The Dance of Dragons (Histories & Lore)

"The Dance of the Dragons" is part of the Histories & Lore, a special feature in the Blu-ray of Season 5 of Game of Thrones.

The succession
After Viserys I died, Aegon II seized the throne ahead of Rhaenyra. The great lords of the realm began to proclaim for one side or the other.

The death of children
When Rhaenyra's son Lucerys arrived at Storm's End he found Aegon II's brother Aemond already there. Lord Baratheon rejected the young prince's offer of siding with Rhaenyra, and shouted at him to leave. As he departed during a storm over the bay on his young dragon Arrax, Aemond followed on his massive dragon Vhagar and killed them both.

In retaliation, Rhaenyra and her husband Daemon hired 2 assassins, Blood and Cheese, who killed Aegon II's eldest son and heir in the Red Keep in front of his mother, even though he was only a small boy. Queen Helaena went mad with grief.

Rook's Rest
Growing impatient, Aegon II marched against Rhaenyra's supporters at Rook's Rest. Rhaenys arrived on Meleys to lift the siege but it was a trap; she was killed by Vhagar and Sunfyre, but not before crippling both Sunfyre and Aegon II.

The Battle of the Gullet
Rhaenyra sent her youngest two sons on a ship to the Free Cities for their protection, but while in the Narrow Sea they were intercepted by an enemy fleet. Aegon III managed to fly back to Dragonstone on his dying dragon Stormcloud, but his younger brother was lost. Rhaenyra's eldest son and heir Jacaerys flew out on his dragon Vermax to try to save him but was killed in the battle

The Dragonseeds
After losing so many dragons, Rhaenyra decided to replenish her forces: six currently riderless dragons lived on Dragonstone, and it was thought that only those of the Targaryen bloodline could successfully bond with them. Therefore a call was put out for any Targaryen bastards on the island to try to claim them; dozens died, but four succeeded.

The Fall of King's Landing
Aemond was a hot-head and decided to lead the main army away from King's Landing to attack Rhaenyra's main army on the mainland which had seized Harrenhal. When he and Criston Cole arrived, however, the castle was empty - Rhaenyra's army had withdrawn, and they had walked right into a trap. Daemon flew his dragon Caraxes around their army over Gods Eye lake and linked back up with Rhaenyra riding Syrax along with her army, who rapidly captured the now-defenseless capital city.

Queen Mother Alicent Hightower was taken captive, but Aegon II had fled. Rhaenyra sat the Iron Throne as her father once had.

Two betrayals
The main pro-Aegon II army from The Reach finally marched north and approached King's Landing. Rhaenyra sent two dragonseeds to intercept them at Tumbleton, but they switched sides in the middle of the battle.

The Storming of the Dragonpit
Fearing the approaching Green army and the dragons of the Two Betrayers, riots broke out in King's Landing which killed all five dragons present, forcing Rhaenyra to fleet back to Dragonstone after her third son Joffrey also died.

The Fall of Dragonstone
When Rhaenyra arrived back on Dragonstone with her only remaining son, her escorts were killed, and she was surprised to be brought before Aegon II, who had secretly seized the castle. His dragon Sunfyre was crippled and dying. Rhaenyra remained defiant, but Aegon II fed her to his dragon while her son watched.

Aftermath
Even so, Aegon II only lived another six months before he was poisoned by his own men and the war ended. Many other battles were fought and by the end, almost all of the dragons were dead. Rhaenyra's surviving son was married to Aegon II's surviving daughter to reunite the branches of their shattered family. Westeros was left devastated and the Targaryens were never as powerful or as feared again. Within a generation the last of the dragons died out.

Characters

 * Grand Maester Munkun (mentioned)
 * King Viserys I Targaryen
 * Queen Aemma Arryn (indirectly mentioned)
 * Princess/Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen
 * Queen Alicent Hightower
 * Prince/King Aegon II Targaryen
 * Ser Otto Hightower
 * Ser Criston Cole
 * Lord Lyman Beesbury (unnamed)
 * Ser Tyland Lannister (unnamed)
 * Lord Jasper Wylde (unnamed)
 * Lord Larys Strong (unnamed)
 * Grand Maester Orwyle (named in illustrations)
 * Queen Helaena Targaryen
 * Prince Aemond Targaryen
 * Prince Daemon Targaryen
 * Lord Corlys Velaryon
 * Princess Rhaenys Targaryen
 * Prince Jacaerys Velaryon
 * Prince Lucerys Velaryon
 * Prince Joffrey Velaryon
 * Prince/King Aegon III Targaryen (unnamed)
 * Prince Viserys Targaryen (unnamed)
 * Lord Borros Baratheon (first name unmentioned)
 * Blood
 * Cheese
 * Prince Jaehaerys Targaryen
 * Princess Jaehaera Targaryen
 * Prince Maelor Targaryen
 * Maester Gerardys
 * Hugh Hammer (unnamed)
 * Ulf the White (unnamed)
 * Nettles (unnamed)
 * Addam Velaryon (unnamed)
 * The Shepherd
 * Hobb the Hewer (unnamed)

Noble Houses

 * House Targaryen
 * House Hightower
 * House Lannister
 * House Baratheon
 * House Staunton (unnamed)

Institutions

 * Blacks
 * Greens
 * Small council
 * Hand of the King
 * Master of Coin
 * Kingsguard

Locations

 * Seven Kingdoms
 * The Crownlands
 * King's Landing
 * Red Keep
 * Maegor's Holdfast
 * Great Sept of Baelor
 * Dragonpit
 * Flea Bottom
 * Rook's Rest
 * Dragonstone
 * Dragonstone (castle)
 * The Vale
 * The North
 * The Stormlands
 * Storm's End
 * Shipbreaker Bay
 * The Riverlands
 * Harrenhal
 * Gods Eye
 * The Reach
 * Tumbleton

Events

 * Dance of the Dragons
 * Dance over Storm's End
 * Siege of Rook's Rest
 * Sack of Tumbleton
 * Fall of King's Landing
 * Dance over Harrenhal
 * Storming of the Dragonpit

Titles

 * King of the Andals

Dragons
Dragons belonging to Aegon II's faction:
 * Vhagar
 * Sunfyre
 * Dreamfyre (unnamed)
 * Shrykos (unnamed)
 * Morghul (indirectly mentioned)

Dragons belonging to Rhaenyra's faction:
 * Syrax
 * Caraxes
 * Meleys
 * Vermax
 * Arrax
 * Tyraxes (indirectly mentioned)
 * Stormcloud (unnamed)
 * Vermithor (unnamed)
 * Silverwing (unnamed)
 * Sheepstealer (unnamed)

Miscellaneous

 * The Dance of the Dragons, A True Telling
 * Triarchy (mentioned in illustrations)
 * Dragonseeds
 * Valyrian steel
 * Dark Sister
 * Kingdom of the Three Daughters (written out as "The Triarchy")
 * Timeline
 * "Hour of the owl"
 * Milk of the poppy

Adaptation
As the featurette is only 20 minutes long, it understandably only gives a concise overview of the most important events which occurred during the Dance of the Dragons - though it is a very accurate overview of the events it does cover. Many major subplots and character groups are not mentioned at all, however - the story of the civil war could easily sustain an entire live-action prequel project. It also only covers the first three quarters of the war (which lasted two years) ending with Rhaenyra's death, only briefly explaining that Aegon II died six months later.

To put this in perspective, in terms of the main Game of Thrones TV series it would be roughly comparable to making a 20 minute summary video attempting to recap the entire narrative of the first three seasons, which as a result focused purely on the main Stark-Lannister military conflict (with major figures such as Eddard, Robb, Tywin, and Cersei), then ending with the Red Wedding and not explaining how the war progressed after that. At the same time this would also completely omit all of the other subplots: Jon Snow and the Wall, Daenerys in Essos, the Greyjoys, the Tyrells, Arya Stark in the Riverlands, and the storylines of both Baratheon brothers (including the Battle of the Blackwater).

Some of the other subplots from the wider Dance of the Dragons which were condensed in this featurette include:


 * Rhaenyra has five sons: Jacaerys, Lucerys, Joffrey, Aegon and Viserys. The first three sons of Ser Laenor Velaryon - who does exist in tv continuity as Princess Rhaenys is described as Rhaenyra's former mother-in-law and, in the novellas, Ser Laenor is the son of Rhaenys and Lord Corlys Velaryon. A major subplot in the novellas is that these three boys don't have the traditional Valyrian features of both Targaryens and Velaryons, instead having brown hair, which leads to Rhaenyra's opponents to mock them as "Strong bastards" - implying that they were fathered by Ser Harwin Strong, Rhaenyra's sworn shield. The video depicts the three Velaryon princes with Valyrian features: silver-blond hair and lilac eyes.
 * The four "Dragonseeds" are all major characters and their actions form major subplots. How they tamed their dragons, and their actions on campaigns in the war. The video only briefly mentions them and doesn't refer to any of them by name.
 * Daemon Targaryen had two daughters from a previous marriage, Baela and Rhaena. Both of them are major characters and dragonriders (though their dragons are too young to ride to war at the beginning of the story).
 * It is mentioned that Aegon II's faction controlled four dragons: his own, his brother Aemond's, and his wife's. It makes no mention that Aegon II and Aemond actually had a younger brother, a young teenager named Daeron the Daring. Daeron rode the younger dragon Tessarion in campaigns in the Reach, and became a valiant hero in the war.
 * While the Stormlands surprisingly sided with Aegon II, the Reach was torn in half by the civil war: while Aegon II's family House Hightower dominates the southern half of the Reach, the northern half (including House Tarly) grew wary of them and sided with Rhaenyra. This led to an extended campaign as the main Hightower army (along with Daeron and Tessarion) slowly fought its way across southern Westeros from Oldtown to approach King's Landing.
 * The video mostly focuses on the eastern theater of the war: the actions of the Starks, Tullys, and Lannisters are barely alluded to, when they actually formed an entire separate central theater of the war, primarily in the Riverlands. This culminates in the Battle by the Lakeshore, stated to be the largest and bloodiest land battle of the entire war.
 * The ironborn subplot is not mentioned at all, which formed an entire western theater to the war. Aegon II had assumed the Greyjoys would side with him, but Dalton Greyjoy - the Red Kraken - stabbed the Greens in the back by siding against him and ravaging the coasts of the Westerlands and the Reach while their armies were away to the east fighting Rhaenyra's forces.
 * It is only briefly shown that an enemy fleet attacked the ship carrying Rhaenyra's younger sons across the Narrow Sea - this is also a larger subplot in which the Greens allied with the "Kingdom of the Three Daughters" (an alliance of Lys, Myr, and Tyrosh) as a counter-balance against the power of the Velaryon fleet. The resulting Battle of the Gullet was actually stated to be one of the largest naval battles in recorded history, involving the entire Velaryon fleet, and the dragonseeds riding into battle.

A few other points from the main narrative are only quickly glossed over:
 * It is said that Rhaenyra's dragon Syrax dropped her son Joffrey, but not that Syrax ultimately died fighting off thousands of rioters on the ground at the ruins of the Dragonpit. The next scene simply transitions to Rhaenyra fleeing King's Landing without a dragon.
 * It isn't clearly explained that King's Landing fell so quickly to Rhaenyra and Daemon not only because its army was gone, but because of the City Watch. Daemon actually used to be the commander of the Gold Cloaks for years; a visible part of the history book presented on screen even recounts that Daemon created the Gold Cloaks as they were later known, training them as a formal police force and giving them their signature Gold Cloaks. When Daemon appeared in the sky above the city, the Gold Cloaks mutinied en masse, killed the few Green officers still in the city, and threw the city's gates wide open to Rhaenyra's army.
 * It isn't explained how Aegon II's younger son Maelor died. At the end of the video Aegon II's daughter is simply presented as his only surviving child. In the novellas, it is said that when King's Landing fell one of his Kingsguard attempted to flee with Maelor back to Oldtown, but he was intercepted by an angry pro-Rhaenyra mob at Bitterbridge who tore the three year old Maelor limb from limb in their fury.
 * The subplot of how Aegon II ultimately ended up on Dragonstone and managed to seize Rhaenyra's home castle is left totally unexplained. Nor is it clearly explained why Sunfyre was now dying months after its fight with Meleys (it got into a fight with another Black dragon).