Daenerys Targaryen conquers many cities in Game of Thrones, from Slavers Bay to Kings Landing. Here’s every Westeros city Dany conquered (and how).

Here’s how many cities Daenerys conquered in Game of Thrones throughout its 8 season run, and how she did it. Played by Emilia Clarke, Daenerys Targaryen was one of the leading protagonists in HBO’s Game of Thrones, right up until she wasn’t. Daenerys is introduced as a relatively timid character in season 1, living in the shadow of her arrogant brother, whose sole mission is to restore House Targaryen to the Iron Throne of Westeros, removing the Baratheon usurper. Three dragon eggs later, Daenerys comes into her own and takes the will of the Targaryen bloodline upon herself. Rather than just restore her family’s honor, however, Daenerys seeks to forge an entirely new path. The series famously saw Daenerys take Meereen, among many other cities, and she famously led the Game of Thrones slave army to various victories.

House of the Dragon has shown how powerful the Targaryen’s are, and Daenerys honors her ancestors in this regard. Her long road back to Westeros sees Daenerys take Meereen and gain powerful allies, including the Unsullied and Dothraki, as well as figures like Ser Jorah Mormont and Tyrion Lannister. But rather than march straight for King’s Landing, Dany decides to conquer the major cities of Slaver’s Bay first, granting her the Game of Thrones slave army, and proving herself a worthy and fair ruler. Daenerys believes she can upturn the tyrannical, unjust regimes and replace them with her own brand of democracy. Some conquests are more successful than others, but the Daenerys Targaryen 2011-2019 Slaver’s Bay Tour was certainly eventful. On her path to dominance, Daenerys employs a wide variety of strategies, ranging from unflinching violence to inspiring the population to take a stand themselves. Here are all the cities Daenerys conquered in Game of Thrones, and how she captures them.

Astapor

As the wife of Kahl Drogo, Daenerys experiences a swift rise and fall among the Dothraki, who largely abandon her at the end of Game of Thrones‘ first season. With a handful of supporters, Team Dany reach Quarth, where they hope to find the means to invade Westeros, but she is betrayed and barely escapes the city alive. The arrival of Daenerys Targaryen begins properly in Game of Thrones season 3, when the Mother of Dragons and her followers reach the Slaver’s Bay city of Astapor. The plan is for Daenerys to use the gold she stole from Quarth to purchase Unsullied slave soldiers, aka the Game of Thrones slave army, but the heroine has other ideas.

The sacking of Astapor is arguably the most impressive out of all the cities Daenerys conquered on Game of Thrones, outside of seeing Daenerys take Meereen, as she utilizes a blend of brute strength and astute cunning to achieve her ambitious goals. The eventual Mad Queen Dany also takes advantage of her unassuming appearance and the element of surprise to gain the upper hand. During her first meetings with the slave master Kraznys, Dany feigns a certain level of innocence, pretending she can’t speak Valyrian and keeping her cards close to her chest. Against the advice of her aides, Jorah Mormont and Barristan Selmy, Daenerys agrees to sell her biggest and strongest dragon for the entire Unsullied army – a deal Kraznys readily agrees to, unable to resist the lure of owning a dragon.

Here, Daenerys takes advantage of Kraznys’ possessive mentality. The slave owner doesn’t realize that dragons pay no heed to their “rightful” owner, and will only follow the humans they deem worthy. As such, Dany is able to incinerate the villain alive, keeping her dragon and the 8000-strong Unsullied army. In a tactical masterstroke of kindness, Daenerys sets the Unsullied free, allowing them to choose to follow her, thereby ensuring their eternal loyalty. To seize the city of Astapor fully, Daenerys orders the Unsullied to kill all slave owners and set the people free – the first liberation on her path to King’s Landing. A ruling council is left in charge, and while slavery soon creeps back into Astapor, Daenerys’ dragons ultimately put an end to their rebellion in Game of Thrones season 6, restoring order.

Yunkai

The latter half of Game of Thrones season 3 takes Daenerys and her new army from Astapor to Yunkai, the next major province in Slaver’s Bay, and the second entry on Dany’s invasion wish list. The city of Yunkai offers a very different challenge to the one posed by Astapor and its warrior slaves. Not only was the the R.R. Martin book character swiftly becoming infamous, stealing away her element of surprise, but Yunkai had nothing of value to the aspiring Queen of Westeros, meaning the same tactics that toppled Astapor wouldn’t work here.

Rather than strength and cunning, Daenerys’ conquering of Yunkai is achieved partly through good fortune, with a healthy dose of opportunism and treachery thrown in. First, Dany meets with Razdal, one of the Masters of Yunkai. Negotiations come to a swift halt, but Razdal reveals that his city’s strength comes from sellswords, later revealed to be the Second Sons. Daenerys tries to convince these mercenaries to switch their allegiance, but to no avail, and this is where lady luck has a hand in Dany’s success. As the Targaryen camp begin to plan a stealth attack on the Second Sons’ commander, one of the company’s captains approaches – a certain Daario Naharis. Helpfully, Dario has slaughtered his colleagues and decided to add the Second Sons to Daenerys’ ever-growing army, largely because he fancies the Targaryen queen.

Daario also proves to be the missing piece in the puzzle of liberating Yunkai, pointing out a weak entrance in the city surrounds. The newest member of Team Dany leads a small force inside to kill the slave masters and free the people, a mission they execute successfully, leaving Daenerys as the revered “mhysa” of Yunkai. As with Astapor, Yunkai falls back into its old ways following Daenerys’ departure, and although the Queen tries to find diplomatic solutions such as reopening fighting pits and a gradual phasing-out of slavery, they still rebel against her. The fiery breath of Daenerys’ dragon Drogon puts an end to the Yunkai slave master revival.

Meereen

Meereen is undoubtedly the toughest slave city Daenerys conquers in Game of Thrones, not necessarily in its capture, but certainly in its keeping. When Dany reaches Meereen in Game of Thrones season 4, her reputation precedes her, and the city is fully expecting her arrival. Wisely, then, the Khaleesi opts for a totally new strategy. With both the Unsullied and the people of Yunkai, Daenerys learned that the oppressed would ally to the Targaryen cause if they knew her strength. From outside the city, Daenerys promises the slaves of Meereen a better life and then sends the chains of previously freed servants beyond the gates. Grey Worm also infiltrates, inspiring the repressed people of Meereen to revolt against their masters, liberating themselves instead of relying on the Mother of Dragons. As the battle edges in the slaves’ favor, Daenerys walks into Meereen, cleans up, and takes control.

For the first time, Daenerys dwells in one of her captured cities, quickly learning that there’s more to being a ruler than simply invading. In order to consolidate her hold on Slaver’s Bay, Daenerys begins navigating a political minefield, marrying former slave owner Hizdahl zo Loraq to foster support, and locking away her dragons after the burning of a young child. Nevertheless, Daenerys was unable to prevent a full-scale uprising of slave traders from Slaver’s Bay who wanted their old lives back. After the Sons of the Harpy began causing trouble in Meereen, slaver fleets from Astapor and Yunkai joined with their allies in Volantis to attack Meereen and finish Daenerys off once and for all. Backed by a new army of Dothraki and her invigorated dragons, Daenerys quashes the rebellion with brute force and leaves Daario in charge of Slaver’s Bay while she moves on to Westeros.

King’s Landing

A slightly less diplomatic approach, this one. The Battle of King’s Landing is the final major event in Game of Thrones, and a very different fight for Daenerys Targaryen. The forces of Queen Cersei Lannister were well-prepared and well-armed, with King’s Landing itself built to resist invasion. Cersei also boasted powerful allies, and as Tyrion rightly pointed out, the citizens were too afraid to rebel against their ruler like the people of Meereen had done previously. These factors left Daenerys only one option to take King’s Landing: a head-on battle.

Dany’s strategy begins with using Drogon to wipe out the naval forces of Euron Greyjoy, which had already succeeded in killing one of her dragon trio. Riding on her most formidable beast, Daenerys orders “dracarys” on the wall-mounted defenses of King’s Landing, leaving the city besieged. Drogon then joins the Targaryen ground forces in repelling Cersei’s mercenary soldiers, the Golden Company, creating an opening to move into the city itself. Jon Snow leads the infantry through King’s Landing, plowing through Lannister soldiers and forcing a quick and straightforward surrender. However, this isn’t good enough for Daenerys.

Angered by Jon’s challenge to her legitimacy and the various betrayals suffered since arriving in Westeros, Daenerys’ ambition for total conquest overcomes her, and she decides the only way to truly seize King’s Landing is to raze the city to the ground with dragon flame. By killing enemies and innocents alike, Daenerys wins the Iron Throne, but her brutal tactics proved to be her downfall – she was assassinated by Jon Snow and replaced by Bran Stark. The sack of King’s Landing was the most controversial moment in a widely-criticized final season for Game of Thrones, with many viewers feeling that the Daenerys Targaryen heel turn jumped the shark.

Daenerys Conquest Shows How Powerful Targaryen’s Are

House of the Dragon is centered around the Targaryen clan and their reign over Westeros, over 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones. What HotD has proved is that the Targaryens are a powerful family, even without their dragons. While HotD has yet to show the family conquer new lands, instead focusing on the in-fighting dynamics leading up to the Dance of Dragons, it has shown what George R.R. Martin’s world looks like under their thumb, including just how much sway they have. Daenerys proved that just one Targaryen was capable of upending all of Westeros, and through her, the legacy of the likes of Rhaenyra lived on.

Though the Targaryen’s salacious incest issue is the most widely criticized tradition of the clan, there may be something to it in their minds. Aegon the Conqueror started the royal lineage when he performed his namesake and took the vast lands for himself. Since his reign, they kept it in the family to keep the bloodline pure, but there may be more of a benefit to it for the Targaryen’s themselves than lineage. The Targaryen’s have proven that they are a larger-than-life family, capable of great and terrible things that affect scores of people. By maintaining the bloodline they probably believe that they are keeping their otherworldly powers intact. After all, dragons only seem to bond with their families, which suggests something magical in and of itself — something breeding outside the family may dilute. Unlike the imagined purity/power relationship between Jaime and Cersei Lannister depicted on Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon may have proved there’s a reason the Targaryen’s married and reproduced within the family, and the cities Daenerys conquered only emphasized just how powerful they are.