Vhagar

Vhagar was a she-dragon of House Targaryen. She was ridden by Queen Visenya Targaryen during Aegon's Conquest, alongside Aegon the Conqueror's Balerion and their sister Rhaenys's Meraxes. Other known riders of Vhagar are Prince Baelon Targaryen, Lady Laena Velaryon and Prince Aemond Targaryen.

Vhagar was named for one of the gods of Old Valyria.

## Appearance

*See also: Images of Vhagar*
The color of Vhagar's scales, horns, wings, wing bones, and spinal crest, as well as the color of her flame are not mentioned in the books. However, the artist commissioned for the 2021 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar, Sam Hogg, asked for clarification from George R. R. Martin's team and was told Vhagar was "bronze with greenish blue highlights and bright green eyes".

According to Tyrion Lannister, Vhagar was large enough that one could ride a horse down her gullet. It is said that Vhagar's breath was so hot that it could melt a knight's armor and cook him inside.

By the time of the Dance of the Dragons, Vhagar was the hardened survivor of a hundred battles, had grown almost as large as Balerion, and was the oldest and largest of the dragons in Westeros. Her roar was so powerful that it could shake the very foundations of Storm's End. No living dragon could match her for size or ferocity.

## History

Vhagar hatched from a dragon egg on Dragonstone during the Century of Blood. She was named after a god of the Valyrian Freehold.

At some point, Vhagar was claimed by Visenya Targaryen. Visenya first rode Vhagar, demonstrating she was a dragonrider, some time before she married her brother, Aegon.

### Aegon's Conquest

After Aegon landed on Westeros and began his conquest, Visenya flew Vhagar to Stokeworth, where crossbowmen loosed bolts until the dragon set the roofs of the castle keep ablaze. Following Aegon's first coronation, Visenya, upon Vhagar, accompanied the Targaryen fleet, commanded by Daemon Velaryon, to take Gulltown. In the battle in the waters off Gulltown, the Arryn fleet defeated the Targaryen fleet, sinking one-third of the ships and capturing near as many. Then, Visenya descended, and burned the ships of the Arryn fleet.

Visenya then flew to Crackclaw Point with Vhagar, to accept many pledges of fealty from the local lords. She then flew Vhagar to Stoney Sept to link up with her siblings, their dragons, and Aegon's army. They advanced south, where all three dragons took part in the decisive Field of Fire – the only battle in which all three of the Targaryen dragons took to the sky at the same time during Aegon's Conquest. Together, Vhagar, Meraxes, and Balerion killed four thousand men, burning them alive. King Mern IX Gardener died, and with him House Gardener. The army was broken, and House Targaryen was victorious.

Visenya next flew Vhagar to the Trident in the riverlands, where she met with her brother and sister and their dragons, to face King in the North Torrhen Stark. Brandon Snow, the bastard brother of Torrhen, offered to sneak into the Targaryen camp at night to slay the dragons, but the northern king refused the attempt, and instead sent his brother as an envoy, eventually bending the knee to the Targaryens.

Afterwards, Visenya flew Vhagar back to the Vale, where she landed with her dragon in the inner courtyard of the Eyrie. When Dowager Queen Sharra Arryn reached the courtyard she found her young son, King Ronnel Arryn, sitting on Visenya's knee, staring with wonder at Vhagar. The young king begged his mother for a ride on Vhagar's back. Sharra bent her knee and surrendered, and Ronnel rode on Vhagar thrice about the summit of the Giant's Lance.

### First Dornish War

Following the deaths of Rhaenys and Meraxes in 10 AC at Hellholt in Dorne, Visenya and Aegon burned every Dornish stronghold at least once (except Sunspear and its shadow city) during a two-year period known as the Dragon's Wroth. The Dornish tell a tale that the Targaryens refused to attack Sunspear because they were afraid that Princess Meria Martell had purchased a device from Lys to slay Vhagar and Balerion, but Archmaester Timotty suggests the Targaryens intended to turn the other Dornish houses against the Martells.

### Aenys I and Maegor I

When King Aegon I died in 37 AC, Vhagar supplied the flames to light the fire of his funeral pyre. In 41 AC, when King Aenys I Targaryen named his eldest son and heir, Prince Aegon, the Prince of Dragonstone at his wedding, Visenya angrily left for Dragonstone. It was said that the moon turned as red as blood when Vhagar passed it.

Later that year, when King Aenys arrived at Dragonstone, fleeing the first rebels in the Faith Militant uprising, Visenya asked him to grant her leave to take Vhagar and burn the Starry Sept in Oldtown. Aenys refused. When the king died early in 42 AC, Visenya left Dragonstone within an hour of his death, and flew to Pentos, where her son Maegor lived in exile. After Maegor had claimed the crown on Dragonstone, Visenya accompanied him upon Vhagar and crossed Blackwater Bay to King's Landing. The return of both Vhagar and Balerion to King's Landing set off riots in the city.

Prior to Maegor's wedding to Tyanna of the Tower, Visenya flew upon Vhagar to Driftmark to convince Alyssa Velaryon to appear at the wedding. When the Faith Militant continued to resist Maegor's reign, even after the losses they suffered at the Battle of Stonebridge and the Battle at the Great Fork of the Blackwater, Visenya mounted Vhagar and burned the seats of House Blanetree, House Terrick, House Deddings, House Lychester, and House Wayn in the Riverlands within a single night. Maegor flew Balerion to the westerlands, burning the seats of House Broom, House Doggett, House Falwell, House Lorch, House Myatt, and other "pious lords" who had defied his royal summons.

In 43 AC, Maegor and Visenya turned towards Oldtown, threatening to incinerate the Starry Sept in response to the High Septon's condemnation of his polygamous marriages. Only the mysterious death of the High Septon, which allowed Lord Martyn Hightower to open his gates before Balerion and Vhagar, saved the city from dragonflame.

Visenya died on Dragonstone in 44 AC, leaving Vhagar without a rider.

### Reign of Jaehaerys I

Vhagar remained unridden for twenty-nine years after Visenya's death, spending much of that time on Dragonstone and later taking residence in the Dragonpit in King's Landing. It was in 73 AC that Prince Baelon the Brave after achieving knighthood, set out to follow his brother Prince Aemon and become a dragonrider claiming Vhagar. Vhagar along with Caraxes and Vermithor burned the Dornish fleet that attempted to invade the Stormlands during the Fourth Dornish War in 83 AC. After the death of Balerion of old age in 94 AC, Vhagar became the last of the three Targaryen dragons who had fought in the Conquest. Vhagar became riderless again, when Prince Baelon passed away in 101 AC.