Ok so Rhanerya Targaryen is one of the most tragic characters in the Song Of
Ice And Fire. Originally promised a kingdom she was contested and over
time ended up having to fight in a civil war just to gain back the thing that should've
been hers in the first place. Rhaenyra has an incredible story attached to her
and throughout this video we're gonna be breaking down exactly what happens to her.
Her fate was actually spoiled by Joffrey during Game Of Thrones but
unlike him we're gonna give you a big warning before we proceed. I'm
warning you we will be spoiling it all indepth and this will ruin the series.
With that out the way thanks for clicking this, now let's get into Rhaenyra Targaryen....not
like that you dirty bad boy.
-
Now if you've watched Game Of Thrones then you might have seen
that Rhaenyras fate was actually spoiled by Joffrey...f**k here he comes here he comes.
-
What a stupid c**t.
Anyway that's how it ends but how did we get there. Well Rhaenyra started off as a
very popular member of the royal family. Chapter 12 of Fire And Blood chronicles
her early life and one of the first things we hear her called is The Realms Delight.
Born in 97 AC to Viserys and Aemma she had two brothers but both sadly
died shortly after being born. It was in 105 AC that she took to dragon riding and
here she mounted Syrax for the first time. The book states Rhaenyra was a
skilled Dragon rider but this year also came with some brutal blows too. Her mother during
the birth of her baby brother Baleon and the responsibility of the throne passed over to her.
In 105 AC she was announced the heir and several of the houses swore their allegiances to her.
This position of heir was of course taken away from her uncle Daemon who was stripped
of his title due to making fun of Baelon being unable to replace him. Daemon really
believed for a time that he was meant to rule and that Baelons death could
even be a sign that the Gods wouldn't let anything get in his way. However Rhaenyra
was chosen over him and due to Daemon thinking fondly of the girl he didn't really protest.
Daemon ended up leaving the kingdom and he travelled to Dragonstone which is where he
and Mysaria had a fling. He also took the dragon egg that was meant for Baby Baelon
Viserys ended up forbidding their relationship due to him already being married to Lady Rhea.
He sent envoys out to tell the two to break up and in the show Rhaenyra
went along with them. This isn't in the book but I just thought I'd include it.
After conquering the Step stones, Daemon returned to the realm and he handed over
his newly appointed kingdom of the narrow sea to broker peace with his brother.
It's said in the book that both Rhaenyra and Daemon would sneak out at night and that
theyd have sex in the brothels that lined the streets of silk. They were apparently
caught by Arryk Cargyll twins and Mushroom spred a lot of rumours of what they were up
to. At the tournament for Viserys ascension, Rhaenyra had given her favour to Ser Criston
Cole and he was appointed as her loyal protector. She was head over heels with
him and Mushroom said that the lessons from Daemon were taught in the hopes of seducing the knight.
In the book it's said that it was Harwin strong who took her v card however the show
switches it up to be Ser Criston. The rumours about Daemon doing it appear in both the book
and show though with this being a reason that Daemon is expelled from the Kingdom.
Either way Alicent ended up marrying her father and when she started popping out babies the line
of succession started to become contested. Not only did Alicent have one male heir, she had two.
However to the surprise of many, Rhaenyra was kept as the heir. Unfrotunately this
would start to create a divide amongst the houses and it was at the wedding of Rhaenyra
and Laenor that things started to divide. The series doesnt go into this too much because it
presents the wedding as being the place where Alicent showed she was part of the greens.
However the book stages the divide starting at the tournaments held in celebration of the wedding.
The Blacks dragons could be seen snapping at the Greens and there became talk of
there being a party of the princess. Criston dominated the tournaments and
he killed Ser Joffrey during this and also broke several of Harwins bones.
Though he loved Rhaenyra, the marriage and rumours of Daemon slowly caused him
to turn against Rhaenyra and he ended up siding with Alicent, becoming her Royal
Protector instead. Harwin became Rhaenyras and the pair started to have an affair. Together they had
three sons under the guise of being Valeryons and these were Jacaerys, Lucerys and Joffrey.
The Targaryens and Valeryons were both known for their distinctive hair and with none of
the kids carrying this a lot of rumours started to spread. We had the whole eye slashing incident and
when Alicent demanded a punishment Viserys shut everything down. He pretty much sided
with Rhaenyra and to hammer home his loyalty he made it Treason to say that they were Strongs.
During this time Daemon had wed Laena Valeryon but the pair would end up
having their relationship come to a tragic end. The show and the book differ in their
telling of the events with the former having her go through the childbirth that completely
wiped her out. In the story she knew she was dying and wanted to fly Vhaghar one
more time. She went to climb the steps of the tower but she collapsed when doing so.
However in the show she begs for death fully aware that Daemon doesn't love her with all his heart.
Harwin and Lyonel were also killed at this point when the pair perished
in a fire at Harrenhaal apparently ordered by Larys. Again the book doesn't spell out
what this was and it leans into the curse with it being blamed as the reason for the deaths.
This started off a year known as the Red Spring in which several characters
died. The first was Laena, then Harwin and shortly after this we got Laenor
before ending with Viserys. The show does change this up with him faking his own
death whereas in the book he was taken out completely by his jealous lover Ser Qaarl.
Daemon and Rhaenrya were married just six months later in the book
and according to some sources she was already pregnant before they wed.
The pair left and went to driftmark much to the fury of Viserys who hadn't approved
the wedding however they reconciled shortly after.
In the book the finger slicing scene happened much later in the timeline and basically how it was
laid out there was that Vaemond accused Rhaenryas kids of being Strongs and she dispatched Daemon
out to deal with him. He killed the Lord and then his cousins and nephews fled to Kings Landing.
They sat before the King and basically broke down Maury style about why the
kids were Strongs. Viserys sat and nodded along and listened
to their plea. Then he announced theyd be losing their tongues.
Nice.
They were cut out and when Viserys stood up he sliced his finger on the throne.
Viserys gained a fever after this and his Maesters
were powerless to stop this spreading through his body.
Rhaenyra ended up bringing her own Maester in who advised they remove his fingers and
then the fever subsided and he regained his health. Now during this time Rhaenyra had
two other children in Aegon and Viserys. Daemon was the daddy and they carried with
them the classic Targayen hair. The book says that Alicent took this as
a slight to her own son Aegon and though Rhaenyra denied this it definitely was.
Now one thing the show doesnt cover is that Rhaenyra gained weight during her
five pregnancies and the whole stuff with the strongs also turned her very
bitter. She was jealous over alicent who had managed to retain her figure and though the
show paints her out as the good guy, it's not really the case in the book.
There's definitely shades of grey there and she would snipe at Alicent just as
much as Alicent would snipe at her. I think that the show deliberately
did things differently so we could see some character growth in her
whereas in the book she's definitely as petty as the rest of the family.
Now though Rhaenyra helped to save her fathers life,
he died shortly after and the Dance Of The Dragons began. Now in the show we see
that on his death bed he tells Alicent that about the prince who was promised prophecy.
Unfortunately some wires get crossed and Alicent thinks theyre talking about their son.
This never happened in the book and instead Alicent and
Otto just decided to put Aegon on the throne to seize power.
Here Alicent believes it's Viserys last wishes so pick your poison on that one.
Oop.
Now this started off the Dance Of The Dragons and the book beautifully
transitions from Aegons coronation into what she's up to on Dragonstone. Meleys
never broke through during it and instead cheers rang out from Kings Landing. On
Dragonstone there were screams of agony though with Rhaenyra third day of labour taking place.
Learning about Aegon being crowned pushed her into labour and the book describes
it as if the baby itself is burning with fury and desperate to get out.
The process was horrifying for Rhaenyra with her cursing Aegon and Alicent throughout. She
also called the baby a Monster and told it to get out. When the child came out it was sadly
stillborn and malformed. It's said that it had a scaley short tail similar to a dragon. Rhaenyra
vowed revenge, saying that they'd taken her baby and throne and that they'd pay for it.
The child was named Visenya after one of
Aegons sister wives and it's death brought a major change in Rhaenyra.
A funeral was held for the child and Rhaenyra was crowend with her
own coronation. The book says that her first order was to proclaim Alicent and
Aegon traitors and she denied the terms that they offered her. The series has
Otto arriving at Dragonstone but in the book its just Grand Maester Orwyle.
Rhaenyra asked him why he had betrayed her whilst Syrax looked on and they
stripped him of his chains. She handed these to her own Maesters
and denied the terms which involved her being the Lady of Dragonstone.
All of her supporters in Kings Landing had either switched sides or been killed
and still recovering from the birth she was at her lowest point. The Greens had
the drop on them and had already sent out several ravens across the land.
Rhaenyra did the same and she used her sons to drum up support with Jacerys going
to winterfell and Erry. Lucerys went to Storms End and Aemond made lunch.
Now that's basically where Season One ends and after learning of Lukes death,
Daemon promised her a son for a son.
Working with Mysaria assassins were sent into the the castle called Blood
and Cheese. They waited in Alicents chambers for Helaena to bring the children in to say
goodnight and forced her to choose which child would Die. She said Maelor but they
killed Jahaerys instead and this sent her insane. She had the guilt of knowing that
one of her sons was dead and that the other knew they'd been chosen to die.
Helaena went insane and her kids were put in the care of Alicent.
Now to get revenge Aegon called in Arryk Cargyll and he went to Dragonstone under
the guise of being his twin brother. This was on a mission to kill either
Rhaenyra or a Royal but he bumped into his brother on the way. The pair duked
it out and due to no one being able to tell them apart they couldn't intervene.
This action made the Blacks really step things up and Daemon took Harrenhaal whilst Rhaenrya
commanded things from Dragonstone. They also slowly started to recurit as many dragon riders
as they could as there were several on the island that werent being used. Dragonstone was surrounded
by villages and it was said that the Targaryens from time to time had frequented the pubs, clubs
and magaluf strip throughotu their reign. They'd sired many bastards and those showing features
of the Targaryens and Valeryons were called in in order to ride dragons alongside the blacks.
This brought forth Hugh Hammer and also
a character called Nettles who i'll talk more about in a bit.
Now it's during this time that several battles happened.
One involved Rhaenys against Aemond, Criston Cole and Aegon the conqueror. Her
dragon Meleys and Aegons Sunfyre met in the air before they hurtled towards the
ground. When the smoke settled a blackened body believed to be Rhaenys was found and
though Aegon was alive he was critically wounded. He had been burned so badly that
his armour had melted into his skin and Aegon was sent back to Kings Landing to
recover. During this time Aemond wore the crown and he sat on the Iron Throne.
Now the battle of the gullet happened in which Rhaenyras first born Jace was killed.
Though the blacks won this fight his dragon flew too low to the sea
and it was struck with artillery from the boats.
Jace fell into the sea and though he scrambled aboard some wreckage he was shot by crossbows.
Now the book says that the death of Lucerys broke Rhaenyras heart,
however it does say that in Jacaerys death that she grew even more hardened.
This made her into a sort of Warrior Princess and if you'd
Seena you'd have known she was ready to kill all that stood against her.
Daemon took over Harrenhaal during this time
and Aemond believed that he could strike him down here.
He mounted a charge that would take six days to get to the location. However Daemon got word of
this from those that were still loyal to him in Kings Landing. AS we saw in Episode 1 the City
Watch were fiercly loyal to him and they helped the Blacks to mount an assault on Kings Landing.
Rhaenyra took it and she captured Alicent who handed over the keys
and told her that the Kingdom was now hers.
When going to Aegons chambers though they found them empty and the King had fled in
order to escape the execution. Rhaenyra almost instantly took to the throne and she had people
swear to her throughout the day and night. However there were some bad omens that came from this and
she ended up getting up from the throne in the morning. The Maesters in attendance noted that
her legs and hand were marked with cuts which the throne had given her through the night.
This was seen as a rejection by the throne and she only ruled for six months.
The Queen was welcomed though and due to her popularity as a child,
Kings Landing intially loved her. Aegon was a pretty unpopular king due to the
rumours about him and his exploits but she was seen as someone who would lead the realm
into a prosperous new period. However opinion started to change over time.
Those that tried to switch from Green to Black were seen as hashtag fake friends
because theyd switched from black to green before to save themselves. Rhaenyra said
that false friends are more dangerous than enemies and she started to routinely
have the heads of houses cut off. That's like a head of house and beheaded joke.
Anyway these heads were put on spikes around Kings Landing and
to make matters worse Taxes started to shoot up.
Tyland Lannister aka the Master Of Coin had basically moved a large amount of the
Kingdoms wealth overseas and to locations that he could control. This left The Blacks
pretty poor off and thus Rhaenyra instructed that taxes had to be raised. Everyone was
made to pay their share in Kings Landing and even beggars were forced to hand over
money. Things got so bad that there people saying there were even taxes on the rats.
Inquisitors were sent out to round up Aegons supporters and the freedom that
people had once had was stripped away with them now having to pay more for the privilege.
Rhaenyra was nicknamed King Maegor with teats and this ended up becoming
something that people would say for the next hundred years to describe a cruel woman.
During this time Aegons children were captured and Maelors head was sent to
her a gift. There's two accounts over what she did with some saying she cried
upon seeing this whilst others said she smirked. The head was cremated
in Targaryen fashion but all the death and dismay started proving too much for Rhaenyra.
Now obviously the book doesn't have the dagger in it at all but I can see
this being where it's interjected into the show. Rhaenyra was supposed to be
bringing the realm together in order to be ready for the white walkers. Both Jahaerys
and Viserys ruled with peace prominently on their mind and knowing what we know
this is because they wanted eveyrone to be united against a common threat.
I can see this being the case here too with Rhae thinking that she's
basically let her father down due to all the death within the family.
A life of betrayal also caused her to slowly become more and more paranoid
over time too. Several people were accused of being traitors to the
realm and this included Corlys which made his entire house and fleet abandon her.
Now we've kinda skipped over the character Nettles but she became a prominent player
during this time. It was rumoured that her and Daemon were getting it on with
the pair even apparently bathing together. Rhaenyra ordered her death but several people
thought this was a step too far and people even switched sides to Aegon after this.
Daemon was supposed to return home but instead he
went back to Harrenhaal which is where he had his final battle against Aemond.
Helaena also ended her own life during this whcih enraged a lot of those in Kings Landing. This was
seen as being caused by Rhaenyra killing her child and riots rang out in Kings Landing with them
suspecting that Rhaenyra had murdered her and covered it up.
Whether this was true or not we don't know but the point is that many believed it and it showed how
unpopular that Rhaenyra was. This was known as the Storming OF The Dragonpit and during it Joffrey
was killed. He tried to fly Syrax to defend his mother but the dragon was pelted with stones and
Joffrey fell of his back and hurtled towards the ground. The mob cut off the limbs from his corpse,
stole his clothes and jewels and they beheaded him showing how much they hated the strong.
Aegon the second became the heir at this point and Rhaenyra and her son fled Kings landing.
Rhaenyra had to sell her crown in order to buy
money to stowaway on a Braavosi ship which would take her to Dragonstone.
However she was betrayed and Aegon came back into the story with his Dragon Sunfyre. As
Joffrey said Rhaenyra was eaten by the Dragon whilst her son watched on.
Aegon ordered that it was to be stricken from the record that Rhaenyra was ever queen and in all
the following records and chronicles she was just referred to as a princess.
Really sad end to the story and this Dance Of The Dragons wiped out many of the remaining
ones and it whittled down the Targaryens. After decades and decades of peace the Targaryens were
almost brought tho their knees by themselves and Rhaenyra stands as a horrifying example of that.
Now that's the characters life summed up as best we could and I hope you enjoyed the video.
Obviously I'd love to hear your thoughts on her and what you think they might change for the show.
We’re running a competition right now and giving away 3 copies of Top Gun Maverick on
the 15th of November. All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is like the video,
make sure you subscribe with notifications on and drop a comment below with your thoughts on
the episode. We pick the comments at random at the end of the month and the winners of
the last one are on screen right now so message me @heavySpoilers if that’s you.
If you want something else to watch then make sure you check
out our breakdown of perfect scene in Spider-Man Homecoming.
We break down the entire thing so it’s definitely worth checking out if you wanna know more.
With that out the way thank you for sitting through the video,
I’ve been Paul and I’ll see you next time. Take care, Peace