Xaro Xhoan Daxos

"Retreating in fear from a little girl is unbecoming of the greatest city that ever was or will be."

- Xaro Xhoan Daxos

Xaro Xhoan Daxos is a recurring character in the second season. He is played by Nonso Anozie and debuts in "Garden of Bones." Xaro is a powerful merchant prince of the great city of Qarth.

Background
Xaro Xhoan Daxos is a powerful merchant prince of the great city of Qarth born on the Summer Islands, located far to the south of the Dothraki sea, beyond the Red Waste. He is a member of the Thirteen, an organization that rules over Qarth.

Season 2

 * Main: Xaro Xhoan Daxos Season 2

Xaro and the Thirteen meet Khaleesi Daenerys Targaryen at the gates of Qarth. They demand to see her dragons and when she refuses they deny her admission to the city. Xaro invokes ancient custom to allow her to be admitted under his protection. Xaro welcomes Daenerys to the city and makes her a guest in his expansive mansion. He makes repeated references to the fact that he came to Qarth with nothing, but by skill and determination has made himself the richest man in the city. He shows her the massive vault which is impossible to open without the key he always wears around his neck. Inside is his enormous fortune which he promises to divide with her if she will marry him. He holds a lavish reception for her, showers her with gifts. She declines his offer and tries to secure support for her return to Westeros from his colleagues. While they are meeting with the Spice King her dragons are stolen from Xaro's home. One of Daenerys' maids Irri is dead while the other Doreah is missing and presumed dead. Xaro uses the theft as a premise to hold a council of the Thirteen in his home. He then stages a coup with the assistance of the warlock Pyat Pree and declares himself King of Qarth. The warlock uses his magic to kill the rest of the Thirteen. They reveal that they stole the dragons and have taken them to the House of the Undying. Daenerys flees in terror.

Daenerys later escapes from the House of the Undying after retrieving her dragons and with her men invades Xaro's house where she finds Xaro in bed with Doreah, revealing that she had in fact betrayed Daenerys and her dragons to Xaro and Pyat Pree. Xaro and Doreah plead for their lives, with Xaro promising to get her ships to invade Westeros. Using the circular key pendant the treasure vault is opened and found to be empty, his enormous wealth a lie. Xaro and Doreah are locked inside the merchant prince's vault to die from starvation, then Daenerys and her people ransack Xaro's house of all it's gold and precious items, which Ser Jorah says will be enough to buy a ship.

In the books
In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, Xaro Xhoan Daxos is a member of the merchant guild known as The Thirteen, one of several groups vying for power in Qarth. He has impressive influence and power, and owns eighty-four ships, including his own pleasure barge which he often takes sailing on the Jade Sea.

In the books Qartheen are noted as pale-skinned while the actor Nonso Anozie is black, the series giving the explanation that he is a foreigner from the Summer Islands who has been accepted into Qartheen society. In the novels, he is described as having a long, beaklike nose crusted with jewels: rubies, opals and flakes of jade. The series also departs from the novels in having him vouch for Daenerys at the gates of Qarth; in A Clash of Kings, Daxos was one of three Qartheen representatives who returned to her with Jhogo.

The books vaguely hint that Xaro might actually be homosexual, as his mansion is noted to have numerous young attractive male slaves, and Daenerys' POV narration points out that despite his verbal protestations of passion for her, his eyes barely linger on her body, even when she wears a traditional Qartheen dress, which leaves one breast bare. The TV series gives no hint of this, and instead shows him sharing his bed with Dany's servant, Doreah. In either case, Xaro honestly and upfront explains to Daenerys that his offer of marriage is basically a mutually beneficial business proposition: he gets Daenerys and her dragons, she gets his money to retake Westeros with. The TV series heavily altered and expanded upon the Qarth storyline from the second book: Daxos never betrays Daenerys to Pyat Pree (her dragons are never stolen), nor does he take part in a conspiracy to become the king of Qarth. He is well and secure in Qarth when Daenerys leaves, not locked in a vault: in fact, no such vault is mentioned in the books.