House Targaryen

House Targaryen traces its origins to the ancient Freehold of Valyria, where its members were dragonlords of the highest rank. The sigil of the house is a three-headed dragon, red on black, representing Aegon the Conqueror and his two sister-wives, Rhaenys and Visenys. Their words are Fire and Blood. To preserve what they called the purity of the dragon's blood, the Targaryens practiced incestuous marriage, wedding brother to sister, cousin to cousin, and uncle to niece, a custom that set them apart from all other noble houses of Westeros and that, over generations, contributed to the instability that would eventually consume them.

The Fall of the Dynasty and the Exile of the Remnants

For nearly three centuries the Targaryens ruled the Iron Throne, but the dynasty collapsed in Robert's Rebellion. The last king, Aerys II Targaryen, called the Mad King, was slain by his own Kingsguard, Jaime Lannister, during the Sack of King's Landing. Aerys's son Rhaegar, the Prince of Dragonstone, had already fallen to Robert Baratheon on the Trident. Rhaegar's children—a daughter named Rhaenys and a son named Aegon, still a babe at the breast—were brutally murdered by Lannister men during the sack, their bodies presented to the new king wrapped in crimson cloaks. Only two Targaryens escaped across the narrow sea: the queen Rhaella, pregnant with a daughter, and her son Viserys, a boy of eight. Rhaella died giving birth to Daenerys Targaryen on Dragonstone during a great storm, and the children were smuggled to the Free City of Braavos by the loyal knight Ser Willem Darry. They lived in a house with a red door, the only home Daenerys would ever know, until Ser Willem's death cast them out into a life of impoverished exile, wandering from city to city, dependent on the charity of powerful friends such as the Pentoshi magister Illyrio Mopatis.

The Three Living Claimants and Their Separate Paths

By the time of A Dance with Dragons, three Targaryen claimants are alive, each pursuing a different path to the Iron Throne. Daenerys Targaryen, the youngest, has emerged from her brother's shadow to become a conqueror in her own right. After hatching three dragons from fossilized eggs, she has built an army of Unsullied, Dothraki, and freedmen, conquered the slaver cities of Slaver's Bay, and established herself as Queen of Meereen. Her brother Viserys, who styled himself the Beggar King and sold her to Khal Drogo for the promise of an army, died screaming in Vaes Dothrak when molten gold was poured over his head. Daenerys, who witnessed his death, has become the figure around whom the hopes of Targaryen loyalists now revolve. A second claimant, a young man calling himself Aegon Targaryen, appears in the eastern narrative. He claims to be Rhaegar's son, secretly saved from the Sack of King's Landing by the eunuch Varys, who substituted a common child from Pisswater Bend and smuggled the true prince across the narrow sea to be raised in secret by Jon Connington, Rhaegar's former friend and Hand of the King, and by Illyrio Mopatis. This Aegon has been trained in arms, languages, history, and the practical skills of common life, and he lands in Westeros with the Golden Company to press his claim. The third claimant is Maester Aemon Targaryen, the blind, ancient maester of the Night's Watch, who forswore all claims when he took his vows and who dies during the voyage to Oldtown, having never revealed his identity to most of his brothers.

The Blood of the Dragon and the Burden of Prophecy

The Targaryen bloodline carries with it a weight of prophecy and expectation that shapes the actions of its surviving members. Daenerys is repeatedly told by the masked shadowbinder Quaithe that she must remember who she is, that the dragons know, and that she must beware the perfumed seneschal, the sun's son, the mummer's dragon, and the other figures of a cryptic prophecy. The Undying of Qarth foretold that she would know three treasons: once for blood, once for gold, and once for love. The red priests of R'hllor, led by Benerro in Volantis and Moqorro at sea, proclaim Daenerys to be Azor Ahai reborn, the hero prophesied to return to fight the darkness. The young Aegon is likewise surrounded by those who believe in his destiny; Jon Connington, dying of greyscale, is determined to see Rhaegar's son seated on the Iron Throne before his own death. The blood of the dragon is also a source of danger: Aerys II's madness is remembered with fear, and Daenerys herself worries that the taint of madness may run in her blood. The Targaryen ability to bond with dragons, a trait that set them apart from all other houses, is central to their claim to power, and the presence of living dragons in the world has transformed the political landscape, making the Targaryen name once again a force to be reckoned with.

The Legacy of the Dragonlords and the Future of the House

The Targaryen legacy is one of fire, blood, and the unyielding pursuit of a throne that has cost them everything. The house that once ruled from the Iron Throne with dragons at their command has been reduced to a handful of exiles, a young queen in Slaver's Bay, a hidden prince landing in the stormlands, and a dying maester at the Wall. Yet the name Targaryen still carries immense power. Lords who would never support a Lannister or a Baratheon might rally to a dragon. The Golden Company, founded by the Blackfyre pretenders who fought the Targaryens for generations, has agreed to support Aegon's cause, a sign that the old enmities may be set aside in the face of a new opportunity. Daenerys's dragons, growing larger and more dangerous with each passing day, represent both the hope of Targaryen restoration and the terror of their power. The house's words, Fire and Blood, are not merely a motto but a description of their method and their history: they rose through fire and conquest, and they will return, if they return at all, through the same means. The question that hangs over the narrative is whether the three surviving Targaryens—Daenerys, Aegon, and the memory of Rhaegar's line—will unite or destroy each other, and whether the blood of the dragon can endure the winter that is coming.