Daenerys Targaryen appeared in the House of the Dragon season 2 finale, and it connects to the downfall of House Targaryen. The episode, “The Queen Who Ever Was,” shockingly made the prequel’s biggest connection to Game of Thrones so far, as Daemon Targaryen had a vision of Daenerys. Alongside her were the Three-Eyed Raven, and a White Walker (though not the Night King himself) leading an army of the dead.
The implication of the scene in House of the Dragon season 2’s ending is that Daenerys is the Prince That Was Promised, the prophesied hero who will lead Westeros to salvation and help them win the day against the coming darkness, aka the White Walkers. Game of Thrones’ ending didn’t make her the ultimate savior, so why is Daemon’s vision ostensibly showing her in that way? The real reason likely connects to a major failing of not only Daemon, but many other Targaryens.
Why Daemon Targaryen Saw Daenerys In House Of The Dragon
It Fits House Targaryen’s Game Of Thrones History
Daemon seeing Daenerys isn’t just about the future of House Targaryen, but also about the family’s long ingrained sense of superiority. We as viewers know Dany isn’t the Prince That Was Promised in Game of Thrones (though she could still be in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire books), and yet Daemon envisages a Targaryen as the prophesied hero all the same. He buys fully into the notion that Winter is coming, and that Rhaenyra must sit on the Iron Throne to lead to this coming savior.
The idea of Targaryens seeing themselves as greater than others dates back to at least Aegon the Conqueror, whose own prophecy stated that only a Targaryen on the Iron Throne would be able to unite the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros to defeat the White Walkers. Even removed from that, the family’s status as the last surviving dragonlords of Old Valyria has positioned them – to themselves and others – as being closer to gods than men. This has even been made into Westeros law: the Doctrine of Exceptionalism is a precept that allows the Targaryens to practice incest, because they are not like other humans.
It highlights how the Targaryens’ belief in themselves being superior to others is driving them forward, so, but to doom, not glory.
With that context, it becomes a more interesting choice to show Daemon having a vision that suggests Daenerys is the Prince That Was Promised, when we know she isn’t. Of course he sees the hero as coming from his and Rhaenyra’s own lineage. It highlights how the Targaryens’ belief in themselves being superior to others is driving them forward, so, but to doom, not glory.
The Targaryens Turned Aegon’s Dream Into Their Own Doom
The Conqueror’s Prophecy Was Really More Of A Curse
The Targaryens’ belief in their own exceptionalism is what also leads to such a ready belief in Aegon the Conqueror’s song of ice and fire dream. It’s a lot easier for them to buy the notion of a coming darkness and great threat when they’re the central heroes of the story. Unfortunately, that is what’s driving them – and Westeros – to disaster.
Rhaenyra and Aegon are dividing Westeros with the Dance of the Dragons, the exact opposite of what Aegon’s dream wants to happen, and both are defined by the prophecy in different ways. Aegon sits the throne thanks to a misunderstanding regarding the dream; Rhaenyra is emboldened by it, her own increasing god complex supported by the notion that she is not just the realm’s rightful ruler, but its savior (or at least they will come from her line).
The worst part of this for the Targaryens isn’t just the many deaths or the war-torn, divided realm, but that it leads to the dying of the dragons.
Daemon’s vision of Dany, and the idea of her being the Prince That Was Promised, only adds to this. The point of the vision is to lead him back to supporting Rhaenyra, and he does so with proclamations of now believing in Aegon’s dream. Thanks to this new vision, then the war will only intensify even further; any chance for peace long since dead.
The worst part of this for the Targaryens isn’t just the many deaths or the war-torn, divided realm, but that it leads to the dying of the dragons. The last Targaryen dragon dies around 20 years after the civil war, but it’s the Dance that directly leads to it. The cast majority of dragons die during the war, with only a few surviving. The Targaryens themselves, in no small part thanks to Aegon’s prophecy and now Daemon’s vision of Daenerys in House of the Dragon, will be so blinded by their own exceptionalism, they destroy the very thing that defines it.
