House Of The Dragon Is About To Reintroduce An Overlooked Targaryen
Without the heir or the spare, the third Velaryon will have to shine.
At this point in the Dance of Dragons, dragons are less valuable than Targaryens. Their scarcity forces Rhaenyra to search through the Targaryen line to find possible dragonriders, and makes Rhaena’s discovery of a wild dragon so exciting. But Rhaenyra is more than just a fearsome warrior queen — she’s a mother to six children and stepmother to Daemon’s daughters, Baela and Rhaena.
While her son Jacaerys handled many diplomatic missions for his mother and Lucerys’ demise caused the start of the conflict in the first place, House of the Dragon has only shown Rhaenyra’s third child, Joffrey Velaryon, a handful of times. Even though his role may be small, he becomes a key member of the Blacks... until he meets a tragic fate. Here’s everything you need to know about the most underrated Targaryen child, and what’s in store for him. Obviously, that means spoilers ahead.
It was Joffrey Velaryon who Rhaenyra gave birth to in Season 1 moments before she received a summons from Queen Alicent, forcing her to march through the castle only minutes postpartum. Besides that event, which preceded one of Season 1’s time jumps, Joffrey’s only other claim to fame in Season 1 was sparking the disagreement between the Velaryon and Targaryen children that would end with Aemond losing an eye.
Rhaena brings Joffrey to the Vale.
We briefly saw Joffrey Velaryon in Season 2, Episode 1, when he mourned the loss of his older brother Lucerys by throwing a toy horse on his funeral pyre. In Episode 3, we learned Rhaenyra wanted to send him to the Vale to be the ward of Lady Jeyne Arryn, while Rhaena and Rhaenyra’s younger children would travel all the way to Pentos. Lady Jeyne wanted a dragon to defend the Vale, and got one with Joffrey’s dragon Tyraxes, even if he’s just a hatchling.
In George R.R. Martin’s book Fire & Blood, Joffrey takes a backseat until the loss of his older brother Jacaerys at the Battle of the Gullet. At that point, he suddenly becomes the heir to Dragonstone and is thrust into a higher-profile role.
After the Fall of King’s Landing, Rhaenyra and her children returned to the Red Keep, where Joffrey was supposed to stay. However, during the Storming of the Dragonpit, Joffrey managed to sneak out. In a bid to rescue his dragon Tyraxes, he climbed onto his mother’s dragon Syrax without a saddle. He escaped, but flying Syrax proved unwieldy, and he plunged to his end in Flea Bottom, King’s Landing’s infamous slum.
Joffrey may just be a small boy now, but once he’s a young man, he’ll be one of the final major casualties of the Dance of Dragons, and the final of three doomed products from Rhaenyra’s first marriage. If House of the Dragon is focused on dragonriders right now, then Joffrey is one to watch because, in true Targaryen fashion, a dragon is the cause of his demise.
