Born on Dragonstone amid a storm so violent it sank the remnants of the fleet that carried the Targaryen dynasty's last flicker into exile, Daenerys grew up a beggar princess traded across the Free Cities by a brother who valued her only as coin for an army. A wedding meant to buy that army instead gave her a khalasar, a khal's love, and — from an act equal parts miracle and horror — three dragons hatched from stone when the world had forgotten dragons could live at all. What followed was less a claimant's campaign than an education: a girl who began by trading herself for swords learned, city by conquered city, to ask what conquest was actually for. The maesters of the Citadel, who thought the dragons extinct, have had cause to revise a great many careful theories on her account.
Daenerys Targaryen
Daenerys Stormborn
- Life
- the books give no fixed AC year; the last child of the line, born in exile on Dragonstone in the year after the Sack of King's Landing
- House
- Targaryen
- Titles
- Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea · Queen of Meereen · Mother of Dragons
- Allegiance
- House Targaryen
- Religion
- None formal; associated with the old Valyrian dragon-lore
- Weapon
- None; commands the dragons Drogon, Rhaegal, and Viserion
- Notable for
- Hatching the first living dragons in over a century and freeing the slave cities of Slaver's Bay
Ruling — precariously — over Meereen and the Bay of Dragons as of the most recent chronicles, with three dragons growing beneath the city, not all of them easy to control.
Appearances
In the novels
- A Game of ThronesPOV
- A Clash of KingsPOV
- A Storm of SwordsPOV
- A Dance with DragonsPOV
On screen
HBO's Game of Thrones — Seasons 1–8
Perspective
Daenerys's chapters trace an exiled girl's education in power, from a bartered bride's-eye view of the Free Cities to a queen's-eye view of the slave cities she conquers and then has to actually govern.
Key events
- 284 ACBorn in exile on Dragonstone amid a violent storm, the year after the Sack of King's Landing.
- 284-298 ACRaised a beggar princess across the Free Cities by her brother Viserys, who values her chiefly as coin for an army.
- 298 ACMarried to Khal Drogo in exchange for a khalasar meant to reclaim the Iron Throne.
- 298 ACHatches three dragon eggs in fire, emerging from the flames unburnt with three living dragons.
- 299 ACLeads her khalasar and dragons east, purchasing an army of Unsullied at Astapor.
- 299-300 ACFrees the slave cities of Yunkai and Meereen in turn and takes Meereen's throne as queen.
- 300 ACWeds Hizdahr zo Loraq in a political marriage meant to broker peace in Meereen.
- 300 ACFlies from Meereen astride Drogon out into the Dothraki sea.
Reading the character
Daenerys's story tracks the distance between conquest and governance, a gap most epic fantasy skips past and hers refuses to. Freeing a slave city turns out to be the exhilarating, easy part; ruling what's left afterward - feeding it, policing it, reconciling furious former masters with newly freed slaves who expect more than any queen can quickly deliver - is the harder, far less triumphant education the books put her through.
Her arc also interrogates inherited identity: she begins the story valuing her Targaryen blood as her only real asset, and ends it discovering that dragons, fire, and a crown are far easier to acquire than the judgment required to wield them without becoming the thing she fled. The books are careful never to resolve whether she manages that reconciliation, keeping her, deliberately, a question rather than an answer.
The arc of Daenerys Targaryen
This carries the character’s road through the published novels. Read on only if you do not fear to know.
These partings name deaths, endings, and roads not yet ridden in the books. Unveil them only if both roads are known to you — or if you do not fear to know.
In the timeline
Theories about Daenerys Targaryen
Explore further
House
Dragons ridden
Is Daenerys Targaryen alive?
Yes — as of A Dance with Dragons she is alive, though the chronicle keeps the particulars of where the books leave her behind the veil.
Who is Daenerys Targaryen?
The exiled last daughter of the fallen Targaryen dynasty, who rebuilt herself from a bartered bride into the mother of the first living dragons in over a century.