History Characters / HouseOfTheDragonRhaenyraTargaryen

* CoolCrown: At the end of Season 1, Ser Erryk Cargyll smuggles the golden Targaryen crown with the family's dragon sigil out of King's Landing and brings it to her just in time for her AwesomeMomentOfCrowning in Dragonstone. This forces Aegon to wear the crown of Aegon the Conqueror.

* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: [[spoiler:She dispatches Lucerys as an envoy to Storm's End and get the Stormlands' support in the upcoming war. She cites that Lord Borros, a notoriously prideful man, would be honored to have a prince and a dragonrider personally come to him, which would make him more amendable to an alliance. While Rhaenyra was right in that Borros ''is'' a prideful man, he's actually far from gracious towards Lucerys's arrival. He sees Rhaenyra's demands for him to pledge his fealty to her as an insult to him and his House, made even worse by the revelation that the Greens at least offered a marriage pact between Prince Aemond and one of Borros's daughters before Lucerys's arrival. What probably contributed to Rhaenyra's misjudgment was that she believed Borros was exactly like his father Boremund, who swore an oath of loyalty to Rhaenyra, while he actually doesn't feel bound by his father's promises one bit.]]

* DaddysGirl: She is Viserys' favourite child by a country mile. She and Viserys have a close and affectionate relationship. She serves as his cupbearer during Small Council meetings and becomes much more assertive and active (to Otto Hightower's great displeasure) whenever her father isn't present. Her father's love for her is what spurs him to name her his heir in defiance of [[HeirClubForMen male-centric Westerosi inheritance customs]] and even swear to not replace her when he sires a son. [[spoiler:She's utterly grief-stricken by the news of his death.]]

The daughter of King Viserys I by his first wife Aemma Arryn and prospective Queen Regnant of the Seven Kingdoms as Viserys's chosen heir. With Aegon II's usurpation of the succession against her father's wishes, her court crowned her by her own right, making her TheLeader of the Black faction of the brewing SuccessionCrisis called the Dance of the Dragons.

* OpenSecret: The fact that Harwin Strong is her lover and the father of her three eldest children instead of Laenor is known to everyone except her father Viserys, who is only being willfully ignorant for the sake of his grandchildren.

* OutlivingOnesOffspring: After learning of Viserys' death and Aegon's coronation, Rhaenyra goes into premature labor and delivers a stillborn child. Later, she learns that Lucerys has been killed in a confrontation with Aemond and Vhagar.

* RedOniBlueOni: As a teen girl, she is seen to be the more free-spirited girl compared to the bookish, demure Alicent. Ironically, she reverses this with her uncle Daemon, sharing her father's more calm and analytical demeanor when stacked up against his violent and rash nature.

* OpenSecret: [[spoiler: The fact that Harwin Strong is her lover and the father of her three eldest children instead of Laenor is known to everyone except her father Viserys, who is only being willfully ignorant for the sake of his grandchildren]].

* OutlivingOnesOffspring: [[spoiler:After learning of Viserys' death and Aegon's coronation, Rhaenyra goes into premature labor and delivers a stillborn child. Later, she learns that Lucerys has been killed in a confrontation with Aemond.]]

* RedOniBlueOni: As a youth, she is seen to be the more free-spirited girl compared to the bookish, demure Alicent. Ironically, she reverses this with her uncle Daemon, sharing her father's more calm and analytical demeanor when stacked up against his violent and rash nature.
* RequisiteRoyalRegalia: When she is formally declared her father's heir and the lords of Westeros swear fealty to her, she wears a red dress with gold embroidery along the bodice and sleeves, a black crown-like headdress with gold beads, a floor-length gold and black cape, and heavy gold jewelry to symbolize her status.

* RoyalBrat: Rhaenyra is a crown princess, one uniquely cherished and coddled by her father at that. As a result, she is consistently out-of-touch, most conspicuously in the area of other people. She is rude to the nobles on the hunt. She insults her suitors on her tour. She says what the people of King's Landing want is of no consequence. She strong-arms Criston into sex even when he says "Stop," and then is surprised when he feels some type of way about it. She has three flagrantly illegitimate children and she expects everyone to just play along with it.
* RoyalInbreeding: Daemon's and Rhaenyra's feelings for each other are more than merely familial. They go for a night out in King's Landing. When he takes her to a pleasure house, they end up getting very intimate with each other, though Daemon stops it at the last moment. [[spoiler:After the deaths of their respective spouses, they rekindle their relationship, get married in a Valyrian ceremony and have two sons named Aegon III and Viserys II.]]
* ScarsAreForever: The gash she got when Alicent cut her arm in episode seven is still visible six years later in episode eight as a pearly white scar.
* ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections: [[spoiler:While she doesn't shout the fact that her three sons were fathered by Harwin Strong from the rooftops, she doesn't try to be too circumspect about it either, since she's confident that her father will always have her back.]] Deconstructed, as her breaking the rules and social customs in such a blatant manner has garnered her a fair amount of resentment from the likes of Alicent and the Greens who use it as fuel against her.
* TheSmurfettePrinciple: The only Queen Regnant in the history of Westeros (until Cersei Lannister seizes the throne at the end of Season 6 of ''Series/GameOfThrones'', which..might not happen in the books).
* SexAsRiteOfPassage: Daemon invites her to secretly visit King's Landing during the night, where he leads Rhaenyra to one of his favorite pleasure houses, and initiates her in the matters of sex. Rhaenyra is both flustered and excited at the sight of men and women having sex free of any guilt or responsibility.

* ElephantInTheLivingRoom: How the subject of her three non-Valyrian children not actually being her husband's (rather by Harwin Strong) is handled by most characters, since [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections it's hard to confront the Crown Princess about such matters]] without getting your head chopped off courtesy of King Viserys' [[PapaWolf uncompromising protectiveness]]. Although her luck finally runs out when she ''continues'' to flit around as she pleases with other matters and even moreso when her father dies, as she likely expected her RoyalBlood to be a "get out of jail free" card forever.

* FreudianExcuse: Her vehement reluctance to get married can be partially attributed to what happened to her mother, who died painfully giving birth to her brother who ended up dying not long after. As she brings up in her argument with Viserys during the royal hunt, Rhaenyra feared that once she gets married, she will meet a similar fate as her late mother did.
* GoodIsNotDumb: In stark contrast to her trusting, passive, somewhat gullible father, Rhaenyra is practical, observant, and logical -- proven in her selection of the battle-hardened Criston Cole as a member of the Kingsguard and her quick defusing of Daemon's egg-stealing scheme on Dragonstone. However, later on she starts making ''very'' dumb decisions that damage her chances of becoming Queen such as going with Daemon to a brothel, having sex with Criston Cole, lying to Alicent about the whole thing, and then having three obvious bastard sons. The end result is that she turns two allies into bitter enemies and damages her reputation as well.
* GoodIsNotSoft: Young Rhaenyra is still an overall kind and compassionate woman, but she lacks her father's flaw of too much people-pleasing amiability, and she's bold, brave, and assertive enough to call Daemon's bluff by daring him to strike her down. Viserys even at one point jokes about finding a quiet dinner with her an intimidating prospect, in spite of their closeness.

* HidingBehindTheLanguageBarrier: Rhaenyra and Daemon speak to each other in Valyrian. Ut's a DownplayedTrope, in that they're not trying to exclude a specific third party from the conversation and do out of tradition and habit, but it does create an insular, private air to their conversations.

* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: [[spoiler:She dispatches Lucerys as an envoy to Storm's End and get the Stormlands' support in the upcoming war. She cites that Lord Borros, a notoriously prideful man, would be honored to have a prince and a dragonrider personally come to him, which would make him more amendable to an alliance. While Rhaenyra was right in that Borros ''is'' a prideful man, he was far from gracious towards Lucerys's arrival. He sees Rhaenyra's demands for him to pledge his fealty to her as an insult to him and his House, made even worse by the revelation that the Greens at least offered a marriage pact between Prince Aemond and one of Borros's daughters before Lucerys's arrival. What probably contributed to Rhaenyra's misjudgment was that she believed Borros was exactly like his father Boremund, who swore an oath of loyalty to Rhaenyra.]]

** Rhaenyra rightfully rejects [[spoiler: Criston Cole]]'s proposal to {{elope|ment}} together due to her duty to the realm and the smear it would leave on her reputation if she ran away from it all. However, she's shown to be perfectly willing to risk it all for [[spoiler: Daemon]], and even proposes he take her to Dragonstone to marry her ''at her own wedding feast to Laenor''.
** She is every bit guilty of what the Greens accuse her of, and it's shown that even when she doesn't admit it, she's in the perception that the Greens don't have the right to accuse her in the first place (even if they're right), as Viserys' will protects her and her sons regardless.

** [[spoiler: Proposes that Ser Criston Cole continue to be her paramour after her marriage to Laenor, despite the fact that he took the oaths he made as a knight, including his oath of chastity, seriously. Whether she was innocent or simply only thinking about herself in this is ambiguous, as she shows no remorse for her part in his breaking his oath after he begins to visibly cross the DespairEventHorizon in front of her.]]

* {{Irony}}: Rhaenyra couldn't stand the idea of having children when she was younger. She eventually becomes the most loving and doting mother in the setting. Aemma had 7 pregnancies, of which Rhaenyra was the only child who survived past infancy. Rhaenyra inversely has 5 children [[spoiler:out of 6 pregnancies]].
* KarmaHoudini: Alicent and the Greens see her as this, as Viserys has ensured she never be punished for her regular affairs and attempt at passing off her bastards with Harwyn Strong as legitimate heirs to the throne, which would be treasonous and had most other women and their children in their positions disgraced and disowned at least.

** Both father and daughter deal with problems by avoidance. Viserys makes decisions as rarely as possible; Rhaenyra deals by saying ScrewThisImOuttaHere and removing herself from court for 6 years.

* MamaBear: Rhaenyra is fiercely protective of all her children and will fight tooth and nail to protect them from those who want to hurt them, even if the price to pay is that she herself gets hurt in the fight. As happens when she blocks a furious, armed Alicent from jabbing Luke's eye out (for what he did to Aemond) and gains a deep cut on her left arm in the fracas.

* CainAndAbel: She has little love to her half-siblings, who she sees as a threat to her position as heir. It's best shown when [[spoiler:Aemond [[EyeScream lost his eye due to Lucerys]] where she showed NoSympathy and demanded he be [[ColdBloodedTorture sharply questioned]] for insulting her own sons]]. Unsurprisingly, this adds fuel to the fire in the inevitable PrincelingRivalry.

** It's interesting the way Cersei Lannister's characteristics get split between Alicent and Rhaenyra. Alicent gets most of the miserable parts of being Cersei, while Rhaenyra (appropriatelty) gets the fiery ones. Cersei and Rhaenyra are the ones who voice sentiments along the lines of, "If I were a man I wouldn't have to put up with this bullshit", whereas Alicent tries her best to work within the framework. Rhaenyra gets Cersei's inborn spitfire and impetuousness, while Alicent is a ShrinkingViolet who takes a ''long'' time to [[GrewASpine grow a spine]]. Rhaenyra gets the incest and the three children fathered outside her marriage (though split into two separate relationships in Rhaenyra's case) which are both symbols of sexual freedom and refusal to be controlled or bend to the will of a patriarchal society. The sad parts of being Cersei that Rhaenyra gets is losing her mother to her brother's birth as well as having to deal with the loss of a child. Meanwhile, it's Cersei and Alicent who are both the daughters of controlling and ambitious fathers who treat them as political pawns from a young age and maneuver them into unhappy marriages with kings, and likewise, it's Alicent who slowly gains Cersei's vindictiveness and paranoia as a result of the drudgery of that life.

* AdaptationalHeroism: Rhaenyra is ''the protagonist'' in the show in a way she was not in the book, and to accomplish this she's softened considerably. She doesn't order Vaemond's killing nor feeds his corpse to Syrax, is adverse to the possibility of war, criticizes Daemon for being so eager to jump into it, actually considers the terms that the Greens bring her instead of rejecting them out of hand, and feels a deep desire to keep the realm together even if it's at the cost of her personal ambition. Her book counterpart was pretty much the opposite of all those points, being just as eager to go to war as Daemon was (though only after [[spoiler:the death of Lucerys]]).

* HerOwnWorstEnemy: Rhaenrya does far more PR damage to her own cause then the Greens do. [[spoiler:She visits a brothel, has sex with a member of the Kingsguard, has three obvious bastards and arranges for the supposed murder of her greatest allies' only son. She gives the Greens an almost absurd amount of ammunition to use against her and turns multiple allies into enemies]].
* HidingBehindTheLanguageBarrier: Rhaenyra and Daemon speak to each other in Valyrian. DownplayedTrope, in that they're not trying to exclude a specific third party from the conversation and do out of tradition and habit, but it does create an insular, private air to their conversations.

** Admittedly, it only looks like this in retrospect. However, [[spoiler:her elevating Criston Cole to the Kingsguard]] snowballed from [[spoiler:her bedding him for TheirFirstTime, and then spurning him]] into becoming a particularly-venomous enemy in league with [[spoiler:her stepmother and former friend Queen Alicent]].

* DeconstructedCharacterArchetype: Like Arya before her (or after her, if you go by the timeline), Rhaenyra deconstructs the RebelliousPrincess. Rhaenyra managed to get away with a lot of crap when she was younger, due to being both a princess and, after her mother and brother's death and Daemon's alienation from Viserys, the heir apparent. But while she did eventually become more receptive toward and involved in her royal duties, she never quite managed to shed her rebellious nature. This causes her to make a number of blunders, including alienating Criston and Alicent due to their lack of social freedom that she has. All of this contributes to the enormous opposition that forms to oppose her [[spoiler:once Viserys dies]].

* ElephantInTheLivingRoom: How the subject of her three non-Valyrian children not actually being her husband's (rather by Harwin Strong) is handled by most characters, since [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections it's hard to confront the Crown Princess about such matters]] without getting your head chopped off. Although her luck finally runs out when she ''continues'' to flit around as she pleases with other matters, expecting her RoyalBlood to be a "get out of jail free" card.
* EntitledBastard: Entitlement is arguably Rhaenyra's greatest flaw. Being first-in-line to the throne and her father's favorite child, Rhaenyra believes that these give her the right to do as she pleases. [[spoiler:But once her father becomes increasingly ill and eventually dies, Rhaenyra's actions end up biting her in the ass down the line when she has to press her claim to the Iron Throne over that of her younger brother's.]] Instead of attempting to build her power base, she spent [[spoiler:the last six years of her father's life]] on Dragonstone, believing that the lords would fall in line and accept her as Queen. This sense of entitlement also made her oblivious to Alicent and Cole's issues and that neither of them has the same clout that Rhaenyra has to do as they please, turning them from her closest confidants into two of her most bitter enemies.
* EveryoneHasStandards: Despite her incestuous infatuation with Daemon, she was furious when she learns that her uncle absconded with the dragon egg meant for her deceased brother Baelon.

* FatalFlaw: Two major ones, which don't really help since she already faces a HeirClubForMen:

* MysticalWhiteHair: A definitive feature of her family's ancestry and one of her most notable physical features.

%%* MysticalWhiteHair: A definitive feature of her family's ancestry and one of her most notable physical features.

* ElephantInTheLivingRoom: How the subject of [[spoiler: her three non-Valyrian children not actually being her husband's]] is handled by most characters, since [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections it's hard to confront the Crown Princess about such matters]] without getting your head chopped off. Although her luck finally runs out when she ''continues'' to flit around as she pleases with other matters, expecting her RoyalBlood to be a "get out of jail free" card.
* EntitledBastard: This is arguably Rhaenyra's greatest flaw. Being first-in-line to the throne and her father's favorite child, Rhaenyra believes that these give her the right to do as she pleases. [[spoiler:But once her father becomes increasingly ill and eventually dies, Rhaenyra's actions end up biting her in the ass down the line when she has to press her claim to the Iron Throne over that of her younger brother's.]] Instead of attempting to build her power base, she spent [[spoiler:the last six years of her father's life]] on Dragonstone, believing that the lords would fall in line and accept her as Queen. This sense of entitlement also made her oblivious to Alicent and Cole's issues and that neither of them has the same clout that Rhaenyra has to do as they please, turning them from her closest confidants into two of her most bitter enemies.
* EveryoneHasStandards: Despite her infatuation with Daemon, she was furious when she learns that her uncle absconded with the dragon egg meant for her deceased brother Baelon.
* ExtremeMeleeRevenge: When a wild boar attacks her in the Kingswood, Ser Criston is quick to drive his sword through the pig. Except it's NotQuiteDead and proceeds to thrash at the sprawled princess again. So Rhaenyra draws her poniard and goes - to - work; until she's splattered with the beast's blood, sobbing at the release of pent-up stress from Alicent's betrayal and her father's distance.
* FatalFlaw: Two major ones:

** [[EntitledBastard Thinking that everyone will just fall in line with her as a ruler after her father dies]]. While Rhaenyra is hardly a fool and knows that her being the heir to the throne is a ''highly'' unusual thing and would throw thousands of years of tradition down the drain, she never meaningfully considers how people might take this. [[spoiler:She has ''three'' illegitimate children with Ser Harwin Strong and seems to believe that, just because she's the official heir, no one will question it or use it as a weapon against her.]] She spends the final years of her father's reign away from court and not engaging in politics, building relationships with the Great Houses or gathering more supporters (and indeed, almost losing her Velaryon support). She doesn't take the threat of the Greens seriously until it's far too late. And, fatally, she sends her son Lucerys to negotiate with House Baratheon ''without'' giving any thought or discussion beforehand as to what her side could offer as incentive to support them; [[spoiler:Lucerys is left powerless when it's revealed that the Greens have made an alliance with House Baratheon via Aemond's betrothal to one of Lord Baratheon's daughters, and he's accidentally killed while trying to flee]].
* FirstKiss: [[spoiler:With Daemon in "King of the Narrow Sea".]] In fact, it's her first sexual experience of any kind by all accounts.

* GoodIsNotDumb: In stark contrast to her trusting, passive, somewhat gullible father, Rhaenyra is practical, observant, and logical -- proven in her selection of the battle-hardened Criston Cole as a member of the Kingsguard and her quick defusing of Daemon's egg-stealing scheme on Dragonstone. However later on she starts making ''very'' dumb decisions that damage her chances of becoming Queen such as [[spoiler:going with Daemon to a brothel, having sex with Criston Cole, lying to Alicent about the whole thing, and then having three obvious bastard sons. The end result is that she turns two allies into bitter enemies and damages her reputation as well]].
* GoodIsNotSoft: Young Rhaenyra is still an overall kind and compassionate woman, but lacks her father's flaw of too much people-pleasing amiability, and she's bold, brave, and assertive enough call Daemon's bluff by daring him to strike her down. Viserys even at one point jokes about finding a quiet dinner with her an intimidating prospect, in spite of their closeness.
* GoodParents: In contrast to Alicent who is paranoid about Rhaenyra, and whose children all seem neglected emotionally, Rhaenyra has a close relationship with all her sons. Of course, it helps that Rhaenyra was an adult by the time she had her children, with someone that she at least desired. She comforts Jace when he struggles with his lessons in High Valyrian, and she reassures Luke when he expresses concerns that he is an InadequateInheritor to Corlys Valyron, promising to help guide and teach him. She is openly affectionate with her children, like hugging and kissing them on their foreheads. Rhaenyra can be stern, yet fair, and will readily admonish her children when she needs to. [[spoiler:After marrying Daemon, she becomes a GoodStepmother to Baela and Rhaena]], and was shown being worried about the girls' emotional well-being at their mother's funeral by sending Luke to support them. She has come a long way from a young woman who hated the idea of having children.

* ColorMotif: In addition to Rhaenyra's usage of House Targaryen colors (black and red), her other wardrobes also tend to incorporate the color yellow--including her coronation robes' cape. Her dragon Syrax's scales [[UncattyResemblance match]] this colouration. WordOfGod from the costuming department is that first they made Viserys's signature color scheme black and gold (swapping out the usual Targaryen red) to set him apart with a more regal look; then in the second half of Season 1 they have Rhaenyra shift to adopting her father's color scheme, which is more black and gold with only hints of red.

* DaddysGirl: Is Viserys' favourite child by a country mile. She and Viserys have a close and affectionate relationship. She serves as his cupbearer during Small Council meetings and becomes much more assertive and active (to Otto Hightower's displeasure) whenever her father isn't present. Her father's love for her is what spurs him to name her his heir in defiance of Westerosi inheritance customs and even swear to not replace her when he sires a son. [[spoiler:She's utterly grief-stricken by the news of his death.]]
* DeconstructedCharacterArchetype: Like Arya before her (or after her, if you go by the timeline), Rhaenyra deconstructs the RebelliousPrincess. Rhaenyra got away with a lot of crap when she was younger, due to being both a princess and, after her mother and brother's death and Daemon's alienation from Viserys, the heir apparent. But while she did eventually become more receptive toward and involved in her royal duties, she never quite managed to shed her rebellious nature. This causes her to make a number of blunders, including alienating Criston and Alicent due to their lack of social freedom that she has. All of this contributes to the enormous opposition that forms to oppose her [[spoiler:once Viserys dies]].
* DidntThinkThisThrough: This is one of Rhaenyra's biggest flaws, as she often acts on impulse and thinks that her position will be enough to protect her. [[spoiler:One of the two biggest examples of this is that she a) conceived ''three'' illegitimate children in the first place, and b) had them with Ser Harwin rather than someone who could sire children that might feasibly look like Laenor is their father]], fully expecting her father's wilful blindness will be enough to hide the truth. ''It isn't''. [[spoiler:The other one is leaving King's Landing in the hands of those who dislike her. As a result of her leaving for years, they have the opportunity to strengthen their power base over the capital, allowing them to easily seat her brother on the Iron Throne]].

* DudeMagnet: The "Realm's delight" has almost every man in the realm pining for her, but some in particular stand out and the only ones who have received reciprocation are Harwin Strong, Daemon Targaryen, Ser Criston Cole. [[spoiler:And out of those three, it's pretty obvious [[CoolUncle Daemon]] is the one her heart is set on, while the others are just paramours (which Ser Cole does NOT take kindly to).]]
* DragonRider: She rides Syrax and the first episode depicts this as one of her favorite pastimes in her youth, to the point she's late to a Small Council meeting because she was out flying.

* BrokenPedestal: With Alicent. First broken when she learns of Alicent's betrothal to King Viserys. Subverted, when Rhaenyra eventually accepts Alicent was a victim as well, and had little choice in the matter. Although they appear to reconcile more than once, the pedestal is finally shattered for good when Rhaenyra learns Alicent has participated in a coup to crown Aegon King, and, she believes, is responsible for the death of her son, Lucerys.
* BrutalHonesty: Rhaenyra has a bad habit of expressing her disdain for powerful lords and ladies directly to their faces in public situations, denoting her capricious nature. From the royal ladies at Aegon's second birthday, to her suitors on her marriage tour, to the smallfolk of King's Landing at the play with Daemon--Rhaenyra is disdainful of nearly everyone. This is a problem for someone who needs allies because her claim to the Iron Throne is already tenuous and unpopular just based on her gender.
* CainAndAbel: Has little love to her half-siblings, who she sees as a threat to her position as heir, best shown when [[spoiler:Aemond [[EyeScream lost his eye due to Lucerys]] where she showed NoSympathy and demanded he be [[ColdBloodedTorture sharply questioned]] for insulting her own sons]]. Unsurprisingly, this adds fuel to the fire in the inevitable PrincelingRivalry.
* CharacterTic: She tends to fiddle with the rings on her fingers when she's nervous, as seen when she talks about being worried about her mother's health during her latest pregnancy with Alicent. This detail is straight from the book.
* ChocolateBaby: She's the cause of the trope. [[spoiler:Her sons Jacaerys, Lucerys and Joffrey are illegitimate and product of her affair with Harwin Strong. Only her sons with Daemon (Aegon the Younger and Viserys) are trueborn. She argues to Jace when questioned that this doesn't matter because they're undeniably Targaryens from her side, even though she implicitly hints to him that they're not Velaryons.]]
* ContrastingSequelMainCharacter: Contrasting "Prequel" Main Character, that is.
** To [[Characters/GameOfThronesDaenerysTargaryen Daenerys Targaryen]]. She and Daemon parallel another duo of Targaryen heirs from early ''Series/GameOfThrones'' down the family line, Daenerys and her brother Viserys.
*** Both Rhaenyra and Daenerys have ambitions to rule the Seven Kingdoms one day, the former starting from her position as heir to the crown going up against the HeirClubForMen within the court at King's Landing and the latter against the successors to Robert Baratheon (who ousted her family and usurped the throne) starting from scratch far away in Essos. Where Daenerys would grow up exiled without a court and be on the receiving end of much abuse from her brother, Rhaenyra grew up in the royal court and received affection from her family, uncle included. Daenerys was [[ArrangedMarriage forcibly married]] to Khal Drogo in order for her brother to gain an army of Dothraki riders while King Viserys wishes for Rhaenyra to get married [[AltarDiplomacy in the realm's best interests]] while not objecting to the idea that she could MarryForLove. Dany miscarried her first and only child while Rhaenyra managed to give birth to five healthy children, [[spoiler:only losing her sixth.]] Both women became {{Dragon Rider}}s, Rhaenyra by family tradition in her youth, and well-equipped with a dragon saddle, while Daenerys learned on her own in adulthood when the dragons she revived and hatched grew big enough (and she only ever flew them bareback). Speaking of which, Syrax is female while all three of Daenerys' dragons (and most importantly the one she rides all the time, Drogon) are male.
*** In terms of personality, both of them are daring and can be ruthless in doing what they believe to be right, and both express their willingness to disrupt the current order of power. But while Daenerys isn't afraid to go down and mingle with the people of Essos and sympathizes with their plight, Rhaenyra cares little for the smallfolk of King's Landing due to her comparatively privileged life in the royal court.

** As a young noblewoman who struggles against the social constraints on her in a feudal society due to her gender, and who often clashes with the rules, she has shades of Arya Stark. The placeholder dialogue Creator/MillyAlcock used in auditions for young Rhaenyra was lifted straight from Arya lines in the original TV series. Noticeably, Rhaenyra's position and general personality are likely what Arya would have become had she been able to remain merely a lady of Winterfell yet still pursue her more outgoing pursuits. However, she can also be seen as a {{Deconstruction}} of Arya's character, which can be traced back to how differently they were both raised. While Eddard Stark raised Arya with the right values thanks to his strict but still loving parenting, Viserys's blatant favoritism towards Rhaenyra caused her rebellious tendencies to run loose, which would end up biting her in the ass as she grows up.
** It's interesting the way Cersei Lannister's characteristics get split between Alicent and Rhaenyra. Alicent gets most of the miserable parts of being Cersei, while Rhaenyra gets the fiery ones. Cersei and Rhaenyra are the ones who voice sentiments along the lines of, "If I were a man I wouldn't have to put up with this bullshit," whereas Alicent tries to work within the framework. Rhaenyra gets Cersei's inborn spitfire and impetuousness, while Alicent is a ShrinkingViolet who takes a ''long'' time to [[GrewASpine Grow a Spine]]. Rhaenyra gets the incest and the three children fathered outside her marriage (though split into two separate relationships in Rhaenyra's case) which are both symbols of sexual freedom and refusal to be controlled or bend to the will of society. The sad parts of being Cersei that Rhaenyra gets is losing her mother to her brother's birth as well as having to deal with the loss of a child. Meanwhile, it's Cersei and Alicent who are both the daughters of controlling and ambitious fathers who treat them as political pawns from a young age and maneuver them into unhappy marriages with kings, and likewise, it's Alicent who slowly gains Cersei's vindictiveness and paranoia as a result of the drudgery of that life.
** She also has elements of Stannis Baratheon: both are bluntly honest regardless of the consequences, and both are the lawful heir to the throne who is continually frustrated that their rivals simply choose to ignore this. Both of them also have their main base on Dragonstone island, the ancestral Targaryen castle traditionally held by the heir to the throne. Both Rhaenyra and Stannis get upended by a younger brother who decides they should wear the crown instead. On the other hand, Stannis's bad publicity stems from being a stickler for the rules. Rhaenyra's bad publicity, on the other hand, comes from her vagrant disregard for Westerosi social norms that Stannis would uphold in the name of duty. Furthermore, Stannis is for the most part averse to sex and only has one daughter from his marriage, while Rhaenyra managed to give birth to five children [[spoiler:and only miscarried her sixth.]]

** [[EntitledBastard Thinking that everyone will just fall in line with her as a ruler after her father dies]]. While Rhaenyra is hardly a fool and knows that her being the heir to the throne is a ''highly'' unusual thing and would throw thousands of years of tradition down the drain, she never meaningfully considers how people might take this. [[spoiler:She has ''three'' illegitimate children with Ser Harwin Strong and seems to believe that, just because she's the official heir, no one will question it or use it as a weapon against her.]] She spends the final years of her father's reign away from court, not engaged in politics, not gathering more supporters (and indeed, almost loosing her Velaryon support). She doesn't take the threat of the Greens seriously until it's far too late. And, fatally, she sends her son Lucerys to negotiate with House Baratheon ''without'' giving any thought or discussion beforehand as to what her side could offer them as incentive to support them; [[spoiler:Lucerys is left powerless when it's revealed that the Greens have made an alliance with House Baratheon via Aemond's betrothal to one of Lord Baratheon's daughters, and he's accidentally killed while trying to flee]].

* GoodIsNotDumb: In stark contrast to her trusting, passive, somewhat gullible father, Rhaenyra is practical, observant, and logical -- proven in her selection of the battle-hardened Criston Cole as a member of the Kingsguard and her quick defusing of Daemon's egg-stealing scheme on Dragonstone. However later on she starts making ''very'' dumb decisions that damage her chances of becoming Queen such as [[spoiler:going with Daemon to a brothel, having sex with Criston Cole, lies to Alicent about the whole thing, and then has three obvious bastard sons. The end result is that she turns two allies into bitter enemies and damages her reputation as well]].

** [[EntitledBastard Thinking that everyone will just fall in line with her as a ruler after her father dies]]. While Rhaenyra is hardly a fool and knows that her being the heir to the throne is a ''highly'' unusual thing and would throw thousands of years of tradition down the drain, she never meaningfully considers how people might take this. [[spoiler:She has ''three'' illegitimate children with Ser Harwin Strong and seems to believe that, just because she's the official heir, no one will question it or use it as a weapon against her.]] She spends the final years of her father's reign away from court, not engaged in politics, not gathering more supporters (and indeed, almost loosing her Velaryon support). She doesn't take the threat of the Greens seriously until it's far too late.

** [[EntitledBastard Thinking that everyone will just fall in line with her as a ruler after her father dies]]. While Rhaenyra is hardly a fool and knows that her being the heir to the throne is a ''highly'' unusual thing and would throw thousands of years of tradition down the drain, she never meaningfully considers how people might take this. She spends the final years of her father's reign away from court, not engaged in politics, not gathering more supporters (and indeed, almost loosing her Velaryon support). She doesn't take the threat of the Greens seriously until it's far too late.

** [[EntitledBastard Thinking that everyone will just fall in line with her as a ruler after her father dies]], while Rhaenyra is hardly a fool and knows that her being the heir to the throne is a ''highly'' unusual thing and would throw thousands of years of tradition down the drain, she never once considers how people might take this, and doesn't take the threat of the Greens seriously until it's far too late.

** When Aemond [[spoiler: [[EyeScream loses his eye]] at Lucerys' hand, she shows NoSympathy or regret for her half-brother's state and demands he be [[ColdBloodedTorture sharply questioned]] despite clearly still bleeding for rightfully calling her sons bastards]]. [[MamaBear Alicent was naturally furious at this]], more so when [[KarmaHoudini Viserys lets her off the hook]].
* LikeParentLikeChild: She follows her father's policy and her first inclination is clinging to Viserys' idea of conciliation, "defending the realm, not casting it headlong into war". Unfortunately, like Viserys before her, she is only postponing the inevitable as any possible peace quickly becomes untenable.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nyra.png]]

** Her marriage with Laenor, for political and public purposes, is presented as this while secretly being a mutual open marriage due to their sexual incompatibility. Rhaenyra does state she loves Laenor, and Laenor all but says he cares about Rhaenyra, but it seems to be a case of [[PlatonicLifePartners being close friends]] and mutual understanding.
** When she and Daemon finally wed, they share six years of marital bliss away from the politics of King's Landing at her seat of Dragonstone. Their respective children by their old partners are well on their way to this as well after their betrothals. Showcasing that she and her husband have been nurturing parents too. [[spoiler:Becomes subverted when Rhaenrya is hesitant to commit to war against the Greens and talks about her father's belief in prophetic dreams and Daemon ''chokes her'' for several seconds. In addition, when Rhaenrya is giving birth, Daemon not only doesn't go to her but instead starts making important decisions on their faction's next move without waiting for her to recover, which she soon finds out during the Blacks' small council meeting. It's implied this is all related to the angst he feels after the deaths of his brother and unborn child and the looming threat of the Greens, as well as a long-held inclination to war]].

* HidingBehindTheLanguageBarrier: Rhaenyra and Daemon speak to each other in Valyrian. DownplayedTrope, in that they're not trying to exclude a specific third party from the conversation, but it does create an insular, private air to their conversations.

** Admittedly, it only looks like this in retrospect. However, [[spoiler:her elevating Criston Cole to the Kingsguard]] snowballed from [[spoiler:her bedding him for TheirFirstTime, and then spurning him]] into becoming a particularly-venomous enemy in league with [[spoiler:her stepmother Queen Alicent]].
** In an attempt to protect her sons, her accusing Aemond of treason for calling her sons bastards ultimately backfires when Aemond blames Aegon for spreading the rumor. When Viserys questions Aegon, he bluntly admits that ''no one had to tell them'', because it's an OpenSecret. Rhaenyra has a subtle OhCrap moment when she realizes she just made the "rumor" much more plausible and public.
* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: [[spoiler:She dispatches Lucerys as an envoy to Storm's End and get the Stormlands' support in the upcoming war. She cites that Lord Borros, a notoriously prideful man, would be honored to have a prince and a dragonrider personally come to him, which would make him more amendable to an alliance. While Rhaenyra was right in that Borros ''is'' a prideful man, he was far from gracious towards Lucerys's arrival. He sees Rhaenyra's demands for him to pledge his fealty to her as an insult to him and his House, made even worse by the revelation that the Greens at least offered a marriage pact between Prince Aemond and one of Borros's daughters. What probably contributed to Rhaenyra's misjudgment was that she believed Borros was exactly like his father Boremund, who swore an oath of loyalty to Rhaenyra.]]

** She rightfully rejects [[spoiler: Criston Cole]]'s proposal to elope together due to her duty to the realm and the smear it would leave on her reputation if she ran away from it all. However, she's shown to be perfectly willing to risk it all for [[spoiler: Daemon]], and even proposes he take her to Dragonstone to marry her ''at her own wedding feast to Laenor''.

* AdaptationalHeroism: Rhaenyra is ''the protagonist'' in the show in a way she was npt in the book, and to accomplish this she's softened considerably. She doesn't order Vaemond's killing nor feeds his corpse to Syrax, is adverse to the possibility of war, criticizes Daemon for being so eager to jump into it, actually considers the terms that the Greens bring her instead of rejecting them out of hand, and feels a deep desire to keep the realm together even if it's at the cost of her personal ambition. Her book counterpart was pretty much the opposite of all those points, being just as eager to go to war as Daemon was (though only after [[spoiler:the death of Lucerys]]).

* ActionSurvivor: The young Rhaenyra, despite being a DragonRider, hasn't really seen combat nor been in a position to injure or kill anybody. Her running off from the royal hunting party was her very first moment of genuine breaking away from her sheltered lifestyle -- and the boar attack was her first experience of actually being at risk of dying. When the wounded boar collapses beside he and starts thrashing again, Rhaenyra begins desperately trying to finish it off to try to save herself from getting trampled or gored. She also ''keeps'' stabbing it after, letting out her stress at her near-death experience and piling frustrations at her life situation. By the time she returns to camp, she's more-or-less composed again, though the sight of the dead boar being dragged in with [[BloodSplatteredInnocents blood-splattered princess]] makes the assembled stare in silence.

* AdaptationalHeroism: Rhaenyra is ''the protagonist'' in the show in a way she wasn't in the book, and to accomplish this she's softened considerably. She doesn't order Vaemond's killing and feed his corpse to Syrax, is adverse to the possibility of war, criticizes Daemon for being so eager to jump into it, actually considers the terms that the Greens bring her instead of rejecting them out of hand, and feels a deep desire to keep the realm together even if it's at the cost of her personal ambition. Her book counterpart was pretty much the opposite of all those points, being just as eager to go to war as Daemon was (though only after [[spoiler:the death of Lucerys]]).
* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: She clearly has a type. She's ''extremely'' infatuated with Daemon, her borderline-sociopathic uncle, and starts to like the Bracken suitor when he publicly humiliates Willem Blackwood (though he soon learns the error of his ways when Willem duels and kills him). Additionally, she goes for men who are physically capable; all of the men she shows interest in are either decorated knights or lords with a talent for combat.
* AloofBigSister: Any sisterly feelings she may have had for Baelon do not extend to Aegon, Helaena and Aemond, whom she views with a certain degree of contempt and resentment. This is chiefly because she fears that Aegon is going to replace her and she'll be resigned to be married off to some random lord, as well as their existence being a continuing reminder of the growing rift between her and Alicent.
* AmbiguouslyBi: With ''Alicent'' in their teens; there seems to be an undercurrent of attraction and stolen glances. However, due to Alicent being "corrupted" by her FreudianExcuse, awful marriage situation and the rivalry between their families, their relationship slowly becomes one of hurt, bitterness and hate. [[AllThereInTheScript A cut scene from the first episode]] even describes Rhaenyra as flirting with Alicent.

* BadLiar: Overlapping with BlatantLies, her older sons are so obviously [[spoiler:not Velaryons]] that it's the main focus of the Greens' accusations. However, she's in such high position of power that no one dares to say it out loud (save for [[spoiler:Vaemond Velaryon)]]. This also couples with Rhaenyra's blunt honesty: she usually just says whatever she's thinking, so she doesn't have much practice actually making convincing lies or manipulations.

* BornInTheWrongCentury: Her disregard for courtly social mores, the way she clashes with the roles and restrictions placed on her gender, her desire for sexual freedom, her mutually open relationship with her arranged husband (and acceptance of his homosexuality), and the way she treats her children born out of wedlock as legitimate all come off as perfectly understandable to a modern audience. However, to the medieval patriarchal monarchy of Westeros, these are all used against her.

*** Both Rhaenyra and Daenerys have ambitions to rule the Seven Kingdoms one day, the former starting from her position as heir to the crown going up against the HeirClubForMen within the court at King's Landing and the latter against the successors to Robert Baratheon (who ousted her family and usurped the throne) starting from scratch far away in Essos. Where Daenerys would grow up exiled without a court and be on the receiving end of much abuse from her brother, Rhaenyra grew up in the royal court and received affection from her family, uncle included. Daenerys was [[ArrangedMarriage forcibly married]] to Khal Drogo in order for her brother to gain an army of Dothraki riders while King Viserys wishes for Rhaenyra to get married [[AltarDiplomacy in the realm's best interests]] while not objecting to the idea that she could MarryForLove. Both women became {{Dragon Rider}}s, Rhaenyra by family tradition in her youth, and well-equipped with a dragon saddle, while Daenerys learned on her own in adulthood when the dragons she revived and hatched grew big enough (and she only ever flew them bareback). Speaking of which, Syrax is female while all three of Daenerys' dragons (and most importantly the one she rides all the time, Drogon) are male.
*** In terms of personality, both of them are daring and can be ruthless in doing what they believe to be right, and both express their willingness to disrupt the current order of power. But while Daenerys isn't afraid to go down and mingle with the people of Essos and sympathizes with their plight, Rhaenyra cares little for the smallfolk of King's Landing.

* FreudianExcuse: Her vehement reluctance to get married can be partially attributed to what happened to her mother, who died painfully giving birth to her stillborn brother. As she brings up in her argument with Viserys during the royal hunt, Rhaenyra feared that once she gets married, she will meet a similar fate as her late mother did.