The Dance of the Dragons was the devastating civil war between Rhaenyra Targaryen and her half-brother Aegon II Targaryen over the Iron Throne. Fought from 129 to 131 AC, it turned a disputed succession into a struggle that divided the royal family and the realm, and left Targaryen power diminished. Its traditional name, bestowed by singers and preserved in later histories, sounds graceful beside the conflict it describes: a war of armies and fleets, dragonfire and political betrayal, whose conclusion did not bring an immediate or lasting peace.

Origins and Rival Claims

The crisis followed the death of Viserys I Targaryen, who had ruled for twenty-six years. His surviving child from his first marriage, Rhaenyra, had been designated heir; Aegon, his eldest son by his second wife, Alicent Hightower, nevertheless had a competing claim. The succession was especially contentious in light of the Great Council of 101 AC. That council had chosen Viserys over Rhaenys Targaryen by a reported margin of more than twenty to one, and many thereafter treated its decision as a precedent against a woman inheriting the Iron Throne or transmitting a claim through her line. It did not, however, settle how the realm should respond when the king himself had named his daughter heir.

The two claimants’ positions were made public through rival coronations. Aegon was crowned in the Dragonpit in King’s Landing, where Ser Criston Cole placed the iron-and-ruby crown of Aegon I Targaryen on his head. Alicent placed her own crown on her daughter Helaena, Aegon’s sister and wife. The ceremony presented the new king with religious blessing and a conspicuous public setting, though accounts disagree about how many smallfolk filled the Dragonpit. Some cheered; others were silent or uncertain, and a few called for Rhaenyra.

On Dragonstone, Rhaenyra was crowned with the crown of Jaehaerys I Targaryen, which Ser Steffon Darklyn had brought from King’s Landing after defecting with other loyalists. Daemon Targaryen placed it on her head, and she named her eldest son, Jacaerys Velaryon, heir to the Iron Throne. Rhaenyra declared Otto Hightower and Alicent traitors, but offered to spare her half-brothers and Helaena if they came to Dragonstone, submitted, and sought forgiveness. Aegon, in turn, demanded that Rhaenyra and Daemon be arrested and killed. The rival ceremonies thus made the central problem unmistakable: each side asserted royal authority, while neither accepted the other’s claim.

War and Escalation

Once reconciliation failed, the conflict began in earnest. The Blacks assembled a strategy that used their fleet, dragons, and potential allies to offset the strength of the court in King’s Landing. Daemon was to attack Harrenhal, securing a base on the mainland; the Velaryon fleet, commanded by Corlys Velaryon, would blockade the Gullet and restrict shipping through Blackwater Bay. Rhaenys Targaryen was to fly above the fleet, deterring dragon attacks, while envoys sought support from Riverrun, the Eyrie, Pyke, and Storm’s End. Jacaerys and Lucerys were sent as messengers on dragonback, with instructions to negotiate rather than fight. The plan relied on more than force: dragons could carry the appeal for allegiance to distant lords faster than ravens.

The war’s reach was not confined to land campaigns or conventional sieges. Armies fought, fleets operated on the water, and dragons fought in the air; stealth, murder, and betrayal also shaped the struggle in castles and councils. Later accounts present the conflict as two years of upheaval across the Seven Kingdoms, with lords, knights, and smallfolk choosing sides and taking up arms against one another. House Targaryen itself split as the claimants’ relatives and children became involved. The dispute also produced brief rival kings whose claims rose and fell amid the wider chaos.

On the twenty-second day of the fifth moon in 130 AC, Daemon and Aemond Targaryen fought their final battle above the Gods Eye. Both men and their dragons died. Caraxes reached the lakeshore before dying beneath the walls of Harrenhal; Vhagar fell into the lake, where her remains were found years later with Aemond’s armored bones still chained to the saddle. Daemon’s remains were never found. Later singers imagined that he survived and returned to Nettles, but the historical account rejects that story as unsupported. The battle’s witnesses were few, so news of Daemon’s death spread only gradually.

The war also turned the capital’s population against its dragons. When the Shepherd’s followers marched on the Dragonpit, their cry drew an expanding crowd carrying torches and weapons. Rhaenyra sent riders to try to disperse the attackers, seize the Shepherd, and defend the dragons, but the remaining loyal guards were too few to ensure success. The episode exposed a vulnerability different from defeat by an opposing army: royal power could not reliably protect the dragons when the city itself was in turmoil.

End of the War and the Succession

The fighting formally ended in 131 AC, but its close was bound up with another violent succession. When the vanguard of Lord Tully’s host reached King’s Landing, Corlys announced Aegon II’s death and proclaimed the new king. Across Blackwater Bay, Velaryon ships lowered Aegon II’s golden dragon and raised the red dragon flown by Targaryen kings before the Dance. The change of banner marked the end of the reigning king’s cause, not the repair of all that the war had broken.

On the seventh day of the seventh moon in 131 AC, Aegon Targaryen the Younger married Jaehaera Targaryen. The High Septon of Oldtown solemnized the union between Rhaenyra and Daemon’s eldest surviving son and the daughter of Helaena and Aegon II. The marriage joined the two rival branches of the dynasty and was presented as ending the years of treachery and bloodshed. Aegon III Targaryen’s reign began in the shadow of that settlement, with the family line continuing but its authority much diminished.

The war’s aftermath makes clear why the end of combat cannot be treated as uncomplicated peace. Cregan Stark’s investigations into Aegon II’s murder led to executions, including those of men judged complicit in the killing. Ser Perkin the Flea was condemned for helping drive Rhaenyra from the capital and then abandoning the ruler he had raised in her place. The heads of Larys Strong and Ser Gyles Belgrave were displayed at the Red Keep’s gates. Even the return of a king and the submission of former opponents unfolded amid punishment, suspicion, and unfinished conflict.

Consequences and Historical Meaning

The Dance exacted a terrible toll on the great lords, their bannermen, knights, and smallfolk. Targaryen rule survived, but the dynasty emerged with substantially less power, and the number of living dragons was greatly reduced. The war’s consequences extended beyond the principal claimants: fighting continued in the west during the first three years of Aegon III’s reign, as Johanna Lannister resisted the raids of Dalton Greyjoy’s ironborn in the name of her young son. The new king’s coronation therefore did not make the Seven Kingdoms peaceful at once.

The scale of loss also reshaped who governed. The Citadel called the period the Winter of the Widows: so many lords had died that women ruled lands for sons too young to govern, taking authority in place of husbands, brothers, and fathers. Some helped restore what war had damaged. Johanna led the defense of her people in the west; Sharis Footly worked to rebuild Tumbleton, restoring its walls and fields and clearing the town’s burned buildings. In the account of the war’s aftermath, women also figure in the political work of ending hostilities. Mushroom argued that women brought peace through messages, words, and personal bonds rather than by wielding swords or poison.

The Dance is therefore both a succession war and a crisis of political legitimacy. A prior council’s preference for a male claimant, the king’s designation of his daughter, the rival claims of the royal family, religious anointing, public coronations, and military allegiance all competed to determine who could rule. The ceremony and symbols of monarchy could announce a claim, but could not compel acceptance. In the end, dynastic marriage helped mark the formal settlement, while the diminished royal power, continuing regional conflict, and scarcity of dragons recorded the cost of trying to resolve an unsettled succession through war.