Daeron I Targaryen

Daeron I Targaryen
Biographical information
Born	Red Keep, King's Landing
Died	Aged 18 Dorne
Political information
House(s)	Targaryen
Affiliation(s)	King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men Lord of the Seven Kingdoms Protector of the Realm
Personal information
Also known as	The Young Dragon
Culture	Valyrian
Father	{Aegon III Targaryen}

"Daeron, First of His Name, tried to finish his ancestors' work and bring Dorne into the fold. For his efforts, he lost 60,000 men and his own life of 18 years."

―Varys

Daeron I Targaryen, also called the Young Dragon, was the eighth king of the Targaryen dynasty to rule the Seven Kingdoms. He is known for his unsuccessful conquest of Dorne.

Biography

Background

The Young Dragon's death during the Dornish uprising.

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. Daeron I is best known for his military campaign in Dorne, which had stubbornly resisted prior invasions by the Targaryens. In the process, Daeron lost 60,000 men, and ultimately his own life. Having fathered no heir, he was succeeded by his younger brother, Baelor I Targaryen, called "Baelor the Blessed".^{[citation needed]}

Game of Thrones: Season 4

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

Quotes

"The Lives of Four Kings. Grand Maester Kaeth's history of the reigns of Daeron the Young Dragon, Baelor the Blessed, Aegon the Unworthy, and Daeron the Good. A book every king should read."

―Tyrion Lannister to his nephew, King Joffrey Baratheon.

Family

Aegon III Targaryen Deceased

Daenaera Velaryon Deceased

Viserys II Targaryen Deceased

Larra Rogare Deceased

Daeron I Targaryen Deceased

Baelor I Targaryen Deceased

Elaena Targaryen

Rhaena Targaryen Deceased

Daena Targaryen Deceased

Aegon IV Targaryen Deceased

Naerys Targaryen Deceased

Aemon Targaryen Deceased

Daemon Blackfyre Deceased

Rohanne of Tyrosh

Aegor Rivers

Brynden Rivers

Shiera Seastar

Daeron II Targaryen

Myriah Martell Deceased

Maron Martell

Daenerys Targaryen

In the books

Daeron I Targaryen by Roman "Amok" Papsuev.©

In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, Daeron I is the eldest son of King Aegon III Targaryen and his wife Queen Daenera Velaryon. He was crowned at the age of 14, becoming the eigth Targaryen king to sit the Iron Throne. Even though he was a king, Daeron I quickly proved himself as 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". Jon Snow idolized him growing up. George R.R. Martin has described King Daeron 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 Aegon's Conquest, the dry desert region of Dorne had remained stubbornly independent for over a century. 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 proclaimed that he would invade Dorne and bring it into the royal fold. However, his advisors and his uncle and Hand, Prince Viserys Targaryen, initially cautioned him against this course of action, since he was at a significant disadvantage: nearly all of the Targaryen dragons had been wiped out in the Dance of the Dragons two generations previously, and the last of them had died out during the reign of Daeron's father. Aegon the Conqueror, one of the greatest warriors of his time, along with his two sisters, Rhaenys and Visenya, were unable to conquer Dorne even with dragons. To this skepticism, King Daeron replied; "You have a dragon. He stands before you". The Young Dragon's tactics were brilliant, and his larger strategy was innovative: he feinted an invasion through the passes of the Red Mountains, luring all of the Dornish armies to the west. He then followed by sending the real invasion force, under the leadership of Alyn Velaryon, 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, they were unable to aid one another. At Sunspear in 158 AC, the Prince of Dorne and forty of the most powerful Dornish lords bent the knee to King Daeron, allowing the Young Dragon to gain control of Dorne. Because of this, he succeeded where even Aegon the Conqueror had failed, and this achievement was considered all the more astonishing because he did not have dragons.

Unfortunately for Daeron, occupying Dorne proved to be far more difficult than conquering it. The Dornish settled into a long insurgency, repeatedly ambushing the occupying force and then retreating. Daeron lost far more men during the occupation than he did during the conquest itself: ten thousand men in the conquest of Dorne and another fifty thousand during the occupation. Ultimately, Lord Lyonel Tyrell, whom Daeron installed as governor of Dorne, was assassinated when the Dornish tricked him into a trap in which a hundred red scorpions were dumped on him, leading to a general insurrection. All that the Young Dragon had accomplished evaporated in a single fortnight, and King Daeron alongside three of his Kingsguard were killed while under a peace banner, which is merely a ploy for the Dornish to kill the king. The Young Dragon died young, at only 18 years of age, and after ruling for only four years. Dorne was to remain independent for another two generations, before later uniting with the Targaryen realm through peaceful marriage-alliance (a double-marriage pact in which Daeron's own first cousins, Daenerys and Daeron II, married the ruling Prince of Dorne and his younger sister).

Jon Snow idolizes the Young Dragon, as have many others, given that he is the type of young conqueror every youth hopes to be. His uncle Benjen's assessment of Daeron I is blunter: he dismisses Daeron's successes as "a conquest that lasted a summer", adding that he lost 10,000 men conquering Dorne and another 50,000 trying to hold it. He cautions Jon that the real moral of Daeron 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. Daeron I Targaryen was a great military leader, but not a great politician, nor particularly skilled at the day-to-day governance of the realm. Tyrion points out that Daeron's uncle and Hand of the King, the eventual Viserys II Targaryen, was the man really responsible for holding the realm together during Daeron's reign. Stannis Baratheon is equally scathing about Daeron, pointing out in a conversation with Jon Snow that Daeron's accounts of the Conquest exaggerated both his accomplishments and the size of the Dornish armies to make his victories seem all the more impressive, while downplaying the important roles his subordinate commanders like Alyn Velaryon played in making the invasion's success possible. Doran Martell also reiterates this when his daughter Arianne criticises his reluctance to go to war with House Lannister in the wake of his brother Oberyn's death; Doran points out the claim Dorne is the most populated of the Seven Kingdoms was propaganda created by Daeron to make his military victories seem more impressive, and the Martells have merely exploited that claim to make their other enemies in Westeros more reluctant to challenge them.

Daeron I was unmarried and died childless, so he was succeeded by his younger brother Baelor.

Appearances

• – "Robert's Rebellion - Petyr Baelish and Varys" (illustrated)
• – "The Lion and the Rose" (mentioned)
• – "House Martell" (mentioned)
• – "The Death of Kings" (illustrated)
• – "Dorne" (mentioned)

External links

• Daeron I Targaryen on A Wiki of Ice and Fire