House Of The Dragon: Who Is Laena Velaryon

The second episode of House of the Dragon is out on HBO, which focuses on the legendary conflict between Daemon and Rhaenyra Targaryen. Apart from the familiar characters, the second episode also introduced us to some new faces, and the one that caught the community’s attention was Laena Velaryon.

Now that Viserys’ first wife, Aemma Targaryen, is dead, the council wants the king to remarry. Corlys Velaryon and his wife, Rhaenys, want him to marry their daughter – Laena Velaryon – despite the girl being only 12 years old.

WARNING: This post contains spoilers for the House of the Dragon show and the books.

Born in late 92 AC, Laena Velaryon is the eldest child and the only daughter of Corlys and Rhaenys. We saw in the show how boldly Laena approaches king Viserys and tries to impress him by promising him beautiful children if he marries her. Well, she is considered equally bold in the books as well. While she is considered to be adventurous, just like his father, she is known to become beautiful like her mother when she grows up. Laena also loved to fly, and she rode the dragon Vhagar.

Laena’s gender was the reason she was not considered the right choice for the throne. After her grandfather’s death, Jaehaerys I passed the throne to Prince Baelon instead of Rhaenys. This eventually took away Laena’s right to the throne as well.

As we all saw in the show, King Viserys’ decision not to marry Laena angered her father. But soon after that, he engaged his daughter to one of the sons of Sealord of Braavos. However, not long after the engagement, Sealord of Braavos died, and his son took possession of his father’s fortune and moved to Driftmark. Corlys didn’t want to marry his daughter to Sealord’s son anymore, and he managed to postpone the wedding for ten years.

In 115 AC, Daemon Targaryen visited Driftmark and fell in love with Laena. A heat between Laena’s betrothed and Daemon was obvious to happen; hence the former challenged him to a fight. Daemon won the duel by killing him, and the two married afterward. But, they were aware that the court and the king wouldn’t agree with their marriage, so they flew to Pentos.

In 116 AC, Laena gave birth to twin girls whom they named Rhaena and Baela. Then in 120 AC, she gave birth to a deformed son who died an hour later. While she was worn out because of being in labor, the pain of losing her son put her into misery. Three days after this incident, Laena died too.