How old was Rhaegar Targaryen when Daenerys was born?
Rhaegar Targaryen was dead when Daenerys was born. He had already been killed at the Battle of the Trident. He was 24 years old when he died. Rhaegar Targaryen was born in 259 AC. (After the Conquest) He died in 283 AC. Daenerys was conceived during Robert’s Rebellion. By then, Aerys was full-out insane and visited his wife, Rhaella, after he burned someone to death as execution:
A king had no secret from his Kingsguard. Relations between Aerys and his queen had been strained during the last years of his reign. They slept apart…. But whenever Aerys gave a man to the flames, Queen Rhaella would have a visitor that night.
The day he burned his mace and dagger, Hand, Jaime, and Jon Darry had stood at guard outside her bed chamber while the king took his pleasure. “You’re hurting me, “ they had heard Rhaella cry….In some queer way, that had been worse than Lord Chelsted’s screaming. “We are sworn to protect her as well.” Jaime had finally been driven to say. “We are,” Darry allowed, “but not from him.” (A Feast For Crows, Jaime II)
Daenerys was conceived in rape. It was about a month before Rhaegar Targaryen died. So Daenerys came about 8 months after his death. Her pregnant mother and Viserys were sent to Dragonstone after Rhaegar fell in battle.
What exactly happened to Soap2day? Why was it delisted from Google?
How old was Rhaegar Targaryen when Daenerys was born?
Ya Boi, the Prince of Dragonstone, was dead in capital D when the future Mother of Dragons was born. Since she was born sometime in 284 AC, that would’ve made Rhaegar 24–25 years old when she was born had he lived. Since he died before that, he was only 24 when Robert Baratheon smashed his chest in with his Warhammer.
Rhaegar Targaryen, a character from George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series, was 25 years old when Daenerys Targaryen was born, with Rhaegar being born in the year 259 AC and Daenerys in the year 284 AC.
Rhaegar had already died by the time Daenerys was born. He was born in 259 AC and died in 283 AC. Dany was born in 284 AC. So Rhaegar was 23 or 24 when he died.
Who betrayed Rhaegar Targaryen?
Rhaegar betrayed Rhaegar.
Rhaegar Targaryen was known to the realm as the exemplary Prince. He was kind, caring, brave, and beautiful. For twenty-five years, he’d been the silver lining to Aerys’ madness. And it looked like as long as Rhaegar was alive, there was some light at the end of the tunnel. Aerys was old; he would soon pass, and Rhaegar would take the throne, and all would be well.
Then, the golden Prince runs off with the only daughter of a great house and defiles the engagement between that house and another great house. While Rhaegar Targaryen is fully aware that his father is out of his mind and he shouldn’t be dealing with his mess, he doesn’t return to King’s Landing. He stays in Dorne, enjoying a nice sunny vacation, banging his new mistress while her father and brother are horrifically and publicly executed at court. Even when the rebellion starts, our Prince is in no mood to tend to his dynasty’s biggest crisis; he stays in Dorne while entire armies are fighting over a war that he started.
Battle after battle, tens of thousands die until the Prince finally returns. But does he bring his Kingsguard back to King’s Landing to protect his actual wife and children? Nope.
In just a few months, Rhaegar Targaryen destroyed his twenty-five-year legacy, brought down the greatest dynasty in Westeros, and allowed his wife and children to be brutally raped and murdered. Really, no one could betray and destroy Rhaegar as badly as he did.
How can Jon Snow prove he is the son of Rhaegar Targaryen?
It’s important to note that Jon has no real claim to the throne. Yes, technically, he would be the oldest living Targaryen male, but that is largely unimportant because Robert Baratheon usurped the throne and broke the line of succession.
A modern myth of Monarchy is that succession was something that people just accepted – It wasn’t; having a claim by bloodline was valuable as it generally meant family allies – but generally, the important thing was having sufficient military capacity and support to take and hold it (again usually family made this possible – Being the King isn’t all its cracked up to be, Barons generally held the real power and influence.
It’s important to remember that in a parallel period, the power of the state largely lies with the man (typically) who can claim the throne. He is the legal authority, and that authority is only as real as his capacity to crush opposition. Plenty of rightful heirs died, and history is full of people with very tenuous claims who were successful (largely because they had a big army).
You prove you are king by taking the throne and keeping it. The reason Robert / Tywin wanted all the heirs dead isn’t because their claim might be legitimate but because they could raise/rally those who objected to the Baratheon claim, which is also why Daenyris and her brother are alive. They’re potential rallying points.
Remember that when a New King takes the throne, they traditionally reward their supporters at the expense of those who supported the usurped. So there is a real risk that either Targ heirs would be more attractive to those whose families backed the losing side in the Rebellion.
What would have happened if Daenerys was just a few years younger than Rhaegar Targaryen?
Aerys sent Steffon to Essos to find a bride for Rhaegar, so if Rhaegar had a sister close in age to him, Aerys would’ve commanded Rhaegar Targaryen to marry Daenerys. If so, Lord Steffon Baratheon and his wife Cassana would still be alive in Storm’s End, while Elia would have remained in Dorne with Prince Doran.
Daenerys would’ve likely given Rhaegar Targaryen the three children he wanted, but whether she did or not, perhaps Rhaegar still crowns Lyanna at the tournament of Harrenhal, leading to an unsteady political precipice for them all. If Rhaegar escapes with Lyanna and it is Daenerys, not Elia, who is in the Red Keep while Robert’s Rebellion begins, it is Lord Steffon who would lead his son’s charge in the stormlands while Robert would be at the Eyrie with Jon Arryn.
Robert could not call himself king after liberating the capital, for his father still lives, and it is unclear if Lord Steffon would take the throne to unseat the Mad King. As for Lord Tywin, his plan of attack would more or less be unchanged in that he orders the Mountain and his men to kill Daenerys and her children. Dorne needs an incentive to provide troops on either side of the rebellion, likely staying out of the fray.
How can Jon Snow prove he is the son of Rhaegar Targaryen?
There are 3 clear ways for it to prove he is a Targaryen.
- There is one living person in Westeros who was present at the Tower of Joy, Howland Reed. True, this will be another word from a stranger to Dany, but the other evidence of the High Septon” ‘s diary could help cement his version. Also, he may tell Jon to go further into the scripts to find things left for him on the orders of Rhaegar Targaryen, like his harp, Targaryen clothing, other things that belonged to his Rhaegar, and even his remains, as Rhaegar’s body was never found on the Trident just rubies. His harp is down there for sure; Jon kept having dreams in the books about having to go down there.
- Bran could reveal all things that have happened with Dany, even things only she would know, to the point where Dany has no reason to question Bran’s validity and realizes that Bran is not in favor of anyone. He is the Three-Eyed Raven now. I even keep calling him Bran, but he isn’t anymore. That could sway her. Still needs concrete proof, though.
- Dany could disbelieve Jon to the point of a paranoid execution of him for interfering with her claim until Drogon defends Jon and won’t let Dany harm him.
Did Daenerys Targaryen disappoint you? Do you think she will burn King’s Landing in the books, too?
To a degree.
- Did I expect that she would do what she did? – Yes
- Did I expect that she would do what she did in the way she did? – No, never
I knew what was coming in the final two episodes for Dany. The clues have been left in the series for long. They were subtle at first and quite on the nose in season 8, but they were there.
The one thing that I was confident about was that when Dany would go full “fire and blood,” it would be heartbreaking and tragic. After Missandei was killed, it was all but confirmed that she was going to burn King’s Landing.
The question was how. My money was that she would either:
- Attack the Red Keep in her desire for vengeance against Cersei and end up killing innocents
- Attack the city and ignite the wildfire caches unknowingly
It is even crazier that she would face Cersei and “Dracarys” her without being aware that Cersei was pregnant and would be torn over this later.
In all these scenarios, it would have been a Dany, pushed to her snapping point and committing some atrocity unwittingly. The viewers will be torn over her character and choices and why Dany has to be the one responsible for them when all she wanted to do was good.
In the show, however, once the bells were sounded, everything Dany did was knowingly and in the most evil way she could. Her anger was for Cersei. She talked about freeing common folks from Tyrants.
How does killing innocent common folks and butchering soldiers who have surrendered accomplish that?
She literally horizontally flew Drogon over the city. Burned it from end to other two to three times before she made a bee-line towards Red Keep. That was wanton destruction, nothing else. Dany has been turned into a villain in no uncertain terms by the show. There are no more two ways about it.
Do you dislike Daenerys Targaryen or not?
Yes. I dislike Daenerys for the same reason I love Stannis.
She is a hypocrite. She holds herself to one set of rules and everyone else to another. It is the opposite of Stannis, who is not worshipped as Dany is but has always been righteous and clear-sighted about who he is and what he is doing.
Dany believes that Westeros is hers by right because her father sat on the throne, and because the natural heirs Rhaegar Targaryen, Aegon, and Viserys are all dead, she is now the rightful ruler. She despises Robert Baratheon for taking what she sees as hers and dubs him “the Usurper.”
However, she conquers Meereen and Astapor by might, by the right of conquest. She crushes all attempts of the people to revert their cities to the way things were. And she is not entitled to gold and ships, she is not entitled to the Unsullied, and she is not entitled to the cities she rules. She took all of these by right of conquest with her dragons.
Aegon the Conqueror was a foreigner to Westeros who used dragons to raze castles and armies to the ground. At least he was honest: He wanted Westeros, and he could get it. He had no legal claim to it, and that didn’t bother him from establishing a dynasty.
How old was Rhaegar Targaryen when Daenerys was born?
In Meereen, a noblewoman who fled her home during the sack of the city lost her family. When she returned, people had stolen her gold, and her house had been turned into a brothel in which whores had claimed her clothes and jewels. However, Dany allows her to reclaim her jewels but states that “the house was lost when she abandoned it.” The woman did not abandon her home in the traditional sense: she fled to avoid murder and rape.
By her logic, Dany “abandoned” Westeros when she was whisked out of Dragonstone by Ser Willem Darry to avoid murder. By her logic, Dany can claim the gold and crown that her mother had left her and Viserys, but she cannot claim Dragonstone, let alone Westeros.
She creates a mythos of greatness around herself in which she is above all rules, even her own. I am of the opinion that most of the “mad” Targaryens weren’t truly mad (obviously, there were some exceptions: Aerys II). Still, they were narcissistic and believed that they were inherently better than all other men, leading them to foolhardy acts (Aerion Brightflame swallowing wildfire to become a dragon).
Take Dany, for example. She believes that she is immune to all illnesses due to her superior blood. This is not true. Targaryens do get sick. In fact, the first Daenerys perished of the “shivers,” Magelle died of greyscale, and Daeron II fell from the Great Spring Sickness. In fact, at the end of A Dance With Dragons, Dany recalls that she feels hot and ill, as if she has a fever.
How would she know what a fever feels like unless she, in fact, has been ill before?
Even as her memory stands as proof of her fallibility, she refuses to accept the truth. This kind of arrogance leads her to mingle and play queen with the ill in Meereen, potentially exposing herself to many different diseases. This is not the act of a responsible ruler but an arrogant and foolhardy one.
At the beginning of the series, Dany is more clear-sighted about the prospects of a Targaryen restoration than she is at the end.
She notices that it makes no sense that Illyrio, a pragmatic merchant, is lavishing so much money on her and Viserys only for the uncertain prospect of riches in the vague hope that Viserys retakes the crown from a united Westeros. (Indeed, it is later revealed that Illyrio and Varys were stalling the restoration of fAegon by using Dany and Viserys as bait for Robert to pounce on and kill and believe he wiped out the last of the dragons.)
Jorah Mormont further clarifies that the smallfolk of Westeros pray for healthy babes and good harvests and care not who sits on the Iron Throne. The supporters of the Targaryens in Robert’s Rebellion were too beaten and too cowed to support a beggar king. However, as the series continues, she begins to feed into the myth that Westeros awaits her return and that she deserves the ships and gold to get there. In other words, she becomes a shrewder and better-equipped version of Viserys.
How old was Rhaegar Targaryen when Daenerys was born?
The whole point of Aegon is to show how hollow Dany’s justifications are. (To clarify, I do not believe that this Aegon championed by Varys and Illyrio is the true son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Elia Martell. FAegon is the solution to the riddle Varys posed: Power lies where men believe it resides. In other words, does it matter if this Aegon is real or not if the people believe he is?) If Aegon is the real deal, his claim is better than hers. He’d be the king’s grandson, and she is the king’s daughter. The laws of primogeniture settled by Jaehaerys prove this.
So, I ask you: When Dany learns that there is another Targaryen claimant who, by her own rules, “deserves” the Seven Kingdoms before she does, do you think she will say, “All right then? I’ll settle for being the aunt of the king. Take my dragons and my army, darling nephew. The Iron Throne is yours”? I don’t think so.
It shows that she only supports birthright when it benefits her, not when it kicks her down the line of succession. So when she attacks fAegon for the throne, she’ll prove that all her harping about birthright and claiming her father’s throne is bullshit. She’s a Usurper, the very person she’s hated all her life.
What kind of a man was Rhaegar Targaryen?
He is described like this by Robert, who thinks Rhaegar “stole” Lyanna and raped her to death. However, some sources seem to indicate that Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna were actually together and that there was no rape involved…
Rhaegar Targaryen was way more balanced than the other Targs we’ve seen, but he still had a bit of madness when it came to prophecies. He firmly believed in the “Prince that was promised” story, and it seems like he was ready to do a lot of things to fulfill it, including starting Robert’s Rebellion.
Overall, he was more of an artist than a warrior, and a lot of people think he would have made a good king, kinder than Aerys, less sadistic than Joff, more capable than Tommen, more liked than Stannis, and probably more responsible than Robert.
Did Daenerys Targaryen disappoint you? Do you think she will burn King’s Landing in the books, too?
No, and yes.
I didn’t expect Dany to do what she did on the scale that she did or with such impunity, but her destroying King’s Landing has been on the radar for a while — she literally saw it way back in season 2, and barely anyone noticed it. Bran’s vision of a dragon over the capital was back in season 4. And then there’s the whole “I will not be Queen of the Ashes” crap from season 7, which was just begging to be subverted. And, of course, all the stuff in the books points to this sort of thing happening.
I am satisfied with her doing what I figured she’d do, even if I misjudged the scale of it.
Something like this is too massive, too important, to be a show-only concoction. It isn’t something they go that far off the reservation for. They may have changed how they got there, or they might have upped (or lowered?!) the overall damage. But something like this is coming in the books. You can feel it in your bones. It was always coming.
My only regret is that we may never get the final book, and in that case, Dany’s defenders will go to their graves saying GRRM would never have done this to her, even though I think at this point they know that’s delusional.
Is Daenerys Targaryen barren? Is she capable of giving birth in the future again? What is the point of all this?
Originally Answered: Is Daenerys Targaryen barren?
This is an excerpt from A Game of Thrones when Dany repeats what Mirri Maz Duur told her about Drogo’s recovery. And when the bleak dawn broke over an empty horizon, Dany knew that he was truly lost to her. “When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east,” she said sadly. “When the seas go dry, and mountains blow in the wind like leaves.
Friends, When my womb quickens again, and I bear a living child. Then you will return, my sun and stars, and not before.” Never, the darkness cried, never, never, never.
She knelt, kissed Drogo on the lips, and pressed the cushion down across his face. As you can see, Mirri Maz Duur made it clear that it’s never going to happen. She was a mage and Dany’s midwife, and according to her, Dany was barren.
Spoilers if you still need to read A Dance with Dragons.
If you search for that quote on Google, you will be flooded with results of theories and discussions from the last couple of years, as there has been an interesting set of developments in the final chapters of A Dance with Dragons. The general idea of those discussions is as follows.
When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, This refers to Quentyn Martell, who was born in Westeros and, as confirmed by Barristan, died after what happened with the dragons in Essos. In Quaithe’s prophecy, he was referred to as the sun’s son.
“Sit, my friend.” When Belwas sat and crossed his arms, Ser Barristan went on. “Quentyn Martell died this morning, just before dawn.”
When the seas go dry…
In her last chapter of ADwD, Dany walks through the Dothraki Sea and realizes that it’s no longer the deep green she remembered. Winter is coming, and the sea of grass is drying up. Even here, autumn made its presence felt, and winter would not be far behind. The grass was paler than she remembered, a wan and sickly green on the verge of going yellow. After that would come brown. The grass was dying.
…and mountains blow in the wind like leaves,
After Quentyn released the dragons from captivity, they had been wreaking havoc throughout the city of Meereen. Some of the pyramids there, which stood like mountains, have been destroyed.
The pyramid of Hazkar has collapsed into a smoking ruin, and many of that ancient line lie dead beneath its blackened stones.
Some think that it refers to Gregor Clegane, who is what he is now.
When my womb quickens again, and I bear a living child.
As Dany finds herself starving in the Dothraki Sea, she forces herself to drink the dirty water in the stream and chew on some berries that she finds to sate her hunger and thirst. Severe stomach cramps, fever, and bleeding quickly follow that.
Many believe that she had miscarried. I realize that none of the ingredients of moon tea – tansy and wormwood are asters, pennyroyal is a type of mint – will produce berries, but I still believe that it was those berries (maybe oleander?) that caused the miscarriage.
She was bleeding, but it was only the woman’s blood. The moon is still a crescent, though. How can that be? She tried to remember the last time she had bled. The last full moon? The one before? The one before that? No, it cannot have been so long as that.
Moonblood, it’s only my moon blood, but she did not remember ever having such a heavy flow. Could it be the water? If it was the water, she was doomed. She had to drink or die of thirst.
If nothing else, this confirms that it wasn’t the bloody flux, the disease that’s gripping the city of Meereen. I would take it as the case for her womb quickening again.
Now we’re left with Dany bearing a living child and the return of her sun-and-stars. That’s a story for another time, but the answer to your question is no. Dany isn’t barren.
Conclusion
Rhaegar Targaryen, a character from George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series, was born in the year 259 AC (After Conquest). Daenerys Targaryen, another character from the same series, was born in the year 284 AC. To calculate Rhaegar Targaryen’s age when Daenerys was born, you can subtract Rhaegar Targaryen’s birth year from Daenerys’s birth year:
- 284 AC (Daenerys’s birth year) – 259 AC (Rhaegar Targaryen’s birth year) = 25 years
Rhaegar Targaryen was approximately 25 years old when Daenerys was born.
How old was Rhaegar Targaryen when Daenerys was born?