Maris Baratheon

Maris Baratheon is the secondborn daughter of Lord Borros Baratheon whose pointed mockery helps turn a tense confrontation at Storm’s End into the pursuit that ends with Lucerys Velaryon’s death. Though Aemond Targaryen had been offered any of Borros’s four daughters in marriage, Maris was not the one he chose; her anger at that preference gives her a decisive, if brief, intervention in the events there.

Position at Storm’s End

Maris is one of the four daughters Lord Borros offers to Aemond as a possible wife while entertaining the prince’s marriage suit. Borros distinguishes among his daughters by their qualities: Cass is the eldest and expected to be the first to flower, Floris is prettier, and Maris is the clever one. The offer is part of Borros’s broader political calculation: he argues that Rhaenyra has taken House Baratheon for granted and invokes his own expectation that a son, if the gods grant him one, would inherit Storm’s End ahead of his daughters. In his view, a royal marriage would bind his house to Aemond’s cause.

The record does not identify which daughter Aemond intended to marry, but it does establish that he did not choose Maris. Mushroom claims that he kissed all four sisters; that account does not change the central distinction in the histories, which is that Maris was passed over. Her place in the episode is therefore defined both by her father’s offer of her as a political match and by the prince’s preference for her sisters.

The confrontation in the Round Hall

When Lucerys arrives at Storm’s End carrying his mother’s message, Aemond confronts him in the Round Hall before Lord Borros, the four daughters, a septon, a maester, and a large gathering of knights, guards, and servants. Aemond insults Luke as a bastard and demands an eye or his life. Borros refuses to allow bloodshed beneath his roof and has his guards separate the two princes, escorting Lucerys back to the castle yard where Arrax waits in the rain.

At that point the confrontation might have ended. Maris, angry that Aemond preferred her sisters, needles him with a taunt about whether the eye he lost or his manhood was the missing part. She adds that she is glad he chose her sister because she wants a husband with all his parts. The jab turns Aemond’s injury into a public humiliation and makes her resentment explicit through a sharp, sexual insult rather than a plea for her own selection.

From taunt to pursuit

Aemond reacts in rage and asks Lord Borros for leave to go after Lucerys. Borros declines to direct what Aemond does once he is no longer beneath his roof, and his knights move aside as the prince rushes for the doors. Maris does not pursue Lucerys herself, but her taunt is the immediate provocation before Aemond renews his pursuit.

Outside, a violent storm makes flight dangerous. Aemond mounts Vhagar and follows Arrax, which struggles to stay aloft; the dragons meet above Shipbreaker Bay. Vhagar, vastly larger and hardened by many battles, overwhelms Arrax, which falls into the bay. Lucerys’s fate is reported uncertainly, but his dragon’s broken remains wash ashore below Storm’s End three days later. Maris’s brief intervention thus stands at the hinge between the restrained confrontation in the hall and the deadly violence outside, though the account does not establish that she intended or foresaw that outcome.

Narrative role

Maris is presented through a narrow but consequential episode: first as the clever daughter in her father’s marriage offer, then as the sister passed over, and finally as the speaker whose mockery reignites Aemond’s anger. Her moment does not resolve the political alliance or make her a central participant in the ensuing violence. Instead, the contrast between Borros’s insistence on keeping bloodshed from his hall and his refusal to restrain Aemond once he leaves it frames the conditions in which her taunt takes effect. The episode gives Maris a distinct voice in a room dominated by a prince’s grievance and a lord’s political bargaining, while leaving the consequences of the insult far beyond her control.