Bethany Antonia as Lady Baela Targaryen
Britain’s Bethany Antonia was born on December 25, 1997. In the 2022 HBO fantasy show House of the Dragon season, she plays Lady Baela Targaryen. In TV, she is known for her parts in the biography Nolly (2023), the Netflix crime drama Stay Close (2021), and the BBC iPlayer teen show Get Even (2020). One of her movies is Pin Cushion (2017).
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Bethany Antonia as Lady Baela Targaryen
Lady Baela Targaryen was the daughter of Prince Daemon Targaryen and Lady Laena Velaryon. She was also known as Baela Velaryon. Rheena Targaryen was her twin sister, and Aegon and Viserys were her younger half-brothers. Her dragon’s name was Moondancer, and she rode it.
How She Looks Like and Key Attributes
Baela and her twin sister Rhaena were both pretty. They had purple eyes and hair that was silver-white. Baela was skinny and short when she was fourteen years old. But after two years, she was tall, thin, and quick. The pretty Baela cut her hair so short that it wouldn’t get in the way of her ride.
Baela was wild, willing, and daring, just like her father, Prince Daemon Targaryen. Gyldayn thought she was more boyish than ladylike. Her temper was short-lived, and she was known to be intentionally rude at times.
Baela liked to dance, watch, ride, and fly on Moondancer the most. She became interested in boys as she aged. She kept a monkey as a pet.
Lady Baela’s Birth and her Early Life
Rhaena and Baela were born in Pentos in 116 AD. They were both tiny and sick. She was named for Prince Baelon Targaryen, who was her grandfather on her dad’s side. When they were six months old, the twins sailed from Pentos to Driftmark with their mother, Laena Velaryon. Baela was brought to court by her father, Prince Daemon Targaryen, in the year 117 AC.
In 118 AC, Baela was engaged to her cousin, Prince Jacaerys Velaryon. King Viserys I Targaryen gave his approval. Baela became close with Moondancer, a young dragon. Baela was born and raised on Dragonstone. She got in a lot of trouble for fighting with squires in the castle yard.
Lady Baela in the Dance of the Dragons
During the Dance of the Dragons, Baela stayed on Dragonstone. Because she was engaged to Jacaerys, she wouldn’t leave him and insisted on fighting with him on her dragon, Moondancer, even though it wasn’t big enough to ride yet. Baela said she would marry Jacaerys right away, but it never happened. According to Grand Maester Munkun, Jacaerys wanted to wait for marriage until the civil war ended. However, Mushroom says that Jacaerys married the Bastard Sara Snow while he was at Winterfell, ending the Pact of Ice and Fire.
In 130 AC, Baela flew on Moondancer for the first time. After her stepmother, Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, won the Iron Throne, Baela flew back and forth on Moondancer to spend her days in Dragonstone and Driftmark. Baela also started kissing games with squires. Baela asked Ser Robert Quince, the castellan, not to take the servant’s Hand when she was caught with a kitchen scullion. She did this through tears.
When the dragon Grey Ghost’s body was found at the base of the Dragonmont, Ser Robert knew that the Cannibal had killed the dragon. Robert didn’t send guards to find the Cannibal because he thought that the killing dragon wouldn’t hurt the people of Dragonstone if they left him alone.
But Baela didn’t agree with his choice, and she offered to go to the Dragonmont and find out the truth about the Grey Ghost‘s death. Robert told her she couldn’t go, so Baela could no longer leave the house. That night, she tried to leave the house anyway but was caught and locked in her room.
King Aegon II Targaryen, Rhaenyra’s foe, took over Dragonstone in the second half of 130 AC. To avoid Tom Tangletongue, Baela snuck out of her bedroom window and into the stable to see Moondancer. Baela and Moondancer flew up to meet Aegon in the sky as he flew down on Sunfyre to land in the yard. The two dragons fought in the sky and then crashed to the ground.
As they reached the ground, Baela stayed on Moondancer’s back, while Aegon jumped from Sunfyre’s seat twenty feet above it. She was hurt and burned from the fight, but she was strong enough to take off her horse chains and crawl away from Moondancer while the dragon was in its last moments.
Ser Alfred Broome pulled out his sword to kill Baela, but Ser Marston Waters grabbed it and yanked it away. After that, Tom took her to Maester Gerardys. After that, Baela was sent to some dark places in Dragonstone.
Sunfyre died on the ninth day of the twelfth moon in 130 AC. Aegon II, who was crying, had Baela brought up from the cells so she could be killed. But Aegon changed his mind when the maester told him that Baela was the granddaughter of Corlys Velaryon, Lord of the Tides.
Baela’s head was on the block. Then, Aegon sent a crow to Driftmark to tell Alyn Velaryon, Corlys’s son by a different mother, that he had to appear on Dragonstone within two weeks to swear allegiance to Aegon. Baela would be killed if Alyn didn’t do what he was told.
After the people who supported Aegon II took over King’s Landing, Lord Corlys was freed from prison and given a place among Aegon’s people. Corlys agreed, but only if Baela was freed right away and other terms were met. Corlys got what he asked for, and after swearing allegiance to Dowager Queen Alicent Hightower in front of the Iron Throne, ravens were sent to Driftmark and Dragonstone.
They got there just as Aegon was getting ready to kill Baela again by cutting off her head. In the last few days of 130 AD, Baela went to King’s Landing from Dragonstone on Mouse with Aegon and his court. People in Aegon’s kingdom thought the girl might attack the king if she got loose, so they put her in chains.
When the Battle of the Kingsroad was over, Aegon II told Lord Corlys that Baela would “lose some parts” if Alyn failed him or if an enemy Braavosi ship went through the Gullet. King Aegon the Elder was poisoned on the same day that Baela was taken away by men of Lord Larys Strong.
In the King’s Landing
During the Hour of the Wolf, the new Hand of the King, Cregan Stark, put to death the men who had freed Baela from prison. But Baela raised a sword to protect them, and the amused Lord of Winterfell agreed not to kill them. Their grandpa, Lord Corlys Velaryon, was one of the main people who asked for his release. Baela and Rhaena were among them.
When they went straight to Aegon with their plea, he went against what the Hand, Lord Cregan, wanted and let the Sea Snake go free. Mushroom, on the other Hand, said that Lady Alysanne Blackwood was the one who went to Cregan and asked him to spare Corlys.
After her cousin and half-brother, King Aegon III Targaryen, became king, Baela and her sister Rhaena were thought to be the only Targaryens still alive besides the king and his queen, Jaehaera Targaryen. At the time, Prince Aegon Targaryen was thought to be dead. People in King’s Landing loved Baela and Rhaena because they often went through the city. Aegon and Jaehaera, on the other Hand, stayed in the Red Keep. The twins were hosts and met envoys and lords who came to visit.
A lot of the time, Baela ran away from her ladies to find fun in King’s Landing. She swam across the Blackwater Rush at midnight, drank with the gold cloaks in their barracks, and bet money and even clothes in the rat holes of Flea Bottom while she was drunk. She disappeared for three days one time and wouldn’t say where she was. She also liked companions who weren’t thought to be good fits. She would bring them back to the Red Keep and demand that they be given a job in the castle.
A juggler, a trainee blacksmith, a beggar without legs, a street magician she thought was a real sorcerer, a hedge knight’s squire, twin girls from a brothel, and even a whole group of mummers were among them. A lot of the men who wanted to marry Baela were made fun of.
Not even her teacher, Septa Amarys, or Eustace, the septon of the Red Keep, could stop her from being wild. Eustace told Ser Tyland Lannister, who was just named Hand of the King, that Baela would bring shame on House Targaryen and the king if she didn’t get married soon.
The Marriage Story
After Baela’s grandpa, Lord Corlys Velaryon, died suddenly in 132 AC, the council of regents started to talk about who would be Aegon’s heir. Most people in the realm thought that Baela and Rhaena were the only two people who could be the king’s children.
Even though Baela was the older twin, the council saw Rhaena as more acceptable because she was less stubborn and easier to control. Unlike Baela, who lost her dragon Moondancer in the fall of Dragonstone, Rhaena still had her dragon Morning. Myles Mooton pointed out that Rhaena only had a hatchling.
Lord Roland Westerling then said that Baela had killed King Aegon II and that many people would be angry if she was crowned. When Grand Maester Munkun tried to stop the debate, he said that both Baela and Rhaena were women and therefore not eligible because the Dance of the Dragons showed that they had to support the male claimant because that’s what the Great Council of 101 AC said. The Hand, Tyland Lannister, said that all of the male candidates had been killed.
After looking at Lord Kermit Tully, Lord Benjicot Blackwood, Lord Lyonel Hightower, Lord Dalton Greyjoy, Prince Qyle Martell, and Racallio Ryndoon, who called himself King of the Narrow Sea, they finally agreed that Baela should marry Thaddeus Rowan, Lord of Goldengrove. Rowan had been widowed twice, but he already had seven boys, which worked in his favor. If he had a son with Baela, that son would be King Aegon’s heir without a doubt.
The regents also thought that Rowan would be a great husband for Queen Baela if she became queen. He would be strong and wise, and he would not try to take over or control her. She strongly objected to the match when she learned about it, though, since Rowan was forty years older and much bigger than Baela. She told Ser Tyland that she had slept with two of Rowan’s kids, possibly to make him suspicious. After that, the Hand locked Baela in her room until the next meeting of the regents.
Baela ran away from the castle the next day and went to Driftmark, where she told her cousin Alyn Velaryon, who was now Lord of the Tides, what she had done. After two weeks, they got married in the sept at Dragonstone. Some angry regents asked Tyland to ask the High Septon to cancel the marriage, but the Hand responded with resignation and wisdom. He made it public that the king and court set up the marriage because he thought Baela’s disobedience was more of a scandal than her choice of husband.
From the regents’ point of view, Baela’s acts showed that she shouldn’t be Aegon’s heir and that Alyn wasn’t a good choice for prince consort. Rhaena would have to do, and she should get married quickly, because they thought Baela would soon get pregnant. Rhaena was more willing to marry the council’s choice, but she picked her own husband.
Tyland and most of the king’s small council were killed by the Winter Fever in 133 AC. King Aegon III wanted Baela back at court with her husband Alyn Velaryon as his master of ships. But Aegon’s new Hand, Lord Unwin Peake, changed his mind because the young king hadn’t talked to his regents first. In the fall of that year, Alyn Velaryon was sent to deal with Dalton Greyjoy, the Lord of the Iron Islands who was rebelling.
Alyn Oakenfist left Hull on Lady Baela, a war ship that he had taken from the Stepstones and changed its name to Braavosi. As they were saying goodbye, Baela told him she was pregnant. Alyn told her to name the baby Corlys after their grandfather, but Baela said the baby would be called Laena after her mother.
Return to Court
Lord Alyn Velaryon learned of the death of Queen Jaehaera Targaryen and the news that King Aegon III Targaryen was going to marry Myrielle Peake while he was traveling west. The Oakenfist wrote to Baela from the Hightower while she was pregnant at Driftmark.
With Baela’s young daughter, Daenaera Velaryon, and Rhaena’s husband, Ser Corwyn Corbray, they came to King’s Landing at the ball known as the Maiden’s Day Ball. The sisters were trying to get close to Aegon on the Iron Throne when Ser Marston Waters of the Kingsguard tried to stop them. Baela cut his face with her riding crop.
At the end of the ball, Aegon said he was going to marry Daenaera, which made Lord Peake hate Baela even more. People in King’s Landing cheered when Aegon married Daenaera on the last day of 133 AC.
After his fight with Alyn, Dalton Greyjoy said he would marry Baela as a salt wife. But the cocky Red Kraken was killed at Faircastle before the Velaryon ship got to the Westerlands. While Alyn returned from the Sunset Sea, Baela had a girl named Laena.
Baela took her baby daughter and the royal court to the harbor of King’s Landing to greet her husband when he got back from his journey. The Oakenfist told her that her husband had returned with Prince Viserys Targaryen, Aegon’s long-lost younger brother.
Driftmark
Baela went back to Driftmark with Laena and Lord Alyn. Ser Corwyn Corbray, Rhaena’s husband, was killed at Runestone. Baela went to Dragonstone, where Rhaena lived, to comfort her sister and make sure Rhaena wouldn’t take Morning, her young dragon, to the Vale of Arryn to get back at Corwyn.
The marriage between Baela and Alyn was rocky. When Alyn left on his second journey in 136 AC, Baela fought with him because she had heard that her husband was seeing Aliandra Martell, the bold Princess of Dorne. Alyn left in the middle of the year 136 AC, leaving Baela on Driftmark, pregnant with their second child. They made up before he went.
The king’s regents and Hand planned royal progress after Aegon III Targaryen’s sixteenth nameday. Baela said she would go on the progress whether she was wanted or not.