Obara Sand

Obara was born in Oldtown, daughter of a prostitute and a prince who barely knew her. When Oberyn Martell came to claim her, the mother refused to hand her over; he answered by driving a spear into the ground at her feet and striking her. Then he turned to the girl and asked which she wanted to keep: the weapon or the tears.

Obara took the spear. Her mother kept the tears instead, and drowned them in wine until she died before the year was out. The girl grew up afterward in the Water Gardens, far from the woman who had borne her and close to the man who had chosen her.

When Gregor Clegane kills Oberyn in King's Landing, Obara goes to Prince Doran at the Water Gardens and demands war. She wants Tywin Lannister's head, Gregor's liege lord, and she wants to see Oldtown burn. Doran listens and says he will think it over, the same answer he gives every half-sister who comes after her asking the same thing.

The visits keep coming until Doran runs out of patience for his own patience and orders all the Sand Snakes arrested. Obara and her elder sisters are locked in the Tower of the Spear, in Sunspear, while Dorne still has no idea what its prince intends to do about Oberyn's death.

Obara and her sisters come out of the tower in time for the banquet held for Ser Balon Swann, who arrives in Dorne bearing Gregor Clegane's head as proof. When Ricasso raises his cup to King Tommen, Obara lets them fill hers and then pours it out on the floor in front of everyone.

Later, alone with Doran, Areo Hotah, Arianne, and Ellaria Sand, she asks again for war against the Lannisters, and this time her vehemence unsettles Ellaria more than anyone. Doran doesn't give her the war, but he gives her something close to it: he sends her to the High Hermitage under Balon Swann's command, free to hunt Ser Gerold Dayne for what he did to Princess Myrcella.

The novels leave Obara alive, still in Dorne, with her unfinished war against the Lannisters left hanging. The television series tells a different story: in that version, Obara never gets to see any of it resolved, because she dies in 304.

Both Obaras were born from the same scene in Oldtown and the same spear, but each ends up with her own ending, depending on which Dorne the reader or viewer walks into.