Meraxes

This page is about the dragon. For the god, see: Meraxes (god)

Meraxes
Biographical information
Species	Dragon
Born	Century of Blood Dragonstone
Died	Hellholt, Dorne
Personal information
Affiliation	{Rhaenys Targaryen}

"Rhaenys rode Meraxes, whose jaws were big enough to swallow a horse whole."

―Viserys Targaryen

Meraxes was the dragon ridden by Rhaenys Targaryen during Aegon's Conquest.

Biography

Background

Meraxes was named after one of the gods of Valyria and was said to be capable of swallowing an entire horse. She participated in the Last Storm and the Field of Fire, but was downed by a Dornish arrow in the First Dornish War, crashing to her death with Rhaenys on her back.

Game of Thrones: Season 1

Meraxes is one of the dragons mentioned by Viserys as he bathes with Doreah in Vaes Dothrak.

Game of Thrones: Season 2

While Arya is in the service of Tywin in Harrenhal, she mentions that Meraxes was one of the three dragons used in Aegon's Conquest.

Behind the scenes

• Meraxes would later be honored in real-life with a dinosaur named after the fictional dragon; in 2012, the theropod Meraxes gigas, a large predatory theropod from the Late Cretaceous period belonging to the Carcharodontosauridae family, was discovered in Patagonia, Argentina, and was properly described in 2022. Like its draconic namesake, Meraxes gigas was large and long-lived, with the only known specimen having been between 39-53 years old when it died based on analysis of its bones.

In the books

In The World of Ice & Fire, Meraxes is described as having "silver scales," though it isn't clear if it was one solid color throughout, or if its primary color was silver and it had a different secondary color. Both Balerion and Drogon have had black as their primary color, with red as a secondary color along their horns, spinal plates, and wing membranes. Meraxes is also noted as having golden eyes. Drogon is described as having red eyes as well - which might imply that a dragon's secondary color on its horns also matches its eye color, which if true would indicate that Meraxes had gold as its secondary color. This is not necessarily true, however, as some dragons were noted as being one solid color throughout, with no secondary colors.

Four years after Aegon I was crowned, the Targaryens had consolidated their position over the other kingdoms enough to launch another determined invasion of Dorne, known as the First Dornish War. Once again, the Dornishmen resorted to guerilla tactics instead of open battle, harassing the Targaryen armies then retreating - and massacring the large land army they attempted to lead through the Red Mountains.

Meraxes is shot down and killed by the Dornish.

Rhaenys and Meraxes were both killed during the war in 10 AC. They died at Hellholt when a lucky shot with a scorpion-bolt pierced her eye and drove into her brain, instantly killing her in mid-air. Rhaenys presumably died when the dragon plummeted hundreds of feet to the ground - though unsubstantiated rumors (or myths) allege that Rhaenys survived the fall, badly injured, but the Dornish slowly tortured and mutilated her to death in revenge. At the end of the war in 13 AC, the Dornish returned Meraxes's skull to King's Landing as a peace offering.

George R.R. Martin only figured out the details of Meraxes's death some time after he wrote the first novel, which introduces a conundrum: when Tyrion saw the three largest dragon skulls kept under the Red Keep, he thought the smallest one belonged to Vhagar, who was indeed the smallest at the time of Aegon's Conquest. The revelation that Vhagar outlived Meraxes complicates this, however, and indeed the The Princess and the Queen novella states that when Vhagar died 130 years after Aegon's Conquest, she had grown almost as large as Balerion. The simple answer is probably that as with all POV narrations, Tyrion's POV is not objectively true, and he simply assumed that the smallest skull belonged to Vhagar - even though logically, it should have belonged to Meraxes.

In homage to Meraxes, Daenerys Targaryen renames one of the ships Illyrio Mopatis sent her after her.

Appearances

• – "Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things" (mentioned)
• – "The Field of Fire - House Targaryen" (illustrated)
• – "House Lannister" (illustrated)
• – "A Man Without Honor" (mentioned)
• – "House Tyrell" (illustrated)
• – "Harrenhal" (mentioned indirectly)
• – "Dragons" (illustrated)
• – "The Seven-Pointed Star" (illustrated)
• – "Dorne" (illustrated)
• – "Highgarden" (illustrated)
• – "Invasion" (illustrated)
• – "House Durrandon, the Storm Kings" (illustrated)
• – "House Lannister, Kings of the Rock & House Gardener, Kings of the Reach" (illustrated)
• – "House Stark, The Kings of Winter" (illustrated)
• – "House Martell, Princes of Dorne" (illustrated)

External links

• Meraxes on A Wiki of Ice and Fire