Stormborn
Born on Dragonstone as a tempest wrecked the last royal fleet. Her first name, and the one she claimed for herself.
I
Born in the Storm
Daenerys was born on Dragonstone, the ancestral island fortress of her house, on a night when the worst storm in living memory tore at the castle walls and splintered the last Targaryen fleet in the harbor. Her mother, Queen Rhaella, died bringing her into the world. Her father, the Mad King Aerys II, was already dead, cut down by his own Kingsguard as Robert Baratheon's rebellion swept the realm.
She came into life as a princess without a kingdom. Spirited across the Narrow Sea to Braavos, she spent her earliest years in a house with a red door and a lemon tree outside the window, the only home she would ever remember. When the old knight who guarded her died, she and her brother Viserys became wanderers, living on the charity of magisters and the promises of a crown that existed only in Viserys's mind.
Those who knew her then saw a quiet, frightened girl. No one guessed what the storm had made.
II
The Names She Earned
Each title marks a fire she walked through.
Khaleesi
Queen of the Great Grass Sea, wife to Khal Drogo and ruler at the side of forty thousand riders.
The Unburnt
She walked into her husband's funeral pyre and walked out at dawn untouched, three dragons clinging to her.
Mother of Dragons
The first person in over a century to hatch living dragons, the creatures the world believed were gone.
Breaker of Chains
Liberator of Astapor, Yunkai and Meereen, who ended the slave trade along Slaver's Bay.
Mhysa
"Mother," as the freed slaves of Yunkai called her when they lifted her above the crowd.
Queen of Meereen
Ruler of the great pyramid city, where she learned that conquering is easier than governing.
First of Her Name
Claimant to the Iron Throne as Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men.
III
The Saga
From exile to empress, as told across the novels and the television series.
Late events are blurred to protect the unspoiled.
The Exile
A Bride for a Crown
In Pentos, Viserys trades his sister to the Dothraki warlord Khal Drogo in exchange for an army he believes will win back the Seven Kingdoms. Among the wedding gifts: three petrified dragon eggs.
The Grass Sea
Becoming Khaleesi
The frightened girl learns to ride, to command, and to love her khal. Exiled knight Ser Jorah Mormont swears his sword to her, and she discovers she carries Drogo's son.
Vaes Dothrak
A Crown of Gold
Viserys draws steel in the sacred city and demands his crown. Drogo gives it to him: a pot of molten gold poured over his head. Daenerys watches, and realizes he was never a dragon.
The Pyre
Fire Made Flesh
Drogo falls to a festering wound and a blood-magic ritual gone wrong costs her the child. She ends her husband's suffering, builds his pyre, and walks into the flames with her eggs. At dawn she rises, unburnt, as three dragons cry out for the first time in generations.
The Red Waste
Across the Desert to Qarth
With a ragged remnant of her khalasar she crosses the wasteland to the gated city of Qarth, where merchants, warlocks and the House of the Undying covet her dragons.
Astapor
Dracarys
She offers a dragon for an army of eight thousand Unsullied. The moment the whip is in her hand, she speaks one word in High Valyrian, the slaver burns, and the soldiers are free men who choose to follow her.
Slaver's Bay
Breaker of Chains
Yunkai yields. Meereen falls when her freedmen rise from within. Daenerys stays to rule, battling the Sons of the Harpy and the impossible weight of a queen's choices, until Drogon carries her out of the fighting pits on his back.
The Return
Sailing West
With Tyrion Lannister as her Hand, the Dothraki, the Unsullied and the Ironborn fleet at her command, she lands on Dragonstone, the island where she was born.
SeriesThe Long Night
Fire Against Ice
She flies beyond the Wall to save Jon Snow and loses Viserion to the Night King. She brings her armies north and fights at Winterfell in the war that matters most.
SeriesThe Last War
The Bells
Grief upon grief: Rhaegal shot from the sky, Missandei executed on the walls of King's Landing. When the city surrenders, she burns it anyway. Days later, Jon Snow ends her reign with a dagger, and Drogon carries her body away to the east.
SeriesIV
Her Children
Three eggs turned to stone by time, woken by fire, blood and a queen's will.
Drogon
Black and red, the largest and most fierce. Wild and proud, he answers only to Daenerys and is the one she rides. The last of the three.
Rhaegal
Green and bronze, quick and temperamental. Chained beneath the Great Pyramid with his brother, he later bears a rider of Targaryen blood.
Viserion
Cream and gold, the gentlest of the three. His fate beyond the Wall became one of the saga's darkest turns.
V
The Blood of the Dragon
Aerys IIThe Mad King
&
RhaellaQueen, died in childbirth
RhaegarPrince of Dragonstone
ViserysThe Beggar King
DaenerysStormborn
Jon SnowAegon, Rhaegar's son by Lyanna Stark
Her Court
Ser Jorah Mormont
The exiled knightHer first sworn sword and most devoted counselor.
Missandei
The translatorFreed in Astapor; her confidante and closest friend.
Grey Worm
Commander of the UnsulliedChose his own name as a free man and led her army.
Ser Barristan Selmy
The BoldLegendary Kingsguard who left a usurper to serve her.
Tyrion Lannister
Hand of the QueenHer sharpest mind and most troubled advisor.
Daario Naharis
Captain of the Second SonsA sellsword who traded his loyalty for her favor.
VI
In Her Own Words
Dracarys.Astapor
If I look back, I am lost.The road to Qarth
I am the blood of the dragon.Her refrain
I'm not going to stop the wheel. I'm going to break the wheel.To Tyrion, Meereen
Fire and Blood
Liberator or conqueror, savior or tyrant, Daenerys Targaryen remains one of the most debated figures of the saga. Whatever the verdict, the world was never the same after a girl walked into a fire and came out a queen.