Game Of Thrones: Daenerys's Slow Transformation Over The Years (In Pictures)
The first face-to-face meeting between Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow in "The Queen's Justice," was rife with disagreement, and distrust. As a consequence of the North's declaration of independence, Jon refused to bend the knee to her. This compelled the Dragon Queen to artfully recap her horrendous journey for Jon, thereby proving she was more than someone with a family name.
Throughout the series, Daenerys worked tirelessly to rule over the Seven Kingdoms. Notwithstanding her fate, she had a captivating arc on Game of Thrones. Her character went through one of the most dramatic transformations in the series, and here it is, in pictures.
10 Season 1: Longing For Home
The Targaryen Princess Daenerys spent her early years in exile, living across the Narrow Sea. She and her older brother Viserys Targaryen had been Magister Illyrio Mopatis's guests for over a year. With no one by Daenerys's side, Viserys exploited her emotional dependence and purely for his own self-interest married her off to a nomadic warlord, Khal Drogo. Daenerys wanted to go home, but instead, she was stuck in a vicious cycle of abusive relationships.
Though Viserys arranged his sister's marriage for political gains (Dothraki army men to retake the Iron Throne), Daenerys conquered her husband's heart and turned a loveless marriage into a sound one.
9 Season 1: A Khaleesi of The Dothraki
Within a couple of episodes, Daenerys's marriage to Khal Drogo began to blossom and she was pregnant with his son. With Drogo by her side, she took great pride in the Dothraki way of life. She proudly called herself a Khaleesi of the Dothraki and the wife of the great Khal.
Daenerys learned to command conversations and people, and in a dispute over the women in the Lhazareen plunder, she invited a challenge to Drogo's leadership from one of his men, Mago.
At the end of Season 1, the Lhazareen godswife Mirri Maz Duur killed Daenerys's unborn child with blood magic, and rendered her husband catatonic.
8 Season 1: The Mother Of Dragons
During the course of Season 1, Daenerys learned to command people, embrace the Dothraki traditions, and gave birth to three Dragons.
The Daenerys audiences saw in "Fire and Blood" had come a long way from her days as an exiled Princess. This woman wore her wedding dress and fearlessly walked into the fire of her husband's funeral pyre.
At dawn, Daenerys spectacularly rose from the ashes like a phoenix with nothing but three baby dragons clung onto her.
7 Season 2: The Strength Of Her People
So, what happens after Daenerys hatches three baby dragons, who are too weak to fight?
She along with her remaining band of Dothraki loyalists and Ser Jorah traveled across the Red Waste in search of food and shelter. The desert was relentless, but Daenerys refused to allow hardships to dictate her and became the strength of her ravaged pack. In the end, they landed in the great trading city of Qarth.
It is here, Daenerys's wardrobe was given a major upgrade and she adopted coat-style gowns, Dothraki trousers, and boots. The key moments in the season were her series of visions at the House of the Undying, the imprisonment of her dragons, and the power of the word Dracarys.
6 Season 3: Breaker Of Chains
In the next leg of the journey, Daenerys was joined by the former Kingsguard to her father, Ser Barristan Selmy. He became her closest advisor until his death in the Sons of the Harpy rebellion.
In Astapor, Daenerys struck a deal with slave master Kraznys mo Nakloz, offering one of her dragons for the elite Unsullied soldiers and Missandei. Once Kraznys handed her the whip, she backtracked on the agreement and commanded the Unsullied to kill the slave masters and their soldiers. Daenerys burned Kraznys with Dragonfire and offered her new army a choice to serve her as free men. As Daenerys's legions struck the chains off every slave, she became the breaker of chains.
5 Season 4: Mhysa
From Yunkai to Meereen, Daenerys liberated people from slavery and oppression and earned the name, Mhysa (meaning Mother in the Old Ghiscari language). At this point, Daenerys was learning the art of ruling over her subjects. Meereen constantly presented challenges to her abilities as a ruler and her growing dragons became a threat to the children of Meereen.
After learning Ser Jorah would trade her secrets across the Narrow Sea to Robert Baratheon, she banished him from her service and placed two of her uncontrollable dragons into chains.
4 Season 5: Break The Wheel
In Meereen, Daenerys's rule was met with stiff resistance from the Sons of the Harpy who concealed their faces with golden-horned masks. Not only did she lose Ser Barristan Selmy in the bloody rebellion, but the commander of Unsullied, Grey Worm, was badly injured as well.
But before Ser Barristan departed, he gave invaluable advice to Daenerys about stamping out dissent. Because he'd served her family before, he confirmed the Mad King had indeed earned his name. The key moment was, however, Ser Jorah's return and him presenting Tyrion Lannister as a gift to Daenerys. As the two children of reputed Houses met, they spoke about their journeys thus far, and about breaking the wheel.
3 Season 6: In The Great Game
Season 6 of Game of Thrones was a fitting culmination to the years of hard work Daenerys put into raising Dragons, acquiring armies, lands, advisors, learning how to rule, and making allies (Ironborn, Dornishmen, Reachmen). She finally set sail for Westeros.
At the end of the season, she'd freed herself from the Dothraki captivity, set their temple on fire, and emerged unscathed from the flames. She'd also brought the city of Meereen under control by burning the slave masters' ships and slaughtering the Sons of the Harpy. Daenerys then bid goodbye to Daario Naharis for the greater good and named Tyrion Lannister the Hand of the Queen.
2 Season 7: Dany's Home
When the Mother of Dragons arrived at Dragonstone (the ancestral seat of House Targaryen in Westeros), the first thing she did was bend down to touch the Westerosi soil. Despite her spectacular armada (not to mention three large fire-breathing Dragons), she was humbled as she inspected every element of House Targaryen's ancestral seat.
Daenerys's arrival was followed by conflicting advice from her allies and her Hand, and she suffered massive losses. She turned the tables on her enemies when she ambushed the combined Lannister-Tarly forces and burned Lord Randyll Tarly and his son Dickon alive.
Daenerys's conquest of the Iron Throne got sidetracked when she met Jon Snow. She declared a temporary truce with Cersei Lannister and joined forces with Jon to fight the dead in the North.
1 Season 8: The Mad Queen
Daenerys's decision to fight in the Battle of Winterfell cost her a lot-- her armies and Ser Jorah. She traveled half a world away to the dreary North to fight Jon's war alongside him, all because she loved him. Yet she was greeted with scornful looks and suspicious eyes. The rejection of the Northerners made Daenerys paranoid. Every betrayal hit at her capacity to love and after Missandei's execution, she was devastated.
Daenerys snapped when she heard the bells of surrender. She soared through the sky, burned the city to the ground, and her arc slowly descended into tragedy. Cersei, Varys, Tyrion, Sansa, were all key players in the of Daenerys Targaryen. In the end, Jon stabbed her and she disgracefully succumbed to her death.