Daemon Targaryen

Prince Daemon Targaryen is a prince of the Targaryen dynasty, the younger brother of King Viserys I Targaryen, and uncle of Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen.

He is a peerless warrior, and also a dragonrider: his mount is Caraxes, the Blood Wyrm.

Biography

Daemon is the grandson of Jaehaerys I Targaryen, younger brother of King Viserys, and heir presumptive to the Iron Throne. Ser Otto Hightower, the Hand of the King, considers Daemon the greatest threat to the realm. He is the rider of the dragon Caraxes, an older dragon known as the Blood Wyrm. An experienced and skilled fighter, he wields Dark Sister, the Valyrian steel sword of his grandfather's great aunt Visenya Targaryen. Unlike his older brother, Daemon is - despite his great cunning - an unpredictable and impulsive rogue.

At the Great Council of 101 AC, Viserys was chosen by the lords of Westeros as the successor to King Jaehaerys, whose health had begun to fail and who had lost both his sons. During the first nine years of his brother's reign, Daemon served on the small council, both as Master of Laws and later as Master of Coin. However, he was removed from those offices, both times at the insistence of Otto Hightower. The rivalry between Daemon and Otto continued, as the Hand saw the prince as a threat if he were to ever become king, possibly a second Maegor the Cruel. Daemon in turn saw Otto as a dishonorable leech who wanted to rise as high as he could get, since his status as a second son would not allow him to inherit anything of his own. Most of the council sided with Otto in this conflict, but Daemon was always defended by his brother.

At some point King Viserys arranged a marriage for his younger brother, wedding him to Rhea Royce, the Lady of Runestone. Neither party was happy with this match, with Daemon disparagingly referring to his wife as his "bronze bitch".

Daemon's personal coat of arms features the three-headed red dragon of House Targaryen, adorned with golden scales and within a border of golden fire. His helmet, forged from Valyrian steel, is adorned with the head and wings of a dragon.

In the books

Daemon was a controversial man in his lifetime, an audacious rogue prince and adventurer who seemed composed of good and evil in equal measure. There was never a man simultaneously so loved and so reviled as he was. To some he was a hero, to others the blackest of villains.

Younger son of Baelon Targaryen, Daemon became one of the most experienced warriors of his generation with his constant fighting and was knighted at the age of sixteen. His grandfather King Jaehaerys I Targaryen gave him the Valyrian steel sword Dark Sister. Daemon rode the dragon Caraxes, a powerful beast who he flew in his constant campaigns in the Stepstones, soon becoming the most battle-hardened of the Targaryen dragons. Caraxes's might in battle was enough to match even the mighty Vhagar, the largest of the dragons and the last of the three that had been brought to Westeros by Aegon the Conqueror and his sisters.

Daemon served on his brother Viserys I's small council for a time, as Master of Coin and Master of Laws, but grew bored of such administrative work, and became the new Lord Commander of the City Watch. He reorganized the Watch from a loosely assembled and poorly equipped group of street toughs into the formal institution they were known as ever since, giving them their trademark gold cloaks. Daemon vigorously enforced order in the alleys of the city, but was also a well-known rabble-rouser, socializing with the city's dregs as long as they played by his rules. His face became known to every cut-purse, whore, and gambler in Flea Bottom.

On several major occasions Daemon clashed with his brother over the matter of succession, only to reconcile with him later. At the beginning of Viserys I's reign, Daemon wanted to be named as heir ahead of his brother's only child, his daughter Rhaenyra. The Great Council of 101 AC that had put Viserys on the throne ahead of his cousin Rhaenys favored male proximity over primogeniture, so Daemon assumed he would be named heir ahead of his niece Rhaenyra, much as his father Baelon had been named heir ahead of his niece Rhaenys. Daemon's behavior was so wild and unpredictable, however, that while Viserys still loved his brother, he hesitated to formally name him as the official heir to the throne.