House of the Dragon: Who is Saera Targaryen?
HBOAfter one House of the Dragon character alluded to a famous mother in Westeros, everyone wants to know more about Saera Targaryen.
As one of the most polarizing and controversial figures in the Targaryen royal line, her history might be shocking. But her story is an important one, leading to a key figure in both the book House of the Dragon is based on and Season 2 of the TV show.
She’s a princess, but not one that’s talked about much. In fact, some members of the Targaryen family might prefer to forget she existed at all.
But she did, and we’ve got everything you need to know about this missing daughter of a Targaryen king. (Warning: book spoilers below!)
Saera Targaryen explained
Saera Targaryen was the fifth daughter of King Jaehaerys I Targaryen and Queen Alysanne Targaryen.
She was their ninth child overall, born in 67 AC. She was a princess, who was described as being pretty and tall. It was written that her first word was “no,” hinting towards her spirited and disobedient nature.
However, she also knew how to be charming and get what she wanted, especially when it came to her father. She often played pranks on her sister Daella by putting cats in her room, which Daella was afraid of.
When she was 14 years old, she made it known that she wanted to be a queen like her mother, and suggested that she could marry the Prince of Dorne or the King Beyond the Wall. But eventually, she left that idea behind in favor of having affairs with as many men as she liked.
She had three favorite men who often hung around her: Jonah Mooton, the heir to Maidenpool, Roy Connington, the Lord of Griffin’s Roost, and Ser Braxton Beesbury, the heir to Honeyholt. Her father didn’t think it was a problem, but her mother Alysanne was more suspicious.
Along with the men, she also had two best friends: Lady Perianne Moore and Lady Alys Turnberry.
Saera’s scandal
Things fell apart for Saera in 84 AC, when her escapades became known to her parents.
After she was revealed to have played a cruel trick on the fool known as Tom Turnip in a brothel, her three men and Lady Perianne Moore and Lady Alys Turnberry were questioned by the king and queen.
The men were thrown into the cells when they kept Saera’s adventures a secret, but the two girls told the queen everything. They revealed that Saera had kissed both of them, as well as the men. It was also revealed that Saera’s servants knew everything that had happened after being ordered to stand outside.
When the king and queen brought Saera into the throne room, it was said that she “went from denial to dismissal to quibbling to contrition to accusation to justification to defiance” in the span of an hour.
Saera then confessed that she had slept with all three men, but that she intended to marry all of them and become like Aegon the Conqueror and Maegor the Cruel. Upon hearing this, the king locked her into her room.
Things were made worse when Saera escaped her bedroom and attempted to enter the dragonpit. She was caught by the dragonkeepers, and the king then locked her in a tower cell where she could be watched at all times.
Meanwhile, her five companions faced their own punishments. The ringleader, Ser Braxton Beesbury, ordered a trial by combat, but ended up being slain by the king himself. Saera ended up having to watch the whole ordeal from the tower.
Saera was eventually sent to Oldtown to train with the Faith, which Jaehaerys hoped would teach her a lesson. He only intended for her to be there for a few years, but all plans were thrown out of the window when Saera eventually escaped after enduring terrible conditions for a year and a half. She wasn’t found again in Oldtown, and didn’t return to the Red Keep, either.
Why is she important?
It’s believed that Saera is the mother of the bastard Hugh Hammer, a dragonseed who would go on to become a dragonrider for Rhaenyra Targaryen during the Dance of the Dragons.
After fleeing the Faith, Saera found passage to Lys, where she worked at a pleasure garden. When the news reached King’s Landing, the queen wept and accused the king of turning Saera “into a whore”, though the king maintained that she had always been one.
After the ordeal, it was said that the king was never the same. When Saera’s sisters died five years later, the queen begged him to get back in contact with her, though he refused.
HBOOver time, Saera became a wealthy woman. She never replied to her mother’s letters, and moved to Volantis in 99 AC to open a famous pleasure house. In 101 AC, a Great Council was called to determine the line of succession for King Jaehaerys.
Three of Saera’s bastard sons came forward to make their claim, but Saera did not. In her words, she had “her own kingdom” in Volantis.
Saera’s history made her one of the most controversial and ostracized figures in Westeros. But her lineage also becomes an important part of the Targaryen Civil War. Her bloodline allows her son Hugh Hammer to claim Jaehaerys’ own dragon, Vermithor, when Rhaenyra calls for those with dragonriding blood to fight for their side. (How’s that for irony?)
In House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 7, Hugh tells his wife, “I never knew my father. That much is true. But I did know my mother. I hid it from you. And I’m sorry for that. She worked in a pleasure house.
“She was granted more freedom than most because of who she was. And because rich men paid more to fuck a woman with silver hair. She used to tell me I was no different to her brother’s boys, Viserys and Daemon. But I was ashamed of her.”
Although he doesn’t mention her by name, it’s clear based on her history that this is Saera Targaryen.
For more Westeros history, check out our guides to Ulf the White, Alys Rivers, and Larys Strong. Be sure to check out the Season 2 release schedule, so you don’t miss a thing.