Rhaenyra Targaryen

Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen is the daughter of King Viserys I Targaryen and Aemma Arryn. A dragonrider, her mount is the she-dragon Syrax.

Biography

Rhaenyra is the daughter and only surviving child of King Viserys I and Aemma Arryn. She rides the dragon Syrax.

Rhaenyra returns to King's Landing after riding Syrax and visits her mother Aemma, who is heavily pregnant. While Rhaenyra is not very enthused at the prospect of having her own children, her mother reminds her of her duty as a princess, and that the childbed is a royal woman's battlefield. Rhaenyra later greets her uncle Daemon in the throne room, where he presents her with a gift acquired on his recent journey; a necklace made of Valyrian steel.

Later that evening, Rhaenyra, and her friend, Lady Alicent Hightower spend time in the godswood, where Rhaenyra hopes that her unborn sibling is a boy, for the sake of her father, Viserys I's happiness, ignoring Alicent's remarks that a son would overshadow her in the line of succession.

Rhaenyra is present in the royal box when her father commences the Heir's Tournament, where he announces that Aemma has gone into labor. Rhaenyra and Alicent are intrigued by a new contender in the tournament, Ser Criston Cole, after his victories against Lord Boremund Baratheon, and another Baratheon. Rhaenyra witnesses the duel between Ser Criston, and her uncle, Prince Daemon, in which Criston emerges victorious. He then asks Rhaenyra for her favor. She then tosses down a floral wreath to him, and bids Criston good luck in the rest of the tournament. In the middle of the tournament, the spectators in the royal box are informed of Queen Aemma's death in childbirth.

Several days later, the royal court gathers outside the city walls of King's Landing for the funeral of Rhaenyra's mother, Aemma, and her infant brother, Prince Baelon. Rhaenyra bitterly ponders to her uncle, Daemon, whether her father finally found happiness in the few hours that Baelon lived, and laments that she will never make her father truly happy, as she is not a son. She then sets her mother and brother's funeral pyre ablaze, with a command of "Dracarys" to Syrax.

Following Viserys disinherits Daemon, he summons Rhaenyra to Balerion's shrine, to her confusion due to Viserys's recent lack of contact with her. Viserys then voices his intention to name Rhaenyra as his heir, and informs her of Aegon the Conqueror's vision, which he dubbed "The Song of Ice and Fire," which every legitimate heir to the Iron Throne has been informed of to ensure Westeros's readiness for the evil that Aegon foresaw. Some time later, the realm's nobility swears fealty to Viserys and Rhaenyra, and Rhaenyra is officially named Princess of Dragonstone.

Six months after her mother's funeral, Rhaenyra is tasked with filling the vacant spot on the Kingsguard, after Ser Ryam Redwyne's death. She selects Ser Criston Cole, due to him being the only knight being considered to have seen actual combat, rather than tourney fighting.

Rhaenyra and her cousin, the Princess Rhaenys Targaryen, discuss Rhaenyra's succession to the Iron Throne, and the possibility of her displacement as heir to the Iron Throne due to her sex, with Rhaenys bluntly telling Rhaenyra that the men of Westeros would sooner put the realm to the torch than allow a woman to ascend the Iron Throne.

At the small council, Viserys and Rhaenyra get word from a Dragonkeeper Elder that Daemon has stolen a dragon egg from the Dragonpit, namely the one Rhaenyra had picked out for her brother, Baelon. Despite not being given leave to go to Dragonstone, Rhaenyra flies there atop Syrax to persuade Daemon to relinquish the dragon egg, and to leave the castle. She succeeds in getting the dragon egg back without bloodshed, but fails to get Daemon to leave Dragonstone. When Rhaenyra returns to King's Landing, Viserys angrily chides her for leaving and endangering herself, though he does credit her being the only person able to retrieve the egg without bloodshed. Viserys insists that because Rhaenyra is his only heir, the Targaryen line is vulnerable, and though he insists that he will not unname Rhaenyra as his heir, even if his new wife were to give him sons, he must ensure the continuation of the Targaryen line.

At a small council meeting the next morning, Viserys announces his intention to marry Lady Alicent Hightower, which infuriates and disgusts Rhaenyra, hurt by her father and friend keeping this from her.

Three years later, Rhaenyra's relationships with both her father and Alicent, now queen of the Seven Kingdoms, have soured, and is now disinclined to listen to either of them. She attends a royal hunt with her family to celebrate the second nameday of her half-brother, Prince Aegon Targaryen. At the camp, she is proposed to by Lord Jason Lannister, to which she declines. She then gets into a terse confrontation with her father, realizing that he intends to marry her off to one of the noblemen of Westeros, causing her to run off into the Kingswood. Ser Criston Cole goes after her, and she contemplates whether the realm will actually accept her as queen.

After agreeing to get married to perpetuate the Targaryen line, she goes on a tour of Westeros to pick a lord of her choosing to wed. However, she cuts the progress short at Storm's End. Rhaenyra reunites with her uncle, Daemon, after four years, and he takes her through the Street of Silk late in the night, where she witnesses the true nature of King's Landing, and the smallfolk's opinion of her and her position in society. Rhaenyra and Daemon then go to a brothel, where Rhaenyra witnesses the pleasures of sex. She and Daemon then proceed to couple together, but Daemon is rendered impotent and leaves her in the brothel. Rhaenyra, still sexually aroused, seduces Ser Criston Cole, and loses her virginity to him.

Rhaenyra and Daemon are seen together by a Lyseni boy, who brings word of this to Mysaria. Mysaria then orders the boy to inform Otto Hightower, who in turn brings the news to Rhaenyra's father Viserys. Alicent, who overheard the conversation between Viserys and Otto, confronts Rhaenyra about this, but she vehemently denies the allegations against her and Daemon. Viserys then confronts Rhaenyra about this, and to avoid scandal, he orders Rhaenyra to wed Ser Laenor Velaryon. She reluctantly agrees, on the condition that Viserys dismisses Otto as his Hand. That night, Grand Maester Mellos, at Viserys's behest, gives Rhaenyra moon tea as a precaution.

In the books

In Fire & Blood, Rhaenyra was the daughter of King Viserys I, and his only child to survive the cradle by his wife, Aemma of House Arryn. Viserys's younger brother Daemon was his closest male heir, but many at court felt he was so unruly that he was unfit to sit the throne, so Viserys officially named Rhaenyra his heir. This decision was controversial, as it contradicted the principle of male-preference proximity which had put Viserys himself on the throne, instead of his older first cousin Rhaenys Targaryen (who according to primogeniture should have been the heir).

Rhaenyra was therefore raised expecting to one day sit the Iron Throne herself, becoming somewhat pampered and arrogant, though also receiving an education in government as befitting the heir to the throne. From an early age, Rhaenyra regularly sat at the foot of the Iron Throne while her father held royal court, and her father also regularly brought her to meetings of the small council. A precocious young girl, in her childhood she was known as "the Realm's Delight". The year before her mother died, Rhaenyra also become a dragonrider, claiming Syrax as her mount. One of Rhaenyra's personal tics was also that she tended to nervously play with her hands (or the rings on them) when she was thinking.