

The Dornish, including Scolera’s descendants, are similarly libidinal and precocious:

It was said that [Oberyn] bedded men and women both… (SOS Tyr V)

[Tyrion:] “Did you tire of your paramour on the road?””Never. We share too much.” Prince Oberyn shrugged. “We have never shared a beautiful blonde woman, however, and Ellaria is curious. Do you know of such a creature?” (ibid)

[Oberyn:] “Her grace needs another husband, and who better than a prince of Dorne? Ellaria believes I should accept. Just the thought of Cersei in our bed makes her wet, the randy wench.” (SOS Tyr I)

“I was abed with the Fowler twins when the word reached me,” the captain heard [Nymeria Sand] say. (FFC CotG)

Dornish women were lewd… (DWD tW)

“Are you certain you are not off to some other bed, some other woman? Tell me who she is. I will fight her for you, bare-breasted, knife to knife.” [Arianne] smiled. “Unless she is a Sand Snake. If so, we can share you. I love my cousins well.” (FFC tSK)

“You need a woman, not a little girl, but I can play the innocent if that excites you.””You should not say such things.” Remember, she is Dornish. In the Reach men said it was the food that made Dornishmen so hot-tempered and their women so wild and wanton. (tSK)

[Arianne] and Tyene had learned to read together, learned to ride together, learned to dance together… They would have shared their first man as well, but Drey got too excited and spurted all over Tyene’s fingers the moment she drew him from his breeches. Her hands are dangerous. The memory made her smile. (FFC PitT)

The Bastard of Godsgrace [Daemon Sand] was one of Dorne’s finest swords as well, as might be expected from one who had been Prince Oberyn’s squire and had received his knighthood from the Red Viper himself. Some said that he had been her uncle’s lover too, though seldom to his face. Arianne did not know the truth of that. He had been her lover, though. At fourteen she had given him her maidenhead. Daemon had not been much older, so their couplings had been as clumsy as they were ardent. (WOW Arianne I)

I believe the drumbeat regarding Arianne’s precocious sexuality—

“The Bastard of Godsgrace had my maidenhead when we were both fourteen.” – Arianne (FFC tSK)

—is intentional, hinting that her grandmother Scolera was quite young when she gave birth to Doran, meaning Scolera was still only 21-25 when Oberyn was conceived (and thus potentially very attractive to the then-pubescent Aerys).

Meanwhile, the fact that Daemon Sand was also 14 at the time means he was about 18 years younger than his other erstwhile lover, Oberyn. That relationship presumably began when Daemon was a young squire, much as Aerys was a young squire at the time Oberyn was conceived. Significantly, the age gap between Daemon and Oberyn dwarfs the probable gap between Princess Scolera and Prince Aerys. Could Oberyn’s proclivity to “bed with boys” (as against “men”) be a wink to his mother doing the same vis-a-vis Aerys? (SOS Jai VII)

We also see Oberyn’s 14-year-old daughter Elia Sand make out with Feathers, who is “twice [her] age”. We know Elia Sand is 14, and thus that Feathers is around 28, because GRRM again reminds us of Arianne’s sexual precocity:

It did not escape the princess that Elia was the same age she had been when she gave her maidenhead to Daemon Sand. (WOW Arianne II)

It’s almost as if Martell women’s interest in sex at an early age might somehow be relevant to our story, which it is if I’m right and Scolera was very young when she became pregnant with Doran and thus was still young enough to be of interest to Aerys when Oberyn was sired. Meanwhile, the age gap between Feathers and Elia is much larger than the age gap between Scolera and either of her putative princely paramours (including the other Elia’s father).

Speaking of age gaps, when Oberyn recounts Scolera and Joanna Lannister’s supposed plot to marry their children to one another, Oberyn conspicuously implies that Scolera had no problems with the age differences—

“Elia and I were older, to be sure. Your brother and sister could not have been more than eight or nine. Still, a difference of five or six years is little enough.” (SOS Ty X)

—even as he drastically understates the age gaps, thus staying readers’ alarm bells. In truth, Cersei and Jaime were born in 266. Thus Elia, who was likely born in late 256/early 257, was actually about nine years older than her would-be husband Jaime, which just so happens to be the age gap between Aerys and Scolera, assuming Scolera was 13 when she had Doran c. very late 247.

ADDED 7.9 and 7.26.2020: The best example of all, though, is contained in TWOIAF litany of Aegon IV’s many mistresses. His first mistress was Falena Stokeworthy. Here is here entry:

LADY FALENA STOKEWORTH: Ten years older than the king

Lady Falena “made him a man” in 149, when Aegon was fourteen. When a Kingsguard found them abed together in 151, his father wed Falena to his master-at-arms, Lucas Lothston, and persuaded the king to name Lothston Lord of Harrenhal in order to remove Falena from court. However, over the next two years, Aegon paid frequent visits to Harrenhal.

That’s exactly what Scolera did with Aerys.

The reference to the king’s master-at-arms, meanwhile, will make most readers think of the first royal master-of-arms we read about, Aron Santagar, who also happens to be the only Dornish character we “see” in ASOIAF until Oberyn comes north. As the arms of Ghost Hill makes clear, “all things come round again” in ASOIAF: it’s stories are forever “rhyming” with one another, and this is a great example of that.

Fire & Blood contains several fresh instances of older women bedding much younger men. Especially relevant to our hypotheses, 19-year-old Larra Rogare was impregnated by a 12-year-old Targaryen prince who later became king, and 19-year-old Prince Aemond Targaryen was seduced by and impregnated Alys Rivers, who was…

twice his age (thrice, if we put our trust in Mushroom). (F&B 460)

Two more details from F&B are just as pertinent to our hypotheses. First, we learn of a young lord who took his own father’s widow (who was older than him and with whom he had long been infatuated) as his paramour, fathering children on her and eventually marrying her. (FB 581-582) In comparison, the idea that Aerys merely bedded his father’s paramour seems tame.

Second, we read about a ruling Princess of Dorne who took one look at the Valyrian-blooded “dragonseed” Alyn Velaryon and decided she must have him, despite his famous marriage to a Targaryen princess:

Lord Alyn required fresh water and provisions for his ships, whilst Princess Aliandra required services of a more intimate nature. … the attentions the flirtatious Dornish princess lavished upon him much displeased her own lords, and angered her younger siblings…(F&B 652)

I suspect Aliandra’s descendant Princess Scolera had similar “requirements” of Jaehaerys and/or Aerys, and given everything we’ve said about Dornish and Targaryen sexuality, it’s unlikely a Targaryen-blooded Dornishwoman like Scolera would have had misgivings about bedding and having the children of first a married Targaryen father and later his betrothed son. After all…

“Even death is not sacred to a Dornishmen.” (DWD tW)

In sum, Targaryens and Martells (with their Targ blood) fuck young, and they fuck much older/younger people, often and with relish. (Regarding the allusions to the Martells having same-sex sex partners, this suggests there may have been a sexual aspect to Scolera and Joanna’s friendship, to be discussed later.)

EDIT 7.7.2020: The Samantha Hightower Parallel

Scolera fucking both a father (Jaehaerys) and his son (Aerys) in quick succession has precedence in the canon. Fire & Blood tells us all about Samantha Hightower. Samantha was the 17-year-old second wife of the much older Ormund Hightower. Ormund died during the end stages of the Dance of the Dragons, and was replaced by his son Lyonel. Samantha was “strong-willed”, as are so many Dornish women. (Scolera’s granddaughter Arianne is twice called “willful”.) Samantha…

…had no intention of giving up her place as the Lady of Oldtown and mistress of the Hightower. Lyonel was but two years her junior, and… had been infatuated with her since first she came to Oldtown to wed his father. Whereas previously she had fended off the boy’s halting advances, now Lady Sam… yielded to them, allowing him to seduce her… (F&B 581-2)

First the father (significantly older than the woman in question), then his son (slightly younger than she is), just as I am proposing as regards Scolera.

(Furthering the Septa Scolera/Sam “rhyme”, the High Septon ordered Lady Sam to quit her scandalous relationship with Lyonel and join the silent sisters.) END EDIT

Aerys: A Charming, Handsome Youth

Even if Aerys’s age was no issue, why would Scolera want to sleep with him, specifically? A look at the young Aerys answers that question and shows that much of what we’re told about him comports perfectly with him siring Oberyn.

First, Aerys is Targaryen; Scolera’s Targ blood would find that inherently attractive. Blood aside, TWOIAF makes it clear that the young Aerys was a tasty dish, nothing like the unkempt man he became. At the time of his ascension to the throne in 262, Aerys was “a handsome youth”. Selmy calls him “charming and generous.” (SOS Dae VI) TWOAIF agrees:

[Aerys] had an undeniable charm that won him many friends.

A few years after Oberyn was conceived, Aerys “fought gallantly in the Stepstones during the War of the Ninepenny Kings” and “won his spurs” at 16. (TWOIAF) Surely something of his physical quality was manifest a few years earlier. Who wouldn’t like this guy?

The young king was lively and active in the early years of his reign. He loved music, dancing, and masked balls… (TWOIAF)

Notice that Aerys’s love of music and dance is mirrored by Oberyn, who Ellaria Sand says wrote her songs—

“Will [vengeance] make me laugh, write me songs, care for me when I am old and sick?” (DWD tW)

—and who is noted as dancing at Harrenhal. (He’s Meera’s “red snake”). (SOS B II) (I cannot confirm whether Oberyn enjoyed masked balls.)

Aerys’s plethora of mistresses—

Some say he had as many mistresses as his ancestor Aegon the Unworthy…. Unlike Aegon IV, however, Aerys II always seemed to lose interest in his lovers quickly. Many lasted no longer than a fortnight and few as long as half a year. (TWOIAF)

—doesn’t hurt the idea that he was attractive. It’s also remarkably reminiscent of Oberyn, who has a large brood of bastards by different women (including a few we haven’t been told about whom I will discuss in future Chapters.)

Scolera was likely Aerys’s first lover, and I believe he maintained an abiding interest in her (as he did in Scolera’s friend Joanna Lannister), belying his fickle tendencies. Thus Aerys’s trip to Dorne in 270 makes perfect sense as a visit to his erstwhile lover and their son, Oberyn. Reunited (and perhaps quietly proud of the fierce young man Oberyn was becoming), Aerys promised Scolera the moon, as men will do:

His Grace was full of grand schemes… [Four such “schemes” are described, then…] In 270 AC, during a visit to Sunspear, he told the Princess of Dorne that he would “make the Dornish deserts bloom” by digging a great underground canal beneath the mountains to bring water down from the rainwood.

None of these grandiose plans ever came to fruition; most, indeed, were forgotten within a moon’s turn, for Aerys II seemed to grow bored with his royal enthusiasms as quickly as he did his royal paramours. (TWOIAF)

Two things to notice (for the present purpose, anyway): First, the project of making a desert bloom is a blatant metaphor for getting someone pregnant who previously had difficultly conceiving, as was the case with Scolera prior to Elia’s conception. That talk of digging a canal doesn’t hurt. (“Laying pipe”, anyone?) Nor does the remark about plans failing to come to “fruition”, often “within a moon’s turn”. (Conception and menstrual cycles, anyone?)

Second, GRRM chooses to casually mention Aerys’s many paramours immediately after bringing up his trip to Dorne and his promise to the Princess of Dorne, who I believe was one such paramour.

While Aerys’s grandiose, quickly abandoned plans may evidence his “vain, proud, and changeable” nature, “these flaws were not immediately apparent to most at the time of his ascension,” and were surely even less apparent (to Scolera) a few years earlier, when Oberyn was conceived. (TWOIAF)

Eventually, of course, Scolera came to realize what Aerys became. Thus her knowing comments to Doran about “madmen”:

“My mother taught me long ago that only madmen fight wars they cannot win.” – Doran Martell (FFC tSK)

Like Father, Like Son?

Compare the foregoing portrait of the young Aerys with our introduction to Oberyn Martell, who is a renaissance man, or, uncharitably, a dilettante:

[Oberyn] had traveled in the Free Cities, learning the poisoner’s trade and perhaps arts darker still, if rumors could be believed. He had studied at the Citadel, going so far as to forge six links of a maester’s chain before he grew bored. He had soldiered in the Disputed Lands across the narrow sea, riding with the Second Sons for a time before forming his own company. His tourneys, his battles, his duels, his horses, his carnality… it was said that he bedded men and women both, and had begotten bastard girls all over Dorne. (SOS Tyr V)

Oberyn’s dilettantish tendencies—he dabbles at being a maester, soldier, tourney knight, lover, songwriter—and his “unpredictable” nature are strikingly reminiscent of Aerys II’s “changeable” nature, “endless caprices” and “grand schemes”. (DWD tW) We’re told verbatim that Oberyn “grew bored” of his studies, just as Aerys “seemed to grow bored” after initial enthusiasm for new endeavors. Like father, like son.

Oberyn’s success as a soldier mirrors Aerys’s, who as mentioned “fought gallantly” during the War of the Ninepenny Kings.

Both men guzzle wine. Aerys “drank too much wine” at Tywin’s wedding and was “very much in his cups” at the Anniversary Tourney of 272. (DWD Dae VII; TWOIAF) Oberyn complains that Tyrion’s wine isn’t strong enough (Tyrion IX) and even drinks before dueling The Mountain, saying:

“I always drink before battle.” (SOS Tyr X)

While Oberyn’s wine-swilling jibes with Doran’s and Quentyn’s wine-savoring, Elder Brother Lewyn’s (former) alcoholism and red, veiny nose, and Marwyn’s sourleaf habit, what about the capacity for moderation evinced by Doran, Quentyn and Lewyn? Marwyn might chew sourleaf, but at least he’s dry. Oberyn’s immoderation thus makes even more sense if he’s Aerys’s son.

Both Oberyn and Aerys are laughers and japers. Oberyn laughs every time we see him, including in Arianne’s memory, and has been a japer since he dubbed Baelor Hightower “Breakwind”. (SOS Ty V, IX, X; FFC tCoG) Ellaria even references Oberyn making her laugh. (DWD tW) Notwithstanding the bias of our sources, we’re repeatedly told of Aerys japing and laughing:

Lord Rykker said, “If we need gold, His Grace should sit Lord Tywin on his chamber pot.” Aerys and his lickspittles laughed loudly, whilst Father stared at Rykker over his wine cup. (FFC C II)

The king replaced him as Hand with Lord Owen Merryweather, an aged and amiable lickspittle famed for laughing loudest at every jape and witticism uttered by the king, no matter how feeble. (TWOIAF)

Aerys’s tendency toward levity is again implied in a passage which contrasts Aerys with Tywin:

[T]he King’s Hand was all that the king himself was not—diligent, decisive, tireless, fiercely intelligent, just, and stern. (TWOIAF)

Tywin actually draws a curiously similar (if implicit) contrast between (Aerys’s son) Oberyn and Doran, just before his words (probably unwittingly) betray the truth of Oberyn’s paternity:

“Prince Oberyn’s presence here is unfortunate. His brother is a cautious man, a reasoned man, subtle, deliberate, even indolent to a degree. He is a man who weighs the consequences of every word and every action. But Oberyn has always been half-mad.” (SOS Ty VI)

Doesn’t it make perfect literary sense that the bastard son of the “Mad King” would be casually referred to as “half-mad”?

Notice that Doran’s caution and deliberation don’t just set him apart from Oberyn, as Tywin implies. Deliberate, reasoned Doran is equally the opposite of the changeable, capricious Aerys, which makes sense if Aerys is Doran’s opposite number Oberyn’s father. Of particular note: Doran is oddly called “indolent”—meaning lazy or “inactive”—in contrast to (his opposite number Oberyn’s father) Aerys being called “lively and active”.

“Six Links of a Maester’s Chain”

The fact that Oberyn earns exactly “six links of a maester’s chain” is, I believe, a metatextual clue that he’s a Targaryen bastard, inasmuch as this establishes a rhyme between Oberyn and Lyonel Strong:

Lord Lyonel [Strong] had studied at the Citadel as a youth, earning six links of his chain before deciding that a maester’s life was not for him. (tRP)

Lyonel Strong is of course best known for fathering Harwin “Breakbones” Strong (whose nickname recalls Elder Brother Lewyn looking “more like a man made to break bones than to heal one”), who infamously sired three bastards on Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen.

Oberyn and Aerys’s Other Son, Rhaegar

Oberyn’s aptitude for scholarship may at first seem to belie his paternity: Aerys was “not… the most intelligent” prince. (TWOIAF) But remember, Aerys’s son Rhaegar was clearly intelligent:

“As a young boy, the Prince of Dragonstone was bookish to a fault.” (SOS Dae I)

What we know of Rhaegar’s looks suggests a close relationship between him (and thus his father Aerys) and Oberyn that’s not shared by the other Martells.

Dany sees Rhaegar as distinctly “taller” than Viserys. (COK Daen IV) She calls Rhaegar “a fierce warrior”. (GOT D V) Rhaegar thus being a tall, “fierce warrior” sounds much like Oberyn, who is “fierce”, “tall, slim and graceful,” “slender” and “fit”. (SOS Tyr V, IX) Equally important: Oberyn’s physique has almost nothing in common with Quentyn’s, Marwyn’s, Morgarth/Elder Brother Lewyn’s or, implicitly, Doran’s.

In Dany’s House of the Undying vision, Elia is holding baby Aegon and asks Rhaegar,

“Will you make a song for him?

…which echoes Ellaria’s lament that Oberyn can no longer “write me songs”.

Rhaegar’s music-making fingers—

Many a night [Cersei] had watched Prince Rhaegar in the hall, playing his silver-stringed harp with those long, elegant fingers of his.…

—sound like Oberyn’s notably “slender hand[s]”, which are nothing like Doran’s, Lewyn’s, or Marwyn’s giant, gnarled, knuckly ham hands. (SOS Tyr V) Oberyn’s “slender hands” have only one verbatim match in the canon: Melisandre—

She clasped the bars of his cell with her slender white hands. (SOS Dav III)

—who many believe is (also) a Targaryen bastard, Shiera Seastar, or Shiera’s daughter. And if you believe Cersei is (also) Aerys’s child, it must be said that hers are the only “slender” fingers in ASOIAF:

…Cersei Lannister did not cry out. Her slender fingers brushed her cheek, where the pale smooth skin was already reddening. (GOT E X)

Saturnine

Tyrion calls Oberyn’s face “saturnine”:

The princeling removed his helm. Beneath, his face was lined and saturnine, with thin arched brows above large eyes as black and shiny as pools of coal oil. (SOS Ty V)

Saturnine means having qualities which were attributed in the middle ages to the planet Saturn: gloomy, cold, brooding, morose and remote. This is fascinating for two reasons. First, Saturn was thought to have these qualities in part because it was believed to be the furthest planet from the sun, which is the Martells’ sigil. Is it thus hinted that Oberyn isn’t just a Martell?

Second, who does “gloomy, cold, brooding, morose and remote” sound like to you? How about this guy:

“But I am not certain it was in Rhaegar to be happy.”

“You make him sound so sour,” Dany protested.

“Not sour, no, but . . . there was a melancholy to Prince Rhaegar, a sense . . .” The old man hesitated again.

“Say it,” she urged. “A sense . . . ?”

“. . . of doom. He was born in grief, my queen, and that shadow hung over him all his days.” (SOS Dae IV)

Selmy all but calls Aerys’s (other) son Rhaegar “saturnine”.

Oberyn’s Targaryen Eyes

Cersei remembers Rhaegar’s eyes in liquid terms:

Cersei had almost drowned in the depths of his sad purple eyes. (FFC C V)

Oberyn’s eyes—

large eyes as black and shiny as pools of coal oil. (SOS Tyr V)

—are clearly liquid as well. Lest we doubt, the only other reference in the canon to “coal oil” spells this out:

The bird’s black plumage shone like coal oil in the torchlight. Wet, Theon realized. (DWD Th I)

One could drown in “pools of coal oil”, right? “Coal oil” is a notably flammable liquid, and Dany envisions Rhaegar’s eyes aflame:

And saw her brother Rhaegar, mounted on a stallion as black as his armor. Fire glimmered red through the narrow eye slit of his helm. (GOT Dae IX)

Oberyn’s liquid eyes are not found among the Martells that aren’t his daughters. We’re indirectly told as much when we meet his daughter Tyene:

Her hair was gold as well, and her eyes were deep blue pools . . . and yet somehow they reminded the captain of her father’s eyes, though Oberyn’s had been as black as night. All of Prince Oberyn’s daughters have his viper eyes, Hotah realized suddenly. The color does not matter. (FFC CotG)

Notice that it’s only the color that “does not matter” to the viper-quality. Tyene’s “viper” eyes are thus logically characterized precisely by their Rhaegar-like depth (“deep”) and liquidity (“pools”)—qualities also present in dragons’ eyes. For example:

[Viserion’s] eyes were lakes of molten gold… (DWD tDT)

It also matters that Oberyn has “large eyes”. While Tyrion calls him “a salty Dornishmen for certain”, Oberyn’s large eyes fly in the face of (a) stereotypes—

She had always heard that Dornishmen were small and swarthy, with black hair and small black eyes… (SOS Ty V, A VIII)

—(b) Uthor-the-Martell-signpost’s small black eyes and (c) Arys Oakheart’s impressions after hanging around Doran’s court:

[Arys] could feel eyes upon him everywhere he went, small black Dornish eyes regarding him with thinly veiled hostility. (FFC tSK)

Large eyes are, however, typical of recent Targaryens. Aerys and Rhaegar share a gene pool with Egg’s son Jaehaerys (given two generations of sibling incest), and Jaehaerys’s eyes are “very large”. (SSM Targaryen Kings) Jaime says Aerys’s eyes were “huge” when he killed him:

Those purple eyes grew huge then… (SOS Jai II)

Oberyn’s “large” eyes are also tagged as “dark”—

The prince’s eyes were dark with amusement. (SOS Ty IX)

—thus textually matching Egg’s “eyes large and dark” as seen in The Sworn Sword. Elsewhere, Egg’s eyes are called “deep”—like Tyene’s—and “dark”, like Oberyn’s:

In the dimness of the lamplit cellar they looked black, but in better light their true color could be seen: deep and dark and purple. Valyrian eyes, thought Dunk. (tSS)

Rhaegar’s eyes are “dark indigo” and Aerys has “dark eyes” like Oberyn, too—

Upon a towering barbed throne sat an old man in rich robes, an old man with dark eyes and long silver-grey hair. (COK Dae IV)

—while Aerys’s “silver-grey” hair matches the “streaks of silver” in Oberyn’s hair:

Only a few streaks of silver marred the lustrous black hair that receded from [Oberyn’s] brow in a widow’s peak… (SOS Ty V)

Note that the black color of Oberyn’s eyes and (the rest of his) hair doesn’t mean Aerys didn’t sire him. Baelor Breakspear, who was the son of a purple-eyed, silver-gold-haired Targaryen king and Mariah Martell, had neither purple eyes nor metallic hair, but rather the “dark hair and eyes” of his Martell mother. (SSM Targaryen Kings; tHK; TWOIAF) Bittersteel was likewise the black-haired son of a silver-gold-haired Targaryen king. (SSM The Great Bastards, Targaryen Kings)

Sexy Rhaegar

Rhaegar’s overwhelming sex appeal, especially to young Cersei—

Had any man ever been so beautiful? He was more than a man, though. His blood was the blood of old Valyria, the blood of dragons and gods…

When she had been presented to him, Cersei had almost drowned in the depths of his sad purple eyes. He has been wounded, she recalled thinking, but I will mend his hurt when we are wed. Next to Rhaegar, even her beautiful Jaime had seemed no more than a callow boy. (FFC C V)

—matches Oberyn’s, who not only scatters bastards about the world but was analogously extremely attractive to Arianne when she was yet a girl:

“And what did you do, princess?” asked Spotted Sylva.

I sat beside the well and pretended that some robber knight had brought me here to have his way with me, [Arianne] thought, a tall hard man with black eyes and a widow’s peak. The memory made her uneasy. “I dreamed,” she said, “and when the sun went down I sat cross-legged at my uncle’s feet and begged him for a story.”

“Prince Oberyn was full of stories.” (FFC tQM)

If Aerys had a whit of Oberyn and Rhaegar’s sex appeal, why wouldn’t Scolera have wanted him, especially given the Targaryen incest drive—exemplified by Arianne’s fantasy here (and for those so inclined, by Cersei’s attraction to Rhaegar)?

Stallions Black As…

One further link between Rhaegar and Oberyn: Oberyn’s horse is notably Targ-colored—

The Dornish leader forked a stallion black as sin with a mane and tail the color of fire. (SOS Ty V)

—and it’s even described in a way reminiscent of Rhaegar’s horse (and what follows):

And saw her brother Rhaegar, mounted on a stallion as black as his armor. Fire glimmered red through the narrow eye slit of his helm. (GOT D IX)

Oberyn, Viserys, Bloodraven

Oberyn is coded as a Targaryen king’s bastard in a few other ways.

Oberyn is a “hard man”

a tall hard man… (FFC tQM)

—whose “lined face”—

His face was lined… (SOS Ty V)

—matches Viserys’s—

It was a severe look that emphasized the hard, gaunt lines of his face. (GOT D I)

—and Bloodraven’s:

He was older than Dunk remembered him, with a lined hard face… (tMK)

Like Oberyn, Bloodraven is a Targaryen king’s bastard, and for what it’s worth I believe Viserys may be a Targ bastard, too. (He’s called “less than shadow of a snake”, which I suspect hints that he was sired not by Aerys but by a figurative snake. Whether this “snake” was Lucerys Velaryon, Aerys’s master of ships and a descendant of “the Sea Snake”, Oberyn himself [the Red Viper, “that snake of a Dornishman”, “that smiling Dornish snake”, “that red snake”], or another is another discussion.)

Speaking of Viserys, Oberyn being sired by Aerys is consonant with Oberyn’s actions after Robert’s Rebellion, which so happen to be mentioned immediately after he’s portentously referred to as “half-mad”

“…Oberyn has always been half-mad.”

“Is it true he tried to raise Dorne for Viserys?”

“No one speaks of it, but yes. Ravens flew and riders rode, with what secret messages I never knew. Jon Arryn sailed to Sunspear to return Prince Lewyn’s bones, sat down with Prince Doran, and ended all the talk of war. But Robert never went to Dorne thereafter, and Prince Oberyn seldom left it.” (SOS Ty VI)

Oberyn Had Wings

Is there a neat little wink at Oberyn’s paternity when he duels Gregor?

The crack of the ashwood shaft snapping was almost as sweet a sound as Cersei’s wail of fury, and for an instant Prince Oberyn had wings. The snake has vaulted over the Mountain. (SOS Ty X)

Snakes don’t have wings, but dragons do.

Oberyn Has Dragon’s Blood

While all the present Martells descend from Princess Daenerys Targaryen, Oberyn’s death scene suggests that he has figurative “dragon’s blood” in a way that really doesn’t make much sense if he’s merely four or five generations removed from his last Targaryen ancestor, but which makes perfect sense if he was sired by Aerys II. How? When Gregor caves in Oberyn’s face with his fist, Oberyn’s literal blood “seemed to smoke”—

As [Gregor] drew back his huge fist, the blood on his gauntlet seemed to smoke in the cold dawn air. (SOS Ty X)

—just like an actual dragon’s blood smokes:

[Drogon’s] blood was smoking too, where it dripped upon the ground. (DWD Dae IX)

Black blood was flowing from the wound where the spear had pierced [Drogon], smoking where it dripped onto the scorched sands. (DWD Dae IX)

(h/t IllyrioMoParties)

Oberyn’s Apple

It’s my belief that ASOIAF uses apples to represent people with Targaryen blood. GRRM almost says as much in the extended Westerlands essay—

There was a worm inside the apple, though, for the growing madness of King Aerys II Targaryen would soon imperil all that Tywin Lannister sought to build.

—and I’ve written about how Oberyn’s daughter Sarella (“Alleras”) shooting apples in AFFC’s Prologue represents the deaths of the Baratheon brothers (whose grandmother was Rhaelle Targaryen).

I think Oberyn’s own death is prefigured by an apple as well: a rotten apple, which makes more sense if he’s Aerys-the-wormy-apple’s son than if he’s merely the great or great-great-grandson of the first Daenerys. Jon is walking among rotten apples after refusing to kill an old man who has eyes described in a way—

The man kept staring at him, with eyes as big and black as wells. I will fall into those eyes and drown. (SOS J V)

—blatantly redolent of how Rhaegar’s eyes—

Cersei had almost drowned in the depths of his sad purple eyes.

—and especially Oberyn’s eyes—

large eyes as black and shiny as pools of coal oil

—are described, both structurally and substantively, inasmuch as they are “big and black as wells” and “wells” connotes oil, as in Oberyn’s “pools of coal oil”.

What does Jon do?

Jon walked away. A rotten apple squished beneath his heel.

And how does Oberyn die? His head is crushed, like the apple beneath Jon’s heel. (Is it an accident that Tyrion’s puke contains apples and “fiery [like a Targ] Dornish peppers”?)

Clegane slammed his fist into the Dornishman’s mouth, making splinters of his teeth. “Then I smashed her fucking head in. Like this.” As he drew back his huge fist, the blood on his gauntlet seemed to smoke in the cold dawn air. There was a sickening crunch. Ellaria Sand wailed in terror, and Tyrion’s breakfast came boiling back up. He found himself on his knees retching bacon and sausage and applecakes, and that double helping of fried eggs cooked up with onions and fiery Dornish peppers. (SOS Ty X)

Thin Eyebrows and a Sharply Pointed Nose

Oberyn has “thin arched eyebrows”. Oberyn raises or lifts a “thin black eyebrow” twice more. (SOS Tyr V, IX) As discussed in Chapter 1, this firmly links Oberyn to Uthor Underleaf, thus underscoring Uthor’s symbolic role, which helps astute readers realize that Elder Brother is Prince Lewyn. But his brows are not, I think, typically Martell. Thus Marwyn’s “brow beetled”, which could imply he has thick, shaggy eyebrows. Oberyn’s brows seem elegant and hence, perhaps, Valyrian.

Similarly, Oberyn’s “sharply pointed” nose is nothing like Quentyn’s “too broad” nose, nor Lewyn’s “bulbous” red honker. (DWD tMM, FFC Ala II) (Curiously, Lewyn’s companion Ser Shadrich has a “pointed nose”, and Marwyn’s associate Leo Tyrell’s nose is “long and thin and pointed”. [FFC Ala II, Pro]) I suspect Oberyn’s nose is, at least in part, a dissembling way of referring to his Targaryen paternity, inasmuch as Valyrians have “aquiline” noses—

Ser Laenor had the aquiline nose… that bespoke his Valyrian blood. (tRP)

—a term which derives from the Latin word for “eagle-like” and which refers to an eagle’s beak, which is nothing if not sharp.

Angry Targaryen Bastards

Doran says something about the Dornish that hardly seems true of himself:

“We Dornish are a hot-blooded people, quick to anger and slow to forgive. It would gladden my heart if I could assure you that the Sand Snakes were alone in wanting war, but I will not tell you lies, ser. ” (FFC tSK)

He then implicitly posits Oberyn’s bastard daughters as exemplifying these qualities. And remember, the Sand Snakes’ and Arianne’s vengeance-fueled push for war is in fact an echo of Oberyn’s plan to crown Myrcella and thus provoke “the Lannisters and the Tyrells [to] come down on us”. (FFC CotG)

Now, guess who is described using the exact same language Doran uses to talk about those who think like the Sand Snakes (who took their lead from Oberyn)? A Targaryen king:

Aegon II was two-and-twenty, quick to anger and slow to forgive. (P&Q)

We read something similar about another Targaryen which explicitly ties this quality to “the blood of the dragon”, coincidentally vis-a-vis a row concerning none other than a Princess of Dorne:

It is said that he and his wife quarreled before the voyage, for Lady Baela [Targaryen] was of the blood of the dragon and quick to anger, and had heard too much talk from her husband about Princess Aliandra of Dorne. (F&B 702)

While all the Martells descend from Daenerys Targaryen, the idea that the especially-vengeful Oberyn is also Aerys’s bastard son, and thus that his especially-vengeful daughters are more Targaryen than we’re led to believe, is entirely consonant with the notion that “the blood of the dragon” can make one verbatim “quick to anger”, just like Doran’s Dornish who want war like the Sand Snakes do (and Oberyn did).

Similarly, Oberyn being a bastard like his daughters marries well with the curious fact that an in-world truism about bastards—

Like many bastards, he was hot of blood and quick to anger, seeing slights where none had been intended. (F&B 637)

— is expressed in terms which so happen to duplicate Doran talking about the “hot blooded… quick to anger” Dornish who want war as much as the Sand Snakes do and Oberyn did.

Don’t get me wrong: Oberyn generally maintains a sauntering, smirking cool veneer, remaining calm while trying to goad his foes, but if we zoom out, he is unambiguously eager for war and battle, angry over past wrongs and beyond “slow to forgive”.

Siblings or “Half-Siblings”

Doran and Oberyn are never called half-brothers. This doesn’t mean they’re full brothers, though. Throughout the ASOIAF canon, half-siblings are constantly referred to simply as “brothers” and “sisters”. Doing otherwise is called out as unusual and shitty:

“My half brothers would be more to his taste,” she told the king (the princess always took care to refer to Queen Alicent’s sons as half brothers, never as brothers). (tP&tQ)

---

“[Jon]’s our brother,” Arya said, much too loudly. …

“Our half brother,” Sansa corrected, soft and precise. (GOT A I)

In any case, when speaking to Oberyn’s daughters Doran refers to Oberyn six times using the distancing locution “your father”, as against one reference to “my brother”. This seems consistent with the idea that they do not share a father.

ObERYn and AERYs

Oberyn’s name may be in part a subtle tribute to his sire. The middle of both names consists in the letters E-R-Y.

The Aerys-Arys Parallel

Finally, I suspect GRRM contrived Arys Oakheart’s first name in order to hint in a couple ways that Oberyn’s mother slept with Aerys.

First, it establishes a parallel between Arys sleeping with Arianne Martell and Aerys sleeping with Arianne’s grandmother.

Better still, consider the Arys/Aerys homonym in light of the two “Olyvars” appearing in AFFC. One is Doran’s and Oberyn’s dead brother, who is only mentioned in the context of Oberyn being born after Doran “gave up hope of brothers”:

“I was the oldest,” [Doran] said, “and yet I am the last. After Mors and Olyvar died in their cradles, I gave up hope of brothers. I was nine when Elia came, a squire in service at Salt Shore. … And a year later Oberyn arrived… . ” (FFC CotG)

The other is one of many Oakhearts whom Arys tells us died fighting against the Dornish:

Arys only had to close his eyes to see them still. Lord Edgerran the Open-Handed, seated in splendor with the heads of a hundred Dornishmen piled round his feet. The Three Leaves in the Prince’s Pass, pierced by Dornish spears, Alester sounding his warhorn with his last breath. Ser Olyvar the Green Oak all in white, dying at the side of the Young Dragon. Dorne is no fit place for any Oakheart. (FFC tSK)

The juxtaposition of a Martell named Olyvar with an anti-Dornish hero named Olyvar raises my hackles. So, who tells us about Olyvar Oakheart? Arys, a perfect homonym for Aerys. Far better than the homonym for Arys AFFC itself bizarrely foregrounds:

Ser Arys had come to Dorne to attend his own princess, as Areo Hotah had once come with his. Even their names sounded oddly alike: Areo and Arys. (FFC CotG)

With homonyms for Arys clearly “on the table”, the story of Oberyn’s unexpected birth is thus connected via the name Olyvar to Arys and thus to Aerys, who just so happens to be the man responsible for said birth. (The in-world reason for Olyvar Martell’s name likely has to do with Olyvar Yronwood, but that’s a story for another day.)

Frail and Sickly Elia

We know far less of Elia than of Oberyn, but what we’re told is consistent with my hypothesis that she is Jaehaerys II’s daughter. Even as a girl she had “delicate health”. (SOS Ty X) Jon Connington remembers her as “frail and sickly from the first”. (DWD tGR) Jaime agrees:

Elia of Dorne was never the healthiest of women. (SOS Jai II)

Yandel writes of her “delicate beauty”. (TWOIAF) Cersei describes her as “a feeble Dornish princess with black eyes and a flat chest.” (FFC C V)

Setting aside the issue of Doran’s gout, which only afflicts him in his later years and is likely related to lead poisoning, the other Martells are all robust, and certainly not delicately beautiful. (To the explicit contrary, in the cases of Quentyn, Marwyn and Lewyn.) While Arianne has “the beauty she had prayed for”, it’s hardly “delicate”. To the contrary, she has “a woman’s body, lush and roundly curved”. (FFC CotG) Arys Oakheart revels in her…

…round ripe breasts with their huge dark nipples, the lush curves at waist and hip. (FFC tSK)

Even the woman I believe to be Elia’s mother, Septa Scolera, has “heavy breasts” and a thick waist. (FFC CotG; DWD C I)

• From whence, then, comes Elia’s thin, frail, flat-chested body, delicate beauty and ill health?

From her father, Jaehaerys II Targaryen.

Frail and Sickly Jaehaerys

Jaehaerys Targaryen, who reigned as Jaehaerys II from 259-262, was Aerys’s father. Everything about him fits marvelously with him being Elia’s father and thus the first Targaryen prince Scolera loved:

No one would have called him formidable. Unlike his brothers, Jaehaerys II Targaryen was thin and scrawny, and had battled various ailments all his life. Yet he did not lack for courage, or intelligence. (TWOIAF)

---

Though never strong, Jaehaerys proved to be a capable king, restoring order to the Seven Kingdoms and reconciling many of the great houses. (TWOIAF)

GRRM’s gave these notes on “J2” to an artist:

Jaehaerys II: Amiable, clever, sickly (he died young). Pale and frail, with very large purple eyes. Shoulder-length hair, a silky beard, a tired smile. (SSM 11.1.2005)

Like Father, Like Daughter

J2’s sickliness fits Elia to a tee. Seriously: Elia and he are each described, verbatim, as both “frail” and “sickly”. J2’s “tired smile” sounds like exactly the sort of expression this woman—

“The Princess Elia was a good and gracious lady, though her health was ever delicate.” (SOS Dae IV)

---

“Princess Elia was a good woman, Your Grace. She was kind and clever, with a gentle heart and a sweet wit. I know the prince was very fond of her.” (DWD Dae IV)

—would wear, doesn’t it?

It’s not just their weak constitutions that hint at their relationship. Both Elia and Jaehaerys are called “clever”. Elia’s “wit” is noted, as is Jaehaerys’s “intelligence”. Elia being “kind”, “good-heart[ed]”, “good and gracious” is consistent with her father being an “amiable” peace-maker.

Pale = Delicate Beauty

Jaehaerys is also called “pale”. Elia isn’t, so why do I bring this up? Because textually, being “pale” like Jaehaerys goes hand in hand with Elia’s trademark “delicate beauty”. How so? The only other “delicate beauty” in the canon is a nameless woman at Joffrey’s wedding:

And there was one woman, sitting almost at the foot of the third table on the left . . . the wife of one of the Fossoways, [Tyrion] thought, and heavy with his child. Her delicate beauty was in no way diminished by her belly… (SOS Ty VIII)

She is almost certainly Lady Alyce Graceford, an “elegant” woman who is part of the Tyrell entourage who we meet near a Fossoway women and a woman married to a Fossoway:

Buxom Lady Janna was Lord Tyrell’s sister, and wed to one of the green-apple Fossoways; dainty, bright-eyed Lady Leonette was a Fossoway as well, and wed to Ser Garlan. Septa Nysterica had a homely pox-scarred face but seemed jolly. Pale, elegant Lady Graceford was with child, and Lady Bulwer was a child, no more than eight. (SOS San I)

Alyce the “delicate beauty” thus just so happens to be “pale”, exactly like Jaehaerys II, thus bridging the gap between “pale” Jaehaerys and Elia the “delicate beauty”.

Notes

Aerys’s relationship with Scolera may explain his decision to marry Rhaegar to her daughter. That decision may have been helped if Aerys knew Elia was his own half-sister. Similarly, Lewyn’s loyalty to Rhaegar and Aerys may have been enhanced by the fact that his sister Scolera had given birth to the children of both Aerys and Aerys’s father.

Elia being Jaehaerys’s daughter means her son Aegon is/was far more Targaryen than if she were not. (Of course, I think it’s possible that Arthur Dayne sired Aegon.)

Also, if you believe Jaime and Cersei are Aerys’s children, and you buy my argument that both Elia and Oberyn are Targaryen bastards, there’s some tasty irony in something Oberyn says to Tyrion:

“As children Elia and I were inseparable, much like your own brother and sister.” (SOS Ty V)

Very much like them indeed. Minus the sibling sex. (Probably.)

The Narrative

Suppose I’m right and Oberyn is Aerys’s bastard and Elia is Jaehaerys’s. How did all this come about?

It’s my belief that the quintessentially Dornish, Targ-blooded Princess Scolera was at least as sexually precocious and aggressive as her granddaughters Arianne and Elia Sand, and as a result gave birth to her firstborn son, Doran, at a very young age: 13 or 14, probably. A shade more than eight years later, c. 255-256, the still young Scolera unabashedly pursued and/or welcomed a sexual relationship with her third cousin, the 30-31-year-old Crown Prince, Jaehaerys. That coupling yielded Elia.

Scolera may have been estranged from, widowed by, or cuckolding her official consort. Or they may have had an “understanding”. It’s likely the “wild and wanton” Dornishwoman instigated the affair, but it must also be noted that the same story that tells us of Jaehaerys’s love for his wife when they married also describes a man with a track record of being (a) impressionable, and (b) moved by passion to transgress his duties:

Prince Jaehaerys was not as forceful as his brother [Duncan, Prince of Dragonflies], but when Duncan defied his father to follow his own heart [and married a commoner despite his betrothal to Lord Baratheon’s daughter], and the king and court yielded to his desire, the younger prince did not fail to take note. …

…from a very early age ]Jaehaerys] had loved his sister Shaera and dreamed of wedding her in the old Targaryen fashion. Once aware of his desires, King Aegon and Queen Betha had done their best to separate the two, yet somehow distance only seemed to inflame the mutual passion of this prince and princess.…

In 240 AC,… Prince Jaehaerys and Princess Shaera each eluded their guardians and were secretly married. Jaehaerys was fifteen and Shaera fourteen at the time of their wedding. By the time the king and queen learned what had happened, the marriage had already been consummated. Aegon felt he had no choice but to accept it. (TWOIAF)

When Elia was conceived, Jaehaerys had been married for 15 long years—enough to grow weary/tempted—and notably hadn’t produced a child in over 10 years. (For what it’s worth, Shaera survived Summerhall, but her fate is unknown. She would only be 74-years-old at “present”.) Might not a man who had once shirked his marriage duties shirk them again in another fashion, succumbing to a “forceful” sexual advance from a young Martell princess?

I believe Arianne’s seduction of the older Arys Oakheart may (very intentionally) give us a picture of what Jaehaerys faced when Scolera made her move:

[Arys’s] desire was as deep and boundless as the sea, but when the tide receded, the rocks of shame and guilt thrust up as sharp as ever.… What am I doing? he asked himself. I am a knight of the Kingsguard. (FFC tSK)

“You know I have no other woman. Only . . . duty.”[Arianne] rolled onto one elbow to look up at him, her big black eyes shining in the candlelight. “That poxy bitch? I know her. Dry as dust between the legs, and her kisses leave you bleeding. Let duty sleep alone for once, and stay with me tonight.” (FFC tSK)

We can’t be certain where Scolera hooked up with Jaehaerys c. 255/6. She may have already been in King’s Landing, as she definitely was for some period between 259-262 (see below), but perhaps Jaehaerys was touring Dorne. Doran indicates only that Scolera was not with him at Salt Shore when Elia was born—

I was nine when Elia came, a squire in service at Salt Shore. When the raven arrived with word that my mother had been brought to bed a month too soon, I was old enough to understand that meant the child would not live. (FFC CotG)

—and that she, Elia and Oberyn were back in Dorne at some point after Doran turned 16 c. 264.

I was a man grown when [Elia and Oberyn] were playing in these pools. (ibid.)

Regardless of where Elia was conceived, Scolera probably bedded Aerys in King’s Landing. Oberyn was conceived just a few months after Elia’s birth, and it makes sense that Scolera would have brought Elia to King’s Landing for Jaehaerys’s approval if she wasn’t already there. Meanwhile Aerys’s youth means he wasn’t likely to be traveling hither and yon, and there’s no evidence he was fostered in Dorne. But anything is possible.

It’s unlikely Aerys was already married to Rhaella, who was probably only 11 or 12. Scolera was probably Aerys’s first woman, and given that she was older and sexually assured, he was probably smitten. Remember: Aerys’s marriage was ordered—

“I saw your father and your mother wed as well. Forgive me, but there was no fondness there, and the realm paid dearly for that, my queen.”

“Why did they wed if they did not love each other?”

“Your grandsire commanded it. A woods witch had told him that the prince was promised would be born of their line.” (DWD Dae IV)

—and dramatic logic suggests Aerys, like his father and grandfather, had someone he wanted to be with, only to be denied (unlike them), with tragic results.

A forced betrothal could have dovetailed with other perceived slights and Freudian psychology to motivate Aerys to bed Scolera to get back at and, in a sense, cuckold his father. Meanwhile, Scolera may have bedded Aerys to avenge Jaehaerys spurning or slighting her, perhaps when she presented Elia to him for his approval.

Either affair, but especially the Aerys affair, may have coincided with Scolera’s service to Princess Rhaella in King’s Landing. We know Scolera lived in King’s Landing before “Princess Rhaella” became Queen in 262—

“Were you aware that our mothers [Joanna and Scolera] knew each other of old?”

“They had been at court together as girls, I seem to recall. Companions to Princess Rhaella?”

“Just so.” (SOS Ty X)

—for a period of time which overlapped with Joanna Lannister’s stay, which began in 259 AC:

Joanna Lannister… had come to King’s Landing in 259 AC for the coronation of King Jaehaerys II and remained thereafter as a lady-in-waiting to Princess (later Queen) Rhaella. (TWOIAF)

Given that Tyrion speaks specifically of “Princess Rhaella”, it’s likely Scolera left court before or shortly after Rhaella was crowned Queen in 262. We know Joanna was sent away almost immediately after she married Tywin in 263:

In 263 AC, after a year as the King’s Hand, Ser Tywin married his beautiful young cousin Joanna Lannister…

King Aerys took unwonted liberties with Lady Joanna’s person during her bedding ceremony, to Tywin’s displeasure. Not long thereafter, Queen Rhaella dismissed Joanna Lannister from her service. (TWOIAF)

TWOIAF implicitly links Joanna’s dismissal to the same red-line Scolera had likely crossed years before:

…though [Rhaella] turned a blind eye to most of the king’s infidelities, the queen did not approve of his “turning my ladies into his whores.” (Joanna Lannister was not the first lady to be dismissed abruptly from Her Grace’s service, nor was she the last).

(Notice that Bronn calls Joanna’s son Tyrion a “whoreson” encodes Joanna as one of these whores.) We’re clearly invited to ask, “Who was ‘the first lady to be dismissed’ by Rhaella?” Scolera is the only other character known to be a member of Rhaella’s court and thus the obvious candidate. Meanwhile, the fact that we’re told Aerys bedded Rhaella’s ladies and the implication that this resulted in their dismissal lends massive support to the theory that Aerys bedded Scolera and thus that he sired Oberyn.

Regardless of when Scolera was dismissed, we know it was after she became fast friends with Joanna, given that the two remained close until Joanna’s supposed death, per Oberyn’s belief that Scolera traveled to Casterly Rock in 273 because of Joanna:

“It was my belief that the mothers had cooked up this plot between them.” (SOS Ty X)

Given the many instances of Dornish women sleeping with other women, including their friends (see Nym and the Fowler Twins), I have to think Scolera was also Joanna’s (first?) lover. She probably had a role in Joanna’s consensual sexual relationship with Aerys—think of Arianne, Tyene and Drey’s threesome—which likely began shortly after Joanna arrived, notwithstanding Yandel’s shrill protest:

The scurrilous rumor that Joanna Lannister gave up her maidenhead to Prince Aerys the night of his father’s coronation and enjoyed a brief reign as his paramour after he ascended the Iron Throne can safely be discounted.

The two women thus shared something they couldn’t easily talk about with anyone else. Here, it’s tempting to get into Joanna’s relationship with Aerys and the possibly peculiar nature of her marriage to Tywin, but I’ll save that for another writing.

Septa Scolera, Princess of Dorne

I’ve been calling the mother of Doran, Elia, and Oberyn “Scolera”, and it’s time to justify that choice.

The Three Septas

While captive in the Sept of Baelor, Cersei is attended by three Septas: Scolera, Mordane and Unella. It is my belief that all three of these women are important characters. Scolera is the former ruling Princess of Dorne, likely properly named Sarella. Unella is Maege Mormont. Moelle is Septa Mordane. Why do I think so?

As background, Cersei, who is about 34 years-old, thinks of the three as collectively old, calling them “the three hags”. (DWD C II)

• Hag: An old woman considered to be ugly or frightening; an unpleasant or ugly old woman; an ugly or slatternly old woman; a witch or sorceress.

Cersei is, to be sure, losing her grip on sanity, and possibly in denial about her own aging process. ASOIAF is also chock full of people being called old who aren’t really that old at all. Barbrey Dustin says “I am old now” when she is probably 35-40. (DWD PiW) (She surrendered her maidenhead to Brandon Stark, who would be turning 38 in 300 AC.) Balon is “old now” when he is no more than 49. (COK Th I) (I disagree slightly with the interpretations the wiki makes, but per the wiki Balon is actually at most 44 when Theon says this.) The Rogue Prince, Daemon Targaryen, is said to have “grown old” when he is 48-49. (P&Q). Dany sees Aerys in her vision and thinks him “an old man” at 48-49. (COK Dae IV) Loras calls Catelyn an “old woman” when she is 34-35 years old. (SOS Jai VII) Doran is 52 and repeatedly tagged as old. (DWD tW; WOW Ari II)

Maege/Unella

With the squishiness of “old” in mind, let’s start with the hypothesis that Septa Unella is Maege Mormont. While Unella is old enough for Cersei to lump her in with the others as a “hag”, she also seems to be the youngest of the three Septas inasmuch as her age is never singled out.

Like Unella, Maege is “old” but not too old. We can get an idea of her age by looking at her children. Dacey is the oldest of her five daughters. She’s described this way:

When she wore a dress in place of a hauberk, Lady Maege’s eldest daughter was quite pretty; tall and willowy, with a shy smile that made her long face light up. It was pleasant to see that she could be as graceful on the dance floor as in the training yard. (SOS C VII)

There is no indication here or anywhere else that Dacey is in any way old.

Maege’s second-born daughter is Alysane. 24-25-year-old Asha Greyjoy is “almost of an age” with her, so Alysane is likely 25-26. (DWD tKP) Assuming a few years between childbirths, this means Dacey would be around 30 c. ADWD, making Maege somewhere between 45 and 55 at present, assuming she was between 15 and 25 when Dacey was born.

Maege’s fifth and youngest daughter Lyanna is “ten, or near enough to make no matter”. (DWD Jon I) Assuming Maege gave birth to Lyanna between the ages of 35 and 45, she would (again) be 45 to 55. That age span fits with Cersei lumping Unella in as a “hag” but not singling out her age.

By the way, Alysane says Maege’s third and fourth daughters Lyra and Jory are “with our mother.” (tKP) I suspect they’re among the novice and silent sisters who oddly show up to “shear” Cersei for her walk of atonement:

When her gaolers came for her, Septa Unella, Septa Moelle, and Septa Scolera led the procession. With them were four novices and two of the silent sisters. The sight of the silent sisters in their grey robes filled the queen with sudden terrors. Why are they here? (DWD C II)

We first meet Maege here:

Stout, grey-haired Maege Mormont, dressed in mail like a man, told Robb bluntly that he was young enough to be her grandson, and had no business giving her commands… but as it happened, she had a granddaughter she would be willing to have him marry. (GOT B VI)

Robb is 15 at the time. He therefore could be her grandson if Maege is 41 or older (15+13+13), which fits with my 45-55 hypothesis. Tyrek Lannister marries an infant, so Maege’s willingness to betroth a granddaughter means only that she has a granddaughter. Dacey is not said to have children, but second-born Alysane does have a 9-year-old daughter who could be the granddaughter in question. (tKP)

Maege is “short and stout” (SOS C V), and Jeor Mormont famously describes Maege this way:

Maege is a hoary old snark, stubborn, short-tempered, and willful. (AGOT Jon IX)

• Hoary: Gray or white as with age.

Maege is “grey-haired”. Jeor calls her “old”, but it’s couched in casual, familiar language, like a friend calling another friend “you old bastard” without literally meaning “you are 80-years-old.” Jeor calling Maege a “hoary old snark” jibes with Cersei seeing her as a “hag”.

A snark, by the way, refers to a mysterious, difficult to locate animal. This jibes wonderfully with the notion that Maege is secretly masquerading as Septa Unella.

Now, here’s “Septa Unella”:

It was black as pitch inside the cell, and a huge ugly woman was kneeling over her, a candle in her hand. “Who are you?” the queen demanded. “Are you come to set me free?”

“I am Septa Unella. I am come to hear you tell of all your murders and fornications.” (FFC C X)

Maege’s nephew Jorah could easily be called “a huge ugly man“:

Ser Jorah was not a handsome man. He had a neck and shoulders like a bull, and coarse black hair covered his arms and chest so thickly that there was none left for his head. Yet his smiles gave Dany comfort. (GOT Dany III)

The way Asha describes Alysane hints that she ain’t pretty either:

Alysane smiled. Her teeth were crooked, but there was something ingratiating about that smile. (DWD KP)

Jeor doesn’t sound handsome either, but he certainly seems large enough to be related to the “huge” Unella:

Jeor Mormont, Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, was a gruff old man with an immense bald head and a shaggy grey beard. (GOT J III)

Maege is called “stout” twice. While she’s short, that doesn’t mean Cersei might not see Maege as “huge” for a septa, especially if she’s built like her daughter Alysane, described here:

“He wants you,” said the She-Bear, after his third visit.

Her proper name was Alysane of House Mormont, but she wore the other name as easily as she wore her mail. Short, chunky, muscular, the heir to Bear Island had big thighs, big breasts, and big hands ridged with callus. Even in sleep she wore ringmail under her furs, boiled leather under that, and an old sheepskin under the leather, turned inside out for warmth. All those layers made her look almost as wide as she was tall. (DWD tKP)

Those bolded details—especially the unusual callused hands—just so happen to be tightly mirrored in Unella:

Septa Unella was big-boned and mannish, with callused hands and homely, scowling features…. Septa Unella would growl when she shook the queen awake. (DWD C I)

Unella’s growling is obviously bear-ish, and sure enough, Alysane Mormont “growled” at Asha and Jeor Mormont “growls” on 4 occasions. (DWD tKP; GOT J VII; COK J IV, V; SOS Sam II)

Unella’s “scowling features” are mirrored by Jeor, who “scowls” in GOT J VIII, and Jorah, who “scowled” twice (COK Dae II; SOS Dae IV).

As for Maege being “stubborn” and “willful”, this fits with the persistence of Unella, whose tenacity is singled out:

Every time she closed her eyes, Unella was looming over her again, shaking her and asking her if she wanted to confess her sins. (ibid)

And that evening when Moelle appeared again she ate the bread and fish and demanded wine to wash it down. No wine appeared, only Septa Unella, making her hourly visit to ask if the queen was ready to confess. (ibid.)

That night, when Septa Unella came to wrench her out of sleep, she found the queen waiting on her knees.

Unella even shows signs of being “short-tempered”, like Jeor claims Maege is:

“Was there a trial?” [Cersei asked.]

“Soon,” said Septa Scolera, “but her brother—”

“Hush.” Septa Unella turned to glare back over her shoulder at Scolera. “You chatter too much, you foolish old woman. It is not for us to speak of such things.” (DWD C I)

Septa Unella is Maege Mormont.

Scolera/Sarella

Maege/Unella scolding Scolera by calling her a “foolish old woman” highlights the fact that Scolera is old, even to Maege. And indeed, Cersei singles out Scolera’s age, calling her…

the wrinkled old cunt… (DWD C I)

She does so again here:

Septa Unella and Septa Moelle kept pace with her, with Septa Scolera scurrying behind, ringing a bell. “Shame,” the old hag called, “shame upon the sinner, shame, shame.” (DWD C II)

This jibes with Scolera being old enough to be the mother of 52-year-old Doran Martell, which she is.

Meanwhile, Scolera “scurrying” is an important clue. Most “scurrying” in ASOIAF is done by maesters and rats and roaches. Two people “scurry” twice in ASOIAF: Arya while at Harrenhal—i.e. a princess disguised as a servant, much like Scolera here—and Caleotte, the Martell’s maester—

Caleotte scurried to the stairs. (CotG)

Maester Caleotte scurried off. (tW)

—who we also see “hurrying at [Obara’s] heels”, much like Scolera “scurring behind”, above. Caleotte repeats that motif:

The captain could hear… the quick soft scuffing of Maester Caleotte hurrying to keep up. (FFC CotG)

I’m certain this is an intentional connection to Scolera because of what follows Caleotte “hurrying at her heels” in Scolera-esque fashion:

Obara gave him a lingering last look and strode past, the maester hurrying at her heels. Caleotte was no more than five feet tall and bald as an egg. His face was so smooth and fat that it was hard to tell his age, but he had been here before the captain, had even served the prince’s mother. (FFC CotG)

Thus a man who twice scurries and twice hurries behind people, just as Septa Scolera does, so happens to do so just before its noted that he served Doran’s mother, the nameless Princess of Dorne—the very woman I believe is now living as Septa Scolera.

I mentioned we also see rats scurrying. In Chapter 1, I linked Barbrey Dustin’s rant about the maesters being “grey rats” to the idea that Marwyn is Obara’s father. Now, what does Barbrey say about the “grey rats”, just before she talks about unchaste Archmaesters of the Citadel (like Marwyn) fathering bastards?

They scurry everywhere…

…just like Scolera, who if I’m right is Marwyn’s sister. Thus Barbrey’s rant both foreshadows Marwyn’s Martell identity, and links him with Septa Scolera. Doubly so given this passage—

Once [Dany] came upon a rat drinking from the stream, but it fled when she appeared, scurrying between the stalks to vanish in the high grass. (DWD D X)

—which reminds us of what Doran says to Oberyn’s children:

“Oberyn was ever the viper.… I was the grass.… But it is the grass that hides the viper from his enemies and shelters him until he strikes. (DWD tW)

I also mentioned that we see roaches associated with “scurrying” a la Scolera. (DWD B I, tMM; tMK) And what does Doran—son of the Princess of Dorne, whom I believe to be the scurrying Scolera—happen to mention to Arys Oakheart (whose very name is a metatextual clue regarding Aerys’s affair with Scolera)?

“I had hoped that imprisoning my headstrong nieces would help to calm the waters, but all we’ve done is drive the roaches back beneath the rushes.” (FFC tSK)

Roaches that are clearly scurrying.

Now, remember how it’s said that (Scolera’s brother) Marwyn’s “brow beetled”? That’s an odd expression. It’s far more common to call someone “beetle-browed” than to use beetle as a verb like that. So what? Well, in British English, the verb “to beetle” has another meaning. What’s that, you ask?

beetle vb to scuttle or scurry; hurry

To scurry, just like Septa Scolera. There’s a reason the books take so long to write.

Scolera is more inclined to be friendly to Cersei than the other two septas. She reads to Cersei—

Sometimes Scolera would read to her from The Seven-Pointed Star or The Book of Holy Prayer… (FFC D I)

—and at one point even says to Cersei, “It is good to see you smiling again”. (ibid.) This fits with Scolera having been friends with Cersei’s mother. It also just so happens to neatly rhyme with Scolera’s granddaughter Tyene’s childhood:

“Your mother was a septa. Oberyn once told me that she read to you in the cradle from the Seven-Pointed Star.” – Doran to Tyene (DWD tW)

Scolera’s description solidifies her Martell identity:

Septa Scolera was thick-waisted and short, with heavy breasts, olive skin, and a sour smell to her, like milk on the verge of going bad. (DWD C I)

• “Thick-waisted and short”?

Quentyn Martell (and implicitly Doran) is “short” and “too thick about the middle”, and the Princess of Dorne’s brother Marwyn is “short and squat… with a round, rock-hard ale belly”.

• “Olive skin”? Salty Dornish:
  

  The salty Dornishmen were lithe and dark, with smooth olive skin and long black hair

• “Heavy Breasts?”

Her granddaughter Arianne has “full”, “round ripe breasts” that “filled his hands”. (FFC tSK)

• Smells like sour milk?

Google “gout sour milk”. Sour milk products are pretty much the best thing gout sufferers can consume.

Doran Martell has gout, and evidently his mother Sarella is making sure she doesn’t get gouty. (Yes, people inherit a predisposition to gout.) Indeed, given the parallel Chapter 1 described between Doran Martell (and his mother) and history’s King Charles I of Spain, it makes perfect sense that Scolera abdicated as Princess and retired to the Westerosi equivalent of a convent, given that gouty King Charles famously abdicated as King and Holy Roman Emperor and retired to live in a monastery! It’s no surprise that Scolera might parallel Charles in this way, since one of the ways in which Doran’s story “rhymes” with that of Charles is really about Doran’s mother: Scolera gave birth to five children, including two sons who died as infants, just as Charles sired five children, including two sons who died as infants.

Whether Scolera abdicated purely because she was debilitated by gout, which she now keeps in check using sour milk products, or because of something else, I’m not sure. As I’ll discuss shortly, though, the fact that she abdicated and retired explains how (a) Doran ruled in Dorne from the mid-270s onward yet (b) his mother opined on Elia’s marriage to Rhaegar in 279. That she has been forgotten and is hence as yet unknown to us is no surprise. Maester Aemon was essentially forgotten:

“I was helpless as a suckling babe, yet still it grieved me to sit forgotten as they cut down my brother’s poor grandson, and his son, and even the little children …” (GOT J VIII)

If I’m right about Marwyn, clearly he is likewise not on many players’ radars. Perhaps the most pertinent example is that of the first Rhaella Targaryen, who became a septa in Oldtown and effectively disappeared.

Given the discussion about gout, a quick aside about jaundice is in order. In the last Chapter of my Secret History of House Martell, I noted that Meria Martell’s yellow skin was a classic symptom of jaundice. When newborn infants are breastfed by their own mothers, the initial milk produced is called colostrum. It helps coat the intestinal tract, and one of the benefits is that it helps prevents the build-up of bilirubin and thus jaundice. Now, recall that Oberyn and Elia were birthed only a year apart. This indicates a very quick re-pregnancy, right? Normally this doesn’t happen for a very simple reason. When a mother nurses her baby, her menstrual cycle is often suspended for a period of 6-18 months. She can’t get pregnant. Thus it’s likely Scolera did not nurse Elia herself. This consistent with Elia being a sickly child, given that immune system of a child is built up via sympathetic interaction with its own mother’s milk. And I very much wonder whether Meria’s jaundiced appearance winks at the fact that Martell women rely heavily on wet nurses from day one.

The name “Scolera” is likely a riff on her real name, which is probably Sarella. Oberyn’s daughter Sarella is probably named after “Scolera”, and like her grandmother she has reworked her name into something different. (Alleras.)

If I’m right, there’s more than a little humor in a remark Scolera makes to Cersei, given not only Scolera’s own sexual history but what she surely knows about Cersei’s mother Joanna’s premarital trysts:

“Yes,” Septa Scolera echoed, “and you must feel so much lighter now, clean and innocent as a maid on the morning of her wedding.” (DWD C I)

Jeor calling Maege “hoary” becomes funny as well. As Moelle, she’s “whore-y”, in that she’s hanging out with at least one of Aerys’s “whores” (Scolera). Or are both of his “known” whores in her orbit? I digress; Joanna’s story is for another time. (credit: /u/IllyrioMoParties)

Moelle/Mordane

Now let’s look at Moelle, who is Septa Mordane:

Septa Moelle was a white-haired harridan with a face as sharp as an axe and lips pursed in perpetual disapproval. (FFC C X)

Mordane’s hair color is suspiciously unknown, but “harridan”—

• Harridan: “A woman regarded as critical and scolding”; “a scolding old woman”; “nag”; “shrew”; “hag”.

—sure sounds like Mordane:

“Septa Mordane will surely be lurking. The longer you hide, the sterner the penance. You’ll be sewing all through winter.” (GOT A I)

Septa Mordane sniffed in disapproval. (GOT S I)

Septa Mordane raised her eyes. She had a bony face, sharp eyes, and a thin lipless mouth made for frowning. (GOT A I

Mordane’s “bony face” with “sharp eyes” jibes with Moelle’s “face as sharp as an axe”. Mordane’s “lipless mouth made for frowning” prefigures Moelle’s “lips pursed in perpetual disapproval”. Moelle winks at Mordane’s reputation for “stern” penance as well:

Septa Moelle’s stern expression did not flicker.

A later description of Moelle—

Septa Moelle had stiff white hair and small mean eyes perpetually crinkled in suspicion, peering out of a wrinkled face as sharp as the blade of an axe. (DWD C I)

—contains a near perfect match for Mordane:

The next morning, as they broke their fast, she apologized to Septa Mordane and asked for her pardon. The septa peered at her suspiciously, but Father nodded. (GOT A II)

Cersei’s hatred of Moelle (and the other two)—

She hated and despised all three of them…

—mirrors Arya’s hate of Mordane—

“I wasn’t playing,” Arya insisted. “I hate Septa Mordane.” (GOT A II)

When Cersei says she will confess, Moelle says:

“We rejoice to hear it,” said Septa Moelle.

This reworks one of Mordane’s favorite things to say:

“Your lady mother will hear of this.” (GOT A I)

“The Hand will hear of this!” Septa Mordane raged. (GOT A II)

“Your lord father will hear of this!” (GOT S III)

But didn’t Mordane die? No more than Bran, Rickon and Davos died:

Joffrey marched her down the wallwalk, past a dozen more heads and two empty spikes. “I’m saving those for my uncle Stannis and my uncle Renly,” he explained. The other heads had been dead and mounted much longer than her father. Despite the tar, most were long past being recognizable. The king pointed to one and said, “That’s your septa there,” but Sansa could not even have told that it was a woman. The jaw had rotted off her face, and birds had eaten one ear and most of a cheek. (GOT S VI)

Mordane is totally “off stage” during the massacre in the Red Keep. She may well have been away from the castle. On two occasions she is noted as not being where she’s expected to be in King’s Landing: when she’s ill the day after she supposedly passes out at the Hand’s Tourney, and once when she complains of sore feet from standing all day in the gallery at court.

If Septa Mordane is savvy enough to survive (and perhaps anticipate) the slaughter in the Red Keep, and if she’s now party to a conspiracy involving the Princess of Dorne and a High Septon I have elsewhere suggested seems a lot like a Faceless Man, we have to wonder who Mordane “really” is.

No other first name follows a similar pattern, which suggests Mordane is an assumed name. (Morgarth is the closest, and that’s fake.) House Jordayne rhymes, and points to Dorne. Mors Martell was the founder of House Nymeros-Martell. “Dane” is a homophone for Dayne. The names Morgarth and Mordane each figuratively put Mor[s] Martell next to Arth[ur] Da[y]ne. Morgarth is a “dead” Martell who isn’t actually dead: Prince Lewyn. Might Mordane (i.e. who is likewise supposedly dead) be a Dayne—or at least their stony Dornish servant?

I think so, and I suspect she is the reason Sansa came to love lemon cakes. Lemons have to be shipped to the North from Southron lands like Dorne. I think Mordane likely traveled with Ned from Dorne, and Ned—being Ned—saw that she was provided with that comfort of home. Sansa developed a taste for Mordane’s treat, and that was that.

Ned makes a seemingly innocuous comment about Mordane—

Septa Mordane is a good woman… (GOT A II)

—which also hints that she’s from Dorne, in that two of the three other verbatim “good women” in the canon are Dornish:

“Princess Elia was a good woman, Your Grace. (DWD Dae IV)

Areo Hotah was sad to see [Ellaria Sand] go. She is a good woman. (DWD tW)

Moelle is also linked to Dorne and secret spies when Cersei imagines Moelle’s maidenhead to be “hard and stiff as boiled leather”. (FFC C X) This first recalls Hotah calling Obara “boiled leather”. (CotG) It also recalls the feet of the “Hornfoot” wildlings, with “soles as hard as boiled leather”, which in turn recalls Meribald’s feet, “bare and black and hard as horn”. (SOS J II; FFC B V) The latter verbiage recalls Taena Merryweather’s stiff, “huge nipples, black as horn”, which we see when they are assuredly “hard and stiff” like Moelle’s maidenhead: “two black diamonds”. (FFC C VII) In chapter 3, I will argue that Taena is among other things one of Doran’s “friends at court”: a secret Dornish spy, much like Mordane/Moelle is. George!!

I think there’s a clue in the name “Moelle” as well: it’s a homophone for “mole”, as in an embedded spy. I think that’s what Mordane was for fifteen years in Winterfell. Might she have been sent north from Dorne with Ned by someone with a distinct interest in the baby boy he took with him? Of course, that might suggest Jon’s parents aren’t Rhaegar and Lyanna… A certain lady of House Dayne is known to have given birth around the same time.

EDIT 2/25/2021: Given the obvious “three septas, like the three bears” thing going on since Maege is a “she bear”, check out Mordane making like Goldilocks tasting the porridge, just before Sansa makes a reference to Mordane’s supposed eventual fate:

She turned to Septa Mordane, who was eating porridge with a wooden spoon. “Septa, will Lord Beric spike Ser Gregor’s head on his own gate or bring it back here for the king?” (AGOT Sansa III)

END EDIT

There you have it. The identities of Cersei’s three septas, revealed.

Doran’s Mother Is Alive!? But Don’t We Know She’s Dead?

We are never explicitly told that Scolera is dead. Everyone simply assumes she is because Doran is in charge of Dorne. Many (wrongly) assume she was still the ruler of Dorne when Rhaegar and Elia were married, given that Oberyn refers to her reaction to Elia’s marriage:

“Prince Rhaegar married Elia of Dorne, not Cersei Lannister of Casterly Rock. So it would seem [the Princess of Dorne] won that tilt [against Tywin].”

“She thought so,” Prince Oberyn agreed, “but [Tywin] is not a man to forget such slights.” (SOS Tyr X)

The trouble is, it can be shown that as of several years earlier, she was no longer ruling Dorne. Areo Hotah clearly implies that Scolera was gone before he ever came to Dorne:

[Caleotte] had been here before the captain [Hotah], had even served the prince’s mother. (FFC CotG)

Since it’s more remarkable to Hotah that Caleotte served Scolera than that Caleotte was there before Hotah, it follows that Hotah wasn’t there when Scolera ruled, and thus that she was gone before Hotah arrived.

Hotah came to Dorne with Mellario—

Dorne had seemed a queer place to him as well when first he came here with his own princess, many years ago. (The Watcher)

—so Scolera was gone before Mellario arrived. While Mellario and Doran were betrothed when Scolera sailed to Casterly Rock in 273—

“Doran was betrothed to Lady Mellario of Norvos, so he had been left behind as castellan of Sunspear.” (SOS Ty X)

—the fact that Scolera yet ruled means Hotah and Mellario were not yet in Dorne at that time.

Arianne was born in 276 or very early 277, so Mellario and Hotah presumably arrived before then, meaning Scolera was gone before 276.

Oberyn famously killed Lord Edgar Yronwood at some point between 273 (the year he turned 15) and mid-275 (the latest point at which he might have turned 17):

When he was no more than sixteen, Prince Oberyn had been found abed with the paramour of old Lord Yronwood, a huge man of fierce repute and short temper. A duel ensued, though in view of the prince’s youth and high birth, it was only to first blood. Both men took cuts, and honor was satisfied. Yet Prince Oberyn soon recovered, while Lord Yronwood’s wounds festered and killed him. Afterward men whispered that Oberyn had fought with a poisoned sword, and ever thereafter friends and foes alike called him the Red Viper. (SOS Ty V)

Arianne says it was Doran, not Scolera, who dealt with the fallout—

Blood feud and rebellion would surely have followed Lord Edgar’s death [at Oberyn’s hands], had not her father [Doran] acted at once. The Red Viper went to Oldtown, thence across to the narrow sea to Lys, though none dared call it exile. And in due time, Quentyn was given to Lord Anders to foster as a sign of trust. (WOW Ari I)

—which means Scolera, who “ruled in Dorne” when she traveled to Casterly Rock, was gone by the time of this crisis. (SOS Ty V)

All these “time stamps” consistently indicate Scolera disappeared sometime between her trip to Casterly Rock and the death of Edgar Yronwood a year or so later, long before Elia’s marriage to Rhaegar. It’s tempting to conclude that her presumed “death” was related to her visit to Casterly Rock and/or Oberyn’s duel with Lord Yronwood. Did she avoid poisoning at Tywin’s hand but feign her death? Did she visit Yronwood upon her return? Did Oberyn, as yet ignorant that she lived, decide Yronwood was responsible for her death and take revenge? (Here it’s worth noting that one of her dead children was named Olyvar, and that Olyvar Yronwood was a legendary king of Dorne, suggesting she may at one time have been involved with an Yronwood.)

Not Death, But Retirement?

Given the striking parallel drawn in Chapter 1 between Doran Martell and Spain’s King/Holy Roman Emperor Charles I/V, it seems quite likely a gout-afflicted Scolera simply abdicated her throne and retired to life as a septa, much as the gout-afflicted Charles abdicated and moved to a monastery. I don’t want to rule out the possibility that she faked her death (and thus that Oberyn was “spilling the beans” when he referred to her response to Elia’s marriage), but I think it more likely that Westeros has simply forgotten that she exists, much as it forgot about Maester Aemon or Septa Rhaella Targaryen. This would explain why Oberyn was comfortable making a casual reference to his mother’s opinion about Elia’s marriage to Rhaegar despite their wedding having taken place several years after Doran was clearly the ruling Prince of Sunspear. That said, it’s still entirely possible that Scolera subsequently changed her name and/or faked her death as a septa, becoming all the more anonymous in the process.

Later Congress With Aerys

It’s likely Scolera has been living as a septa in King’s Landing, specifically, since at least 275. Consider: After Aerys embarked on a paroxysm of killing in response to the death of his infant son in late 274 or early 275—his rage perhaps catalyzed by the fresh wound of his first lover Scolera’s “death”—this happened:

Afterward, King Aerys fasted for a fortnight and made a walk of repentance across the city to the Great Sept, to pray with the High Septon. On his return, His Grace announced that henceforth he would sleep only with his lawful wife, Queen Rhaella. If the chronicles can be believed, Aerys remained true to this vow, losing all interest in the charms of women from that day in 275 AC. (TWOIAF)

While I don’t believe Aerys truly gave up women for good, it makes sense that the counsel of an old lover and friend like Scolera coupled with the happy revelation that she was alive could help explain his renaissance. Plus, the symmetry and irony of both Aerys and his daughter Cersei going on walks of atonement involving the same woman is too tasty to pass up. It’s entirely possible that Aerys and Scolera recommenced boning then or soon thereafter, with Scolera subscribing to a very Dornish take on the theology of the Seven that allowed Aerys to retain the appearance of being faithful. (In 275, Scolera would have been 40 years old assuming she was 13 when Doran was born, which recalls Alys Rivers being “at least forty” when she seduced Aemond Targaryen, so this is hardly impossible. [F&B 413])

Whether Scolera has truly “retired” and whether Doran knows his mother is alive are two pregnant questions. When I write about the Secret History of House Lannister, I will proffer the notion that Joanna did not die in childbirth, but was rather brutally silenced by Tywin and sent to the silent sisters. Given the relationship between these two women, I suspect Scolera’s “death” may be linked to Joanna going underground, with Joanna’s BFF Scolera’s presence in the Sept of Baelor a sign that Jaime’s vision of Joanna visiting him during Tywin’s vigil was not so very far from the truth.

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END OF CHAPTER 2

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[LINK TO CHAPTER 3]

• Secrets of House Martell
• Tinfoil Nuggets