Characters / A Song of Ice and Fire - Daenerys Targaryen

For the main House Targaryen entry, see here

Queen Daenerys Targaryen, the First of Her Name; r. 298, Queen of Meereen, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, Protector of the Realm, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Shackles, Mother of Dragons

Dany, Stormborn, The Unburnt, Mother of Dragons, The Breaker of Chains, The Dragon Queen, The Queen Across the Water, The Silver Queen, Silver Lady, Dragonmother, Mhysa, Aegon The Conqueror with Teats

"You have forgotten one thing. A dragon is no slave."

The last scion of House Targaryen, who was born-in-exile after Ser Jaime killed her father and Robert Baratheon took the Iron Throne. Impoverished and hiding in the Free Cities in the East, she is initially an abused little girl living under the whims of her bullying older brother Viserys. While initially meek and frail, Dany grows stronger in every book and her destiny is far, far beyond what she ever imagined.

For Daenerys, daughter of King Aegon IV, see here.

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A-F

• Absurdly Youthful Mother: She becomes pregnant with Rhaego at the age of 14.
• A Child Shall Lead Them: Well, a rather sheltered young teen who was never expected, or educated appropriately, to do much leading until she, well, started conquering cities. She's not as bad at it as many would fear (a Joffrey-level disaster she certainly isn't), but she definitely has room to grow better at ruling.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Her relationships with Drogo and Daario definitely fit this trope. Barristan laments that while Dany is clever and wise beyond her years, she still has a young woman's taste in men. He wonders if Quentyn Martell had been Archibald Yronwood or Gerris Drinkwater instead of shy, timid Quentyn, then Daenerys might have been more willing to spurn Hizdahr.
• Ambiguously Bi: She sleeps several times with her handmaid Irri, and although she's never very enthusiastic about it, that is attributed more to her lack of desire for Irri specifically than a lack of attraction to women.
• Anti-Hero: She started the series as a Classical Anti-Heroine but slowly worked her way down to being a Pragmatic Anti-Heroine.
• Appeal to Force: One of her themes is that this is the nature of Targaryens (and Valyrian dragonlords in general) and yet she's opposed to doing it, wanting to do things through kindness, honor and justice instead. At the end of ADWD, she just may be ready to quit screwing around.
• Arc Number: "The dragon has three heads."
• Arranged Marriage: To Khal Drogo.
  • Again in A Dance With Dragons, to Hizdahr zo Loraq as part of her plan to bring stability to Meereen. It didn't work out so well.
• Badass Boast:
  "Khaleesi," the handmaid Irri explained, as if to a child, "Jhaqo is a khal now, with twenty thousand riders at his back."
  She lifted her head. "And I am Daenerys Stormborn, Daenerys of House Targaryen, of the blood of Aegon the Conqueror and Maegor the Cruel and Old Valyria before them. I am the dragon's daughter, and I swear to you, these men will die screaming..."
• Bald Head of Toughness: Upon walking out of Drogo's funeral pyre, she's lost all her hair, but gained three dragons and a new resolve to claim what is hers. Overlaps with Expository Hairstyle Change.
• Battle Trophy: After she kills the Undying, she adopts the Dothraki custom of adding a new bell to her braid after every victory. Currently she wears four, for the defeat of the Undying and her conquests of Astapor, Yunkai and Meereen.
• Because Destiny Says So: Daenerys is believed to be the prophesied Prince Who Was Promised. And she might be The Stallion Who Mounts The World.
• Being Good Sucks: A common theme of her arc is that being a benevolent and just ruler is far from an easy job. This is especially apparent in Slaver's Bay, where she learns the hard way the difficulty of ending slavery in a civilization built on it.
• Benevolent Dictator: A deconstructed example after she usurps Meereen's throne and installs herself as their Queen. She has good intentions and is liked by the people she wants to save, but ultimately fails them due to her inexperience. The freed slaves hail her as a liberator and their 'mother'; but most of the nobility isn't so eager, and the ones who do are also nothing but sycophants. After outlawing slavery, former slaveowners turn against her, as well as those who depended on the trade, even outside her city. Outside the city, a terrible war begins, that of course Dany's freed slaves, the Unsullied, and the Dothraki will have to endure - Dany's own people.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Is gentle and kindhearted (some might even argue that she's rather too kindhearted for a ruler), but you do not want to rouse her anger. Her dragons are always hungry...
• Big Brother Worship: Daenerys shows shades of this towards Rhaegar, the older brother she's never met, but when you have been left with Viserys as your only surviving brotherly figure, it's all too easy to worship the dead one who therefore can't hurt you. It helps that she heard him described as a gallant, accomplished, handsome man who would have been an excellent king. Despite this, she also learns that even Rhaegar was fallible.
• Bolivian Army Cliffhanger: At the end of her final chapter in ADWD, and the final one before the epilogue. Dany, lost on the Dothraki Sea, calls out for Drogon, and he comes. She rides him, and he attacks a herd of horses and riders. The riders flee but Drogon kills a horse and settles down to eat it (desperately hungry, Dany shares his kill). Then Khal Jhaqo and fifty of his outriders appear out of the grass. End chapter.
• Born During a Storm: She was born at the tail end of Robert's Rebellion, during a storm at Dragonstone which sunk the Targaryen fleet. This is the reason one of her titles is "Stormborn".
• Blue Blood: As a Targaryen princess, this is a given. Played with, however: her background is way more impoverished and unstable than that of the average Targaryen, however much she was deliberately sheltered from much of the stress of it.
• Broken Pedestal: When Barristan Selmy tells her of her father's madness. Sure, she doesn't want to take the full extent of her father's follies in, but she does stop both denying his madness and excusing him as being merely greatly misunderstood from that point onward.
• Character Catchphrase: She has three:
  • When playing innocent or being mocking:
    Dany: I am only a young girl and know little of the ways of war, but...
  • When asserting her rights:
    Dany: I am the blood of the dragon.
  • When worrying about the decisions she has made:
    Dany: If I look back I am lost.
• Chekhov's Gift: In the Targaryen tradition, either Viserys or Willem Darry made sure that Daenerys learned how to speak Valyrian. This comes as a plot point when she confronts Kraznys mo Nakloz's trash-talking to her face.
• Child by Rape: Very likely, given the nature of her parents' relationship as Jaime Lannister remembers it as being. Like medieval people in our own world, Westerosi wouldn't define it as rape because they were married and thus by their misogynistic standards wives owe their husbands sex, but we know better. In his later years, Aerys only became aroused after burning someone, and then he would force himself on Rhaella and hurt her. It is quite possible that Daenerys was conceived after Aerys had Qarlton Chelsted burned alive.
• Child of Two Worlds: Daenerys was born in Westeros, but has spent most of her life, and was predominantly raised, in various Essosi locations. From an upbringing never staying long in one place and relying on the kindness of strangers, most lately in the Free Cities, she was sent to Drogo's Dothraki khalasar to serve as his bride and quickly immersed herself in their ways; to the point that she began identifying at least partly as Dothraki herself. From there she made her way to Slaver's Bay, where she's learning what it means to be a ruler over there and in her own right as a Valyrian Dragon Lord descendant. Daenerys is a child of many worlds, who nonetheless doesn't quite fit neatly into any one of them.
• The Chosen One: Discussed. Benerro of Volantis proclaims that Daenerys Targaryen is Azor Ahai returned, as does eventually Maester Aemon before dying. She's certainly the one with the highest chances, as she fits most of the prophecy — and is the only one with the dragons, which are the most recognisable sign.
  Aemon: Daenerys is the one. The dragons prove it.
  • Many signs also point to her being the Stallion Who Mounts the World.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: To the frustration of her advisors, Dany cannot be persuaded to leave Essos to its own problems and move on to her goals in Westeros. Lampshaded by Tyrion, who's never even met her, but correctly assesses her actions in Slaver's Bay as being that of a rescuer who simply will not let others suffer while she selfishly gathers power.
• Color-Coded Eyes: Purple eyes are the indicator of Valyrian ancestry in the Song of Ice and Fire universe.
• Cool Crown: While staying in Qarth, among the many gifts presented to her is a three-headed dragon crown from the Tourmaline Brotherhood, with golden coils, silver wings, and jade, ivory, and onyx heads. She sells the other gifts to amass the gold to buy an army, but keeps the crown as befits a queen.
  Daenerys: Viserys sold my mother's crown, and men called him a beggar. I shall keep this one, so men will call me a queen.
• Cool Horse: At her wedding to Khal Drogo, she receives from him a beautiful grey filly with a silver mane, matching the color of her hair. It is a custom among the Dothraki that a khaleesi must ride a mount worthy of her place by the side of her khal.
• Convenient Miscarriage: Very much Averted.
  • Miscarrying Rhaego leaves her on a verge of death, fighting fever and possibly infection. Mirri also says she's unlikely to ever have another child — though she has reasons to lie.
  • Come ADWD, Dany might have suffered a second miscarriage during her time the Dothraki Sea, caused by drinking tainted water and eating unknown berries. It leaves her weak and she fears she might die in her sleep.
• Cult of Personality: A major one starts shaping around her by the time of Book 5. She's anointed a messianic figure by priests of R'hllor, she's called "Mhysa" by the slaves of Meereen, and she's an Icon of Rebellion to all slaves of Essos who pray for her arrival, even those such as the Widow of the Waterfront who are too cynical. As Queen of Meereen, Dany cultivates a mask of cold aloofness balanced with benevolence to her subjects. Ser Barristan, despite being a Westerosi Knight in exile, is able to rule as Hand, solely by his connections to Dany alone.
• Death by Irony: Invoked by her on the Great Masters of Meereen, who left 163 slave children nailed to posts by the road, each with an arm pointing towards the city. When she takes control of the city, she nails 163 of the Great Masters to posts in the central square, with their arms pointed at one another. It turns out that doing this and then leaving the rest of their families in positions of power and wealth was a really bad idea.
• Deuteragonist: In five published novels with more than a thousand named characters and more than thirty POV characters, Jon, Dany, Tyrion Lannister and Arya Stark are the closest thing to protagonists, leading the pack not just in reader popularity but in quantity of chapters narrated (47 for Tyrion, 41 for Jon, 33 for Arya, 31 for Daenerys). Daenerys is without question the protagonist of the entire Essos Story Arc... and, if she is in fact the Prince that was Promised, may actually be star of the series. Hers, after all, is the Song of Ice and Fire.
• Distaff Counterpart: As a young woman with three dragons who goes from being an exiled aristocrat to a conquering liberator, Daenerys invites comparisons to her distant ancestor Aegon the Conqueror.
• The Drag-Along: Her Khalasar. She pulls them across the Red Waste and, later, she is likely the first Khal (or Khaleesi for that matter) to put her Khalasar on a boat in the sea; they're queasy, they're scared to death, but she's proud of them nevertheless for taking the ordeal with some dignity and thus demonstrating their commitment and loyalty to her.
• Dragon Rider: She's been desperately looking forward to it ever since she hatched the dragons. Finally happens in the fifth book.
• Dragon Tamer: Daenerys Targaryen is known by the title "Mother of Dragons" for raising the last living dragons from eggs, and her noble house, House Targaryen, was known for being closer to dragons than other men as they used them in their conquests.
• Dude Magnet: Several men have offered to marry her, and not just for her dragons.
• Egg McGuffin: The dragon eggs she receives from Illyrio are more than just a wedding gift.
• Fatal Flaw: This becomes much more obvious once she stays at Meereen to learn how to rule. She's very idealistic and feels personally responsible for people she liberated, thinking of them as "her children". She's also willing to go against her personal feelings to help them — up to making peace with Mereenese nobles. In any other series this would make her a great ruler, but in the Crapsack World of Westeros and Essos, it makes her easy to manipulate. According to her prophetic dream at the end of ADWD, she is told that her making peace with slavers of Meereen is definitely not what she's supposed to be doing.
• Fish out of Water: At first she's very unfamiliar with the Dothraki and various cultures of eastern Essos. She learns quickly, however. Also, averted for Free Cities where she spent her childhood — she knows much of them and speaks their languages fluently.
• Foreign Ruling Class: She conquers Slaver's Bay in Essos in order to eradicate slavery there and decides to rule as queen to ensure the slave masters don't reclaim power and to keep the peace until the new order stabilizes itself. Although she is welcomed with open arms by the freed slaves and a few other citizens, others chafe at being ruled by a foreigner, especially one who generally holds many aspects of their Ghiscari culture (such as slavery and the fighting pits) in contempt. Daenerys struggles to keep both factions happy and ward off attacks by an insurgent group known as the Sons of the Harpy, while not compromising too much on her own values.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: She starts the series as a scared and meek little girl whose only role is to serve as a pawn in other people's schemes. Then she gets a much-needed confidence boost, and three dragons. Things sort of snowball from there.

G-M

• Goal in Life: To conquer Westeros and get her royal behind on the Iron Throne. Although it's hinted that beneath this, what she really wants is a home and she believes she's going to find it in Westeros.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: The slavemasters of the Slaver's Bay would certainly like her to be seen this way. They spread various wild rumours about her to demonize her and destroy her reputation. Averted for the slaves and former slaves, who see her as The High Queen.
• Going Native: Quickly adapts to Dothraki culture and earns the respect of Drogo's khalasar, unlike her brother.
• Graceful Ladies Like Purple: Before she's first presented to Khal Drogo, Illyrio's servants dress her in a gown of deep plum silk to match her violet eyes.
• Grew a Spine: As a little girl, Daenerys could only meekly accept abuse from her big brother Viserys. When she becomes Drogo's queen, however, she starts standing up to Viserys when he tries to hit her—the first time being when he yells at her for giving him commands and she orders her warriors to make him walk back to the khalasar without his horse.
• Guile Hero: Is rapidly becoming one, though not without growing pains. There's also a chance she'll turn out to be a deconstruction; her record of winning through trickery has caused Essosi nobles to distrust and resent her, and many of the clever shortcuts that allowed her to become Queen of Meereen so quickly end up having unintended consequences once she actually has to stop and try to consolidate her gains.
• Has a Type: Buff, dangerous bad boys. Energetic in bed a must.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Zigzagged. Thanks to the many tales told about her, and then by the envoy of the Wise Masters to Volantis. She's believed to be as crazy as her father, to have made Drogo kill Viserys, to have killed Drogo herself to take his khalasar. She's also believed to feed her dragons on the flesh of newborn babies, to impale anyone who defies her on spikes to die, take a different lover every night — and geld them if they don't please her — and to bathe in blood of maidens to retain her youth. But this reputation is only that of the slaver and merchant class. The slaves across Essos are rooting for her and fully waiting for her to come and liberate them.
• The High Queen: She's trying to be this. As of recent events, it's clear that she must claw her way up to this status. For many of her subjects she's this; they adore her for freeing them from slavery, are willing to do anything she asks and a mob even rips apart a man who tries to assassinate her, but it's unclear how long this goodwill will last if she can't get the crisis in Slaver's Bay under control.
• Honorary Princess: She's a downplayed example at first, as her family is royalty although they lost their throne in an uprising. She's still referred to as a princess (one of her specific titles is Princess of Dragonstone) even though her family was deposed over a decade ago, she hasn't set foot in her home country since infancy, and she lives off others' charity (if she's lucky). By the time she starts gaining power and territory for herself, she insists on being called a queen (or a khaleesi), not a princess.
• How Do I Shot Web?: How do I teach my dragons to obey my commands?
  • Also... how do I be a queen? She knows how to lead her khalasar, but she specifically decides to stay in Meereen at the end of A Storm of Swords in order to learn how to rule. Turns out it's damn hard, especially when about the more influential half of the populace hates you, and numerous people are plotting your overthrow. Then again that's what happens when you're conquering city-states that look fondly on their days of empire and now contain a volatile mix of former slaves and former slave masters.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: She's described as small even for her age (14), whereas her husband Khal Drogo is a giant of a man.
• Ideal Hero: Deconstructed. Daenerys has a tendency of taking people's attitudes at face value and she is too quick and easy to both trust the people that support her and hate people that incur injustice towards others; this is exacerbated by her lack of pragmatism and second thoughts when dealing with injustice, seeing everyone and every situation as black or white. She is stubborn to a fault and she dislikes to concede even when the situation warrants it. According to her hallucination in ADWD, she has been fighting against having her way by using her dragons; by doing so, she only made the entire mess worse than it needed to be.
• Identical Grandson: She is said to resemble her ancestor Naerys Targaryen, wife of Aegon IV Targaryen, though Daenerys is taller.
• I Have Many Names: Daenerys Stormborn, the Unburnt, Mother of Dragons, The Last Targaryen, Mother, the Queen Across the Water, and her titles are: Queen of Meereen, Queen of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lady Regnant of the Seven Kingdoms, Protector of the Realm, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Shackles/Chains. Notable for having earned a few more titles than most other rulers in the series through her own actions.
  • Try to Fit That on a Business Card: "I am Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, the Unburnt, Mother of Dragons, khaleesi to Drogo's riders, and queen of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros."
• I Just Want to Be Normal: She just wants to go back to that house with the red door and the lemon tree outside... According to her prophetic dream at the end of ADWD, she's doing the exact opposite of that end.
• I Knew There Was Something About You: Inverted. She had no suspicion at all that Jorah Mormont was spying on her, but in hindsight she knew it to be true. What's even worse is that he pretty much showed her how little "oaths" meant to him from the beginning when he badmouthed and eventually turned cloak against Viserys after swearing his sword to him.
• Important Haircut: Not necessarily cut but her hair has now twice burned off. The first time symbolizing that she Took a Level in Badass, the second as a prelude to She's Back moment.
• Impoverished Patrician: At the end of Robert's Rebellion, young Viserys and baby Daenerys, the last scions of the once mighty House Targaryen, escaped Westeros and spent their childhood hiding from Robert's hired knives in the Free Cities, forced to beg for food and shelter from wealthy patrons in order to survive.
• Improbable Age: She's declared herself a queen, assembled her own army and amassed thousands of followers, conquered and sacked multiple cities, hatched the first living dragons in over a hundred years, gotten married twice and pregnant once, freed tens of thousands of slaves, turned the economy of Slaver's Bay upside down, might be the prophesied "prince that was promised" who is destined to defeat the Others, and is on track to revive her family's three-hundred-year royal dynasty. Now read all of that again while taking into account that she's barely 16 at the end of ADWD.
• Improvised Weapon: When Viserys yells at and threatens her for "commanding" him to join her for dinner, she hits him in the face with a chain of bronze medallions she had planned to give him as a gift.
• In-Series Nickname: "Dany," which is how she's mainly referred to by the narration.
• It Runs in the Family:
  • Daenerys has the Targaryen (slightly cuckoolander, outside-the-boxes) greatness in full measure, though it takes a bit of adversity to bring it out. "I am the blood of the dragon" indeed.
  • She's also proved that she's got the Royalty Superpower in buckets more than even some of the early Targaryens probably did, she's not the "Mother of Dragons" for nothing.
  • Taking back the Iron Throne is Viserys' dream, not hers — yet, she's been gearing herself to do exactly that during the entire series (if in roundabout ways). She just wants something like the warmth she once felt living in the House With The Red Door (wherever that actually was). The Seven Kingdoms is very unlikely to contain much security or warmth for her should she take it by force, yet it's his inherited idea of going home (the Red Keep very much was his childhood home) using Targaryen-style blood and fire she's always acted on either wittingly or unwittingly, and not her own wish to find peaceful security and a tight-knit circle of friends. She finally begins to realize this — a bit late.
• Kill It with Fire: "Dracarys."
  • Also Mirri Maz Duur barbeque.
• Lady of War: Not initially, but she grows into one, gaining experience as a general.
• Last of His Kind: She and Viserys were believed to be the last surviving members of House Targaryen. Then Young Griff appears — except several people doubt the authenticity of his backstory.
• Lingering Social Tensions: A huge part of Daenerys's story has to do with her realizing conquest is easy, but changing social norms and creating a lasting peace is hard. This comes up most prominently in her trying to end slavery in Essos while having the slave masters and their previous slavers live together in peace, which is a conflict she confesses might take a lifetime to heal.
• Living Legend: The Mother of Dragons, the Conqueror of Slaver's Bay and the Breaker of Chains is already one by the time she rules over Meereen, with her legend spreading across Essos all the way to Volantis and beyond, and several people coveting her favour, love, or dragons. Tyrion is rather impressed at narrating her reputation:
  "She has crossed the grasslands and the red waste, survived assassins and conspiracies and fell sorceries, grieved for a brother and a husband, a son, trod the cities of the slavers to dust beneath her dainty sandaled feet."
• Lonely at the Top: Dany feels increasingly isolated during her time in Meereen, mostly due to being painfully aware that there are people actively trying to depose her. As a result, she's not sure who she should trust and is unwilling to let people too close.
• Lost My Appetite: Dany has a tendency to lose her appetite when dealing with stressful or upsetting situations, such as Viserys shouting insults at her for "commanding" him to join her for supper, or having to exile her trusted advisor Jorah for treason after finding out that he was informing on her to King Robert, or the night before her wedding to Hizdahr zo Loraq, which she does not want but knows it is necessary to secure peace in Meereen.
• Lust Object: Jorah Mormont, Illyrio Mopatis, Viserys Targaryen, Mero the Titan's Bastard, and Daario Naharis are specifically mentioned as lusting after Daenerys. Daario appears to have gone over to her side mostly out of a desire to bed her. Euron and Victarion Greyjoy are also after her, even when they haven't laid eyes on her. Hizdahr mostly married her as a political move and Young Griff's invasion on Westeros is meant to bait her into coming to him.
• Made a Slave: It is explicitly said in-universe that Viserys and Illyrio sold her to Khal Drogo — one of two times a marriage is referred to as an economic transaction.^note The second time is Jeyne Poole being given to the Boltons to act as a fake!Arya. At the time, Jeyne was actually used as a child sex slave by Littlefinger in one of his brothels. And while she's never called a slave outright, her status and experiences as one are what causes her to sympathise with both the Lazhareen women and people she freed in Slaver's Bay.
  [Daenerys] remembered what the [slave] girl had said, how Khal Drogo was so rich even his slaves wore golden collars.
• The Madness Place: Some of the greatest leaps of brilliance and insight (be they magical, mundane, or just too out there to be forecast and prevented by others) she makes are preceded by a rather weird reliance on visions and the accompanying dream-logic: the thing is, she makes it work for her more often than not — particularly in the short-term. (Longer-term... there can be a few issues.) She often displays states close to trancing, lucid dreaming, or what looks an awful lot like natural self-hypnosis using mantras and sayings, as well, to spur herself along.
  • This seems to be common and possibly hereditary among Targaryens, as many of the most famous historical Targaryen kings had similar symptoms and came up with their most extraordinary ideas in a similar fashion.
• The Magic Comes Back: According to Quaithe, the hatching of Dany’s dragons is causing magic to return to the world. Glass candles are burning that haven’t burned in a hundred years and pyromancers find their powers growing while a red comet streaks across the sky in Westeros.
• Malicious Slander: She's the subject of this outside of Meereen mostly because slave owners hate and fear her.
  Qavo: If even half the stories coming back from Slaver's Bay are true, this child is a monster. They say that she is blood-thirsty, that those who speak against her are impaled on spikes to die lingering deaths. They say she is a sorceress who feeds her dragons on the flesh of newborn babes, an oathbreaker who mocks the gods, breaks truces, threatens envoys, and turns on those who have served her loyally. They say her lust cannot be sated, that she mates with men, women, eunuchs, even dogs and children, and woe betide the lover who fails to satisfy her. She gives her body to men to take their souls in thrall.
• Mama Bear: She put up with Viserys's crap for pretty much all of her life when it was aimed at her, until he threatened to cut her unborn child from her womb. And when Drogo was preparing to kill Viserys, she let him see her standing there and watching, so he would know that even if she could have prevented his death, she was choosing not to. Then, the woman who caused her to lose her husband and unborn child ended up burned alive for her trouble. She is also very protective of her dragons, which are (to anyone's knowledge) the only three living ones in the world.
• Masochist's Meal: While pregnant, she takes part in a Dothraki ritual in which she eats the raw heart of a freshly killed stallion with her bare hands so that her son will be strong and fearless.
• Maternal Death? Blame the Child!: Viserys never quite forgives Dany for their mother Rhaella dying giving birth to her.
• The McCoy: When she sees someone in pain, she feels compelled to alleviate it, with little regard for practicality or long-term ramifications. Barristan tries to play the role of The Spock to balance her out, but he's too fettered by his oaths of obedience and his distaste for politics. Luckily, Tyrion, who cares about the greater good but is also calculating and pragmatic, seems poised to join them.
• Mercy Kill: She does this to Drogo when it becomes apparent he can't be healed.
• Messianic Archetype: For the liberated slaves of Slaver's Bay and the still enslaved of Volantis and other Free Cities and especially the Red Priests Moqorro and Benerro, Daenerys is their savior, Azor Ahai and Maester Aemon believes, courtesy of an error in translation that Daenerys is "The Prince Who Was Promised". She is certainly the most likely one of the many contenders.
• Modest Royalty: Zig-Zagged, as while she does take pride in her name and accomplishments, she never actually sees herself as above anyone else. Unlike her brother, she adapts to Dothraki culture well, and considers them her people. When she starts ruling Meereen, she meets her subjects on a simple wooden bench instead of the extravagant throne, and dislikes wearing the Impractically Fancy Clothes traditional for Meereenese nobility.
• Moral Myopia: An understandable case, given her only source of information was Viserys, but she never really considers the possibility of her relatives having made grievous errors. Her first instinct is blame for the whole "Lyanna" fiasco to Elia being a bad wife instead of Rhaegar being in the wrong, and condemns everyone who took part in Robert's Rebellion — though it's not like Viserys told her they had good reasons for going against Aerys (it's suggested he himself was left in the dark about much of what was going on regarding his father). The one time Ser Barristan starts to bring up some of Aerys' flaws she tells him to wait until she's in a better mood.
• Morton's Fork: Dany backs herself into a corner by taking children as hostages from each noble Meereenese family of dubious loyalty. If she kills the children as revenge against the Sons of the Harpy, she will look like even more of the tyrant that many believe she is. If she does not kill the children, she has no way of threatening the noble families opposing her rule.
• Moses Archetype: After having been made a slave wife to Khal Drogo of the Dothraki and attaining her freedom, she makes it her mission to free all the slaves of Essos, reforming them into her main bloc of supporters and her military forces called the Unsullied. The aim of the army is to conquer Westeros, as she believes the Iron Throne is her birthright, and to form the Unsullied into her closest circle and elite.
• A Mother To Her Men: To her khalasar, the Unsullied, and all of her subjects. The freed slaves refer to her as mhysa (mother), and she in turn considers them her "children", in the Mama Bear sense.
• Myopic Conqueror: Daenerys realizes she was this sort of ruler after Astapor and Yunkai suffer from chaos after she moved on to her next conquest. She comes to realize that although her ultimate goal is to reclaim the Iron Throne in Westeros that is her birthright, it'll all be for naught if her base of power falls apart before she gets there. She thus spends a significant portion of her time ruling and creating stability in Meereen.
• Mysterious Past: There are several discrepancies regarding the memories of her childhood, especially regarding the "house with the red door with a lemon tree outside her window" which is supposedly in Braavos; the problem is, lemon trees shouldn't grow in Braavos, as it's too cold, too foggy, too urbanized and placed too far north for even a normal tree to take root. According to Word of God, this might be pertinent◊.
  • There is also the Metaphorically True option regarding Braavosi lemons: much like the Venetian Republic, various factions within Braavos have de facto (if not de jure) control over strategic ports and land holdings far beyond the city state's own islands. Although not technically in Braavos itself, or even part of an empire controlled by it as other states would understand that term, Daenerys could have lived in a Braavosi-held/ influenced enclave under the aegis of one (or various) Braavosi faction(s)... while also not being anywhere near Braavos and its likely changeable climate. Which would leave a lot of questions hanging around. A kid would not understand the whole picture. Particularly if never told.
  • Braavos is about as close to Westeros as it's possible to get in Essos. How (or even if) the screwed-up Westetosi seasons affect it aren't exactly clear, but the bulk of Daenerys' childhood took place in and around mid-Westerosi summer — and it was a particularly long one. If Braavos also gets affected by the long cycles, well... lemons could conceivably happen in expensive, carefully sheltered gardens of rulers and high lords. Particularly in long summers with presumably lighter mists and sunnier days. The Braavos we meet in AFFC and ADWD is really feeling its quite likely typical autumn fogs and chilly rains.
• Mystical Pregnancy: Mirri Maz Dur complicates her pregnancy with Blood Magic and leads her to birth a horrific reptilian baby that may have damaged her womb and rendered her incapable of bearing children forever. Maybe.
• Mystical White Hair: Like her entire family. Still, nothing says mystical like being able to hatch dragons!

N-Z

• Named After Somebody Famous: She is the third Daenerys Targaryen. The first one was the eldest daughter and sometime heir presumptive of Jaehaerys I and Alysanne, who died from illness as a child. The second one was Daeron II's younger sister and rumored Star-Crossed Lovers with Daemon Blackfyre, married to the Martells a century before to finally broker peace between Dorne and the Targaryens. This comes into collation when Quentyn Martell tries to rationalize that he can be a dragonrider, given that he is descended from the second Daenerys; this doesn't go well for him. Also, Queen Alysanne was absolutely convinced that the first Daenerys would grow up to become a great queen; she may have been having a vision about the third Daenerys instead.
• Nemean Skinning: She owns a cloak made from the pelt of a hrakkar, a white lion, hunted by her first husband Khal Drogo.
• Nice to the Waiter: Gets mildly deconstructed in the first book, and later informs much of her arc. Daenerys is horrified by the Dothraki's raid on a Lhazareen village, so she attempts use the little power she has to convince Drogo and his men to show mercy on the Lhazareen women they've taken as slaves. This ends up backfiring when Mirri Maz Dur takes advantage of her kindness by causing the death of Dany's husband and unborn son. Mirri justifies her betrayal by telling Daenerys that, after watching her people die and her home destroyed, saving her life meant nothing to her. It is this incident that seems to convince Daenerys that it's not enough to simply be nice to slaves, but to work to end slavery entirely.
• Nice Girl: She’s not perfect and has her flaws but Dany is one of the most kind-hearted and compassionate characters in the series. She adores her people and is very protective of them and is also quite empathetic and protective of innocent people. She also aspires to be a good and beloved Queen who can make her subjects happy. That said, as kind and forgiving as she can be, she does have her limits and you do not want to rouse her anger.
• Not Quite the Right Thing: She makes many of these types of decisions — most notably, not leaving any soldiers in Astapor and leaving Yunkai'i and Meereenese nobles unscated.
• Not So Above It All:
  • Dany knows that staying with Daario is about the most detrimental thing she's engaging in because he consistently tries to bring out the worse in her and advises her to give into bloodlust... but he's handsome and good in bed. Mind you, she does send him away before her wedding takes place.
  • She admits to herself that she misses Jorah very much despite his betrayal and she thinks of him in times of need.
  • Despite all she's been through, Dany maintains a playful sense of humor, for instance joking that the most important thing a ruler needs is buns like iron to keep sitting on the throne all day.
  • Doesn't look any more fondly on the rebels who overthrew her father than Viserys. This can be blamed on her brother being the source of most of her information, and Jorah going out of his way to avoid telling her things that she wouldn't like hearing. Barristan tries to amend this, but she's still not quite ready to consider that her family was to blame for losing their throne and he's not ready to push her.
  • Concern with prophecy is a staple of House Targaryen. It's been known to backfire when it becomes an obsession and a driving motivator guiding one's decision making, however.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed:
  • Daenerys is in many senses a Distaff Counterpart to Alexander the Great. A Young Conqueror who collects multiple titles from different regions (Khaleesi, Queen of Meereen, Queen of the Andals) much like the Macedonian (Basileus, Hegemon, Pharaoh, Shahanshah) and her main approach to conquest and governance is by assimilating into different groups of people, being patronized and praised by multiple religions (the Dothraki animism, the Red Temple) similar to Alexander (who was praised by priests of both Zeus and Ammon) and being driven by a strong sense of destiny and an interest in building a multicultural empire that brings together peoples from different parts of the world (Westerosi, Dothraki, Lhazareen, Naathi). She also straddles the line between visionary and warlord and is divided between wanting to rule and wanting to conquer, and has considerable difficulty when she actually has to sit down and rule.
  • Daenerys's time among the Dothraki resembles the captivity of Roman Empress Galla Placidia among the Visigoths in 5th century AD. She was the sister of the ineffective Emperor Honorius, and was taken captive during the Sack of Rome by their king Alaric, then married off to his successor Athaulf. By some accounts, she adjusted well to life among the Visigoths and was happily married to the king. She named their only son after her father, which was a clear political move to place her son in the succession line, as her brother did not have any children yet. Unfortunately, like Drogo and Rhaego, Placidia's son and husband died pretty soon and she was sent back to the Romans, where her later life was drastically different from Daenerys's. However, like the khaleesi, Placidia retained some Visigoths who stayed loyal to their former queen and became her personal guard.
  • The Targaryens share similarities with the Pharoahs of Ancient Egypt, in particular the Ptolemic Dynasty, with Daenerys fulfilling the role of Cleopatra. A female who was expected to, at best, be a consort for her brother only for him to be killed, whereupon she rises up to become one of the most powerful rulers the world has ever seen. Both are noted for their attractiveness to men^note Though Cleopatra has received a Historical Beauty Upgrade over the years, and actually had more charisma than physical beauty, and are skilled omniglots. Both are considered to be a Last of His Kind for their respective families, dynasties and cultures (Old Valyria for Dany, Diadochi^note Hellenistic kingdoms that formed after Alexander the Great's conquests for Cleopatra).
• "No More Holding Back" Speech: The final chapter of A Dance with Dragons is a long internal vision quest where Daenerys imagines several people she knew in her life urging her to a realization:
  "You are the blood of the dragon... Dragons plant no trees. Remember that. Remember who you are, what you were made to be. Remember your words... Fire and Blood."
• Oh, Crap!: How some read her seeming to embrace that "Dragons don't plant trees." In reality, at least in relation to Targaryens and not literal dragons, they absolutely do and have, it's just not the part of the job they talk about as much. That it was Viserys telling her this also probably isn't a great sign.
• One True Love: The Undying Ones prophesize that she will marry three different men, but only the last one will be her true love.
  The Undying Ones: Three mounts must you ride...one to bed, and one to dread, and one to love.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Her unborn son Rhaego is stillborn as part of an Equivalent Exchange during a magical ritual intended to save her husband Drogo's life.
• Out of the Inferno: When Dany "gives birth" to her dragons on the funeral pyre, in the end of A Game of Thrones.
• Parental Substitute: Dany's father died before she was born, so his faithful retainer Ser Willem Darry took on this role for her, and she now seems to regard Ser Barristan the same way. Dany describes Jorah Mormont as the kind and protective big brother she never had in Viserys. Unfortunately for Jorah, not in the usual Targaryen way.
  • Viserys basically raised her from then and most of the stuff she knows about herself and she feels entitled to is due to his influence. Up until his "coronation", Daenerys wanted him to be OK as much as their familial bond would warrant; he was not very receptive to this, as it turned out that he was neither loving nor entirely truthful to her.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: She's fond of this approach, as the slave masters of Astapor and Meereen learn to their surprise. For example, the Meereenese masters crucify 163 slave children and post them along the path to Meereen to taunt her; one of the first things Dany does after taking Meereen is have 163 of the masters crucified.
• Posthumous Sibling: Daenerys was born after the death of her older brother Rhaegar on the banks of the Trident.
• Practically Different Generations: To her deceased brother Rhaegar. Had his children survived, they'd be a few years older than her despite her being their aunt. This is due to Aerys and Rhaella marrying and having Rhaegar as teenagers.
• Pragmatic Hero: She's pragmatic enough to try not being like her brother — the main reason she decides to park herself in Meereen to learn how to rule with hands-on practice is because she realizes neither of them actually had a clue how to. Unfortunately, her lack of political education and somewhat idealistic outlook combine into decisions that are either great or terrible. As a result, she's a willing learner who makes several horrible mistakes that, although she makes a point of learning from, are difficult to fix.
• Pride: As Tyrion points out, it's all she's got to hold on to.
• Princess Classic: Subverted almost point-for-point; the sole exception is her unusual beauty.
• Princess in Rags: The first time we really meet her is during a makeover to try ditching the trope.
• Properly Paranoid: She constantly worries about who around her is going to backstab her from out of nowhere and takes some steps to cover a few important bases. Considering she suffers a major betrayal at least once per book (usually more than that), she's really not wrong to angst a bit. So, like Dad in worrying about betrayal, but importantly not like him, too: she's really not imagining a damned thing and she knows she can't act without any proof. And, Quaithe's prophecy on top of her own dreams and visions doesn't exactly help matters, being as vague as they come.
• The Prophecy: More like prophecies. She is surrounded by destinies and pulled in multiple directions at the same time. Regardless of whether or not she is The Chosen One, she still put herself in a position to be one of the most important people ever in Planetos... and she's young, inexperienced, powerful and armed to the teeth. Small wonder everyone wants her to do their bidding.
  • Turns out, Daenerys has been pussyfooting the whole time by trying for a peaceful solution; it's implied at the end of ADWD that she might try the violent way in the future because she the so-called "peace" she tried in Meereen was constantly undermined and chipped away at by the former slavemasters.
• Put on a Bus: She's one of the characters who disappears during A Feast For Crows.
  • Happens again after she flies off on Drogon after he attacks Daznak's Pit, but she gets one final chapter before the epilogue.
• Rightful Queen Returns: Working on it. It's played with, though, as even if the Targaryens believe their rule will unite the people and bring peace to Westeros, there's really no correlation between bloodline and capability to rule.^note It should be noted that Daenerys technically has a better claim than Renly or Stannis, bloodline-wise, as Robert's claim derives from his Targaryen grandmother, the sister of Dany's grandfather.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Invoked. She doesn't do much fighting herself, though she is making battle-plans and learning to rule.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: By the end of ADWD, when she's having her (runny, dehydrated) hallucinations, it's implied that Dany might give in to the violent Targaryen legacy that she'd been trying to suppress in Meereen; it's known that Dany was extremely dissatisfied with the "peace" she tried in Meereen, where she had to concede so much, realizing that she could have enforced anything by using her dragons.
• Selective Obliviousness: A minor case, but still somewhat confusing. Dany makes much and more of the Usurper, Robert Baratheon, and his dogs, cold Eddard Stark and the golden Lannister father and son. Not once does she ever seem aware of the existence of Jon Arryn, Lord of the Vale, Robert's Hand as king, and the very man who refused to turn Robert and Ned over to King Aerys, and just as important in the war that deposed the Targaryens.
  • Then again, this might be the picture Viserys drew for her regarding the rebellion. It's not exactly clear how well informed Viserys actually was regarding the whole war (a young boy mostly used to being confined to a single tower isn't likely one trained to be an intel-gathering machine). Also, Willem Darry, as a Targaryen loyalist, might have found it wise not to be very detailed regarding the whole affair (in a sycophantic sort of way, that is). Though it might make more sense when you recall his reason for rebelling was protecting his innocent wards, which is somewhat difficult to villianize.
• Shameless Fanservice Girl: During her time with the Dothraki, Daenerys sheds any nudity taboo she might have had, and readily has sex with Khal Drogo in front of his whole khalasar more than once.
• Side Quest: Invoked. Apart from her main goal to retake the Seven Kingdoms and her governmental experiment nightmare at Meereen, for some reason a bunch of people are in the interest of taking her to Asshai. This has been repeated a number of times and it's never been clear what she might find there or what they want with her.
• Silk Hiding Steel: A beautiful, demure 16-year-old girl, who has so far sacked three cities and is bent on reclaiming the Iron Throne.
• Slave Liberation: Starting in the third book, Dany leads a campaign to abolish slavery in Astapor, Yunkai, and Meereen.
• Small Parent, Huge Child: Daenerys's dragons, whom she explicitly considers her children after hatching their eggs, naturally count once they grow beyond their human mother's size.
• Someone to Remember Him By: She was conceived shortly before her father was killed by Jaime Lannister and thus was born fatherless.
• Spanner in the Works:
  • To the long-term plans of Illyrio Mopatis and Varys, masterminds for an alleged Targaryen restoration. Illyrio stated that when he brokered the marriage between Daenerys and Khal Drogo, he did not expect her to survive, much less hatch three dragon eggs for the first time in more than a hundred years; later she conquers Slaver's Bay rather than return to Pentos by boat, upsetting the plans of the Golden Company, who expected her and her dragons to submit to their long-term plans of restoring Aegon VI on the Iron Throne, with Tristan Rivers expecting her to be a "pliable child". She's likely still the biggest threat to their plans, but none seem to realize it except perhaps Tyrion.
  • Also Doran Martell, who sent his son Quentyn Martell to bring Daenerys and her dragons home, offering the support of an army in Westeros and a marital alliance. Daenerys is regretful of the poor timing; at the time she is engaged in a diplomatic marital alliance to Hizdahr so as to protect and preserve Meereen's peace, and Dorne has no navy that could transport troops to help her where she really needs it right now, in Slaver's Bay.
• Survival Mantra:
  • Particularly in the first book, she often tells herself "I am the blood of the dragon" or some variation thereof when she's feeling frightened or on the brink of despair, because "the dragon is not afraid".
  • "If I look back I am lost." Used at two points in the story, when she starts to feel hopelessness creep up on her: after learning that her son was a stillborn monster and Drogo is a Soulless Shell in A Game Of Thrones, and when she's lost on the Dothraki Sea in A Dance With Dragons.
• Take a Third Option:
  • A specialty of hers, best demonstrated by how she dealt with the Astapori slavers.
  • She has three options at the end of ADWD: die of cholera and/or via Dothraki; return to the so-called "peace" she left in Meereen; or, finally say fuck it and blaze everything on her path using Drogon. By her inner monologue, she seems to have taken the third option.
• Tell Me About My Father: When she outright asks if the rumors about her father being batshit insane are true or otherwise touches on the topic, she quickly changes her mind upon seeing the (repeated) uneasy reaction(s) to her questions and decides that she isn't prepared hear of it at each particular instance. As a result, she does now know, but she still really doesn't understand how bad Aerys got in any detail or what the knock-on effects actually were. She most certainly doesn't know the full story about how she was conceived, for instance. Nor that is one of the incidents people who know tend to get very nervous about when thinking of telling her.
• Took a Level in Badass: She's taken several of these as well over the course of her adventures.
• Tough Leader Façade: She grows into this. Exemplified by her attraction to Daario Naharis; she's keenly aware of the girl's wants versus the queen's needs.
• Tragic Keepsake: After Drogo's death, she remembers him by wearing the pelt of the hrakkar (white lion) that he hunted and made into a cloak for her.
• Tragic Stillbirth: She becomes pregnant in A Game of Thrones with a son, Rhaego. However, the baby is ultimately stillborn and reportedly also comes out hideously deformed, blind with scales and bat-like wings; his skin falls away from his body to reveal graveworms. It's indicated to be a side effect of a Blood Magic ritual Dany had requested of Mirri Maz Duur to save her husband, Drogo's life, as Rhaego was perfectly healthy prior to this. Dany is possibly left unable to conceive another child — or at least Mirri thought so (and she had reasons to lie). She grieves both the loss of Rhaego and any other children she may have had, which is what makes her so protective and affectionate towards her dragons, the "only children she will ever have."
• Try to Fit That on a Business Card: In addition to the titles above, there is also "Queen of Meereen, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lady Regnant of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, Khaleesi of Great Grass Sea".
• Uncatty Resemblance: Her personal mount is a silver mare that matches her silver Valyrian hair, chosen as a wedding gift by her husband for its likeness to her.
• Underestimating Badassery: Most of Westeros's ruling powers refuse to acknowledge her as a credible threat, dismissing the stories about her as nothing but rumor. Even when her growing power and influence becomes undeniable, they still consider her as a secondary issue to be dealt with at a later date. And while it is prudent for them to worry about their more immediate problems than one half the world away, no one has even bothered to at least come up with a plan in case she does arrive to take the Seven Kingdoms.
• The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter: King Aerys II, near the end of his life, was a raving madman with filthy hair and beard and yellowed nine-inch fingernails. His daughter Princess Daenerys is a stunning Valyrian beauty with silver-gold hair and eyes like amethysts.
• Vorpal Pillow: How she puts Drogo out of his misery.
• Walking Spoiler: While her status as "the Mother of Dragons" is very much common knowledge nowadays, and it's very difficult to talk about her character without mentioning it, the hatching of the dragons is a major plot twist for A Game of Thrones up until the last page of the book.
• White Stallion: Receives a beautiful silver filly as a wedding gift from Drogo.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: She's barely a teen when the series starts, having been on the run since she was born, she's barely a pretty curiosity for the Essos high-honchos and she's being sold to a tribe of barbarians; some time later she brought a whole continent to its knees by abolishing slavery in several major cities. By the end of ADWD, she might have given up on slavers' "peace" entirely.
• World's Most Beautiful Woman: According to several of her followers and the rumors traveling about her from Essos to Westeros; remarkable, considering she isn't past her teens.
  Victarion Greyjoy: The fairest woman in the world if my brother could be believed. Her hair is silver-gold, her eyes are amethysts.
  • Which makes her a good candidate for the younger, more beautiful queen prophesied to overthrow Cersei, whose own beauty has thus far been considered unparalleled by many.

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