Daeron I Targaryen

Daeron I Targaryen, also called The Young Dragon, is an unseen character in Game of Thrones. He is not expected to appear in the series, being long dead by the time it begins.

Daeron was the first King of his name to sit on the Iron Throne. Daeron I was a King of the Targaryen dynasty, the first of his name to sit the Iron Throne. He was formally styled Daeron of House Targaryen, the First of His Name, King of the Andals and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm.

Background
Daeron I lived about a century and a half before the War of the Five Kings. He succeeded his father Aegon III to the throne. He ultimately died childless and was later succeeded by his younger brother, Baelor Targaryen, called "Baelor the Blessed".

Daeron I is best known for his military campaigns in Dorne, which had stubbornly resisted prior invasions by the Targaryens.

Season 4
Tyrion Lannister mentions that Daeron I, the Young Dragon, is one of the kings analyzed in the classic book, Lives of Four Kings.

In the books
In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, Daeron I became king when he was only 14 years old, but quickly proved himself one of the finest warriors and generals in the history of Westeros. Later history and popular culture remembers him as the paragon "young warrior king". Both Robb Stark and Jon Snow idolized him growing up. George R.R. Martin has described him as essentially the Alexander the Great of Westeros, in the sense that he was a young, preternaturally skilled genius at military tactics.

While the Targaryens had conquered and unified six of the "Seven Kingdoms" during the initial War of Conquest, the dry desert region of Dorne had remained stubbornly independent for the next 150 years. The Dornish accomplished this by resorting to guerrilla warfare, fleeing before the Targaryen dragons only to return and harass their supply lines as soon as the Targaryens withdrew their forces.

Seeing Dorne as unfinished business for the Targaryen dynasty, and a blight on their claims to complete mastery of Westeros, Daeron I led his armies to invade it. The Young Dragon's tactics were brilliant, and his larger strategy was innovative: he feinted a typical invasion through the mountain passes of the Red Mountains, luring all of the Dornish armies to the west. He then followed by sending the real invasion force to make an amphibious landing at the mouth of the Greenblood River itself, at the doorstep of Sunspear. The Dornish were caught completely off guard and with their army on the other side of the central deserts. Daeron thus conquered Dorne, succeeding where even Aegon I had failed. This achievement was considered all the more astonishing because he did not have dragons, as the last of them had died out during the reign of his father.

Unfortunately for the Young Dragon, occupying Dorne proved to be more difficult than conquering it. The Dornish settled into a long insurgency, ambushing the occupying force and then retreating. Dareon lost far more men during the occupation than he did during the conquest itself. Ultimately the Tyrell governor he installed as governor of Dorne was assassinated with poisoned vipers in his bed, leading to a general insurrection. All that the Young Dragon had accomplished evaporated in a single fortnight, and Daeron I himself was killed in battle trying to fight the insurgency. Dorne was to remain independent for another two generations, before later uniting with the Targaryen realm through peaceful marriage-alliance.

Both Robb Stark and Jon Snow idolized the Young Dragon, as do many others, as the young conqueror ever youth hopes to be. Their uncle Benjen, however, cautioned Jon that the real moral of Dareon I's life is that despite winning on the battlefield he lost the war itself. This presages Robb Stark's own death under similar circumstances, despite never having lost a battle.

Dareon I was married, but died childless, so he was succeeded by his younger brother Baelor.