Rhaenyra's arc a foreshadowing of Daenerys's ultimate fate? SEASON 8 AND SERIES FINALE SPOILERS

[All Things Ice and Fire]

Both characters' stories start off portrayed in a more positive light. Daenerys starts off as an exile in Essos, forced by her brother Viserys into marrying Khal Drogo. Rhaenyra was named heir to the Iron Throne by her father Viserys. She was known as the Realm's Delight, much like the first Daenerys was known The Darling of the Realm, and many lords were seeking her hand in marriage. Alicent and her family are seen as the ones scheming to usurp Rhaenyra's birthright, just as Cersei is Dany's obstacle to claiming the Iron Throne once she arrives in Westeros.

Then the Dance of the Dragons and Dany's war of conquest begin, and things go downhill for both Rhaenyra and Daenerys. When Rhaenyra finally does claim her throne, the Iron Throne is said to have "rejected" her, having cut herself on the spikes, just as Dany finds many don't welcome her as she expected. During her time as de facto Queen, Rhaenyra becomes known King Maegor with Teats, a far cry from her childhood sobriquet. She is forced to abandon the Red Keep and return to Dragonstone, where she is roasted by her half-brother Aegon's dragon. Daenerys goes totally nuts and massacres King's Landing and talks of conquering the rest of the world. She's Queen of the Seven Kingdoms for all of five minutes when her nephew Aegon (Jon Snow) stabs her in the heart. Both Rhaenyra and Daenerys are then succeeded by kings known as "The Broken"--Aegon III, the Broken King and Bran the Broken.

One of the chapters in Fire and Blood covering the Dance of the Dragons is titled "Rhaenyra Triumphant" and is immediately followed "Rhaenyra Overthrown". The penultimate episode of the series could have also been titled "Daenerys Triumphant" and the finale titled "Daenerys Overthrown".

[RYShh]

Yeah, kind of, after all we've seen similar events from the history after all.

• Battle of Winterfell; The Northmen defeats the Andal invaders (Stannis)
• Battle of Bastards; Starks vs. Boltons, ends with Boltons defeat.
• Field of fire ; the Lannisters and a House from the Reach vs House Targaryen
• KitN bends the knee to House Targaryen without fighting with each other on the field, for saving the lives of the Northmen
• Long night; the WW defeated again.
• Dance of the Dragons; although the conflict between Aegon and Daenerys ended before it starts, none of them gets the throne, (although Aegon II's rule lasted 1 year after Rhaenyra's death)

[The Bard of Banefort]

1 hour ago, RYShh said:

Yeah, kind of, after all we've seen similar events from the history after all.

• Battle of Winterfell; The Northmen defeats the Andal invaders (Stannis)
• Battle of Bastards; Starks vs. Boltons, ends with Boltons defeat.
• Field of fire ; the Lannisters and a House from the Reach vs House Targaryen
• KitN bends the knee to House Targaryen without fighting with each other on the field, for saving the lives of the Northmen
• Long night; the WW defeated again.
• Dance of the Dragons; although the conflict between Aegon and Daenerys ended before it starts, none of them gets the throne, (although Aegon II's rule lasted 1 year after Rhaenyra's death)

I think the Dance of the Dragons parallel will probably be stronger in the books, since I suspect it will be Dany vs. fAegon, rather than Dany vs. Cersei. 

There seems to also be some parallels between Bran and Egg. A childhood on the road, connected to Bloodraven, selected as king via Great Council, and forced to send a kinslaying relative to the Wall in the aftermath. 

[Rose of Red Lake]

But GRRM said Dance 2.0 wasn't about Danys invasion. Wouldn't she be invading Westeros at that point?

I think the narrative weight of a second dance of dragons would fall on the two mains, and also result in her death. It's too important to waste on fAegon. There is something in the way Barristan dismisses Quentyn, in that not all men were meant to dance with dragons, that makes me think fAegon would face the same fate. Therefore, it is Jon, who survives Dany. So it could be a prolonged affair with Dany deciding how to react to the two sons of Rhaegar, "dragons true and false."

[Ser Hedge]

On 6/10/2019 at 6:37 PM, All Things Ice and Fire said:

One of the chapters in Fire and Blood covering the Dance of the Dragons is titled "Rhaenyra Triumphant" and is immediately followed "Rhaenyra Overthrown". The penultimate episode of the series could have also been titled "Daenerys Triumphant" and the finale titled "Daenerys Overthrown".

That's an interesting parallel for sure and I've thought about the timing of the publication of FaB as well, coming as it did just before S8, but perhaps we shouldn't read too much into the timing, TPATQ had been around for a while anyway. In any case, we have now learnt a lot about Rhaena daughter of Aenys, about her daughters, about Jaeherys' brood and about Daemon's twins. Throw in Visenya and there are a few women dragon-riding Targaryens to compare potential Dany arcs with.

One thing Rhaenyra lacked was personal courage. She could have flown Syrax to the Dragonpit and potentially saved many of the dragons. It's hard to see Dany do something cowardly like that, at least Show-Dany didn't shy away from flying Drogon into a scrap.

Rhaenyra let Daemon take some really bad decisions like Blood and Cheese. I don't see Book-Dany in that place yet, but maybe she does get there. Daario isn't dissimilar to Daemon, but mercifully she didn't take any of Daario's advice in Mereen, but maybe after her stint in the Dothraki Sea, she might be more amenable to it.

The paranoia that Rhaenyra develops towards the end is probably the biggest parallel that the clumsy showrunners tried to display in Show-Dany and those were the occasions she seemed most similar to Rhaenyra.

Otherwise, Book-Dany has gathered much more life experiences than her forbears already, definitely more than Rhaenyra when Viserys I passed away and I would think she would do a relatively better job in that situation, though of course Show-Dany managed to throw away much better advantages thanks to Tyrion.

I think we see (or have seen already) elements of Good Queen Alysanne, the restlessness of her older sister Rhaena (now that Dany has firmly decided not to plant trees and not to look for the metaphorical house with the red door anymore), some of the generic boisterousness and daring of Jaeherys' daughters and Daemon's twins (now that Dany is a Dragonrider) and as another poster mentioned the darkness of an older Visenya as well. And yes, quite possibly the paranoia of Rhaenyra, but I don't think the cowardice and incompetence.

[BlackLightning]

Daenerys does bare similarities to Rhaenyra.

But I think Daenerys will go down the route of Daeron the Young, Aegon the Unlikely, Alysanne the Good and Visenya. Both Visenya and Aegon became very involved in magic and paranormal activities. Visenya became meaner and harsher as she grew older. Aegon and Alysanne had a deep love for the people. Aegon died in an attempt to bring back dragons because he felt dragons were what he needed to change the world for the better. Alysanne was taken out of the picture due to health problems before her time and lost complete control of her good work. Daeron was an ambitious, hawkish king with a youthful exuberance and impulsivity that resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, many more thousands of injuries and traumas and it nearly ruined the integrity of the Seven Kingdoms.

[All Things Ice and Fire]

We could also throw in the seemingly arbitrary change in the birth order of Jaehaerys and Alysanne's children, including and especially replacing "Aeryn" with Daenerys. The first Daenerys was then regarded as heir to the Iron Throne, either as a queen in her own right or as a future wife of her brother Aemon, only for her to die in childhood, And of course the contemporary Daenerys becomes Daenerys the Never Crowned. Even if book-Dany doesn't go down the same path, the short life of the Darling of the Realm could foreshadow the Mother of Dragons never sitting the Iron Throne.