Question: Were there other distinguished families in Valyria before the Doom? Were the Targaryens ever subordinates to a superior house?

[Dryhtscipe]

I don't remember anything about them being the least of the dragonlords. I would think they were a fairly average family of dragonlords until their self-imposed exile to Dragonstone.

Yeah, I just did some digging and I was wrong. See what Ibbison from Ibben said, basically.

[TheCrannogDweller]

Other houses with Valyrian blood include- Baratheon, Estermont & Hightower due to marriages with the Targaryens...

The Estermonts and the Hightowers don't have Valyrian blood. Marrying your daughter into the royal family doesn't bring their blood into your descendants - it's the other way around. So, Rhaegar technically had Hightower, Arryn, Martell and Velaryon blood, while Robert had Estermont as well, from his mother's side.

The Targaryens were, undoubtly, one of the most powerful noble houses of the Valyrian Freehold.

No, they weren't. As other people pointed out, the Targaryens were somewhere in the middle of the Dragonlord families - and certainly not among the most powerful of them.

[The Ghost Beyond the Wall]

Yes there were 40 families that ruled the freehold.. It was said that the targaryens were a minor family of dragon lords.. I'd really like to get a story by grrm on some of these other families or the freeholds history narrated by a dragon lord..

That's be very ncie

[The Ghost Beyond the Wall]

Yes there were 40 families that ruled the freehold.. It was said that the targaryens were a minor family of dragon lords.. I'd really like to get a story by grrm on some of these other families or the freeholds history narrated by a dragon lord..

That's be very nice

[LannistersPride]

Valyria does remind me of Rome in many ways and as others have said, they were a mostly static society ruled largely by old families with some old families (Claudius, Cornelius, Fabius, Junius, Valerius) a little older than others. However, in Rome a man like Cicero or Pompey could rise up from relative obscurity (upper middle class/borderline upper class) to supreme power whereas in Valyria the binary property of having or not having dragons would greatly diminish that possibility. Thus, being one of the forty families of an empire that large and wealthy, with an absolute hold on power in the empire, would have made the Targaryens as powerful as any King of Westeros. I wonder if the presence of dragons would have inhibited or lessened the chance of civil war. I could see the majority ganging up on some of the lesser branches and pruning them through warfare.

The parallel between Valyria/Ghis and Rome/Carthage is also interesting though the citizen armies of Ghis seem more like the Roman legion(s) of the old and middle Roman Republics than the mercenary armies the Carthaginians favored.

[Daecon Dayne]

I'd really like to get a story by grrm on some of these other families or the freeholds history narrated by a dragon lord..

That's be very ncie

Hell yeah.

[k11u]

House Celtigar controls Claw Isle northeast of Dragonstone "a few hours sail" and House Velaryon has Driftmark the large island right next to Dragonstone.