Smoking Sea

The Smoking Sea is a forbidden maritime region associated with Valyria, feared for the unknown dangers of the ruined land and waters. The account offers few geographical particulars, but makes the sea a boundary that sailors avoid and royal law seeks to enforce.

Setting and Reputation

The Smoking Sea is named alongside the Valyrian islands in a royal edict forbidding ships suspected of sailing there from landing at any port or harbor in the Seven Kingdoms. The edict links the sea to the perilous waters around Valyria, a place whose surviving dangers are presented as real even though their nature cannot be reliably described.

The account emphasizes the limits of what is known. Septon Barth argues that Valyria should not be assumed empty of life, but leaves the horrors there largely unknowable. The Smoking Sea’s reputation thus rests less on a mapped route or a described encounter than on the threat of what lies beyond the reach of ordinary knowledge.

Balerion and the Return from Valyria

The sea’s association with Valyria gains particular force through Balerion. Of the dragons brought to Dragonstone with Aenar Targaryen and Daenys Targaryen, he alone was said to have known Valyria before its destruction. Later, he carried Aerea Targaryen there; Septon Barth doubts she went willingly and says she lacked the knowledge and strength of will to resist him.

Balerion returned to King’s Landing with severe wounds, including a long, jagged rent in his side. Aerea also returned in a terrible condition and died. Barth could not explain what had happened to her in Valyria, and his account treats the evidence of her return—and the dragon’s injuries—as a warning of dangers beyond the sea rather than as an explanation of them.

Royal Prohibition and Significance

Later that same year, King Jaehaerys issued an edict barring ships suspected of visiting the Valyrian islands or sailing the Smoking Sea from entering any harbor in the Seven Kingdoms. His subjects were also forbidden to visit Valyria, with death prescribed as the penalty. The restriction turned the region’s reputation into a matter of royal policy: the crown sought to prevent both dangerous voyages and the return of vessels associated with them.

Balerion was soon housed in the Dragonpit, and Jaehaerys ordered that all dragons be guarded at all times to prevent another escape like Aerea’s. The Dragonkeepers were established for that purpose. The sea itself is not described as a destination to be explored; instead, it marks the perilous reach of Valyria and the limits the king attempted to impose on contact with it.