"Saved me? Three of those riders had already raped me before you saved me, girl. I saw my god's house burn, there where I had healed men and women beyond counting. In the streets I saw piles of heads... the head of the baker who makes my bread, the head a young boy that I had cured of fever just three moons past. So... tell me again exactly what it was that you saved?"
―Mirri Maz Duur to Daenerys Targaryen[src]

Mirri Maz Duur was a Lhazareen godswife enslaved by the khalasar led by Drogo. She treated Drogo for a small wound he took during the sack of her village. He became gravely unwell and she convinced his wife Daenerys Targaryen to let her use blood magic, promising to save his life. She left Drogo in a vegetative state and took the blood price of Daenerys' unborn child in vengeance for the attack on her people. She was burned to death on Drogo's funeral pyre by Daenerys.



Mirri Maz Duur is a godswife - a healer and wise woman - living amongst the Lhazareen, worshippers of the Great Shepherd. She's also a maegi, a practitioner of blood magic.

Season 1

Mirri Maz Duur 1x09

Mirri Maz Duur prepares to sacrifice Drogo's horse

Duur's village is raided by the Dothraki khalasar under Khal Drogo. The captive women are taken into slavery and raped. The Khaleesi Daenerys Targaryen orders that the Lhazareen women - including Mirri Maz Duur - be handed over to her custody to protect them. One of Drogo's warriors, Mago, objects. When Drogo agrees to Daenerys' request, Mago challenges Drogo to single combat. Drogo kills Mago, but takes a minor arakh wound to his chest. Mirri Maz Duur volunteers to heal the wound, saying that she is a godswife, or priestess of the Lhazareen god, the Great Shepherd. Drogo's bloodrider Qotho objects, calling Duur a maegi - a witch - but Drogo accepts her offering at Dany's urging.[1]

Mirri 1x10

Mirri Maz Duur awaits her death

In spite of - or maybe because of - Mirri Maz Duur's attentions, Drogo's wound becomes infected, making him seriously ill, and he falls from his horse, a sign of weakness among the Dothraki that threatens his position of khal. Duur claims that she can save him, but requires a blood sacrifice. She suggests killing Drogo's horse. Qotho becomes enraged at her use of magic to save Drogo and tries to stop the ceremony, but is killed by Ser Jorah Mormont. Daenerys is thrown to the ground during the fight and goes into labor, so Mormont takes her into the tent where Duur is carrying out the ceremony – in spite of Duur's strict warning not to interrupt – to ask for her aid.[2]

When Daenerys awakens she learns that her son was stillborn and malformed. She finds Drogo alive but in a vegetative state. Daenerys asks desperately when will Drogo be as he was, and Duur answers: "When the sun rises in the west, sets in the east, when the seas go dry and the mountains blow in the wind like leaves". Duur explains that Daenerys got what she traded for, and that before she was "saved" by Daenerys, she had already been raped several times and her temple had been burned. Now thanks to her spell, neither Drogo nor his son will cause any more suffering. Daenerys builds a funeral pyre for Drogo and orders Jorah to bind Duur to the pyre. The maegi claims she won't scream. She begins chanting as the flames slowly engulf her, though her singing quickly changes to shrieks of pain as she is burnt alive. True to Daenerys's word, Duur dies screaming.[3]

Season 7

Mirri is briefly referred to by Daenerys when she explains to Jon Snow that she cannot have any children. Jon points out that the "witch who killed her husband and cursed her" is not a particularly reliable source of information as to her current health.[4]


Blood Magic

Mirri Maz Duur was a maegi, and thus had the knowledge and power to perform blood magic, as shown with her ritual on Khal Drogo to presumably resurrect him, which actually left him in a persistent vegetative state.

Healing Magic

Being a Lhazareen godswife, Mirri Maz Duur would have possessed a wide range of knowledge and skill concerning how to perform various forms of healing magic and spells.


Season One appearances

In the books

Mirri Maz Duur's role in the series is largely unchanged from the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, with the books giving more details about her history. She is the godswife of a Lhazareen village and is rumored to have unearthly powers. Her mother had been a godswife before her and taught her all the spells and songs. As a young girl, Mirri had traveled to Asshai to learn the arts of the shadowbinders. She also studied the lore of the moonsingers of the Jogos Nhai, the herb lore of the Dothraki, and medicines and anatomy with the then-travelling Archmaester Marwyn.

Duur's treachery makes Daenerys reluctant to trust Quaithe, who, among other things, seems to imply that Daenerys should visit Asshai next. When Daenerys was at the House of the Undying, one of the prophecies she heard was "Three treasons will you know, once for blood and once for gold and once for love". Daenerys believes that Mirri Maz Duur committed the blood treason.

See also

