Daenerys Targaryen (daughter of Jaehaerys I)

For others with the same name, see Daenerys Targaryen (disambiguation).

Princess Daenerys Targaryen
Daenerys, by dalberadiata ©
Title	Princess
Allegiance	House Targaryen
Culture	Crownlands
Born	the seventh moon of 53 AC King's Landing
Died	early 60 AC (aged 6) King's Landing
Father	Jaehaerys I Targaryen
Mother	Alysanne Targaryen
Books	Fire & Blood (mentioned) The Rise of the Dragon (mentioned)

Princess Daenerys Targaryen was the eldest daughter and secondborn child of King Jaehaerys I Targaryen and Queen Alysanne Targaryen.

Appearance and Character

See also: Images of Daenerys Targaryen

As a babe, Daenerys was strong and healthy. She had the silver-gold hair and purple eyes of House Targaryen, and was considered more beautiful than her younger sister, Princess Alyssa.

Daenerys was a happy child, endlessly curious and utterly fearless, a delight to all who knew her. She was a lively, laughing child. Daenerys was often mud-spattered and grass-stained. She was seen as "the darling of the realm".

History

Daenerys Targaryen by © Riotarttherite

Born during the seventh moon of 53 AC in King's Landing, Daenerys was the eldest child of King Jaehaerys I Targaryen and Queen Alysanne Targaryen, her older brother Aegon having died some years before. All of the Seven Kingdoms were delighted by her birth, save for Princess Aerea Targaryen, the eldest daughter of Jaehaerys's older sister Rhaena, as Aerea had been the king's heir until then. Daenerys began to talk well before her first nameday. By the time she was one and a half years old, she could already walk and run.

In 55 AC, Daenerys was crowned the queen of love and beauty by Ser Simon Dondarrion of Blackhaven. That same year, when Queen Alysanne became pregnant, Daenerys was firm in telling her mother that she wanted a sister. When Alysanne gave birth, the child turned out to be a boy, Aemon. Daenerys eventually warmed to Aemon. By the time she was four, her favorite toy had become a broomstick dragon, on which she "flew" everywhere. Daenerys delighted in telling her younger brothers Aemon and Baelon what to do.

Queen Alysanne believed that Daenerys, as the eldest of their three living children, should be the king's heir and first in line to the Iron Throne. King Jaehaerys, however, regarded Prince Aemon as his heir since the day he had been born. Though Alysanne would voice her displeasure about this to the king, reminding him that Daenerys was older and should therefore be queen, Jaehaerys would reply telling her that Daenerys would become queen after she married Aemon, and rule the kingdoms by his side. According to Grand Maester Benifer, the king's response did not entirely please Alysanne.

Princess Daenerys became one of the many victims of the Shivers in 60 AC. The first night of the new year, she woke her mother at the hour of the owl, complaining of feeling cold. All that could be done was done for her. She was given poultices, hot soups and scalding baths, blankets, furs, hot stones, nettle tea, mother's milk. Septons and septas prayed, and maesters came and went, but her shivering grew worse. Near dawn, King Jaehaerys suddenly insisted that his daughter needed a dragon and had ravens sent to Dragonstone, instructing the Dragonkeepers to immediately bring a hatchling to the Red Keep. It was too late. Daenerys died a day and a half after she had first complained of feeling cold.

After her daughter's death, Alysanne collapsed in Jaehaerys's arms, shaking so hard that some worried that she had the Shivers too. Jaehaerys had her put to bed with milk of the poppy, then flew to Dragonstone on Vermithor to inform the Dragonkeepers that there was no need for the hatchling. On his return to the Red Keep, Jaehaerys asked Septon Barth why the gods had taken his daughter, but the wise Barth had no answer. According to Archmaester Gyldayn, though many other children died of the Shivers that winter, the death of Daenerys must have seemed more cruel to Jaehaerys and Alysanne, as it struck at the very heart of the Doctrine of Exceptionalism that Jaehaerys had created to validate his marriage to his sister. The doctrine stated that Targaryens never became ill with common diseases, and indeed it was unknown in history for any to succumb to such.

Legacy

Daenerys was cremated, and her ashes interred on Dragonstone. Afterwards, Queen Alysanne stopped attending meetings of the small council. But within two months of Daenerys's death, the queen discovered that she was pregnant again. Late in 60 AC, Alysanne gave birth to Princess Alyssa, who was so like Daenerys as a baby that Alysanne often wept to behold her, remembering the deceased Daenerys. The likeness faded as Alyssa aged, however, and Alysanne also realized that Alyssa took after Baelon in personality rather than Daenerys. It was briefly thought, after Daenerys's death, that Aemon be betrothed to Alyssa instead, but Aemon eventually married Jocelyn Baratheon in 70 AC, and Alyssa married Baelon in 75 AC. In 82 AC, when Princess Daella died, her ashes were interred beside her sister Daenerys.

Quotes

Daenerys, by ildraws ©

She is so clever, she will be reading to me before long. She is going to be a great queen, I know it.

—Alysanne Targaryen, to Jaehaerys I Targaryen

You sound a queen already, laying down the law.

—Alysanne Targaryen, to Daenerys

Alysanne: Daenerys is older. She is first in line; she should be queen.
Jaehaerys: She shall be queen, when she and Aemon marry. They will rule together, just as we have.

—Alysanne and Jaehaerys I Targaryen

Mother, I'm cold.

—Daenerys, to Alysanne Targaryen

How could this happen? What sin did she commit? Why would the gods take her? How could this happen?

—Jaehaerys I Targaryen, to Barth

It was unthinkable that a pureborn princess should die shivering, as if she were some common child. And yet she had. Even as they mourned for her and the sweet soul she had been, Jaehaerys and Alysanne must also have been confronting that awful realization. Mayhaps the Targaryens were not so close to gods as they had believed. Mayhaps, in the end, they too were only men.

—words of Gyldayn

Family

Aenys I

Alyssa Velaryon

Rhaena

Aegon

Viserys

Jaehaerys I

Alysanne

Vaella

Issue

Aegon

Daenerys

Aemon

Baelon

Alyssa

Maegelle

Vaegon

Daella

Saera

Viserra

Gaemon

Valerion

Gael

Behind the scenes

In the earlier published Targaryen family tree as found in The World of Ice & Fire, Princess Daenerys did not exist. While King Jaehaerys and Queen Alysanne still had thirteen children, their sixthborn child was Prince Aeryn Targaryen, who died young. Besides Aeryn having been exchanged for Daenerys, several other children of Jaehaerys and Alysanne were shifted in their order of birth.

Regarding these changes, Elio Garcia has stated the following:

... George had some new ideas for some of the names and the stories of the children who died young, and corrected some issues that came out of his original birth order (we actually got the names of all the kids quite late in the production of TWoIaF—literally a month before we had to finalize the book—so there was not much time to interrogate it). However, the stories of those who live to adulthood, as published in TWoIaF, do remain the same (just, of course, much more detailed).