Daella Targaryen and Alysanne Targaryen

Daella Targaryen and Alysanne Targaryen’s relationship joined deep maternal tenderness to the pressures placed on a royal daughter: Alysanne defended Daella’s gentle nature, sought a husband she believed would cherish and protect her, and stayed beside her through pregnancy and labor. Daella’s death soon after Aemma Arryn’s birth transformed that care into grief and regret, leaving the queen to confront the consequences of a marriage she had helped arrange.

A shy daughter and her mother’s defense

Daella was delicate and easily frightened from childhood. She spoke late, remained tongue-tied, and often hid her face around older boys. Her sister Maegelle became a guiding presence, while Alysanne was the mother she worshipped. This dependence did not mean Daella was simply a passive figure in the family: the account presents her as a child whose fears shaped how she encountered the world, and whose mother tried to understand her rather than measure her by the accomplishments expected of a Targaryen.

That understanding mattered when Daella’s difficulties became a source of frustration at court. She struggled to read and remember prayers, and fear could make even ordinary activities daunting. Jaehaerys Targaryen worried about how she would marry and considered whether she might instead enter the Faith; Alysanne answered by emphasizing Daella’s kindness and tenderness. She rejected the idea that every member of the family needed to wield a sword or ride a dragon. Her defense did not erase Daella’s limitations, but it insisted that they did not exhaust her worth or determine what kind of life she could have.

Marriage and maternal protection

As Daella grew older, Alysanne sought suitable marriage prospects for her. At thirteen, Daella traveled to Driftmark to meet Corlys Velaryon, ten years her senior. The crossing of Blackwater Bay made her seasick, and she returned with the impression that Corlys cared more for his boats than for her. The match did not proceed. The episode shows the difficulty of finding a prospect who suited Daella, whose fear and sensitivity made marriage negotiations more than a matter of arranging rank.

Jaehaerys pressed for a decision, fearing Daella might otherwise have to enter the Silent Sisters despite her inability to read prayers with confidence. He asked Alysanne to find a gentle man who would treat and protect their daughter with care. Alysanne promised to do her best, then presented Daella with three suitors chosen from great lords or their sons. She explained the king’s command gently but firmly and gave Daella a choice among them. Her actions combined advocacy with the limits of her position: she tried to shape the marriage around Daella’s temperament, but the expectation that Daella marry was not removed.

Daella wed Rodrik Arryn. After a year and a half, she sent Alysanne a brief message in her own uncertain handwriting to say that she was pregnant and ask her mother to come because she was frightened. Alysanne responded within days, mounting Silverwing and flying to the Vale. She arrived at the Eyrie three moons before the birth. Daella apologized for having sent what she considered a foolish message, but her fear remained plain; she cried readily, and Rodrik observed that even small things could bring her to tears. Alysanne took that distress seriously, especially because Daella was small and carrying a heavy pregnancy.

Confinement, loss, and grief

Alysanne stayed with Daella for the remainder of her confinement. She sat beside her daughter’s bed, read to her at night, and repeatedly reassured her that the birth would be all right. In trying to comfort Daella, she predicted that the child would be a girl and that everything would be fine. The prediction was only partly fulfilled: Aemma Arryn was born a fortnight early after a long and difficult labor, and Daella smiled when her daughter was laid against her.

Daella soon developed childbed fever. She had no milk to nurse Aemma, and a wet nurse was summoned. As the fever worsened, the maester forbade her to hold the baby; Daella wept over the separation. She died the following morning, aged eighteen. The account makes Alysanne’s presence at the birth a final act of intimate care, but it also records the limits of that care: she could comfort her daughter and remain at her bedside, yet could not prevent the illness or keep Daella with her child.

After Daella’s death, Rodrik asked to bury her in the Vale. Alysanne refused, insisting that her daughter, as dragon blood, should be burned and her ashes interred on Dragonstone beside her sister Daenerys. The decision asserted Daella’s place in her birth family even as her marriage had joined her to House Arryn. It also gave Alysanne a role in determining where her daughter would rest, at a moment when so much else had been beyond her control.

The cost of a decision

The narrative presents Alysanne’s grief as inseparable from questions of responsibility. She blamed herself, Lord Rodrik, and the Eyrie’s maester for their parts in what had happened, but blamed Jaehaerys most of all because he had insisted that Daella marry within a set time. Alysanne argued that Daella had not been old or strong enough to bear a child and that the family should not have hurried her into marriage. The king’s reply is not recorded, leaving the disagreement unresolved rather than turning it into a settled reconciliation or verdict.

Their relationship therefore changes in the wake of Daella’s death: the care that had defined Alysanne’s efforts to protect her daughter becomes a measure of the decision she believes helped expose her to danger. Daella’s final appeal to her mother, Alysanne’s journey to the Vale, and her vigil through the confinement all underscore their closeness; the subsequent grief shows how little maternal devotion could guarantee against the demands and hazards surrounding royal marriage and childbirth.