Daenerys Targaryen

Character description

Daenerys Targaryen is the posthumous daughter of King Aerys II Targaryen (also referred to as the "Mad King") and his sister-wife, Queen Rhaella, and is one of the last survivors of House Targaryen. She serves as the third-person point-of-view character of 31 chapters of A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, and A Dance with Dragons. This makes her the series's fourth-most-prominent narrative voice after Tyrion Lannister, Jon Snow and Arya Stark.

Background

Almost 14 years before the events of the novels, after her father and eldest brother, Rhaegar, were killed during Robert's Rebellion, Daenerys is born during a great storm, earning her the nickname "Stormborn." Her mother, Rhaella, died in childbirth, and the master-of-arms of the Red Keep, Ser Willem Darry, whisked Daenerys and her older brother Viserys away to Braavos before Dragonstone's garrison could surrender the children to Robert Baratheon. Darry died when Daenerys was five years old, and she and Viserys spent the following years wandering the Free Cities. By the beginning of A Game of Thrones, Daenerys and her brother have been a guest of Illyrio Mopatis in Pentos for half a year. Game of Thrones creators D. B. Weiss and David Benioff described Daenerys as a combination of Joan of Arc, Lawrence of Arabia and Napoleon.

Appearance and personality

Daenerys is most often described as uncommonly beautiful, with long, pale silver-gold hair and purple eyes. She is slender and pale, although taller than some of her female ancestors. Tales of Daenerys's beauty are numerous, and throughout the novels she encounters countless suitors who seek her hand in marriage, sometimes to gain control of her three dragons. She is fluent in the common tongue of Westeros, the Dothraki language, High Valyrian, and bastard Valyrian, which she speaks with a Tyroshi accent. Over the course of the first three novels she becomes fluent in Dothraki and Ghiscari, which is spoken in the slave cities in Essos.

Daenerys grew up in constant fear of being discovered and killed by agents of "Usurper King" Robert Baratheon. Her older brother Viserys frequently abused her, which led to the development of her fearful, submissive, and furtive nature. However, over the course of the narrative, Daenerys finds her inner strength and courage, emerging as a natural leader adored by her people. She is often described as honorable and compassionate, if somewhat naïve, although she can be harsh and vengeful against those who seek to harm her or her followers.

Paul Youll illustrated Daenerys on the cover of the July 1996 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction, which contained a Daenerys excerpt from A Game of Thrones entitled "Blood of the Dragon". Other illustrators for the book series include John Picacio and Gary Gianni.

Storylines

A Game of Thrones

In A Game of Thrones (1996), Daenerys is sold by her brother Viserys III and Illyrio Mopatis into a marriage with Khal Drogo, a Dothraki warlord, for an army for Viserys. Daenerys befriends Jorah Mormont, an exiled Westerosi knight. At her wedding, she is given three petrified dragon eggs by Illyrio Mopatis. Although Daenerys is initially terrified of Drogo, their marriage grows into a happy union. She comes to love him and takes to Dothraki customs, finding strength for the first time, and she stands up to Viserys's attempts to bully her into coercing Drogo. When Viserys threatens her, Drogo kills him by pouring molten gold over his head. With Viserys dead, Daenerys sees herself as the heir to the Targaryen dynasty and responsible for reclaiming the throne for her family.

Later, Drogo is wounded in a fight. An enslaved Lhazareen priestess, Mirri Maz Duur, offers to dress Drogo's wound to prevent the cut from festering. Daenerys accepts, but the priestess, to avenge her fellow villagers massacred by the Dothraki, causes Drogo to become seriously ill. In desperation, Daenerys asks Mirri Maz Duur to heal Drogo with blood magic. Despite being saved by Daenerys from being raped by the tribe's warriors, the priestess betrays her, and the magic ritual results in Daenerys's unborn child being stillborn and leaves Drogo in a catatonic state. Because Drogo will never recover, Daenerys smothers him with a pillow. Refusing the traditional practice of royal widows joining the order of priestesses called dosh khaleen and asserting that she will lead a warband herself, Daenerys burns both the priestess and the dragon eggs on Drogo's funeral pyre, allowing herself to be engulfed by the flames. When the pyre dies out the following morning, Jorah Mormont recovers Daenerys from the ashes alive and unburned, with three hatched dragons.

A Clash of Kings

Leading the remnants of Drogo's khalasar through the Red Waste, Daenerys arrives in the city of Qarth. There, she unsuccessfully appeals to the rulers of the city for aid in reclaiming the Iron Throne. Daenerys accepts an invitation from a group of warlocks to discover her future. At their temple, the House of the Undying, Daenerys drinks a magical potion and enters.

Inside, she sees several visions and resists their temptations. When Daenerys enters the final hall and meets the real Undyings, she is told prophecies about her destiny as the "child of three" and advised that "three fires must you light", "three mounts must you ride", and "three treasons will you know"; they also tell her she is the "daughter of death", the "slayer of lies", and the "bride of fire". When the Undyings attack Daenerys and intend to hold her prisoner, Daenerys's dragon Drogon kills them and burns down the temple, allowing Daenerys to escape. Before departing Qarth, a venomous manticore nearly assassinates Daenerys. She is saved by Arstan Whitebeard, who has been sent by Illyrio Morpatis, along with the eunuch ex-gladiator called Strong Belwas and three ships to take Daenerys back to Pentos.

A Storm of Swords

Seeking an army, Daenerys sails to Astapor in Slaver's Bay to purchase the Unsullied slave soldiers. She negotiates with Kraznys mo Nakloz, promising a dragon in payment, but she betrays the Good Masters and commands the Unsullied to kill the slavers. Daenerys frees the Unsullied and the slaves. She later conquers the city of Yunkai and gains the service of Daario Naharis, who commands a large mercenary company. As Daenerys marches on Meereen, she learns one of her companions is Barristan Selmy, a knight of Robert Baratheon's Kingsguard. Selmy informed Daenerys that Jorah had previously been an informant. Disgusted, she sends the pair on a suicide mission to capture Meereen. When the mission is successful, Barristan asks to be forgiven for his deception, but Jorah refuses to ask forgiveness, so Daenerys banishes him. Unwilling to abandon the slaves she freed, Daenerys decides to remain in Meereen as she fears they will return to bondage.

A Dance with Dragons

Throughout A Dance with Dragons (2011), Daenerys struggles to maintain order in the city in the face of growing unrest as well as the chaos she left behind in the other cities she conquered. Furthermore, Yunkai has rebelled and is gathering forces to besiege Meereen. When Drogon supposedly kills a child, Daenerys feels compelled to chain her dragons Rhaegal and Viserion, but Drogon escapes. Her advisers suggest she marry Hizdahr zo Loraq to bring peace, and she agrees, although she takes Daario as a lover. Hizdahr successfully negotiates an end to the violence, and Daenerys marries him. At her wedding feast, the blood and noise of the fighting pits attract Drogon, who is immediately attacked. Initially, Daenerys's attempt to control her dragon fails, but she manages to climb atop Drogon, who flies off with her. After several days in Drogon's lair, Daenerys becomes ill from some berries and begins to hallucinate. She is later found by Khal Jhaqo, formerly a captain of her Khalasar who betrayed her late husband.

TV adaptation

Casting and development

Martin said the character was portrayed as older in the television series than her literary counterpart because of child pornography laws. Tamzin Merchant played Daenerys in the pilot episode. After receiving a negative reception at private viewings, HBO ordered the pilot to be reshot and recast. Elizabeth Olsen also auditioned, reading the role with two accents as the producers weren't sure if they wanted a British accent for the role, but didn't receive a callback. Emilia Clarke was recast as Daenerys following an audition in 2010. Weiss and Benioff said, "Emilia was the only person we saw—and we saw hundreds—who could carry the full range that Daenerys required."

Clarke said the role of Daenerys was "not your typical bonnet duty that you have to go through as a young British actress". Reflecting on the character's evolution in the television series, she stated: "Throughout the season she's had an insane transformation from someone who barely even spoke and timidly did everything her brother said into a mother of dragons and a queen of armies and a killer of slave masters. She's a very Joan of Arc-style character." Clarke said she accepts appearing in nude scenes if "a nude scene forwards a story or is shot in a way that adds insight into characters". She added that "sometimes explicit scenes are required and make sense for the characters/story, as they do in Westeros" and that she can discuss with a director how to make a gratuitously nude scene more subtle. Clarke has used a body double in past background non-nude appearances, however, particularly Rosie Mac in season 5.

In October 2014, Clarke and several other key cast members, all contracted for six seasons of the series, renegotiated their deals to include a potential seventh season and salary increases for seasons five, six, and seven. The Hollywood Reporter called the raises "huge", noting the deal would make the performers "among the highest-paid actors on cable TV". Deadline Hollywood put the cost for season five at "close to $300,000 an episode" for each actor, and in June 2016, The Hollywood Reporter noted the performers would each be paid "upward of $500,000 per episode" for seasons seven and the potential eighth season. In 2017, Clarke became one of the highest paid actors on television, earning between $1.2 and $2 million per episode.

Storylines

Daenerys Targaryen is introduced as the exiled princess of the Targaryen dynasty. She and her brother Viserys were smuggled to Essos during the end of Robert's Rebellion. For most of her life, Daenerys has been under the care of Viserys, whom she fears, as he abuses her whenever she displeases him. Viserys marries Daenerys to the powerful Dothraki warlord Khal Drogo in exchange for his military support to retake the Iron Throne. Daenerys becomes a khaleesi. During the wedding, exiled knight Ser Jorah Mormont pledges his loyalty to Daenerys while her benefactor Illyrio Mopatis gifts her three petrified dragon eggs. Daenerys is afraid of her new husband initially, but after learning the Dothraki language, she begins to bond with Drogo and genuinely falls in love with him. Daenerys learns the ways of the Dothraki, strengthening her relationship with her nomadic tribe. She becomes pregnant by Drogo with her son, who is prophesied by the Dothraki to be the "Stallion Who Mounts the World". Viserys grows jealous of Daenerys's popularity and becomes infuriated with Drogo's lack of urgency in launching an invasion, prompting him to threaten to cut Daenerys's unborn son from her womb. Drogo responds by killing Viserys with molten gold. Daenerys declares he was no dragon because fire cannot kill a dragon.

After an unsuccessful assassination attempt on behalf of Robert Baratheon, Drogo vows to Daenerys that he will conquer the Seven Kingdoms for her and their unborn son. However, during their journey, Drogo becomes comatose because of an infected wound incurred during a fight with one of his men. Daenerys desperately seeks the help of healer Mirri Maz Duur to save his life using blood magic. Mirri deceives Daenerys by using her unborn son's life as a sacrifice to heal Drogo but leaves him in a permanent catatonic state, forcing Daenerys to end her husband's life. Daenerys punishes Mirri by having her tied to Drogo's funeral pyre as she sets it alight. She also lays the three dragon eggs on Drogo's body and steps into the fire herself. At daybreak, after the fire has died out, Daenerys emerges with three baby dragons whom she names Drogon, Rhaegal, and Viserion.

Daenerys and the remnants of Drogo's khalasar wander the Red Waste before being accepted into the city of Qarth. The merchant, Xaro Xhoan Daxos, a member of Qarth's ruling council, the Thirteen, hosts her. Daenerys appeals unsuccessfully to the Thirteen to support her invasion of Westeros. She returns to Xaro's manse to find half of her men and servants slain and her dragons missing. Daenerys meets with the Thirteen again to ask for their help in retrieving her dragons. The warlock Pyat Pree claims responsibility and declares that her dragons are being kept in his temple, the House of the Undying. Daenerys travels to the temple, but Pree's magic separates her from Jorah and chains her to her dragons. She orders her dragons to immolate Pree. Daenerys confronts Xaro, who had conspired with Pree and Daenerys's servant Doreah to seize control of Qarth. She has Xaro and Doreah sealed in Xaro's vault and has her remaining loyalists raid his manse, using the funds they seize to buy a ship.

In House of the Dragon

In the final episode of the second season of House of the Dragon, titled "The Queen Who Ever Was", Daenerys is briefly seen following the birth of her three dragons (as depicted in "Fire and Blood") during a series of visions witnessed by Prince Daemon Targaryen, husband of Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, from whose line Daenerys is directly descended.

Reception

General

Daenerys is one of the most popular characters of the book series, together with Tyrion Lannister and Jon Snow. The New York Times called Daenerys one of Martin's "finest creations". Rolling Stone ranked her number one on a list of Top 40 Game of Thrones Characters, describing her story as a "non-stop confrontation with complex ideas about sex, war, gender, race, politics and morality". Matthew Gilbert of The Boston Globe called her scenes "mesmerizing". Salon's Andrew Leonard, in his review of A Dance with Dragons, called Daenerys one of the series' three strongest characters and bemoaned her lack of inclusion in A Feast for Crows. The website Mashable recognized her as one of the five most popular series' characters, while The Daily Beast referred to her as the "closest thing the series has to a protagonist".

Emilia Clarke's performance in the first season, showing Daenerys's arc from a frightened girl to an empowered woman, received praise. Gilbert said: "Clarke doesn't have a lot of emotional variety to work with as Daenerys, aside from fierce determination, and yet she is riveting." In her review for "A Golden Crown," Emily St. James of The A.V. Club commented that Clarke successfully conveyed the relief of Dany seeing her brother dead. IGN's Matt Fowler noted that Daenerys's choice to watch Viserys die was "powerful" and an important shift in her character. St. James complimented Clarke's expression of "calm rapture" during Khal Drogo's speech. Clarke's performance and the character's final scene in "Baelor" was praised by Ed Cumming in The Telegraph, and the final scene of the season received widespread acclaim.

Kate Arthur of the website BuzzFeed criticized the character's story line in the television show's second season, stating she was too "weak-seeming". However, Arthur praised the character's "purpose coupled with humanity and even some humor" during the third season, opining that Clarke was "eating the screen alive as a result". Nate Hopper of Esquire magazine, argued that the character in the TV series "remains the most boring and frustrating" contrary to the books, and while Clarke's performance is "well enough" the threats the character faces lack "real tension" and her conquering is "cut and dry" [sic], concluding that "she needs to be emancipated from her own easy, comfortable, mundane victory." Despite many commentators saying the fourth season was one of the best of the series, some reviews criticized Daenerys's "stalled" plotline. Erik Adams of The A.V. Club noted "Dany's new world is made in her image" after capturing Meereen.

In the fifth season, after a failed rebellion and assassination attempt, some critics questioned Daenerys's ability to rule effectively. Aaron Couch of The Hollywood Reporter praised the first meeting of Daenerys and Tyrion Lannister, comparing their meeting "to first seeing the heroes of Marvel Studios' Avengers come together". Lauren Morgan of the New York Daily News noted Daenerys' first dragon flight, calling it "a real fist-pumping moment". Liz Shannon Miller of IndieWire praised Daenerys's return to the Dothraki in the sixth season, calling it a "nice return to basics". Other commentators noted Daenerys's burning of the Dothraki leaders in the "Book of the Stranger" episode. James Hibberd of Entertainment Weekly called the burning scene "one of her incredible showstopping moments". After setting sail to Westeros in the season finale, "The Winds of Winter", Eric Deggans of NPR said Daenerys "has finally developed into the powerful leader the show has been grooming her to become for five seasons".

Feminism and evolution as a leader

Daenerys's victories over ruthless male characters transformed her into a symbol of feminism. "Khaleesi", one of her many aliases, became "shorthand for a strong, empowered woman". Daenerys's face was used on political protest signs, and many fans named their daughters after her. Analyzing her feminist appeal, Tanya Ghahremani of Bustle wrote she evolved from being a meek girl, rising "from being an unwilling wife to the leader of a nomadic warrior group, to being the leader of said group and a whole ton of men who gladly laid down their life to serve in her army". Gaby Del Valle of Vox said many people see themselves in Daenerys because her story subverts the hero's journey. Citing an essay by Rikke Schubart, a film scholar and professor from the University of Southern Denmark, Del Valle said Schubart explained that Daenerys "embarks on an archetypal hero's journey with a twist" because "instead of learning to humble herself, as heroes usually do, Dany has to learn to assert herself in a universe dominated by men". As a result, "she combines emotions and elements that are stereotypically gendered male and female (male pride, a male dragonslayer, a damsel in distress) and then claims agency for herself and others".

Political science has been used to analyze and assess Daenerys's leadership. Commentators and academics say that Daenerys's rule is similar to fascism in Europe throughout the early 20th century. Andrew Lotz, a professor of political science at the University of Pittsburgh, said that Daenerys should seize power as described in Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince. The Prince discusses the use of amoral ways and "how to do wrong" to gain power. Parker Richards of The Atlantic compared Daenerys in season eight to Adolf Hitler in the 1935 propaganda film Triumph of the Will.

Villain arc

The decision to turn Daenerys from a hero into a villain, a route that had long been a fan theory, was controversial. Most critics found the villainous turn, realized after Daenerys needlessly murdered thousands of innocents by burning down King's Landing, rushed and therefore unearned. Alex Abad-Santos of Vox said that "the implication that Daenerys Targaryen is going mad is the greatest fraud Game of Thrones has ever perpetrated" and is "essentially a bait-and-switch" because, for seven seasons, the audience has seen Daenerys as a good and moral person determined to abolish slavery and create a just society. Eliana Dockterman of Time echoed these sentiments, adding that Daenerys and Jon "proved the most popular heroes to cheer for — not only because they cheated death but because they spent time with those who weren't like them and learned to understand them". She said that "yes, Daenerys has used fire and her dragons to enact vengeance and punishment before, but up until season 7, everyone she burned was either evil or an enemy". Mike Hogan of Vanity Fair felt that turning Daenerys into a villain made no sense because although the show had been clear that Daenerys has a temper, "we have seen her balance that violence with mercy, kindness, and above all shrewdness".

In order to prepare for the series finale, Emilia Clarke revealed in a 2019 interview with Variety that she watched political speeches by Hitler to both emulate his style and how to give speech in a different language. Vox noted similarities between Targaryen's leadership in the later television seasons and communist revolutionary leaders Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong and Fidel Castro. Critics felt the villain arc could have worked with a strong message that power corrupts everyone, but that the show needed to lay better groundwork for it. Dockterman felt that instead of doing this, "the creators of the show decided to evolve Daenerys's increasing paranoia over the course of just a few episodes, let her snap in a second and punish her for that misstep by having Jon murder her a mere episode later. The shift was so abrupt that even actor Emilia Clarke admitted to struggling with it." Dockterman felt that "there's an additional layer of latent sexism to be analyzed here too: Cersei and Daenerys are two power hungry women, literally evil queens in fairytale parlance" while "men like Theon and Jaime have been redeemed" and Jon looked "to be the obvious choice for a selfless king". Arguing that the writers expected the audience to ignore almost everything they knew about Daenerys to buy that she would torch thousands of innocents because she was lonely and betrayed, Noel Ransome of Vice News asked, "[N]ow we're meant to believe that the most reasonably lovable protagonist is now the show's most unreasonable villain?" Alan Sepinwall of Rolling Stone believes that Daenerys's descent into madness is a development that requires "at least another half of a regular-length GoT season to feel earned".

Recognition and awards

Clarke received an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama in 2011, as well as a Scream Award for Breakout Performance by a Female. She also earned a Gracie Allen Award for Outstanding Female Rising Star in a Drama Series or Special in 2012. Clarke, along with the other main cast members, was nominated seven times for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series.

Clarke received Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2013, 2015 and 2016. She was also nominated for a Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for the role in 2013 and 2016. Other nominations include the Golden Nymph Award for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series in 2012, the Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Miniseries or Television Film, and the MTV Movie & TV Award for Best Actor In A Show in 2017. Many publications, including The Hollywood Reporter and Rolling Stone, place Daenerys among the best Game of Thrones characters. In IGN's Top 100 Game of Thrones Characters list, Terri Schwartz stated that Daenerys "is one of the most monumental characters on Game of Thrones".

In response to the popularity of the character, the names "Daenerys" and "Khaleesi" became popular choices for babies and pets. Parents who used the name "Daenerys" said they were inspired by the strength and beauty of the character and her actions in liberating slaves and assuming power in her own right. The character on the 2010s television series took a darker turn, which prompted discussion about whether parents would regret having used the name. The name declined in popularity after the end of the series but remains in regular use. There were 108 newborn American girls who were given the name in 2021. Another 123 newborn American girls were given the name in 2022.