Dances, dragons, and a whole lot of death —this is the life of Rhaenyra Targaryen.
Beware: heavy spoilers for "House of the Dragon" lie ahead.
Born in 97 AC, Princess Rhaenyra is the firstborn child of King Viserys I and Queen Aemma.
Rhaenyra's father inherits the throne in a time of turmoil.
The fifth king of the Targaryen dynasty is chosen to rule by the Great Council of 101
AC after the old king, Jaehaerys I, loses both of his male heirs.
Jaeherys convenes the noble houses of Westeros to decide who will inherit the crown as his successor.
Viserys is chosen over his cousin Rhaenys, despite being the younger of the two.
Rhaenys, nicknamed the Queen Who Never Was, discusses the Great Council's decision with
young Rhaenyra in the second episode of House of the Dragon, telling the princess:
"Men would sooner put the realm to the torch than see a woman ascend the Iron Throne."
Viserys and Aemma try multiple times to conceive a male heir throughout their marriage, resulting
in several miscarriages, stillbirths, and, ultimately, a brutal and bloody fate for Queen Aemma.
After a non-consensual medieval C-section ends the queen's life, the teenage Rhaenyra
is officially named Viserys' heir.
This differs slightly from Fire And Blood — in the book, Viserys names Rhaenyra his
heir when she is just eight years old.
King Viserys I defies tradition in naming his daughter the heir to the Iron Throne.
However, the king does a half-hearted job of securing Rhaenyra's position of power,
especially after he has sons by Alicent Hightower.
Rather than challenge male primogeniture, or make a formal declaration of Targaryen
exceptionalism, Viserys seemingly just hopes for the best, oblivious to the civil war flaring
up around him.
House of the Dragon suggests that Viserys is motivated by a mixture of guilt for Aemma's
death and a desire to keep his hot-headed brother Daemon away from the throne.
Does Viserys love his daughter?
Yes.
But doesn't that mean he should work harder to secure her future as queen?
Probably.
Rhaenyra is beloved by the people of Westeros during her youth, so much so that they dub
her "The Realm's Delight" in honor of her esteemed beauty.
As a child, she serves as a cupbearer to her father, which gives her access to all of his
council meetings and first-hand experience of the inner machinations of governance.
Rhaenyra's reputation plummets over the course of her life, however.
Fire and Blood tells us the Targaryen queen became a controversial figure in her later
years, earning some very unsavory nicknames from the people of Westeros.
Young Rhaenyra is portrayed by Milly Alcock in House of the Dragon, while actor Emma D'Arcy
later takes over the role as an older version of the character.
Casting two actors to portray Rhaenyra might be more than a practical decision on the showrunners' behalf.
By seeing two versions of Rhaenyra, viewers get to experience the distinct phases of Rhaenyra's
life, and see how her experience in Westerosi politics changes her over time.
In one of the earliest scenes in House of the Dragon, Rhaenyra soars over King's Landing
on the back of her dragon.
Rhaenyra rides the dragon Syrax, nicknamed the "Golden Beast" for her striking gold scales.
Named after a Valyrian goddess, Syrax is less aggressive and battle-worn than Prince Daemon's
dragon, Caraxes the Blood Wyrm.
Nevertheless, Syrax is a force to be reckoned with.
"They're a power man should never have trifled with — one that brought Valyria its doom."
Rhaenyra takes to the sky on Syrax for the first time at the tender age of seven.
Unlike other famous Targaryen dragons, such as Balerion the Black Dread, Syrax only has
one rider throughout her life.
In Fire and Blood, Rhaenyra's son, Prince Joffrey, attempts to fly Syrax — only for
the dragon to reject her rider and throw him from her back to his death.
It's clear from the opening of House of the Dragon that Rhaenyra and Syrax have a close bond.
But this is Westeros, where happy endings are few and far between.
Fire and Blood hands down a terrible fate for Syrax, who is killed by a rioting mob
that storms the Dragonpit in defiance of the Targaryens.
In the long and bloody history of Westeros, Rhaenyra Targaryen is the first woman to sit
on the Iron Throne.
She later has her reign disputed and discredited by her rival Aegon II, as well as the Maesters
of the Citadel, who denounce her as a usurper.
However, Rhaenyra nevertheless sits on the throne after her faction, known as the Blacks,
takes King's Landing from Aegon.
Rhaenyra rules for six months in King's Landing, earning her the moniker "The Half-Year Queen."
Book lore frames her as the only woman to have ever sat on the throne, although in Game
of Thrones, Cersei Lannister follows in Rhaenyra's footsteps and becomes the Queen of Westeros
after the deaths of her children in the Season 6 finale.
Despite her discredited sovereignty, Rhaenyra remains a powerful figure in the Targaryen
dynasty and an influential ancestor for Daenerys in the books.
The Mother of Dragons is the second sovereign queen in her family after Rhaenyra, as she
rules the city of Meereen while laying her claim to the Iron Throne of Westeros.
The similarities between Rhaenyra and Cersei Lannister don't end there, however.
The Targaryen queen has five children who are key figures in the Dance of the Dragons.
Her first three children, Jacaerys, Lucerys, and Joffrey, are born from Rhaenyra's marriage
to Ser Laenor Velaryon.
Like Cersei, however, the legitimacy of her children is doubted, with the realm speculating
that the boys are actually the sons of Rhaenyra's lover, Ser Harwin Strong.
"We know, father.
Everyone knows.
Just look at them."
Rhaenyra later gives birth to two more sons, Aegon and Viserys, fathered by Prince Daemon Targaryen.
Rhaenyra is pregnant with her sixth child when her father, Viserys, finally dies.
The news triggers a difficult labor, and tragedy strikes twice for the Targaryen queen, as
her daughter, Visenya, does not survive the birth.
The first time Rhaenyra Targaryen marries, it is for duty.
The princess is wed to Ser Laenor Velaryon in 114 AC, but makes no secret of her distaste for him.
Fire and Blood speculates that Rhaenyra was forced to marry Laenor by Viserys, who threatened
to denounce her as his heir if she didn't go through with the marriage.
It is heavily suggested that Laenor is gay and in love with Ser Joffrey Lonmouth, with
whom he spends most of his time at High Tide.
Despite spending most of her time at court away from her husband, Rhaenyra becomes friends
with Laenor's sister, Laena Velaryon, who marries Daemon Targaryen and, in the book,
dies giving birth to their twin daughters.
When Laenor and Laena die in 120 AC, Rhaenyra and Daemon marry in secret, against the wishes
of King Viserys.
Their relationship is creepy right from the start: Daemon gifts his niece various trinkets
from his voyages and courts her from a young age.
Rhaenyra's formal title as heir to King Viserys is Princess of Dragonstone, a title passed
down to all Targaryen heirs.
Like her ancestor, Daenerys bears this title at the beginning of Game of Thrones.
Daenerys serves as heir to her brother Viserys as the only known Targaryen left after Robert's Rebellion.
After the deaths of Viserys and her unborn son Rhaego, Daenerys assumes sovereignty of
House Targaryen, believing herself to be the last of the dragonlords.
Both Daenerys' and Rhaenyra's story arcs are driven by prophecy.
In House of the Dragon, Viserys tells his daughter about a prophetic dream that Aegon
I once had, a dream that motivated the conqueror to unify Westeros with fire and blood.
"Aegon saw absolute darkness riding on those winds, and whatever dwells within will destroy
the world of the living."
The Princess of Dragonstone is heir to her father's crown and her family's responsibility.
In order to maintain that responsibility, Rhaenyra spends a great deal of time fending
off crown-hungry suitors from other noble families such as House Lannister, House Frey,
and House Tyrell.
King Viserys makes Alicent Hightower his wife in 106 AC.
The daughter of Viserys' Hand, Ser Otto Hightower, Alicent gives birth to four children over
the next few years.
The coming of these children makes the realm anxious.
Will Rhaenyra remain Viserys' heir?
Or will patriarchal traditions force the king to name Prince Aegon, his eldest son, the
new heir to the throne?
To the king's credit, Viserys does not budge — Rhaenyra is the heir, through and through.
But that doesn't stop the Targaryens from splintering into two factions.
In Fire and Blood, Rhaenyra makes a bold statement by dressing in the traditional Targaryen colors
to symbolize her status as the future of House Targaryen, juxtaposing Alicent's green gown.
The two factions are thereafter dubbed the blacks and the greens after the princess and
the queen's costumes.
Alicent and Aegon lead the greens, with Rhaenyra and Daemon at the head of their opposition.
Aegon, who will become known as Aegon II, rides the dragon Sunfyre, while his brother
Aemond One-Eye rides Vhagar, the oldest and largest Targaryen dragon.
Rhaenyra and Aegon never fight directly on their dragons.
Other characters fight — and die — on their behalf.
The civil war decimates House Targaryen, wiping out nearly all of the dragons and triggering
the steady decline that leads to Robert's Rebellion.
Although she rules King's Landing for only six months, Rhaenyra quickly becomes an unpopular queen.
The people initially cheer for her when she takes the throne from her brother, but when
Rhaenyra hikes taxes dramatically to fund the war, it is the people of King's Landing
who pay the price.
Starving and oppressed, the people rebel against her.
Led by a High Sparrow-like figure named the Shepherd, rioters take over the city, storm
the Dragonpit and kill a number of dragons.
Rhaenyra flees to Dragonstone, but Aegon and his forces wait there in ambush.
Aegon has had a tough time by this point, having been severely wounded multiple times
during the war.
After capturing Rhaenyra, he sentences her to death by dragon.
Sunfyre burns and devours her, all while her son looks on.
"It ate her while her son watched.
What's left of her is buried in the crypts, right down there."
Most of what we know about Rhaenyra and her family comes from Mushroom, a dwarf who served
as a court jester to the Targaryens.
Mushroom is a Tyrion Lannister archetype.
Both share a propensity for wine and bawdy jokes, for example.
Most importantly, Mushroom and Tyrion are underestimated by the people around them.
Like Tyrion, Mushroom uses this to his advantage by becoming privy to important information
that the nobles don't bother to conceal from him.
Mushroom documented an account of the Dance of the Dragons titled The Testimony of Mushroom.
His testimony forms the backbone of Fire and Blood, and the narrator of the history book,
Archmaester Gyldayn, does his best to discern the truth from the lies.
Mushroom makes some pretty salacious claims in his testimony, too.
Gyldayn compares his account of the events to other historians, like Septon Eustace and
Grand Maester Munkun, whose tales often contradict.
Then again, in Westeros, any scandal is possible.
Mushroom doesn't appear in House of the Dragon, though co-creator Ryan Condal has confirmed
that there will at least be some nods to the character.
After Rhaenyra's death, it seems as if Aegon II has won the war.
But all is not lost for the queen's cause.
The blacks continue to fight in her name, with a new army of Northmen and knights from
the Vale approaching King's Landing.
Cregan Stark leads his soldiers to the capital, where they discover that Aegon II has been poisoned.
The greens bend the knee to Cregan, who makes some severe changes in the city on behalf
of Rhaenyra's son, the future King Aegon III.
Cregan's six-day rule is dubbed the "Hour of the Wolf."
With it, the Dance of the Dragons comes to an end.
Aegon III is crowned at the age of eleven, though the young king remains deeply traumatized
by the death of his mother and falls into a life-long depression.
It is during Aegon's reign that the last of the Targaryen dragons dies, earning him the
nickname Dragonbane.
And while Rhaenyra might not win the throne in the end, her legacy lives on — as her
ancestry extends all the way to Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen, the last scions of the House of the Dragon.