Jhaqo

Jhaqo first appears as a member of Ko Jhaqo's khas, a rider in the service of Khal Drogo. When Daenerys intervenes to stop the rape of a Lhazareen girl, Mago—who rides in Jhaqo's khas—complains that she has taken his spoils. Jhaqo does not speak in this scene, but his association with Mago and his position as a ko mark him as a man of standing within the khalasar. After Drogo's wound festers and he can no longer ride, the khalasar begins to dissolve. Ko Pono leaves first, naming himself Khal Pono, and many follow. Jhaqo is not long to do the same, taking a large portion of Drogo's remaining followers with him. He claims the title of Khal Jhaqo, and his new khalasar becomes one of a dozen that spring up on the Dothraki sea where once there was only Drogo's. Jhaqo's rise is a direct consequence of Drogo's fall; the Dothraki follow only the strong, and a khal who cannot ride is no khal. Jhaqo's seizure of power is not merely opportunistic but ruthless. He takes Drogo's herds and many slaves, including the girl Eroeh, whom Daenerys had saved from rape outside the mud walls of the Lamb Men. Mago, now Jhaqo's bloodrider, seizes Eroeh and mounts her high and low, then gives her to Jhaqo, who gives her to his other bloodriders. They are six. When they are done with her, they cut her throat. This act of cruelty transforms Jhaqo from a rival into an object of Daenerys's undying hatred. When Daenerys learns of Eroeh's fate, she swears a terrible oath: by the old gods and the new, by the lamb god and the horse god and every god that lives, by the Mother of Mountains and the Womb of the World, she vows that before she is done with them, Mago and Ko Jhaqo will plead for the mercy they showed Eroeh. Her handmaid Irri tries to explain that Jhaqo is a khal now, with twenty thousand riders at his back, but Daenerys declares herself the blood of the dragon and swears that these men will die screaming. Jhaqo's fate is left unresolved in the book, but Daenerys's vow establishes him as a future target of her vengeance. His actions—the dissolution of Drogo's khalasar, the theft of its wealth, and the murder of Eroeh—make him a symbol of the brutal, lawless world of the Dothraki that Daenerys must either master or be destroyed by. Jhaqo's rise and Daenerys's oath set the stage for a future confrontation that will test her power as the Mother of Dragons.