Who Is Meraxes in ‘House of the Dragon’? Explained
All these Targaryen names have me confused. Meleys. Caraxes. Meraxes. Can’t we just name dragons normal pet names? Like Cassie? Max? Or something ironic like Bob Saget? I don’t wanna have to run to Google to figure out how to spell these names every single time.
Alright who tf is Meraxes and why doesn’t she have a normal name?
Meraxes is a DRAGON. And she doesn’t have a normal name because she has a DIVINE name. Dragons hail from the ruined land formally known as the Valyrian Freehold. It was a shining metropolis of culture, art, and geopolitical influence. It was an awesome place to live … if you were a dragonlord. The dragonlords were the 1% of what is now known as Old Valyria. They were a social caste of wealthy and powerful families that were somehow able to bend dragons themselves to their will. How? Either by having magical dragon blood or delusions of grandeur. Dragons go apeshit for both.
The dragons of Old Valyria were seen as gods, and their riders were seen as a “gods by association.” Only a god among men could ride a literal one, right? While the names of the dragons of Old Valyria are lost to the slippery annals of history, the names of Old Valyrian gods are not. We know of at least three major Valyrian gods: Balerion, Vhagar and Meraxes. And those just so happen to be the names of the three dragons that Aegon the Conquerer used to conquer the Seven Kingdoms! Go figure!
Meraxes – a draconic biography
Meraxes was, as Donkey puts it when describing his future wife in Shrek, a “girl dragon.” Unlike that dragon, Meraxes had bigger ambitions than settling down with a hoofed mammal, talking or otherwise. She was the mount of Queen Rhaenys Targaryen, the younger sister and wife (ew) of Aegon the Conquerer himself.
Meraxes hatched from her egg during the Century of Blood, which as the name suggests was the hundred odd years of violence that followed the fiery destruction of Old Valyria and the attempts by rival factions to fill the power vacuum. She was born on Dragonstone, the volcanic island just off the coast of Westeros. She was claimed by Rhaenys before the young queen and Aegon married, and the two were inseparable. The tale goes that Rhaenys spent more time on dragonback than off it, and dreamed of attempting to fly across the Sunset Sea and into the uncharted west. Pity the war broke out, she could have discovered Americos, or whatever George R.R. Martin would call it.
Like the other dragons in Aegon the Conqueror’s stable, Meraxes grew to enormous size. It was said she could swallow horses whole. Some Westerosi historians reckon that Meraxes was even bigger than Vhagar at the time, and was the second largest dragon in the world after Balerion the Black Dread himself. What’d she look like? She was beautiful. Golden eyes and silver scales.
What happened to Meraxes?
A lot happened. Meraxes was a pivotal element in the war to conquer and unite the Seven Kingdoms. Rhaenys and Meraxes were responsible for ending the reign of Argilac Durrandon, the last of the Storm Kings. Despite being grounded by foul weather during the battle known as the Last Storm, Meraxes killed hundreds of enemy soldiers, because fighting dragon walking on four legs really isn’t much different from fighting a dragon in the sky. You’re gonna die either way. Meraxes saw combat again during the legendary Field of Fire, when Aegon the Conquerer decided to absolutely dunk on the armies of House Gardner by siccing all three of his dragons upon them AT ONCE. Meraxes and her dragonkin killed thousands that day. Four thousand, to be exact.
Six of the Seven Kingdoms bent the knee soon after, all except for Dorne. Aegon wasn’t having none of that, so he sent Rhaenys and Meraxes to subdue the rebel kingdom. It didn’t go so well. While en route to the Dornish city of Sunspear, Meraxes was shot down over Hellholt with a scorpion bolt through the eye. Meraxes likely died instantly, with Rhaenys dying soon after the dragon’s lifeless body plummeted into the castle wall.
So ends the story of Meraxes and her beloved Rhaenys, loyal to the end.
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