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- "Maelys Targaryen stood tall and proud, with dark armour and stripped black leather draped over his shoulders. With silver hair that was almost iron-grey, Sansa was reminded of a shadowcat with the eyes of a hunter and the poise of a wolf. Sansa thought he stood taller than the Hound, but his face was hard and sad, whereas the Hound's was ever hateful."
- ―Sansa Stark encounters a portrait of Maelys Targaryen in the Red Keep
Prince Maelys Targaryen, otherwise known as Maelys the Grey or the Wingless Dragon was the fourth child and third son of King Jaehaerys I Targaryen and Queen Alysanne Targaryen. He was famously disinherited by his father, and for fighting in support of Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen. Maelys was a warlord of the Iron Islands and the closest thing to a royal ruler of the Iron Islands that the Greyjoys had until Balon Greyjoy's rebellion over two hundred years later.
History[]
Background[]
Maelys was the fourth son of King Jaehaerys I Targaryen, and better known as Maelys the Wingless Dragon. He was a fearsome man and the husband of Princess Lysa Greyjoy of the Iron Islands, becoming the only Targaryen to wed with an ironborn. He rode a purple dragon he eventually called Windracer after a near-fatal incident over the Vale in which Maelys was almost thrown from the beast.
Maelys was best remembered for his famous duel with Lord Simon Lannister that led to his temporary expulsion from King's Landing. His dragon was killed by two krakens, so by the time of the Dance he had no mount and fought entirely on ground and at sea. He duelled twice against his nephew Aemond Targaryen and witnessed the death of his declared queen Rhaenyra. He survived the Dance of the Dragons, and was the longest-lasting of all Jaeherys' children.
In the books[]
In the A Song of Ice and Fire books, Prince Maelys Targaryen was the son of King Jaehaerys Targaryen, but he was the fourth child and therefore not expected to inherit at all.
Maelys was remembered as being seven feet tall, with silver hair that he kept cut to his shoulders for practical reasons, and with dark purple eyes that were apparently so dark that they were almost black. He was often called Prince Maelys the Weirwood, because he was rather pale and people joked that he grew as tall as a weirwood by the time he reached adulthood. It is left to speculation as to whether or not Maelys was stronger than Ser Gregor Clegane, because all accounts of him describe him as being huge, but not enormous, with long legs and a compact body. He is depicted as wearing dark armour with a red gem in his chest. People would often joke that he could leap from Maegor's Holdfast to Visenya's Hill if he put the effort into it.
As a boy, Maelys loved fighting and warfare and longed to be in the Kingsguard, but His father denied him this request because he needed him to inherit and breed more Targaryens. As per tradition, a purple dragon egg was placed in his cradle and hatched, but the first time he tried to ride the dragon at fifteen years old, at which point the dragon had become larger than a house, the beast flew high above the clouds and he almost fell off of it. This was misinterpreted by many that the dragon hated its own rider, and therefore Maelys was damned by the gods, for which the High Septon denied an audience with Maelys on the matter. He was betrothed to Genna Darklyn of Duskendale, but she was frail and timid and died in her bed when she was fourteen, leaving him without a bride. A marriage was proposed between House Targaryen and House Greyjoy, where Maelys would be arranged to marry Lysa Greyjoy, who was heir to the Iron Islands in the absence of any male heirs. Many maesters mock the irony of a dragon mating with a kraken.
When he was sixteen, he visited the Riverlands and the Vale, two of his favourite of the Seven Kingdoms, and the dragon he rode (which he refused to divulge the name of, since the dragon was his) flew unspeakably high above the Eyrie, so much that when Maelys tried to tame the beast into descending, it unsaddled him and he clung on to its wing until it landed in the Mountains of the Moon. Maelys recovered in the Eyrie, where Lady Lollys Arryn treated him and, according to the rumours, entertained him in her bed. These rumours followed Maelys for the rest of his life, and Lollys also. The dragon, however, finally earned a name for itself and he called her Windracer. When he left the Eyrie and travelled to Riverrun, he was courted constantly by women of the Riverlands, including an array of Frey girls, but Jaehaerys forbade any match with the Riverlands, since one had already been arranged between him and the Iron Islands and could not be revoked. While at Riverrun, Maelys sparred with the Lord of Riverrun and knocked him unconscious. He finally decided to visit the Iron Islands and meet his bride-to-be Lysa. The woman was described to be inhumanly beautiful for an ironborn woman, and even Prince Viserys thought so, and Maelys was enamoured with her. He was at least a foot and a half taller than her, but he apparently 'shrank' when he was in her presence.
Maelys became extremely popular among the ironborn, mainly because it was one of the few times a dragon came to the Iron Islands without intent of waging war against them. Spending two years on the Iron Islands, Maelys returned a distinctly darker and more dangerous version of himself - he was quicker to violence and fought constantly with his father. In order to sate his son, Jaehaerys immediately arranged for the marriage to take place in King's Landing. Knowing that the people of Westeros would not take well to ironborn progressing so vastly through the Seven Kingdoms, Maelys eloped with Lysa on the back of his dragon and summoned the ironborn to the Inn of the Crossroads, where the two of them were married - the place where the septon married them is now called Ironman's Stone, and a statue of Maelys and his wife is erected there. Maelys became the Lord of the Iron Islands and Lord Reaper of Pyke as a result of his marriage, which was not taken well with some of the regions of Westeros nearer to the Iron Islands - in particular, Lord Simon Lannister of Lannisport, who had repeatedly been under threat of violence from the Iron Fleet. Simon was once heard calling Lysa 'a smoking kraken, with a dragon's fire burning her brains from the inside', which Maelys took as a grievous insult. He travelled to Lannisport and demanded an audience with Lord Simon, who emerged in full plate armour and wielding a great sword, having predicted rage from the Targaryen prince and intended this all along. Maelys dismounted Windracer and the two men fought, ending in savage death of the Lord of Lannisport. Hearing of this, Jaehaerys was outraged and summoned his son to the capital, where he stripped him of his inheritance to the Iron Throne and banished him to Pyke, calling his duel with Simon Lannister an act of disgraceful behaviour.
As Lord of the Iron Islands and Lord Reaper of Pyke, Maelys proved to be an awesomely ambitious young man, who tried to tie the Riverlands with his new kingdom by arranging marriages with Great Wyk and Seagard, as well as planning for his future spawn to be wed to the heirs of Winterfell. In each following his exile, Maelys gave birth to a child: Orys, Victarion, Theon, Brandon, Visenya, Arya and Daeron. Orys, the eldest, was named for the Hand of the King to Aegon the Conqueror, and Visenya for Aegon's sister. He raised his children to be warriors and leaders, leading to many people suspecting that he was planning to take his father's crown in vengeance for his disinheritance from the Iron Throne. Maelys also refrained from wearing cloaks, instead wearing boiled leather with his armour and becoming a consummate seaman. His warship, the Shadowcat, was one of the most ingeniously-constructed ships in the Iron Islands. As if to match the creation of the warship, Windracer was killed when two krakens pulled her under the water, causing apocalyptic grief in Maelys. Hearing of the dragon's demise, Jaehaerys summoned his son back to King's Landing to attend the Tourney at King's Landing, where he offered reconciliation.
On his way to the Iron Islands, Maelys travelled on horse with a personal guard of ironborn, and his wife and children, leading to the popular belief that he meant to upturn his father still. However, Maelys approached Jaehaerys, where the people of King's Landing, as well as lords and ladies throughout Westeros who had visited for the Tourney, watched and waited for Maelys to make his move. Maelys, shocking all around him, knelt and allowed his father to kiss his cheeks and allow him to be at court whenever he wished. Maelys was also offered the opportunity to compete in the Tourney in representation of his people. Maelys was a terror with a lance, until he was unhorsed by Ser Ryam Redwyne, against whom he broke twenty lances. However, Maelys conquered all during the melee whilst wearing his wife's favour, including his nephew Prince Daemon Targaryen. Wielding a blade he called Tempest, Maelys exchanged blows against Ryam Redwyne and defeated him, but he refused to harm the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, and their duel became the greatest public display of swordsmanship outside of battle that the Seven Kingdoms had seen at the time. At the close of the Tourney, Maelys visited his father and learned of the death of his brother Aemon, as well as the inheritance of Baelon Targaryen, but he was not wrathful at being replaced, instead lamenting that he hadn't been there to mourn one brother or congratulate the other.
Maelys reportedly became extremely close with Prince Viserys Targaryen, his nephew, who grew to trust him deeply and confided his greatest secrets in terms of love and lust and ambition. With this trust, Maelys and his nephew both recognised that Jaehaerys didn't have long for the world, and that Maelys would support Viserys in the event of the Great Council, which came three years later. With the Iron Islands at his back, Viserys won the Great Council and was supported by Maelys and Daemon Targaryen. When Jaehaerys finally died, Maelys unhorsed Ser Criston Cole, but didn't participate in the melee due to injuries that Criston had dealt him during their bout. Maelys became popular with Princess Rhaenyra, who was enthralled with the description of the Iron Islands that he gave, and she deeply desired to visit them - her father was initially reluctant, considering the reputation of all ironborn, but only when Maelys could personally guarantee her safety did Maelys receive leave to take Rhaenyra to his dominion. The ironborn loved Rhaenyra, and this increased their support of her claim to the Iron Throne. It was rumoured that most lords of the ironborn only favoured her because it was most likely to lead to their own potential conquest of Westerosi lands, but Maelys genuinely loved her and her father. However, Old Wyk considered her to be an inappropriate person to support and rebelled, leading to Maelys travelling to the island and executing the lord.
When Viserys died, Maelys openly declared that he would support Rhaenyra since Viserys wished for her to succeed him, and this put him astride his nephew Daemon, but against many other Targaryens, including Viserys' son Aegon, who was crowned by Ser Criston Cole of the Kingsguard. In response to his declaration against Aegon, Aemond Targaryen visited the Iron Islands on the back of Vhagar, and he demanded that Maelys lay down his sword to the true king. Maelys told him that if Aemond could deprive him of his sword, then that sword would be gladly laid down to Aegon Targaryen. Maesters write of how Aemond laughed hysterically at the proposition and charged his uncle, initiating the duel. Maelys swiftly ended the duel by carving a scar against Aemond's shoulder that deprived him of his sword. Citing that he wouldn't spill Aemond's life blood and be branded a kinslayer, Maelys ordered Aemond to leave his kingdom and never return. Aemond, terrified of his uncle, fled with Vhagar. When House Lannister declared for Aegon, Maelys destroyed several villages with his Greyjoy fleet, and his wife Lysa shattered Seagard and any attempt at invasion from Ironman's Bay. All of Maelys' children, who were frightening warriors, rampaged through the North and broke through Moat Cailin and Torrhen's Square. Aemond returned with Vhagar and burned a good section of the Iron Fleet, before Vhagar was wounded over Greywater Watch by a Valyrian steel spear that Maelys had thrown at him.
At the height of the Dance, Maelys duelled a second time with Aemond and defeated him, only for Vhagar to drive him away. Aegon put an increasingly high price on his head, making him the most wanted man in the Seven Kingdoms, but this only led to more and more houses losing warriors and heirs against the ironborn. Maelys killed any green who came near him, unless they were under a flag of truce, but anyone who surrendered to him met mysteriously violent ends - most likely, at the hands of the more bloodthirsty ironborn under his command, who were later executed on their liege's orders. Hearing of Maelys' terrifying reputation, Rhaenyra wrote to him and offered to make him Warden of the North once she had crushed the greens and attainted any house who opposed her. Maelys begrudgingly accepted the offer, but many believed that he would not truly be comfortable with the position, since his place was in the Iron Islands and the northmen would never accept him. At Lannisport, Maelys was wounded by an arrow to the back, but recovered quickly and partook in the conquest of King's Landing by Queen Rhaenyra. However, from the day that the blacks took the Iron Throne, Maelys' position wavered - he lost Orys and Visenya to a brutal storm at the Arbor and Brandon to a riot in Oldtown, where the boy was castrated and butchered by a mob.
Desperate to see the end of Aegon, Maelys urged Rhaenyra to go in full force against her opponent, but Rhaenyra focused on consolidating her own power within the Red Keep - she oversaw a huge number of executions, and Maelys became an instrument of Rhaenyra's wrath. He earned the name Maelys the Drowned Dragon, since his presence in a village meant that somebody was going to be executed in the name of the new queen. When Lysa finally died from a fall off a horse, Maelys gave her the burial of an ironborn and set her body out to sea. However, he visited Flea Bottom repeatedly and became the client of several renowned prostitutes, much to the rage of his surviving children, who left King's Landing for Pyke. Maelys was forced to protect his queen from several assassins during her extremely brief reign, becoming much closer to her than even Daemon had been. Rhaenyra reportedly took to seducing him in private, but he rejected her because he required her to marry into another powerful house to harden her claim. When Daemon Targaryen died in a violent battle against Aemond and Vhagar, both of whom were killed in the duel, Maelys mourned for him, and comforted Rhaenyra, but then he received even worse news when Daeron and Victarion were slaughtered on Aegon's orders, as were their infant grandchildren. His two remaining children Arya and Theon had barricaded themselves within Pyke. Maelys left the capital, abandoning Rhaenyra briefly, to resolve the growing situations that rose from his children's butchery.
He faced vicious storms on the way, but the construction of the Shadowcat meant that it survived, but when Maelys returned to the Iron Islands, he found that half of the fleet had been crushed and that Aegon had sent a fleet of his own to obliterate his uncle's power. A catastrophic battle took place, in which the blacks triumphed despite terrible losses, and Maelys slew all of the prisoners he took, only for his children to insist that he throw down his sword, since the war was all but over and Aegon had won. Fearing for his queen's safety, Maelys journeyed across Westeros to protect her, but when he found her and her son Aegon, Rhaenyra had become grey, mad and hysterical, and Aegon wary of her. In her moments of sanity, Rhaenyra begged her uncle to take care of Aegon the Younger, and to kill her usurping brother if he had the chance. Aegon was frightened of Maelys, who at sixty years old had become hard and fearsome throughout the war. When they reached Dragonstone, Aegon the Usurper was waiting for them. Maelys was captured and watched as Rhaenyra was killed by Sunfyre on the king's orders, while her son watched and wept. Maelys only stared.
Rhaenyra's heir Aegon was kept a prisoner of King Aegon Targaryen, Second of His Name, as was Prince Maelys, since Aegon didn't see the point in executing a man who was past his prime and probably close to his own death anyway. Maelys, contrary to any expectations, remained tall and proud and frightening to the king and anyone who approached him - it was joked that even the rats of Dragonstone fled the cells out of terror of him. In his absence, the violent Dalton Greyjoy had imprisoned Maelys' children and had consolidated power in the Iron Islands, even though he had reportedly aided his cousin-by-law throughout the war. He had taken Arya for wife, naming her a Targaryen and not an ironborn, much to the chagrin of her father. When Aegon II finally died, poisoned by his enemies, Maelys was released and served the boy king Aegon III Targaryen as master of ships. He was restored control over the Iron Islands after Dalton's death and his daughter and son, and only heirs left, married into members of House Harlaw and Goodbrother. Prince Maelys Targaryen died in 148 AC at eighty-eight years old, asleep and peaceful, and his body was burned as per Valyrian tradition.
Maelys was the namesake of Maelys Blackfyre, the last Blackfyre pretender. Maelys was called the Monstrous, and was starkly different from the former Lord of the Iron Islands - he had no honour, and was considered 'inhumanly' tall, whereas Maelys Targaryen was extremely tall and was loyal to a fault. The statue of Maelys remains on the Iron Islands and is alluded to several times by Theon Greyjoy, who would often hide from his brothers there. Maelys was also depicted with Tempest standing over a barren land in Highgarden and King's Landing, and Sansa believes that the man stood taller than the Hound. Catelyn Stark feels sorrow for Lysa Greyjoy, who married a Targaryen prince and died in a violent accident, and all of her children grew up to be brutes.
It is up to speculation what would have happened if Maelys' dragon had been allowed to grow up until the Dance of the Dragons, since it would have been larger than Sunfyre, smaller than Vhagar and perhaps narrowly on par with Vermithor. Maelys was more experienced at sea than on the back of a dragon, but his sheer calibre as a warrior and commander would have made him as dangerous as Aemond or Daemon - George R.R. Martin speculated that, if Maelys had flown during the Battle at Rook's Rest alongside Meleys, Sunfyre and Aegon would have never survived the combat, but Maelys would have probably wounded himself seriously in the effort of facing Sunfyre and Vhagar even with Rhaenys alongside him. In Westeros, Maelys is considered unique in the Dance of Dragons considering that he proved more dangerous than his enemies expected without his dragon.
It is known that Maelys had 'dragon dreams', as he prophecised the war against the Stepstones by Prince Daemon Targaryen, as well as the Conquest of Dorne, when he was but a child.